Tangier Island, On the Front Lines of Climate Change
The Political Scene | The New Yorker
The New Yorker
4.3 • 3.9K Ratings
🗓️ 4 December 2017
⏱️ 22 minutes
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Summary
Residents of Tangier Island, in the Chesapeake Bay, live through each hurricane season in fear of a major storm that would decimate their land. With its highest point only four feet above sea level, the island loses ground to erosion every year, and its residents may be among the first climate-change refugees of the United States. “I do believe in climate change,” Trenna Moore, a schoolteacher, says. “But I believe in what it says: centimetres a year. We’re losing feet.” The New Yorker’s Carolyn Kormann and the Radio Hour’s Sara Nics travelled to the island, and spent time with James Eskridge, a commercial crabber and mayor of the town of Tangier, Virginia. A stalwart supporter of Donald Trump, Eskridge told the President of the residents’ desire for a seawall around the entire island. Based on his own observations, Eskridge disputes the entire scientific community that sea-level rise is a threat, but he sees that the danger is real: “If we were to get a hurricane to come in, it would wipe out the whole harbor here, and probably a good chunk of the island.”
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| 0:48.7 | I'm Dorothy Wickendon. On today's Politics and More podcast, the New Yorker's Carolyn Kormon travels to Tangier, Virginia, a community on a tiny island in the Chesapeake Bay. |
| 1:00.9 | Coastal erosion is slowly drowning the island, and scientists say that climate change is making the problem worse. |
| 1:07.3 | The people of Tangier, though, think the scientists are wrong. |
| 1:14.5 | Twenty years ago. The people of Tangier, though, think the scientists are wrong. 2017 has been quite a year, a horrendous year in some ways, with many natural disasters. |
| 1:21.7 | Three of the worst hurricanes in memory, the worst wildfire season on record in California, |
| 1:26.7 | and from everything climate science tells us, |
| 1:29.7 | the future holds more frequent events like this, more severe events as the planet continues to warm. |
| 1:36.8 | Not long ago, as Houston was scrambling to deal with destruction from Hurricane Harvey, |
| 1:41.2 | the New Yorker's Carolyn Korman was on a small boat. |
| 1:44.5 | She was there along with the radio hour Sarah Nix in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay, |
| 1:49.1 | and there, too, a storm was heading their way. |
| 1:56.4 | We're with the mayor, headed out to rescue a baby osprey. |
| 2:02.4 | How old do you think it is? |
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