With its skyscrapers, bustling population, and crowded city streets, it’s easy to forget that Manhattan is an island, and that New York City is a coastal zone.
Even though Superstorm Sandy delivered catastrophic damage to parts of the city, a 2009 panel on climate says it’s not all that surprising that a event like this has occurred. In fact, climate change experts had long predicted that rising sea levels and a storm of Sandy’s magnitude would produce massive flooding throughout the city.
Alan Weisman, author of “The World Without Us,” explains how to rethink New York’s environment to make conditions for sustainable moving forward.