Dr. James Fletcher, October 16, 2024
This is my third trip to Rio, and every time I visit I marvel at the fact that in their tourism capital, the Brazilians have kept their best beaches free of all hard infrastructure development. The hotels are built off the beach and the wide expanse of beach is there for the enjoyment of everyone.
Copacabana and Ipanema are important areas for commerce, leisure/recreation, exercise and entertainment.
With sea level rise occurring at a quicker pace than originally expected, and with rebuild estimates of tourism infrastructure in the Caribbean from the impacts of sea level rise currently at over USD 1 billion, we need to stop allowing new hotels to be built on our beaches. Not only are we increasing the potential for conflict between visitors and locals over the use of our precious and limited beachfront, but we are also permitting the construction of high-value, high-density infrastructure on lands that we know will be inundated by storm surge from stronger hurricanes and sea level rise from rapidly melting ice in the Arctic and Antarctic.
The climate crisis is real. Let’s not make it worse on ourselves by poor and senseless planning.