Review

Sea Level Rise: Are We Ready ? by Sudipta Chakraborty is the one for me. The author shares about the recent occurrences of extreme climate like Hurricane at West Indies, vanishing of ice in parts of Canada, sudden highest rainfall in 46 years at Mumbai, the storms like Fani, Amphan, Nisarga have proven the effects of the climate change and how helpless we are to the fury of nature.

It’s a book that will make you think about the questions raised by the author. There’s too much information to absorb. From climate change to change in sea levels, the author aptly shared the information with the help of charts and pictures which makes it easier for readers to understand.

Also Read: Meeting Yama by Manoj V Jain Published by Notion Press – Book Review.

From discussing about various cities and countries to discussing about the facts and figures of various tragedies, it’s a well-researched book. I appreciate the author for the amount of research he did. The writing style of the author is simple and engaging keeping the readers engaged throughout.

I would have loved it more if it was well-sequenced. The author expresses his concerns about the environment making the people aware of the situation, what’s happening, what’s going to happen and what can be done about it. It’s a book that needs to be read by all of us. An informative read.

Summary:

One very important and inevitable challenge, the global humankind is
going to face, within following decades has been raised by the author in this book “Sea Level Rise: Are We Ready”? He has in a narrative fashion documented the history and focused on the threat, the coastal places are going to be exposed to. Being a coastal engineer, he has highlighted all the possible causes including the recent trends of research in Hydraulic Engineering, Oceanography, Geomorphology, Shoreline changes due to effects of wind, wave etc. He intends to bring mass awareness amongst people to discontinue unabated growth of Green House Gases, reduce carbon foot prints, and take adaptation measures in the same fashion as is taken in Plymouth, New York. Australia. It will be extremely pathetic if 12000 Square Kilometer of area of Bangladesh goes under water, the conditions of islands like Maldives, Kiritimati, Tuvalu will even be dreadful. Even Malibu beach at California, where Hollywood stars, the richest people in the world are living in sprawling bungalows will be under threat. Whether migration is a feasible solution to millions of people? He raised question whether there are strategies to save our coasts. The whole world is concerned about the Global Warming due to anthropogenic causes and the cascading effect on melting of ice shelves at the arctic ocean resulting to sea level rise. Over the last 100 years, global temperatures have on the average warmed by about 0.74 degrees Celsius. The present rate of sea level rise is in the order of 3.6 mm per year but the rise has been observed to be escalating in recent years and as per UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change by the end of this Global Sea Level Rise is apprehended to be in the order of magnitude of 1 meter. The recent occurrences of extreme climate like Hurricane at West Indies, vanishing of ice in parts of Canada, sudden highest rainfall in 46 years at Mumbai, the storms like Fani, Amphan, Nisarga have proven the effects of the climate change and how helpless we are to the fury of nature. Whether ‘The Paris Agreement-2015’ has gone to deaf ears, why Greta Thunberg’s feelings are not being mushroomed, why should we allow some species to be extinct, these are the questions raised by the author. Are we not responsible for the catastrophic bushfires? How equipped are we to build dykes/seawalls like Netherlands or Europe’s fanatic idea to dam the North Sea, are all these feasible? Even by doing so can we save our civilization? This book speaks of our time, the greatest challenge in post Covid situation, and portrays the same question how should our grandchildren feel about us ? This book needs to be read by all concerned about environment and civilization .