Last year, California’s massive wildfires were impossible to ignore. Four million acres burned. People and animals died, homes were lost, power faltered for days at a time, air quality deteriorated, the sky over San Francisco turned orange.

And yet as massive a challenge as wildfire presents — especially as we face another drought year — a different climate crisis could rival it as a destroyer of the California dream: sea level rise.

Most of California’s economy and its people — over $2 trillion in GDP; 68% of the population — are located in its coastal counties. Rising seas pose “a serious and costly threat” for those counties, according to the Legislative Analyst’s Office, which in 2019 estimated a 7-foot rise by the end of the century.

Read the article by David Helvarg in LA Times