suburbanbloke's Flickr photostream/Creative Commons

Over 700,ooo residences along Australia’s coast are threatened by rising sea levels, flooding and erosion in the coming years due to climate change, and now the government of New South Wales is permitting residents to fortify their homes with sea walls and other barriers.

While some objections have been raised that barricades would ruin the beauty of the coastline or lead to increased erosion by blocking sand movements, I think the plan to protect the coastal region is a wise one as long as appropriate environmental safeguards are used.  Besides, what good is trying to maintain a pristine wall-free coast if the area will soon be underwater without protection? 

Arguably, people should also be discouraged from building new homes close to the shoreline where the likelihood of destruction from storms or flooding are high, but that trend doesn’t seem to be slowing, and in the meantime protecting existing structures is a step in the right direction.  Hopefully Australia also plans to take serious action to drastically reduce their greenhouse gas emissions in addition to these preparations, especially considering they recently overtook the U.S. as the world’s number one individual producers of carbon dioxide.

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