Dr. Rob Young Update on National Parks Vulnerability + Reaction to IPCC Report and CBRA Rule Change

Peter Ravella  0:20  

Hello, everybody and welcome to the American Shoreline Podcast. This is Peter Ravella. co host of the show

Tyler Buckingham  0:26  

and this is Tyler Buckingham, the other co host.

Peter Ravella  0:28  

Every once in a while Tyler we get to check in with one of our favorite professionals on the American shoreline. And we're doing one of those shows a regular update with our good friend, Dr. Rob young from the program for the study of develop shorelines at Western Carolina University.

Tyler Buckingham  0:43  

Always fun to to shoot some hoops with Rob

Peter Ravella  0:46  

Yeah, you know, provocative thinker. analyzer of government policy on the shoreline a great follow on LinkedIn, by the way, good social media, very good social media. If you're looking for the latest updates on on policy on the American shoreline, Rob is the guy to follow on LinkedIn, we love talking to him every once in a while with an opinion, absolutely, with a point of view, a point of view. And that's what we do on the American Shoreline Podcast Network as we try to bring together a variety of voices and perspectives to the community out there.

Tyler Buckingham  1:16  

That's right. And last week, we were presenting a point of view on the mid bear tarea sediment diversion.

Peter Ravella  1:24  

We were indeed and today

Tyler Buckingham  1:27  

today, this week, we have another point of view to share

Peter Ravella  1:31  

that we do indeed. Well, I'm looking forward to talking to rob. We're gonna we're gonna hit a few topics. Today we're going to talk about Rob's recent trip to Croatia. In July, an epic coastal nation. It's right in there shoreline management issues in Croatia. I'm looking forward to his perspective on those. We're going to talk about Rob's work and the vulnerability analysis of the net for the National Park Service. He's been evaluating all of the infrastructure in our coastal national parks. For risk. I'm looking forward to getting an update on his work with with NPS. And then we're going to take a little bit of time and talk about Cobra and the recent decision by the Biden administration to reverse a policy of the Trump administration regarding access to sand within Cobra units. And then we're going to touch on the IPCC report and the latest. The latest warnings that we're all getting about climate.

Tyler Buckingham  2:29  

It's getting hot in here.

Peter Ravella  2:30  

Yeah, it's gonna be a good discussion.

Tyler Buckingham  2:32  

I keep all our clothes on though. That's right. All right, ladies and gentlemen, it's gonna be a fun one. Keep your clothes on. But first let's have a quick word from our sponsors.

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Peter Ravella  3:33  

Well Rob, welcome back to the American shoreline podcast. Always a great time to check in with you

Dr. Rob Young  3:38  

guys. You know, always happy to hang out with you for a little while and talk coastal.

Tyler Buckingham  3:44  

Absolutely. Well Rob, let's begin with your recent trip to Croatia, Croatia. I did a book report on Croatia when I was in like fifth grade. And when I remember is there's like 1000s of islands. It is an island D country. But Rob, let me just ask you. What motivated you was this a family trip? What was the nature of the trip and tell us a little bit about what took you all the way over there to the beautiful Croatian coastline.

Dr. Rob Young  4:13  

It was a family trip. And we we've very much enjoyed traveling as a family. I've got two boys still in the house for at least a little bit longer. So foreign travels always been a big part of what we like to do together. And when we were trying to figure out where to go this summer. Early in the spring, Croatia was one of the few places that was really happy to have Americans come over. When we were doing our planning. I know Europe ended up opening up a little bit later but when we were planning, we chose Croatia and we always wanted to visit Croatia. I lived in Bulgaria for a year on a Fulbright and like the Balkans and that part of Eastern Europe. So it just seemed like the right time to go do it. And it was it was definitely a good choice. We we had a fabulous time.

Tyler Buckingham  5:09  

What? Give us a few facts about Croatia, like where did you fly into and how did you get there? What's the nature of visiting a place like Croatia?

Dr. Rob Young  5:21  

Well, it's a it's a very easy place to visit. If you if you're interested, we flew it to the capital Zagreb, which is inland of the coast. Mostly because we wanted to see the areas that were less touristy as well as the coastal areas, you can currently now fly direct to Dubrovnik. And so if, you know, if you are more interested in flying directly into the resort areas for a coastal vacation, you can fly straight into broadneck. If you want to get a more holistic experience of being in a really interesting country, you can do what we do did, which was the start in the capital, spend a few days there and then then we drove down to the Dalmatian coast. Wow. So

Tyler Buckingham  6:12  

you rented a car in Croatia,

Dr. Rob Young  6:15  

oh, man, we rent a car every time. No matter where we go. In Europe. That's the way to see the place. I mean, you want to be able to go off the beaten path and you, you know, stop at little places where locals stop and you know, I've never had any trouble really driving around Europe, even Eastern Europe, you know, Bulgaria, Romania, we drove from Varna, on the Black Sea coast of Bulgaria to Istanbul for a meeting while we were there. Well, you know, Americans tend to be a little fearful about internet. Yeah, I was gonna say cautious. But okay, fearful about international travel. And it's no more difficult than traveling in the United States, honestly. I mean, these days, most people speak English, especially in areas that are catering to tourists. And, you know, I just I highly recommend getting a rental car these days in the COVID area is a little bit more expensive than it used to be, unfortunately. But other than other than that, it's, you know, it's a great way to experience in place.

Tyler Buckingham  7:26  

I'm curious now to shift it into the kind of the coastal perspective. What struck you about the coastline there in Croatia? Did it? Did it live up to your expectations? Were you surprised?

Dr. Rob Young  7:40  

Well, since the breakup of the former Yugoslavia, and the establishment of these smaller countries, like Slovenia, and Croatia, mostly Europe, but some times, folks from the US and Canada and the rest of the world have really been discovering what interesting gems, these countries are, both from a historical point of view. And just really beautiful. And, you know, that's certainly the case for Croatia. But you know, what challenges that has posed is the need to really quickly ramp up the tourism infrastructure. And also to take advantage of people's desire to travel to this country that is very safe, and has just a stunningly beautiful shoreline. really clear blue green water. Just ancient architecture, sitting right on this beautiful coastal setting, delicious food, inexpensive wine. But the trick is, most of the Europeans who want to come south for their summer vacations, they really like to spend time on the beach. And Croatia was not blessed with a lot of Sandy or even cobbled gravel beaches. It's a fairly rocky shoreline in most places. Lots of little islands. And so what they've been doing over the last couple decades, in order to make room for these European tourists to have a, quote, beach vacation, unquote, is that they've been building beaches and most of the beaches they're building or not with dredged material from offshore but they're using crushed stone and crushed rock to build gravel and cobble beaches and and they're full of people where they built them. But my real concern is you know how You can maintain that over the long term with rising sea level because the beaches are relatively narrow, there tends to be infrastructure behind them, whether it's a, you know, seawall, bulkhead or road development. And you know, it's going to be, it's going to be quite an effort to maintain that coastal zone. With time as sea level continues to rise.

Peter Ravella  10:26  

You know, Croatia is located just across the Adriatic Sea from Italy. So we're all familiar with the Italian shoreline and the Adriatic coast. Beautiful, beautiful. This is just right across directly from Italy. What do you what do you know about the Adriatic Sea and sea level rise in that region of the world?

Dr. Rob Young  10:45  

Not as much as I probably should. You know, the rate of sea level rise in that area is about the same as you static sea level rise. So it's, you know, it's no, no worse no better. I mean, at the head of the Adriatic, we have the city of Venice, which is, you know, sort of the poster child for the complexity of dealing with rising sea level, increasing intensity of storminess on a subsiding Delta coast with just wonderful and breathtaking architecture of historical importance. And so, you know, this is this is the setting of the Adriatic. As I say, we've got the eastern coast of Italy and the western coast of Croatia and the beautiful Dalmatian coast of Croatia, with Venice up at the top of the Adriatic. And these are areas that tourists are still flocking to in very large numbers, and we're tourism is an incredibly important part of the economy. And it will be a real challenge to to preserve that tourism economy of the coastal zone at the same degree that has just blossomed into over the last few years. As sea level rise continues.

Peter Ravella  12:08  

What tell us where you went to visit what towns Did you go to and and what did you observe in Did you go to the areas where they were attempting to reestablish these tourist beaches or to nourish them? Oh, sure. Um, well, we

Dr. Rob Young  12:21  

were in Zagreb, and we were on the in split on the coast, which is the second largest city in in Croatia. Just wonderful old Roman settlement. The dieticians palace is there and just cobblestone warm now narrow streets just winding through the old part of town. My kids just loved it. I mean, it's like being in the middle of some sort of medieval adventure novel to them. And, you know, just a very indented and windy coast with lots of islands up and from from north to south. And from split we went to the island of Oahu far, which is just offshore. And you know, it's it's really it's like living in the Mediterranean diet to be on those islands. You know, we were surrounded by vineyards and olive trees and fig trees and tomatoes and oregano and seafood. You know, fresh local olive oil and wine that's really affordable and just wonderful. There's lavender there that's in bloom. And you know, it's hard to describe it you just really have to be in the middle of it. And

Tyler Buckingham  13:52  

you know, first of all I want to hear about your best meal or a standout meal that you had on this three week adventure. I mean, it sounds incredible. It sounds fresh. Reminds me it sounds like California I was gonna joke but Croatia is its own thing. It's beautiful.

Dr. Rob Young  14:11  

I mean all the meals were really wonderful. It's just that the fresh local seafood was just great. with olive oil and citrus primarily. And the you know, every place no matter where you ate if you just had the house wine, it was all local and it was all excellent. And so you know it would really be very difficult for me to to pick out a best meal we just we ate a ton of local seafood.

Peter Ravella  14:46  

And it was just it was just great shellfish to to every you know everything makes me want to go. When you're you mentioned that the that Croatia is in the middle of attempt To make the beaches a little bit more accessible to serve this tourism economy, is there anything interesting or different about their approach to coastal shoreline management compared to what we're doing here in the United States? So To be fair, I was on vacation. So I know but you can't help it right? When you're at the beach or you know, you're evaluating you're like, let me look at the shoreline. I

Dr. Rob Young  15:26  

didn't, I didn't do a terribly deep dive into how they were managing the shorelines other than the observations that I made. And, you know, I think that the The primary difference I would say is that because this is a relatively rocky coast, with significant elevation, not too far away from the immediate shoreline, most of the beach building that's happening there is is happening. As for recreational beaches, you know, nobody's justifying the funding or the construction of these beaches as storm protection. This is tourism infrastructure, and, and not coastal protection. And whereas in the United States of America, almost all of our beach projects nowadays are justified entirely by their ability to reduce storm damage. And that's, you know, that's the primary difference.

Peter Ravella  16:22  

It Yeah, no, absolutely. And the Corps of Engineers is reluctant to include typically recreational benefits in their cost benefit analysis. It is Storm Damage based it here in America. Well, it looks like an extraordinary coastline. And just looking at it on Google Earth, this this these, these are just they're not barrier. This does not look like a barrier island shoreline. I hate to put you on the spot. But what's what's the geologic origin of this? We're

Tyler Buckingham  16:51  

looking at here? Right? These

Peter Ravella  16:52  

these islands? Are they remnant? ridges? Or what? What what what explains this? guy like? Yeah, that's a good geology.

Dr. Rob Young  17:04  

Well, you know, that's part of the world is a very tectonically active part of the world. So there's been a lot of uplift. And you know, most of those islands, there are no very around. So these are not seeing the islands, right. These are all uplifted sedimentary rocks, mostly limestone. That is a part of this very complex tectonic activity that, you know, you don't have to go too far away in Italy and Greece, and you've got volcanoes. You don't have to go too far to the north, and you're in the middle of the Alps. And so right off, you know, the Croatian coast is sort of in the in the middle of that. And it is the the geology is very complex in places. But it's mostly uplifted sedimentary rocks. And that's mostly what those islands are. They're just rocks that have been folded and uplifted and just barely sticking above the Adriatic and in many different places.

Peter Ravella  18:08  

Sounds extraordinary. Well, let's talk a little bit about about the vulnerability analysis work you're doing there are national parks on the Croatian shoreline, I was just looking. And but you're working with the US National Park Service to to assess the vulnerability of the infrastructure that the parks have and have been doing this work for, I think, a couple of years now. Give us an update on your on your work with the National Park Service?

Dr. Rob Young  18:34  

Well, certainly, one of the more exciting projects that we've had going for over five years now is the vulnerability assessment work that we've done with our partners at the National Park Service. And, you know, it's just very much an honor to have that opportunity to help the National Park Service preserve the country's natural and cultural heritage. So many years ago, we developed a protocol for doing an asset based vulnerability assessment of every building road bridge outhouse in every coastal park in the United States of America. So it's a it's a fairly unique vulnerability assessment protocol. And that is not just making maps of where the water is going to be, but to also examining structure by structure, what will happen when the water gets there. So to us a vulnerability score for a building or a road or bridge includes exposure. What will that structure be exposed to whether it's storm surge, coastal erosion, overland flooding, sea level rise, but then also a sensitivity score? What's the elevation of the first finished floor? When was it constructed either Is there any protection Where are the utilities, you put those two things together and you get a vulnerability score. And if you want to reduce the vulnerability, you can either change the sensitivity, or you can change the exposure. So you can, this kind of vulnerability analysis leads directly to developing a menu of adaptation options.

Peter Ravella  20:19  

Sounds fabulous, how is it scored? So give us an idea. If you were looking, can you give us an example? Are you coming up with a numeric number in and tell us about the scale and how that how the scoring system operates?

Dr. Rob Young  20:33  

Well, we do you get an individual score for your exposure to each one of the individual hazards. And then that score is summed for an overall exposure rating. The same thing happens with the sensitivity analysis, the sensitivity analysis part is the is the missing piece in most vulnerability assessments. I mean, it's, it's really painstaking to gate to, to gather that information, it doesn't exist. And so online viewer, you know, typically we have to go structure by structure and examine the criteria that we're using the sensitivity analysis, but it's really important when you're designing adaptation or resilience projects, because it's not just about, you know, where's the water gonna be, it's about what's going to happen when the water gets there, that's really what you need to be addressing. So then we combine the vulnerability and the sensitivity score, and I, you know, I won't go into the math of how that happens. And that the scores are basically normalized to produce a final result, that's one through four. We're at the coast. So we don't really call anything completely unexposed to coastal hazards. But, you know, we break it down between low, moderate, and high vulnerability, you know, our num, our numbers could parse those scores a little bit more but but quite frankly, people who are managing vulnerable assets are usually mostly interested in the highest of the high and and then the lowest of the low the things that you don't have to pay attention to, because nobody has all the money in the world. So primarily, we're going to be attacking the end members, you know, those things that are relatively safe, and then those things that are in a lot of trouble. And all of this is very important at the moment, because the National Park Service's received quite a bit of funding through the great American outdoors act, to fund infrastructure improvements in parks. And, you know, we're very much hoping that the work we're doing right now with the National Park Service, to formalize how these vulnerability assessments will be used can can guide that spending so that we can make very good decisions within national parks about how we're managing the visitor infrastructure and the historically and culturally important structures. And, you know, in all honesty, if you're managing infrastructure at the coast, one of the best ways to protect the natural environment and natural resources is to not make bad decisions about your built environment. And that's really the ultimate goal.

Tyler Buckingham  23:19  

So Rob, would you mind explaining how like, logistically This is being run through the park service? I mean, there are goodness, there must be a dozen parks on the eastern seaboard in the Gulf, at least have ranging in all types, they're not all seashores. You know, what is the approach for managing such a monumental vulnerability study for every asset along all the shoreline for all of those parks?

Dr. Rob Young  23:53  

Well, we do all of that ourselves in house and deliver the final products to the National Park Service. It is pretty large undertaking which is why it's taking years and not months to complete it all. By the end of this year, we will have completed the southeast region which is you know, around 25 parks. Wow. And they in the parks are complex and we're talking about everything from the El Morro fort and San Juan, Puerto Rico to large barrier island parks like Gulf islands and Cape Hatteras. Places like Fort Sumter and South Carolina so this allows the Park Service has a wide variety of responsibilities. within the next couple of years we will have completed the Northeast region and then we will have done every Park from from the state of Maine around to Padre Island Texas. And the you know the the goal is to allow the Park Service to allocate funds both on a regional basis and on the national basis, but also provide local parks with some very detailed information that they can utilize to drive decision making on their own. And I think it's really important when you're doing a vulnerability assessment, then you want people to actually use to provide the information in a way that integrates well within whatever decision making apparatus and asset management approaches they already have. So we're, we are doing this analysis both in ArcGIS, which is where the base analysis occurs. We export it in Excel spreadsheets, because a lot of asset managers still utilize Excel. The old horse? Yeah, well, so we incorporate their asset management information, like what is the criticality of this asset? What's its replacement value? What are its maintenance costs, is it historic, all of the exposure sensitivity and vulnerability information that we collect gets integrated into their asset management database, so that the facilities managers can view it all at one time. And, and that's really important, you know, not everybody has a GIS specialist in their park or their municipality or their county. And so you have to be able to give people vulnerability information in a way that they can utilize it every day. And, and so that's really the goal for this protocol that we've developed. And here's, here's the part that I'm really excited about, that we've been doing with the more recent parts, and we'll sort of go back and, and add this to the others, we've been converting all of this at the end of the day now to kmz files, so that you can view the information within Google Earth. So it's a really elegant way to allow any member of your staff to very quickly open up Google Earth, open up our KMZ file, and then you can simply hover the cursor over any building, and a box pops up with all of their asset information and our vulnerability assessment. Fantastic. So it's, you know, you don't have to be a GIS nerd to, to look at the information. You know, even the superintendent to usually knows less about data management than anybody else in the park, can open up Google Earth every day and drag the cursor along the road and see how the vulnerability assessment changes, look at individual buildings. You know, we're really trying to provide this vulnerability information in a way where people will actually use it. And if you know, if all you're doing is giving folks a bunch of maps that they have to open up in some way, right, then, you know, some people will have a chance to look at that and utilize it, but it just makes it they have to go through a couple of different steps before they take a peek at that. And it you know, it's just much more difficult.

Peter Ravella  28:05  

Sounds really useful. And I would assume that on a scale of one to four, is that the vulnerability number scale, one to four?

Dr. Rob Young  28:15  

Yeah, so four, four is highly vulnerable. All right, you know, and three is moderate, and two is low. And, you know, one is not,

Peter Ravella  28:26  

not a lot of problems.

Well, I

just got to ask, what are the most vulnerable National Park assets that you've found so far? is there is there? Is there a top 10? Or a top three I would use Now this would be fun. Yeah, I

Tyler Buckingham  28:42  

think I think, top 10 most imperiled National Park ads. Oh, boy, we'd go viral in a heartbeat.

Peter Ravella  28:49  

So if you don't mind, I'm gonna dodge that question. Are you? Okay, it's proprietary at this point.

Dr. Rob Young  28:57  

We are working on that kind of the synthesis. But I have a great working relationship with the local superintendents in the individual parks. And if I were to go public right now with so and so has the most vulnerable asset in the entire national park service. I don't know. I hear No, I

Peter Ravella  29:18  

understand. I understand that. Well, I think it's it's it sounds it's the protocol that you're developing. And at the point at this point in the process, you're applying this in the National Park Service context, do you see this protocol being expanded or used elsewhere? And has it attracted the interest of local governments or other managers of coastal areas? So they tell us about this protocol? And is it going to be expanded sounds? It sounds like a great way to approach the problem.

Dr. Rob Young  29:49  

One thing Thanks. Yeah, I mean, we think that you know, that it's, it's an important way to assess vulnerability. Now. You know, I will have to, I should probably tell everybody, but it's drawbacks are the drawbacks are that it's time consuming. And it's, you know, very data driven, and in data intensive. And so, you know, it's not purely a desktop exercise. And so that's the downside to it is that because it is asset level, and we are, you know, literally doing this building by building and roadway by roadway, the, it's, you know, it's not something that you can knock off terribly quickly. But on the other hand, it does provide really detailed information. And, and we have been spinning this out into the world beyond national parks, we did a vulnerability assessment for the village of duck on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, where we use the same protocol to examine their public infrastructure and their commercial infrastructure, not not individual homes, but pretty much everything else. And you know, and the roads and the community, to allow them to have a framework from which to identify potential adaptation projects in the future. And in probably the most useful thing that they will get out of this is a real strong scientific basis to go after resilience, funding and resilience projects within the community within their community. So we absolutely have been working on how we expand it beyond national parks, and where else the process can be used.

Tyler Buckingham  31:32  

Rob, in the development of your protocol here, I know that they're in like the insurance, space. And in the financial space, there is a great deal of interest in developing analytical tools that are similar. They're trying to come up with vulnerability metrics to help manage investment, etc. What are some? What are some of the key differences between what you've built and maybe what they're working on? I realize I'm not getting into specifics, and each protocol might be different. But are there some fundamental differences there?

Dr. Rob Young  32:11  

I think the primary difference is the granularity at which we work, because we're literally looking at one building at a time and a segment of roadway at a time and using that analysis to impact how you maintain that structure. Should you maintain that structure, if it's culturally historically important? What are the list of options for altering the exposure or the sensitivity so that we can reduce the vulnerability? This really is a sort of ground level tool for decision making, at the structure by structure level, whereas for the most part, the the work that insurance industry and reinsurance industry is doing there, they're really asking much bigger picture questions, what you know, what we're doing, I think is a little bit more like what FEMA 2.0 would like to be, which is to narrow in the a little bit more on individual properties, rather than trying to just rely on really big picture predictive maps.

Peter Ravella  33:23  

It really does sound great, I love the simplicity of the exposure criterion, the sensitivity score, and this granular level of actual asset analysis. And as you're saying, the purpose of this is to guide spending in activity and other wet and to drive the decision making in the spending policy of the National Park Service. When would we begin to see the implementation of your protocol? How far along are you in the project? And have they actually employed it? At any point so far?

Dr. Rob Young  33:58  

It certainly has been used in the decision making process in a number of parks in a number of different ways. And the goal at the moment is to work at a very high level within the park service to formalize how it should be used in the future. And those discussions are absolutely ongoing right now. There is a little bit of a sense of urgency to figure this out as we start to spend some of that great American outdoors act money. But what you know, one nice example, recently as we've used the protocol to help keep lookout National Seashore, identify areas that they may be able to move some of their existing infrastructure to the next time they have a big bad storm like, like Dorian. So you know, we're using the protocol to essentially take some of that Overnight visitor infrastructure and say, Well, right now it's an area that is getting a vulnerability score of x, there are some places we could move it to on the island that would reduce its exposure. And doing so would lower that vulnerability score to from high to moderate flow. And, you know, we don't necessarily produce a recommended plan, but we hope the superintendent identify those areas where the future visitor use and any future building of cabins or youth use facilities would be more sustainable over the long run. And, you know, that's really the the kind of decision making that we hope to influence, in addition to simple questions of, you know, what structures should we be continued to be maintaining within the assets, the National Park Service manages, I

Peter Ravella  36:03  

mean, if it's something that has very, fairly low criticality, and the Park Service does rate, those kinds of things within their asset management database, if it's low criticality, and it's highly exposed, highly sensitive and highly vulnerable? Well, then maybe it's time to think about whether we should stop spending money in that place. Very interesting. It just makes me wonder at some point along the road, if planning departments in coastal communities all around American shoreline would have this kind of, it's very straightforward. And it seems incredibly informative. If you are able, as a city or a county on the cusp to look at your infrastructure investments, or even your private sector development policies. Through this kind of a lens, it's it seems like a very powerful and straightforward way to tackle a complex issue I really liked I liked the tool you've built.

Dr. Rob Young  37:00  

Well, thanks. And yeah, I mean, I think that it is the ideal way to do it. But you know, again, the problem is generally the sort of the amount of time that it takes to, to do this, we're very fortunate that the National Park Service already had an existing Asset Management database, which had everything listed in there, we didn't have to build that database of public assets from scratch. And, you know, a lot of municipalities and communities don't necessarily have that. So you'd have to go in and, you know, sort of create that, that asset management list. But there are so many positives from doing this, like, give you another example of one of the benefits. The asset managers and planners in the village of duck, indicated to us that just the fact that we had organized all that information for them would be as useful as anything, even if, on any given day, he's not using our final vulnerability score. But we were able to go in to local county database, parcel database, and pull together all this information about their assets and put it all in one place, along with what FEMA zone attend, what elevation the lot is, in the structure is our our exposure rating, our sensitivity rating. And so for the first time these folks actually have all this information in one place. And, you know, again, most communities don't have the capacity to assign somebody to do that right now. And I really think that some of this resilience spending that we're doing in the country right now needs to be spent building that kind of asset level information so that you can do really good adaptation and resilience planning of the future.

Tyler Buckingham  38:57  

You know, it reminds me Well, I'm, first of all, I'm reminded of our show, we always liked when we when we circle back we did a show with the great Dayton Dugan, who wrote the Ken Burns documentary on the national parks America's best idea. And Rob, I just have to say, thank you for, for your contribution to the park system, and helping us the park system, the managers there, but ultimately us they're our parks, helping us understand what vulnerabilities exist in these wonderful places. And ultimately, I think the goal going forward is that we build these scores and understandings into new structures into new infrastructure ahead of time and that to me, spells opportunity. And I mean, look, I know that we're gonna pivot here to the IPCC report. And there is a lot of anxiety hair on Fire anxiety right now. For those of us that pay attention to this stuff, it seems like climate change is going to be a real kick in the butt. And we need these tools, and we need them to be developed. And we need them to in order to make confident decisions about where to build and what to build and how to do it. So, Rob, great work. Now, as I mentioned, we need to do this pivot. Now the IPCC report, Peter just came out, this is an update. And by this, this update, sets the new high watermark pardon the pun, for the IPCC reports, I believe. A major change in tone.

Peter Ravella  40:42  

Yeah, I think so. Tighter the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, of course, the UN organization that has been monitoring and reporting on on climate change, now for many years, really did come out with the definitive new statement that it is unequivocal climate change is occurring, it is unequivocal that it is a result of human activity. And that the the risks that we face are serious and significant and are unlikely to be they're not they cannot be eliminated, they can be reduced, depending on what we do. It's gotten a ton of press around the world. But Rob, what's your take as a person who's doing vulnerability analysis? Was there things that surprised you about it? Or was this something that you thought was about time that they were this definitive? What was your What was your response to the report?

Dr. Rob Young  41:42  

quickly, before I addressed the IPCC, let me just say, you know, we appreciate the kudos about the NPS work, but I really need to give a, you know, 98% of the credit to my staff members who've been doing this work for the last five years. And that's Holly Thompson and Blair, tormey. And KDP, could just done a fabulous job doing all of the work, and I just get, you know, get to talk to you guys and take credit for it. So I think that's important. Okay. Yeah, so the IPCC report didn't have anything in there, that was really a surprise to those of us who work in the field, right? I mean, the most surprising thing about it is the fact that this organization and this process that has been, in my opinion, relatively conservative, throughout its existence, has all of a sudden decided that they really needed to sound the alarm in a way that would get everybody's attention this time. And obviously, it has since gotten a tremendous amount of media coverage. Certainly in the, in the mainstream media. And so I need all of that is good. It's it's important for decision makers who are interested in doing something about climate change, to not become complacent. And a report like this definitely emphasizes for all of those people, the urgency for action. Now, having said that, is it gonna have some dramatic impact on the way that everybody acts at the federal level, state level, local level? You know, probably not. I still work in a lot of states where even where we're doing reasonably good adaptation, and some good planning, we did still talk a lot about climate change. It's the third rail in a lot of places still, and it's not like this kind of report is going to change that conversation. At least not overnight in in those areas. So you know, I mean, I see it as a mostly a positive thing. I'm waking a sleeping giant to some degree. But there really wasn't anything in there that comes as a surprise to practitioners.

Tyler Buckingham  44:25  

I don't think I'll tell you if I can just jump in here, Peter, then I'll let you go. What really struck me and I just want to say this on the show for our listeners, and maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm I'm interpreting it incorrectly. But what I what struck me is that this is as good as it's going to be in my lifetime right now. Wow. Is that it is only going to get worse. And that bummed me out. Rob it really did. I mean, to know that this we are currently In the good old days, right now, and it is only going to go downhill from here. I mean, God willing, we, we do everything. As the report says we we make the adjustments, we switch away from burning fossil fuels and we do carbon sequestration aggressively if we do all these things correctly, guess what, by the time I'm an old man sitting around waiting to die, it's still gonna be worse than

Peter Ravella  45:26  

I need to enjoy this moment, I guess.

Tyler Buckingham  45:28  

But I do think it's the combination. It's not just the report. It's the combination of the real world events that are happening that are just off, we know it intuitively. The heat wave Pacific, specifically the heat wave in the Pacific Northwest, the flooding in Germany, two events that I think really shook thought leaders generally and moved them out. And I think the IPCC might be, they might have moved to I mean, I realized that this update was in the works for a long time. But as Rob points out here, this was this is a different tone than they normally take.

Peter Ravella  46:06  

The IPCC was founded in 1988. So that is 30. That's 12 and 2133 years ago, that we have been dedicating energy to understanding what's happening with climate change around the world and 33 years in, perhaps we can say we have the most definitive statement of the problem ever in the IPCC. But it's been 30 years. And what they're asking for now is direct action to respond. tell you, Tyler, I think you have reason to be concerned, I hadn't thought of it. This is the best it's going to be for a while they're saying that between now and 2050, it's going to continue to get worst at the temperature increases are going to exceed one and a half degrees centigrade, probably up to two and even higher, depending on what we do. We're just starting to get motivated on this issue. Rob, are you? Are you a pessimist about this? I mean, I think that's an interesting observation that Tyler is talking about is this is as good as the climate conditions are going to be for some decades ahead. That's kind of a frightening. Damn. Because it didn't that good. Let

Tyler Buckingham  47:21  

me That was my read that I read. tonight. I'm a glass half full guy, too. Yeah.

Dr. Rob Young  47:26  

What do you think, Rob? Well, you know, I live in the southern Appalachians. And we're in in an area that some of sort of climate modelers called the Global Warming hole, because we haven't seen significant warming here in this part of the country over the last few decades, just as an aside. So we with for my family and my kids growing up in this area, we we do maybe lead a little bit of a charmed existence, we, we don't have massive fires, we've, I live at 2200 feet. So I'm not that worried about sea level rise for us at the moment. And we're not in a floodplain. So, you know, that allows me to, you know, maybe be not as on my own micro scale, not as pessimistic and alarmed as some others. I I do love the onion headline that is from a few weeks ago that said, Senate passes bill wishing younger generations, best of luck stopping climate change. I don't know if you guys saw that. But I you know, I think it sort of summarizes the degree to which at least most young people do. Those of us who are of my generation, I'm 58. You know, this is the degree to which we have taken it all seriously. I, you know, I don't like I'm not a pessimist, because that's just not fun. To be pessimistic all the time

Peter Ravella  49:03  

and not helpful. Really.

Dr. Rob Young  49:05  

It's it's not generally helpful. You know, I think that it's frustrating, we do still have the time to do the right thing. And in a lot of places, and there are some places where we're taking some baby steps. But the fact of the matter is, we still spend way too much public money, providing the wrong incentives for people to do the wrong thing. And, and we really don't have a big picture national vision for how to deal with these monumental problems. Now, the one place where I am pessimistic is in the ability for our government to function in a way that can address these issues. Because the just gaping partisan divide and the inability of Congress to actually legislate Yes, I know I'm saying this right after this big infrastructure bill passed, but Okay, so that's one example in the last 15 years. You know, these are issues that really require us all to come together require real national leadership require the establishment of priorities for spending, not just throwing money out there, but a real plan with priorities for where there's a Federal Interest where we should be spending the federal money where it can be most effectively used and those kinds of things. And that's the part I'm pessimistic about, you know, I'm not, I'm not pessimistic about the resilience of us as humans, and our creativity. And I don't think it's going to be the end of civilization. Yeah, I worry about those who don't have a means to take care of themselves, and who are being greatly impacted by this kind of thing. I really worry about disenfranchised communities. And I have the luxury of feeling like I don't necessarily have to worry about myself and my children nearly as much. But, you know, we should be able to tackle all of this. But what I worry about is the politics.

Peter Ravella  51:25  

Yeah, the institutional capacity is what I call it. And I think it's, it's it's difficult to look around the world or even within our own country, and seeing a constructive response and debate on this issue. I was, I was discouraged to see when, during the press coverage of the report coming out, they were asking several Republican members of Congress, what do they think? What's your response? Have you had a chance to look at it? That I have to say that in the reports that I've read, several of them said, Look, we're pretty busy, we don't really have time to deal with it. And others said, You know, I just don't have anything to say about it, because you have to consider the source. We don't think that is an accurate assessment. We don't think it's true. And we don't trust the IPCC. And that level of irresponsible denial is very concerning to me. I don't think it represents the broad spectrum of conservative law view on this thing there are there are several conservative House and Senate members who work on climate related issues and have moved past the denial step. But, you know, I share your concern about the institutional capacity to respond to a problem of this magnitude and complexity. It's just not easy to see we've got that path lit forward going forward.

Dr. Rob Young  52:55  

Yeah, and, you know, let's, let's be clear. You know, I work with a lot of Republican elected officials on the local level, state level, that are doing excellent things to address adaptation and resilience planning and flood management. So, you know, it is it's not something that is purely partisan. It's certainly when you have politicians on a national level, who are talking to a certain demographic in a certain audience, they tend to say things that disappoint me. To put it mildly, yeah. But you know, it doesn't have to be that way. And there's plenty of leadership in both parties on the local level, that are making positive things happen. And I can also, you know, I want to clearly say that I've been really disappointed in some of the feedback that I've gotten from democratic elected officials on the national level as well, especially with regards to, you know, spending within their particular districts. Man, you know, I don't want to go into any more detail. You know, the more local we get. Often, the more reasonable the discussion gets is what I'm finding because when you have people whose immediate constituents are being dramatically impacted by it, then you can have some real leadership. I mean, let me highlight Orange County, South Carolina, which is a fairly red, very red pro development county in South Carolina. This includes Myrtle Beach and Conway and Orange County just adopted a three foot free Volkert, no more critical info floodplain and they adopt Did some new flood maps that are that go outside of the FEMA 105 100 year floodplain and just, you know, a really important piece of new county rulemaking that will, I think, you know, go a long way to preserve that economy and keep their people safer. But this is this is in Orange County, South Carolina, where this just Hey, I

Peter Ravella  55:25  

really appreciate you, I thank you for sharing that story. And I do think you know, Tyler and I had the had the privilege of going to the earth x conference in Dallas, Texas, which is a huge event sponsored by Trammell Crowe Jr, who is a who's comes from a family of major developers. He's a Republican, the earth x conference brings together conservative and Republican leaders from around the country. It's an amazing event, we covered it, it's been cancelled because of COVID. But what we were interested in was the fact that across the political spectrum, and on the conservative side of the agenda, there is a dedicated, dedicated group of people who are interested in the topic and willing to work through the complex policy issues. We had the privilege while we were there of interviewing senator Sheldon Whitehouse, from Rhode Island, who is a leading proponent of aggressive climate change response legislation in the United States Senate. And we asked Sheldon, Senator Whitehouse, what he was doing at a conservative conference. And he said, anytime a bunch of Republicans get together to talk about climate change, I want to be part of the discussion. And so there are examples of leadership on both sides of the aisle, as you say, so maybe we've got room to to be a little optimistic even on the institutional challenges we face because it's not one dimensional.

Dr. Rob Young  57:01  

You know, I have this theory, if we could take all of our national elected officials, and just zap their memories, all of them. So they forget what the playbook is that they're supposed to be playing for, on both sides of the aisle, and let them all go back to square one where sort of ideas and needs really drive the decision making that that they would agree on way more than they would ever imagine that they would, you know, but that's just, that's just the happy dream that I have.

Tyler Buckingham  57:36  

Why I happen to agree with that. And so much of the politics these days, particularly surrounding climate change, and I have to say fresh in my mind, I just listened to a podcast with Tucker Carlson. I had no idea he's an avid fly fisherman. And he he lives up in like, way up in Maine, and is a is a, he would describe himself as a conservationist. Now, I will let's not laugh at we could probably go through the tape. And he's probably said some pretty horrendous things. But deep down, he talks about rivers. And he actually went hard on the Bristol Bay Pebble Mine thing didn't Yeah, partially, you know, put some put some spin on the ball there that might have changed things. And so I do think that Peter to use one of your great lines about climate and the coast and understanding what's going on. It's that reality is a persistent teacher. And I think that there are probably a lot of people of all political stripes up in the Pacific Northwest right now who may might not talk about climate change, they might not use that language they might not give us the the great surrender, you know, curtsy that we would like to see. Yeah, but they know. And I agree with you, Rob, that if you were to wipe their memory, they would forget that like, Oh, yeah, I'm just supposed to say this to piss these guys off. Because I mean, a lot of the the, the politics these days is about you know, making the snowflakes cry. It's really it. It's not about it's not about advancing and understanding or managing the problems that we have, which is truly unfortunate. Before we wrap up the show, Peter, yeah. We got to touch on. I know we have we have one more order of business. We do. And that is the the Cobra Yeah. The coastal barrier resources act.

Peter Ravella  59:27  

Yeah. Now, Robin, and we're talking about, you know, the days of effective legislation to respond to shoreline risks. The coastal barrier resources Act passed in 1982, sponsored primarily by Senator Tom Evans from Delaware and senator john Chafee from Rhode Island. A true American hero, by the way, Tyler, you were looking it up?

Tyler Buckingham  59:49  

Yeah, absolutely. He left Yale as an undergraduate to go fight in World War

Peter Ravella  59:55  

Two. Yeah. As a marine as marine on Guadalcanal and listed And on Okinawa as a marine calm combat Marine, and was later called back to service as a rifle company. Commander in the Korean War, this was a guy, as you say, who who left Yale University, went to serve in combat, came back and got his PhD. I think it's his PhD from Yale and, and Harvard, but highly educated then a senator and one of the principal authors of the coastal barrier resources Act passed in 1982. Now we bring this up, Rob, and you're well aware of this that there has been some discussion recently about the policies governing the use of sand sources within coastal barrier resources units. And folks out there who aren't familiar with Cobra This is a federal law that defines areas of the coast that are less developed or underdeveloped and makes it clear that the federal government will spend no money on roads and infrastructure and sewers and water and other improvements in areas that are undeveloped. It is a law that prohibits the federal government from facilitating more development in in coastal areas that are largely undeveloped. That's roughly what it's about. The question that has been on the minds of coastal professionals and in the press for those of us who follow this kind of stuff, is whether or not is it is acceptable to dredge sand out of a cobra unit, a federally designated undeveloped area and to use that sand to restore beaches outside of the unit in developed shorelines. The Trump administration had adopted a policy that said you know what we think it's fine to mine sand in a cobra unit using federal funds and use that sand to rebuild shorelines on develop shorelines. On July 14 of this year, the Biden administration from the deputy solidify solicitor for Parks and Wildlife Sara Carr cough put together a memo that said it is no longer the policy of the US government that federal funds can be used to extract sand from a Coburn unit for use outside of the unit. This is caused some concern in the beach nourishment community. And Rob, I just wanted to get your take on Cobra generally and about this policy debate that's going on right now, which I guess has been settled by the Biden administration, at least for now.

Dr. Rob Young  1:02:41  

Well, I mean, I certainly think that it was a sensible decision, it really returns the management of the coastal barrier resources system, to the status quo that had been in existence since 1994, which is when the issue was first raised, and there was a Department of Interior solicitor's opinion, that restricted those federal funds from being used to mine sand from within the coastal barrier resources system for use outside the system. You know, I I, and the the Biden administration's recent ruling basically just sort of takes us back to what has been relatively long held policy in the way the coastal barrier resource system is managed. And I, you know, I think that, you know, there's a struggle these days to, to find beats, and for a lot of communities, and people want to do it as affordably as possible, I get that I understand that. I mean, we're basically trying to build one large beach, through beach nourishment projects, from saco, Maine, to Padre Island, Texas. And you need a lot of sand to do that, and you need it, not just once, but you need it repeatedly. So it's very tempting for local communities to want to tap into some of that sand that's in the flood tile shoals and in the other areas behind the barrier islands where they want to do these projects. But you know, it certainly in my mind does not meet the spirit of the coastal barrier resources act to do that. And, you know, the cumulative impacts of starting to do that in a lot of places, and the degree to which it might impact those back barrier resources and marshes and, you know, protection for estuarine shoreline properties. It's, you know, it's just really not worth the risk. And I think it's also important to mention that the coastal barrier resources act doesn't necessarily protect hibbett those communities from going in there and accessing some of that sand through the traditional, you know, NEPA process, if they're paying for all of it themselves, it just prohibits the use of federal funds to facilitate that happening or to pay for those projects.

Tyler Buckingham  1:05:21  

Yeah, I mean, this is a putt, but I guess that was my question. I mean, what does it say about the role that the federal government is playing on the American shoreline when? Because, as you say, a local or state entity can pump Cobra sand from the unit, the Cobra unit on to their beach, as long as they pay for it without any, no federal dollars can be spent there. What does it say about the role that the federal government is playing in beach renourishment? More broadly, that this is an issue?

Dr. Rob Young  1:06:02  

Well, man, we could have a long discussion about how the federal role in beach nourishment nationally is, is impacting this and all kinds of different issues. Is it expanding?

Tyler Buckingham  1:06:15  

Because one of the things that I think is interesting about the I mean, Cobra, you'd think that Cobra was kind of the federal government saying, look, we need to kind of step away from these barrier island barrier resource spaces. It's not an effective use of federal dollars to, for us to be out there spending money. And, you know, why would we then, is the trend that we are spending more and more money on beach renourishment? That's what I'm observing. I follow this stuff every day. Peter, I don't know about you. I'm not using any math to back this up. I'm not looking at actual dollars or cubic yards of sand or anything. But it seems to me that beach renourishment is a is like a go to solution right now, throughout much of the America Robin. Yeah, it's expensive. It's really expensive. And a lot of these communities rely on some federal contribution to make it happen.

Peter Ravella  1:07:14  

What do you think, Rob? Are we seeing an increase in beach nourishment expenditures, either federal or non federal dollars around the American shoreline these days?

Dr. Rob Young  1:07:23  

Uh, yeah, definitely. You know, we track every beach nourishment project in the country, and have been since the mid 80s. far longer than our friends at ASB pa have I might add

Peter Ravella  1:07:39  

our good friends at ASBPA. They have a database, but it's only it's not

Dr. Rob Young  1:07:44  

the real beach nourishment database go to the beach nourishment database at the program for the study of develop shorelines website. No, no offense, folks of all

Peter Ravella  1:07:56  

we're just putting good information out there, Rob.

Dr. Rob Young  1:08:00  

Yeah, I mean, beach nourishment has become the go to way to stabilize shorelines on the ocean front and to protect investment property. There's no question about it. And there was a period of time during the Bush administration and early Obama administration when the federal government had the desire to wean beach communities have federal funding to support those projects. But I think I think those days have passed. And the I find the Corps of Engineers is going around the country right now formulating 50 year long projects, which I just see as being incredibly problematic, because there's no way the most brilliant minds of the world could come together and formulate a 50 year project for any section of coast in the United States of America. We don't know what's going to happen in the next 50 years with rising sea level availability of sand. You know, storminess, you'd have to be I mean, it's just, it's just so irresponsible to be formulating 50 year projects in four communities, which gives them the impression that the Corps of Engineers is going to be able to help them hold that shoreline in place for 50 years, and protect all of that tax base, which is just simply not true. And so a lot of issues are coming to a head with the degree of beach nourishment that we want to do in the United States and the access to the coastal barrier resource system with federal dollars. That's just one of them. closing of the turtle window, which is being discussed all over the place right now. And yeah, we you know, if you if you're trying to maintain as many beaches as we're trying to maintain, it gets really difficult to do it. Now when there's no turtle nesting going on. So more and more we see this closing of the turtle window and the desire of communities and the core animals. Local sponsors to be able to pump sand on the beaches whenever they can, not just in the fall and winter. And, you know, all of this is going to bring a lot of issues to ahead, I think over the next five or 10 years. And this is another one of those places where we just have never had a serious national conversation about where we should and shouldn't be spending money. Is it in the Federal Interest to fund all of these beach nourishment projects, there are many places that we don't spend a federal dime that still managed to find their own projects. Yeah. I also find that you look and you look at a place like Orange County, South Carolina, where the Grand Strand has had a federal project for decades. And so we spend a lot of federal money to support the value of properties on the ocean front. Whereas when you step inland from there, typically our response to the loss of property and flooding in working class communities is we offer them buyouts, but you know, we don't do buyouts on the ocean problem. We do beach nourishment. So I find that there's a lot of inequity in the way that we respond to coastal hazards and storm surge. And, you know, with all of this funding that's coming through the new infrastructure bill to coastal states, it's gonna be quite a crazy scramble to see where all of that money ends up going. And, you know, I wouldn't be surprised to see the spending on beach nourishment, at least over the next five to 10 years ramp up like crazy. Under the guise of infrastructure spending, through this new infrastructure bill as a way to fund this.

Peter Ravella  1:11:59  

Yeah, well, I think the Corps of Engineer received corps Corps of Engineers received about $11 billion dollars in new funding under the infrastructure bill, I think a lot of that directed toward shoreline related projects and resiliency. So Well, Rob, is it thank you for taking the time to talk to us is always a pleasure to check in with you and talk about the issues of the day on the American shoreline. We really appreciate your perspective on on the network. And, and I say for the listeners out there on LinkedIn, Rob is a great follow. There's a regularly he's posting about policy issues of importance on the shoreline. So we're always always a pleasure to have you on on the show. So thanks a lot for for sharing your insights with us today.

Dr. Rob Young  1:12:50  

Well, you know, it's always fun to hang out with you guys. And I appreciate the opportunity to, to talk to your your very targeted audience. And, you know, I just one last little thing, if I could leave everybody with, you know, I was recently characterized on LinkedIn as being Robbie down. So the way that I express my perspective, and I just want to be really clear to everybody, I grew up on the coast, I don't want the coastal economy to disappear. And I don't want everybody to leave the coast or leave the barrier islands. That's not what this is about. This is using, it's about using really good science to guide decision making, whether that's development or spending on resilience, in order to preserve the coastal economy, over the long run, and all of those ecosystems that surround that coastal economy that also support jobs. I mean, that's really what we're all in this for. It's not about you know, running away from the coast. It's about sensibly managing the coast with good science, and having a good plan for how and where we're spending that public public money that serves everybody's interests. Right. That's the goal. Good stuff.

Peter Ravella  1:14:07  

Ladies and gentlemen, it is Dr. Rob Young, the Director of Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines, Western Carolina University. Rob, thank you again and we look forward to checking in with you down the road but I'd say better every six months child we say hello. Seems like a good one. Yeah, thanks a lot, Rob. Appreciate it. All right. Take care guys.