John Englander on his new book, Moving to Higher Ground | Shorewords!

August 21, 2021

A great book talk about our relationship with rising seas.

On this episode of Shorewords!, join host Lesley Ewing in conversation with John Englander, geologist, oceanographer, and sea level scientist as he discusses his latest book, Moving to Higher Ground. John ‘discovered’ sea level rise first-hand as he was diving in the Bahamas and came upon a prior sea stand about 200 feet below the surface. That dive was that source for his first sea level rise story and, five decades later, he continues to tell stories about the global changes we’re experiencing along the coast, and how some communities are responding to these changes.



Show Transcription
This transcription was generated by a computer. Please excuse any errors.
Lesley Ewing

Hello. I’m Lesley Ewing, host of Shorewords!. This podcast combines two of my favorite things – the ocean and books. I learned to swim before I could walk and looked forward each summer to my family’s vacation at Ocean City, Maryland. As a student I was interested in science and engineering and became an environmental engineer before learning that there was something called coastal engineering. Both my 1 st and 2 nd mid-life crises resulted in me going back to school – first for a Masters of Engineering at UC Berkeley and later for a Ph.D. from the University of Southern California. The first crisis also moved me from DC to the SF Bay. The second crisis reminded me how much I liked to read. Getting a Ph.D. while working a 40+-hour/week job meant that my only reading was work reports, text books and technical articles. They were all important and interesting books, but as soon as school ended, I replaced my academic text books with broader literature and realized that the coast was often a character in the fiction and non-fiction that I read. I am still fascinated by every visit to the ocean and remain in awe of what others write about the coast.