A recent climate study arguing that New Orleans has reached a “point of no return” and should begin planning relocation makes one major mistake: It treats uncertainty as inevitability.
No one denies the serious risks facing coastal Louisiana. Sea level rise, subsidence, hurricanes and wetland loss are real challenges that require aggressive action and long-term planning. But declaring New Orleans “terminal” ignores both history and human innovation.
Two hundred years ago, many experts likely would have predicted New Orleans would not survive this long at all. Yet through engineering, infrastructure, technology, pumps, levees, drainage systems, flood protection and coastal management, the city not only survived, it became one of the most important cultural and economic hubs in America…