Rising Seas: Is San Francisco Ready?

In the Media

Michael Stoll, Executive Director, San Francisco Public Press

The mainstream media, and human brain, are not well-suited to handling slow-moving threats that will appear in the distant future. Yet flooding of Bay Area roads this year can be partly attributed to rising tides and severe weather. How is the Bay Area media covering this reality?

Does climate change coverage take a back seat to more immediate concerns about race, safety and health? Are those issues connected?

At Your Doorstep

Will Travis, Former Executive Director, BCDC

Bay waters are topping the Embarcadero during king tides, and repairing the seawall along the downtown waterfront will cost about $4 billion. Mission Bay and many other areas of the city are also threatened by the certainty of an expanding bay. This section of our program will probe what the city is doing to prepare for a soggy future and protect people in vulnerable communities. It also will explore what the real estate industry is doing to protect property that accounts for much of the wealth in San Francisco.