Climate change, sea level rise threaten national monuments

WASHINGTON, Sept. 17 (UPI) -- By the middle of the 21st century, the National Mall and the many national monuments that surround it could routinely be underwater -- under siege from floodwaters as the planet warms and sea levels continue to rise. That according to a new report release this week by environmental research group Climate Central.

And it's not just Washington's monuments at risk. According to the group's apparently "conservative" estimates, some $7 billion worth of property, including three military bases, could be at risk by 2050. "Washington, D.C. is likely to see record flooding by 2040 under a mid-range sea level rise scenario," the report authors write.

"The monument area and the Mall are in some ways the soul of Washington, D.C., so to see those areas flooding, I think, will probably have an important emotional and cultural effect, as well as a physical effect," Ben Strauss, director of Climate Central's Program, told the New York Times.

But more aggressive predictions paint a more dire picture, with both the Lincoln and Jefferson memorials becoming islands in the middle of a flooded Potomac River, and with the capital's military bases becoming completely submerged. Meanwhile, Washington's southwest waterfront is set for a multi-billion-dollar redevelopment.

"We're developing our waterfront for the first time in our history," D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton told CSN Baltimore. "It's not going to be there if we don't find a way to respond to climate change locally even if the Congress does not do what it's supposed to do nationally."