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HomeArcataArcata & CommunityOLLI Presentation on Sea Level Rise - Aldaron Laird - March 16, 2023

OLLI Presentation on Sea Level Rise – Aldaron Laird – March 16, 2023

The Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) of Cal Poly Humboldt has been offering a monthly special interest group Zoom meeting on Sea Level Rise & Humboldt Bay. The presentations are facilitated by environmental planning consultant Aldaron Laird and Humboldt County history (and general knowledge) specialist Jerry Rhode. The meetings are held on the third Tuesday of the month, and are also available as video recordings, with transcriptions.  To join OLLI or to be a part of future presentations, you can visit the OLLI page for the Sea Level Rise & Humboldt Bay page here.

The link to the video for the March 16, 2023, meeting is below. The total time is one hour 15 minutes.

Also of interest is the OLLI at HSU Brown Bag Lunch Presentation from September 20, 2021  — the Humboldt Sea Level Rise Public Forum, with Aldaron Laird and Clancy De Smet, Caltrans District 1 Climate Change Adaptation branch chief. That 1 hour 18 minute video can be seen on YouTube here.

Aldaron Laird speaks

From the first minute of the video:

You know we’re only looking at one foot of sea level rise and we’ll have a state of disaster. So we shouldn’t be arguing about when we’re going to get 3 feet, when we’re going to 5 feet or something like that. Things are going to turn upside down on Humboldt Bay with 1, 2, and 3 feet to sea level rise.
 
When it gets higher than that is really kind of — you know that’s not what we should be focusing on. We need to focus on right now.

 
And with one foot of sea level rise, our King Tides will exceed that disaster declaration.
 
With 2 feet of sea level rise — which is just by 2045 — our monthly high tide exceeds that.
 
And then with 3 feet of sea level rise, which is by 2060, it’s projected, our daily high tides [will exceed that disaster declaration.]
 
So we need to start working immediately on the low level sea level rise, and forget about 10, 20, 15 feet. All the changes are going to happen with from one to three feet of sea level rise.  And that’s the point I’m trying to make.
 

How to watch the video

This is the link: Click here.
The full URL, which can cut-and-paste, or copy if needed:
https://humboldt.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=a50ef59a-f121-4aea-b392-afc7017e7a0b

On my computer, I found that the video player worked fine with Firefox, and the video player did not work with Google Chrome. The link worked fine on my Android cellphone.

  • On the left column:  “Contents” will show a tale of contents that you can use to go to a certain spot on the video. “Captions” will show the software translation (it’s not perfect).  “Hide” and “Show” will hide or show that column, to make for a larger main image.
  • The segmented square visible at the upper right corner (when you move your cursor toward that corner) will enlarge the video to use your entire screen. Then, Escape will exit the full screen mode.
  • There are “forward 10-seconds” and “back 10 seconds” buttons so you can repeat a sentence, or can fast-forward through a segment.
  • Volume is adjusted with the Loudspeaker icon.
  • Close Captions can be turned on and off with the “CC” button.
  • Play Speed can be adjusted, where the “1x Speed” is shown.
  • The “v” icon at the right side of the controls will remove the thumbnail images of the video, to make for a larger main image. And then “^” to get the thumbnail images back.

 

Table of Contents of the video

New Years Eve 2005 – State of Disaster     0:27
Humboldt Bay Sea Level Rise Projections   0:48
Disasters of Humboldt Bay    1:24
Wigi’s Disasters    2:33
Historical Legacy Diking-Off Salt Marsh   3:33
41 miles of 7,000 acres at Risk    4:06
Shoreline Tipping Point   4:27
Historical Le Shoreline Erosion    7:30
Overtopping Shoreline Fortifications    7:54
Historical Humboldt Bay – 1870 25,800 acres    10:18
Humboldt Bay – 2060 31,100 acres     11:00
City of Arcata    11:18
Humboldt Bay Surface Elevation Vulnerability    13:57
UN secretary-general warns of impact of sea level rise    20:18
Historical Humboldt 25,800 Bay – 1870 acres    29:48
The 2-degrees Centigrade target won’t stop “runaway” sea -level rise    42:30
The Bay Could Soon Have Its First Region -Wide Sea Level    47:33
Humboldt Bay Regional Sea Level Rise Adaptation Strategy   48:54
Great Displacement    1:03:39
Public Trust Guiding Principles and Action Plan    1:08:42
The Draft Public Trust Guiding Principles    1:09:24
Current Sea Level Rise Projects    1:10:51
Recommended Readings    1:11:21
Regional Stakeholders     1:11:51