Opinion: We’ve seen the flooding in California. Will we move to higher ground?
The slow-motion rebirth of Tulare Lake has inundated farm fields and threatened levees, homes and whole towns. On Monday, the state projected the lake would reach its peak in the next week or so, but the floodwaters will linger for perhaps two years. The return of what used to be the largest lake west of the Mississippi has captured our attention as one of the most dramatic climatic events of 2023. Yet the flooded crops and tenuous levees at Tulare Lake represent only a fraction of the statewide and nationwide landscape now subject to greater floods of the global warming era.
-Written by author Tim Palmer, whose forthcoming book “Seek Higher Ground: The Natural Solution to Our Urgent Flooding Crisis,” will be published in 2024.Related article: