An alarming new study published in Nature Climate Change, “Unavoidable future increase in West Antarctic ice-shelf melting over the twenty-first century,” found that even under the most ambitious climate change mitigation plans, melting of the ice sheets and sea level rise will accelerate.

“Substantial ocean warming and ice-shelf melting is projected in all future climate scenarios, including those considered to be unrealistically ambitious,” the paper’s authors concluded. “A baseline of rapid twenty-first-century ocean warming and consequent sea-level rise appears to be committed. This warming is primarily driven by an acceleration of the Amundsen Undercurrent transporting warmer (Circumpolar Deep Water) onto the continental shelf.”

According to the study, the Western Antarctic Ice Sheet, which is already rapidly melting, is the largest contributor to sea-level rise, and contains enough ice to raise global sea-level by 5.3 meters, or 17.3 feet. (For perspective, the height of an adult giraffe can be as tall as 5.4 meters, or 17.7 feet.)

While the authors do not imply the ice will completely melt, or that global sea levels will in fact rise by the maximum potential held by the ice, the study is disconcerting because it shows that sea levels will rise faster than expected, in spite of anything done to reduce climate change.

To visualize how climate change might affect coastal areas, Climate Central, a group of independent scientists, has hosted online a free website called Surging Seas that allows users to create maps that forecast as far as the year 2100 what sea-level rise might do.

One particular map, which specifically demonstrates how much land would be submerged from either the melting of Antarctica or Greenland, is particularly concerning when one considers how Oahu might look.

For almost a decade now, coastal cities and governments all around the world have already begun to prepare technological solutions for the threat posed by changing sea levels. Most notably, New York City, whose infrastructure and financial industry cannot easily be relocated, has created a series of contingencies and plans to defend against flooding. 

But why should you and your family be concerned about these recent research findings? To start, because in American policymaking we like to look at the strategic picture of how things can change over time, most perspectives and warnings about flooding show us planetary evolution over the course of decades or a century. This leads to a self-delusion that there is ample time to act later, and we can procrastinate as much as we want. 

However, the worst case scenario does not actually need to take a century to fully manifest, and even small changes in sea level rise will result in more frequent floods, disruption of infrastructure, and potentially, losses of life.

The late George C. Marshall, who served both as U.S. secretary of state and as one of America’s most distinguished general officers during World War II, once remarked in his personal memoirs that America, as a result of its political processes and the traditional mindset of its inhabitants, always starts wars by losing them.

In America, early warnings are rarely heeded in time, subject matter experts are often hamstrung by iron triangles of special interests, and attacks or disasters almost always get through, leading to outrage that later mobilizes the body politic to take dynamic action.

Study nearly any attack, major disaster, or systems failure that America has suffered, and you’ll likely find a recurring pattern of someone knowing, someone failing to act, and people not caring, until it was too late. America is great at playing catch up, but sometimes, a disaster can be so big that it doesn’t give us room to catch up, or make up at all.

Why does this happen in American policymaking? Because often, we’re more worried about who is making a profit, who might get scared and change their vote, and who might be threatened by funding changes rather than worrying about who could get hurt or even who could lose their lives.

Henri Queuille, who served as prime minister of France, famously said, “Politics is the art of postponing decisions until they are no longer relevant.” Unfortunately for the people, what we or our elected leaders dismiss as “irrelevant” always has a way of sneaking up on us when we least expect it.

Which is why when it comes to the potential destruction that future sea level rise can do to Hawaii, we can’t wait for an incident that claims lives and backs us so far into a corner that only then do we decide to build defenses-in-depth. 

The first thing our policymakers need to do this morning is to start issuing requests for information on new technologies, systems and procedures for defending Hawaii’s coastline and preparing our communities for flooding. 

I know what some of you are thinking. Hold off, for now, on calling up 20 other government agencies, 10 nonprofit partners and one hand-picked member of the public to hold a meeting for the news where we all agree something is wrong but we need to think about holding another meeting to talk some more. We’ve done that enough, and that only serves to muddle the issue and agitate the public.

What we need to do, today, is get a preliminary set of hard options assembled and a specific price tag that we can put in front of the governor, the mayors, the Legislature and the county councils in time for 2024. Once we have defined options, we can rally political support and bureaucratic willpower for those options.

We should assume by default that we will absolutely fail in our global efforts to stop sea level rise, and begin building things that will defend locals against the worst possible scenario with a bit of buffer to spare.

It’s OK to admit up front that we don’t know yet what to do and at present it looks like there’s not much we can do, so long as we don’t just stay in that mindset. Some of the things that might save us may not even be invented yet, but if we begin working on a plan, funding research and hiring people to prepare for this, impossibilities turn into possibilities sooner than we think. 

Sounds like a big ask? Actually, what we really need to do to serve the people of Hawaii is even bigger than this: We have to fight the future. But the best way to fight the future, is to start developing the technologies and the tools for the future, not just platitudes, in our present moment.