User:Micha03/sandbox

Ideas

 * Break off reduction of landmass into its own section called "Environmental Concerns"
 * "Landmass Reduction"
 * "Flooding"
 * "Efforts"
 * "Criticism"
 * Add more information about the steps that have or have not been taken towards addressing climate change related topics
 * 2023 spending bill included $300,000 for tangier island dredging study
 * Expand upon information about the views of the general population and the criticism they have caught for it
 * Don't believe in man made climate change, instead thinks the Island is sinking due to erosion

Landmass Reduction
The island is at risk of disappearing due to upland to wetland conversion and rising sea levels caused by climate change; since 1850, the island's landmass has been reduced by 67%. Under a mid-range sea level rise scenario, two of the islands’ three ridges are expected to become wetland in the 2030s, with the third expected to succumb by 2051.

Many residents believe that erosion is the cause of the increasing incidence and severity of flooding. A 2015 study by Davide M. Schulte, Karin M. Dridge and Mark H. Hudgins, all members of the Army Corps of Engineers, concluded that Tangier has 25–50 years of habitability remaining and that the subsidence of the ridges is ongoing since at least the mid-19th century. The authors also conclude that the primary causes of the subsidence in the southern Chesapeake Bay region are sea-level rise due to the melting of the Laurentide ice sheet, groundwater extraction on mainland Virginia, and the remaining effects of the Chesapeake Bay impact crater near Cape Charles, Virginia, 35.5 million years ago.

Efforts
The town has been talking with political representatives for decades to get protection for the island in the form of jetties or sea walls. The Town, the History Museum, and townspeople continue to raise money for their sea wall fund. In 2017, CNN aired a story about Tangier that featured the town's mayor, James W. Eskridge. President Donald Trump called the mayor personally to assure him that the town would survive but offered no concrete form of relief or financial aid.

In 2023...