Climate change has been a hot-button issue around the world, but some may wonder how it affects Rhode Island.

That question, among others, was addressed Feb. 19 as U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) joined Grover Fugate, executive director of the Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council, at the Cranston Central Library to discuss the possible threats to the state posed by climate change.

A main area of focus for both Whitehouse and Fugate was rising sea levels. Whitehouse started off the presentation by discussing the effect of carbon emissions on oceans.

“While [carbon emissions] have powered a very strong, growing economy, it has also created enormous consequences for our planet,” the senator said. “With the respect to the Ocean State and our shores, of all of the excess heat that has been trapped in our atmosphere, in our planet, by the greenhouse effect and the excess heat that’s been gathered in that, 93 percent of it has gone into the oceans.”

On the screen, Whitehouse displayed various maps of coastal locations in Rhode Island and showed how they would be affected by sea level. The locations included areas such as the upper Narragansett Bay, Providence, Bristol and Warwick. The maps demonstrated CRMC’s predictions of a 10-foot rise in sea level by the end of the century, according to the senator.

“Everything that you see that turns blue is land now,” he said. “And it all goes underwater.”

He also showed maps of areas such as Newport; Point Judith, which Whitehouse said “becomes a little archipelago of islands”; Little Compton; Portsmouth; and Tiverton, where “a lot of Tiverton is lost,” he added.

“Here we are back at Warwick Neck,” he said, gesturing to the map of predictions of what the area may look like if major flooding happened. “You see the airport there, the runway? Below it, all of that floods out and Warwick Neck becomes Warwick Neck Island.”

Whitehouse also displayed maps of what downtown Providence might look like in various scenarios, including sea-level increases of 3, 5, 7 and 10 feet. Some of these scenarios show existing businesses underwater.

One of the other topics surrounding sea level rise was housing and real estate.

“There have been a couple of studies from Zillow and others that looked at what this means for the Rhode Island real estate market, because when this stuff happens it becomes an economic crunch,” Whitehouse said.

He said 4,800 houses in the state – “$3 billion worth of homes” – are predicted to be underwater with just 6 feet of sea level rise. He mentioned that the risk areas have more growth than the non-risk areas of the state. Additionally, he said that homes along the coastline may have to “clear out” because of risk nationwide.

“For towns that have a lot of value along the coast, when you pack up and clear out, they lose an enormous amount of their tax base,” he said.

Whitehouse added that a municipal bond insurer is beginning to include sea level rise when determining credit worthiness for coastal cities. Also, he said First Street Foundation conducted a study in Rhode Island that showed $4 million in property values lost now in Warwick, $2.7 million lost in Watch Hill, $3.5 lost in Misquamicut and $1.6 million lost in Charlestown – all due to sea level rise and flooding.

“What they did is they looked at where they anticipated property values should be, and then they looked to recent property sales and appraisals and adjusted it for that,” he said. “What they’re showing is the property values along the coast are starting to tail off below property values inland.”

Fugate, who spoke after Whitehouse, also discussed sea level rise during the presentation.

“We’ve been watching what’s going on with our shorelines, and the changes that we’ve been seeing that are supposed to occur over thousands of years, are occurring within the decade or so,” he said. “The changes are really accelerating.”

He said CRMC started to take a “long-range look” at effects around Hurricane Sandy. He also added that the two major threats the organization is looking at for the state are the possibilities of a sudden change through a major tropical storm or hurricane and slow-moving sea level rise. He explained that rising sea level will occur over time, and that an issue is predicting “how much by what time.”

“We have about a decade to sort of get on top of this before it gets out of control and we hit a tipping point where it would be very difficult for us to pull it back,” Fugate said.

He also discussed concerns regarding greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane in the atmosphere, which along with the greenhouse effect and the sun’s heat end up heating the Earth in excess. He brought up sea ice melting as well, which is due to the warming of oceans.

“Sea level rise is varied all along our globe, our coastline, and there are many factors that contribute to sea level rise,” he said.

Fugate made a connection between the Ocean State’s location on the eastern seaboard and how sea level rise may affect Rhode Island. He explained that the Northeast has seen the biggest impacts of sea level rise because of the slowing of currents, which could “account for another foot to two feet of sea level rise from Hatteras to Boston.”

During the Q&A portion of the event, members of Sunrise RI – a local chapter of a nationwide organization focused on climate change – called on Whitehouse to support proposed “Green New Deal” legislation. One Brown University student, Ann Garth, asked the senator if he would support the legislation, to which he replied that he would not.

Members of Sunrise RI in attendance then presented banners that read “Fossil Fuel Infrastructure = Rising Seas” and “Green New Deal = Prepared Communities.” They stood at the front of the community room while the senator answered questions. Many other members of the audience joined them at the front while Whitehouse explained why he would not co-sponsor the legislation.

“There is no scenario that I’ve seen yet, under a lot of work, that solves the climate problem that we face without Congress legislating,” he said. “There’s no way without there being a bill, and my experience in the Senate has been that if you want a bill, particularly when you’ve got the other side that is organized as it is against us, you need to have a team and you need to have everybody pulling together.”

One member of Sunrise RI mentioned that young people are the largest voting block in the country. The senator acknowledged that and said “we have got 2020 to work toward and we’re going to see that bill, but there also needs to be a bill.”

After Whitehouse addressed the question, members of the group walked out of the room with a portion of the audience members leaving with them.

When asked how he will work with Rhode Island’s cities and towns to prevent the dangers to residential areas, Whitehouse said he has been taking the climate change presentation to different municipalities and to chambers of commerce with Fugate, as well as to real estate businesses and banks.

“[Fugate] and CRMC have done a very good job of working with the League of Cities and Towns as well,” he said. “I’ve spoken with the League, which is the insurer for all the municipalities, and then by visiting with town manager in Narragansett to look at the dike around there, or going to Warren to look at the flood changes that they see coming.”