Boston Athenæum

December 10, 2018 at the Boston Athenæum. This free-for-members event is made possible with support from the William Orville Thomson Endowment, which is generously funded by Athenæum Proprietor Peter Thomson. We often allow ourselves to be lulled into the notion that the real impacts of climate change will come with sea level rise sometime much later in this century. The truth is that the significant changes of climate are upon us, and the likelihood that we will be hit by catastrophic precipitation-based flooding increases annually. The expectation is that we will suffer flooding like Pensacola, Florida; Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Columbia, South Carolina; and Houston, Texas sooner than later, and very likely in the coming twenty years. Yet there are things we can do now to mitigate and even eliminate any impacts, the necessary changes can largely pay for themselves, and those changes would dramatically improve the appeal and livability of our city and region. Join Bob Zimmerman, former executive director of