As Tangier Island, in the Chesapeake Bay, sinks and the surrounding water rises, its marshland is drowning, steadily giving way to open water.
Tiny U.S. Island is Drowning. Residents Deny the Reason
Water will one day swamp historic Tangier Island, in the Chesapeake Bay. But its inhabitants argue that it's erosion, not climate change.
Few of us could find Tangier Island on a map. A tiny sliver of mud and marsh grass in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay, it is one of the most isolated communities in America. But many of us, if we are lucky, will have tasted its most famous product, soft shell crab, a delicacy that has made the island famous worldwide. But as Earl Swift explains in his new book, Chesapeake Requiem, the future for the island, and numerous other low-lying communities across the world, is not looking bright, as a result of rising seas due to climate change.
When National Geographic caught up with the author at his home in Charlottesville, Virginia, he explained how
