Efforts to adapt to climate change provide business opportunity and therefore opportunity for lawyers. That apolitical message has been a recurring theme of these columns. Just recently, the press has reported on two examples of floating home projects motivated, at least in part, by demonstrating adaptation to sea-level rise. That provides us with an opportunity to be less theoretical about the breadth of legal issues that arise when clients seek to build adaptation projects.
Those in the Philadelphia area may have seen press reports of, or may have visited, WetLand, “an otherworldly houseboat moored on the Delaware River that’s part interactive public art installation, part urban farm and dwelling place,” according to the Philadelphia Fringe Arts Festival’s website. Artist Mary Mattingly has installed what she intends to be a self-sustaining residence as part of the festival, off the grid for food, water and power. As the site says, “Imagine a near future when rivers and oceans begin to rise, when urbanites must embrace water as part of life.”
