[ad_1]
HAVANA – Havana starts on the Malecon, the elegant, crumbling coastal boulevard whose early 20th-century buildings face a sea that sprays them with salt and pounds them with massive waves brought in by cold fronts or hurricanes.
That sea is warming and rising. The hurricanes are getting wetter and more intense. Along with a lack of maintenance, climate change is pushing the Malecon toward collapse.
Seventy percent of the buildings along the oldest, most fabled stretch of the Malecon have deteriorated so badly that they require partial or total demolition, according to one recent study. And at least four other buildings are in the process of being demolished after floodwaters lingered on the island last month, highlighting the many signs of the trouble faced by Cuba and the wider Caribbean in an age of rising temperatures.
Cuban experts predict the Malecon may not be able to last in its current form beyond 2100, when waters along Havana’s northern coast may rise as much as three feet, bringing larger waves and potentially catastrophic flooding.
“It’s hard to think that the Malecon will survive as such,” said architect Rolando Lloga,…
[ad_2]
Read-Full-Article
