Unless you are a person who thinks the Apollo Moon landings were faked, perhaps, or that the Earth is flat, it is impossible to argue with NASA’s observations of sea level rise. Satellites tracking the oceans’ surface since 1993 have measured a steady increase, now nearly three and a half inches since Bill Clinton’s first year as president.

Three and a half inches might not sound like much, but in such a short time, the unrelenting rate is extremely alarming for coastal communities. Coastal tide gauges show an even greater rate of rise. As the National Aeronautics and Space Administration explains, sea level rise is caused for the most part by global warming. There are two main factors: higher temperatures that cause seawater to expand and added water from melting ice sheets and glaciers.

Just this week, a new study revealed that the Greenland ice cap is melting about four times faster than previously thought. The volume of water from the loss of approximately 280 billion tons of ice a year, and sometimes as high as 400 billion tons a year, was described by National Geographic as more than enough to cover Florida and New York “hip deep” in meltwater, and then some.

Fortunately, this is not going to happen anytime soon, if only because the world’s oceans are 70 percent greater than the land mass, so the inflow is widely dispersed. But the relentless landward movement of mean high water, though only a few millimeters a year, makes for dramatic changes in places where sea meets land — like Long Island.

What the increase of the past 20 years has meant for coastal erosion depends a lot on location. Nonetheless, anyone who has watched the beaches, particularly on the bay side of Long Island, can report that the destruction of dunes accelerated over that time. One very rough rule of thumb is that for every inch of sea level rise, about a foot of dune or beach is lost. Anecdotally, that appears to be in the ballpark, with houses notably at the brink in Montauk and Amagansett and an intractable problem along the developed Montauk ocean shoreline.

A rising sea has grave implications for waterfront property owners, many of whom bought houses that were built well before the science was understood. It will also challenge local governments, like East Hampton’s, where 1990s-era regulations banning erosion control structures are already being ignored as impractical. 

As individuals, there is little we can do other than reduce our use of fossil fuels and push elected officials to take a firm stand on climate change. Unless far greater action is taken, children born today on Long Island will experience a massive remaking of the landscape from more than two feet of sea level rise by their old age. They will curse our memory if we do not press for everything possible to slow the pace of our rapidly warming planet.

Amid a period of transition following the appointment of Andrea Grover as its director, there has been one charming constant at Guild Hall, the annual Student Art Festival. The program opened last week with a round of performances. A show of paintings, small sculpture, photography, drawing, and collage will be on view Fridays through Mondays, through Feb. 24. Workshops led by educators from Golden Eagle Artist Supply will be held on Saturday.

The exhibition itself is a pleasure, year in and year out. High schoolers produce highly accomplished work, often quite serious in tone and theme. Younger students’ work is a riot of color, pattern, and joy. One of the fascinating things about the whole K-through-12 extravaganza is how different each school’s entries are. Tiny Wainscott’s pieces are always standouts. Springs, as perhaps befits a place where the legendary Abstract Expressionists Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner, and Willem and Elaine de Kooning painted, are wildly expressive — plus the Springs School’s epic fourth-grade opera is staged each fall. 

Art matters. Educators say over and over again that such creative activities are not simply a luxury for the most well-off districts, they are an essential building block of many of the qualities needed in adulthood for success and satisfaction. These include the hand-eye skills developed in a toddler’s scribbling and even decision-making, as simple as the choice of which color to use where when coloring. As children get a little older, art sparks inventiveness, the kind of thinking increasingly important in our complex, digital present. Cultural awareness is boosted, as they learn about artistic expression down through time and around the world. 

Finally, time and again, studies have demonstrated a powerful link between the arts and other achievement. A report by Americans for the Arts found that children who do nine hours of art a week are four times more likely to be recognized for academic achievement, to enter a math or science fair, or win a writing award. And if that were not enough, art is simply fun. Thank you to Guild Hall for always being there for our kids.

Public conversations about climate change tend to focus on extremes. There are those who understand the science and those for whom no amount of evidence will be enough. There is also an insidious middle ground.

This was demonstrated last week during a meeting about the Deepwater Wind project to set 15 electricity generating turbines far in the ocean, bringing a supply cable ashore somewhere in East Hampton Town, probably in Wainscott. Many of the comments at the Nov. 5 session were skeptical: What would the project’s effect be on fishing? Would commercial harvesters be compensated if they lost gear or saw valuable catches decline? What about utility rates? What if more turbines were to follow? Elected East Hampton Town Board and Town Trustee officials spoke apprehensively, asking that specific questions be answered in a required impact study to be completed by next fall. 

It is tempting, perhaps, for officials to try to steer clear of polar opposites when policy decisions have to be made. It was easy for the board some years back to declare that East Hampton Town would go to 100-percent renewable energy, first by 2020, and when that was too soon, to push the goal out 10 more years to 2030. In practice, however, the town has tried to steer a center course. East Hampton has adopted incentives for home solar installations and added hybrid vehicles to its town fleet. But it has tended to sound a lot like the opposition on the Deepwater Wind farm. 

To a large degree, the town has behaved as if nothing were wrong at all, allowing continued building in coastal areas threatened by sea level rise. It plans costly sewage treatment for downtown Montauk, which will be financially dependent on the continued existence of the imperiled “first row” oceanfront hotels and residential complexes. And officials appear to have doubts about offshore wind. What they need to realize is that calling for caution at a time of immediate crisis is calling for nothing at all.

Global warming is happening, and with it devastating ocean acidification that is affecting fisheries. Those who delay urgent action are, in effect, siding with those who think it is all a hoax. A massive United Nations study released in October warned that there are only 12 years to keep global warming from hitting an additional 1.5-degrees Celsius — after which things get worse — much worse. Unprecedented changes will have to occur to stave off drought, floods, extreme temperatures, and hundreds of millions of people plunged into poverty once a 2-degree Celsius rise is neared. Cutting power emissions is not the only answer; carbon capture and shifts to electric transportation will be key as well. 

Deepwater Wind and its new Danish parent company believe there are powerful, market-based ways to help fight climate change. This is not to say that Deepwater should have carte blanche to do whatever it wants; a forthcoming impact study will look at the parameters of the project. At the same time, with an irrational, venal leader in the White House who is eager to pull the United States out of the Paris climate agreements, it is important that state and local leaders recognize the dire stakes.

On the South Fork, the looming threat is sea level rise. Under estimates of moderate warming, in 60 years Napeague will be gone, making Montauk an island of its own and nearly every part of downtown Sag Harbor will be underwater. But even before that the impacts will be near catastrophic.

There are no simple solutions, of course. The town board and trustees assumed the responsibility for reacting to climate change when they asked for the public’s vote. It is past time for them to take an active role. If they see a better way out of this global crisis, we are all ears.

The report was at the top of news websites and on front pages everywhere by Saturday morning. But if you were anything like us, with our copy of The Times languishing in the driveway, you might have missed it. Burying bad news is nothing new; the government joke from Albany to Sacramento is to announce something on Friday afternoon before a long weekend if you want to be sure to get it ignored.

A rapidly warming earth, however, is hard to ignore, and that’s an understatement. Thirteen federal agencies, including the Department of Defense, Environmental Protection Agency, and the State Department, agree and prepared the fourth National Climate Assessment. It paints a terror-inducing picture. And, just so our readers can grasp how fully the Executive Branch is behind this, we briefly list the remaining 10 participating agencies: Agriculture, Commerce, Energy, Health and Human Services, Interior, Transportation, NASA, the National Science Foundation, and the Agency for International Development. Eight of the agencies’ heads are members of the cabinet, reporting directly to the president. For his part, Mr. Trump has dismissed the report as “fine.”

The key points in the assessment are:

• Climate change creates new risks and makes existing vulnerabilities worse, with challenges to health, safety, quality of life, and the economy.

• Without sustained global effort, economic growth in the United States will be impeded and the infrastructure affected negatively.

• The true effects of climate change are difficult to predict, due to the interconnection of natural, built, and social systems around the world.

• Current emissions-reduction programs do not approach the scale necessary to avoid substantial damage to the economy, environment, and health.

• Negative impacts on the quality and quantity of water are already being felt, with costs to agriculture, energy production, industry, recreation, and the environment.

• Extreme weather, poor air quality, and the transmission of diseases via insects, pests, and food and water contamination already threaten the well-being of the American people, particularly vulnerable populations and indigenous peoples.

• Fire, extreme weather, and drought endanger the sustainability of the food supply and price stability.

• Coastal communities are at risk of floods, ocean acidification, decreased fisheries, and environmental losses. 

• Tourism and recreation will be degraded by the multiple effects of climate change.

Regional economies that depend on a healthy environment and a favorable climate will be increasingly vulnerable. Stronger hurricanes can take out power, with cascading bad effects on hospitals and waste treatment plants, and upend local food production. The East End certainly fits in this category, as a raw sewage overflow brought about by heavy rain this week forced the closing of the waters around Greenport.

Among national challenges will be the $1 trillion in coastal real estate that will be increasingly at risk. Again, this is a huge looming issue here.

Wind, floods, and temperature spikes will impact military bases and production facilities in all 50 states. Rising temperatures will decrease electricity generation and at the same time increase demand on the grid for air-conditioning and refrigeration, which could lead to blackouts. 

Airborne allergies are expected to increase. Higher ozone levels will bring yet more health risks. The rate of Lyme disease and other tick-borne afflictions will grow. Even mental health effects are anticipated as the result of economic changes and evacuations. And some large-scale impacts may last for thousands of years, such as the loss of coral reefs, the disintegration of ice sheets — and sea level rise. 

It all depends on the present. Adaptation, such as East Hampton Town finally is thinking about in several studies and dedicated coastal committees, can occur at the state and local level. Mitigation, however, requires a national and global strategy. Fossil fuels used in cars, industry, and power production supply about 85 percent of all the greenhouse gases in this country. New technology, alternative sources, and a price on carbon are among the potential solutions.

A side benefit is that efforts to limit climate change in the future can have immediate benefits for air quality, public health, reduced crop damage, and increased energy independence through greater reliance on American made sources — something the Department of Defense likes.

Adaptation will take money and equal amounts of will, the assessment concludes, and in some cases, lots of it. However, changes now can reduce the cost of future climate impacts by more than half. The long-term savings speak for themselves at every level of government.

The authors could have had eastern Long Island in mind in observing that communities have tended to deal with current risks and not prepare for the future. For example, responses in the coastal zone have been centered on making buildings and infrastructure somewhat less sensitive to climate effects rather than addressing the expected scale of future change and emergent threats. These include reducing costly taxpayer exposure by preventing building in high-risk locations and retreating from at-risk coastal areas. 

What a gift we could leave our children and our children’s children if we could make long-term investments now to not saddle the coming generations with the wreckage of our own inaction — and the bill to pay to make it right again, if that were even possible.

This evening at about 6:30, the East Hampton Town Board will hold a hearing on a more than two-year effort to write a new master plan for Montauk, the culmination of a hamlet study by consultants whose goal was to create more attractive, walk-able, and economically vibrant commercial centers.

Business is a big deal in Montauk. A 2017 inventory counted 309 different concerns, occupying about 1.1-million square feet of indoor space, while about two-thirds of the houses in the hamlet are second homes or seasonal rentals. Montauk also is burdened with 70 percent of East Hampton’s hotel rooms and a staggering number of day trippers in summer. The study’s authors identified three principal geographic areas: the downtown commercial center, the vicinity of the train station, and Montauk Harbor around Flamingo Avenue and West Lake Drive.

Environmental challenges include threats to groundwater from pollution, saltwater intrusion, and habitat loss, particularly along the Lake Montauk shoreline. The deer population has burgeoned, bringing unwelcome change to the woodlands, nearly eliminating herbaceous plants and saplings, as well as being a habitat for ticks, with the potentially fatal illnesses and meat allergy they can cause.

Sea level rise’s impact on low-lying parts of the hamlet presents a distinct set of problems. The entire first row of hotels and residences along the ocean shore is within a high-risk, 100-year flood zone, and a good portion of the remainder, as well as what is around the Montauk docks, is within a potentially catastrophic 500-year flood zone. As such, the study foresees a bridge being needed some years out to get east of Fort Pond. And, because the oceanfront remains zoned for resorts, significant redevelopment could still potentially occur. This will have to change, the authors imply. 

Among the recommendations are relocating houses and businesses from threatened areas to higher ground — likely paid for by the acquisition of property for open space and wetland restoration. The public is already paying dearly in a fool’s errand at so-called Dirt Bag Beach in Montauk. Temporary storm protection would be allowed there in order to buy time for some businesses to shift away from the vulnerable shore or use development rights credits elsewhere — rebuilding protective dunes where the oceanfront row of hotels had been. 

The consultants also warn of the possibility of a new project of “significant size” around the Gosman’s Dock properties near Montauk Inlet. Maintaining the fishing fleet as the harborfront is gentrified will be a challenge, they say. A real, working fishing industry, not a “Disneyland idealized version,” should be the goal.

One of the most pressing issues is how to expand affordable and seasonal housing for workers in Montauk’s service and fishing industries. Changes to town law after 2005 reduced the estimated total buildout significantly, but the study notes that more than 600 new housing units could still be constructed.

Other recommended changes involve downtown parking and traffic, better street lighting, and making the road around Carl Fisher Plaza at the center of downtown one-way only. And throughout the hamlet, development should be based on thoughtful new standards for buildings, streets, sidewalks, parks, and other public spaces, focusing on mixed-use pedestrian-friendly places.

Tonight’s hearing is more or less a formality at which residents can have a last say at the overarching goals within the plan. What happens next is up to the members of the town board. They have a very good basis to work with.

Despite the ease of online shopping, there is still reason to buy locally, especially during the December holidays, when seeing, feeling, and, in some cases, tasting or smelling something nice for a friend or loved one can’t be topped. To fill your list, we want to suggest some of the East End’s many bazaars and gift fairs organized by charities and churches. 

The list of places where your dollar goes to help good causes is too long to complete here, but a rundown of holiday events is included with this issue. A few we can recommend to get a jump on shopping are the Clay Art Guild show at the Bridgehampton Museum Archive and a Christmas fair at the Montauk Community Church. The Ladies Village Improvement Society will stay open late on Friday, Nov. 30, for after-work browsing. Dec. 1 and 2 offer a whirlwind of events, with gift fairs at St. Ann’s Episcopal Church in Bridgehampton, Ashawagh Hall in Springs, and, if you need to take a break from the Tanger mall, a wood-carvers sale at the Suffolk County Historical Museum in Riverhead. Temple Adas in Sag Harbor has a Hanukkah party and shopping on Dec. 2, and in Amagansett the Life-Saving Station hosts an artisans market that afternoon.

Think of shopping locally as a one-two punch. You get unusual gifts to give and get a feeling of doing good at the same time.

At some point in the last few years the traffic on South Fork roads passed a critical point: Nightmare drives are no longer just in summer; they can occur almost any time of year.

Consider Monday of this week, when a utility pole down across Route 114 in Sag Harbor near Lincoln Street stopped travel in both directions. This had an immediate effect on morning travel times, as drivers backtracked and then had to find alternate routes. Montauk Highway eastbound was far worse than normal; back roads were packed — all this on a Monday in November.

Taking a look at the a.m. tie-up on Monday, it was, as usual, mostly the so-called trade parade — vans, trucks, and delivery vehicles — heading for East Hampton Village and points beyond to provide materials and services for a resort and weekend home community that are no longer able to be provided by nearby businesses. It is an odd reality that fresh baked goods now come from bakeries in Queens, labor from mid-Island, and schoolteachers from farther than that.

The difficulty in getting to the South Fork hurts most businesses by limiting the pool of potential employees, especially as real estate speculation has mopped up so many of the once-affordable places to live. Better work force housing should be a critical long-term objective for the South Fork towns and incorporated villages, but leverage must also be applied to transportation.

A new local rail shuttle, to begin service in February, is a start and may serve white-collar workers and those in health and retail. It will have only a negligible impact on the twice-daily construction and services flow, none on trucking. Implicit in the shuttle concept is that buses or other means must be found to carry passengers the “last mile” to their homes and workplaces, thanks to the decentralized nature of workplaces here, as well as residential areas.

A road system that recognizes that current traffic conditions are going to persist is essential. Everything must be looked at, including replacing the Water Mill and Wainscott stoplights with blinking lights, at least during morning and afternoon hours. Studying whether the high-tension electric lines north of Montauk Highway could provide a backbone for a new service route must take place. And, as has been suggested before, using some of the Long Island Rail Road right of way for vehicles might be reconsidered. Overnight parking for work trucks near the shuttle stations would help, though few would be in neighborhoods where they would be welcome.

Bike paths, trains, and walking are all terrific notions, but getting the tradespeople in loaded vans to job sites will for the foreseeable future require the roads. And, as houses get ever bigger and more technically complicated, the trade parade is only going to get bigger. Answers will require a lot more than roadside beautification or litter patrols. The sooner we get going the better.

With the fast approach of a planning deadline for Suffolk County’s mosquito control effort for 2019, there is a renewed call for a stricter limit, if not a total ban, on a chemical used to control the stinging menace’s populations. 

Methoprene spraying of salt marshes is a favorite technique of the county Vector Control Department, whose responsibility is to limit annoying and potential disease-carrying mosquitoes. Its methods have long come under fire from environmentalists concerned that the wholesale use of pesticides and other compounds causes excessive harm to other wildlife. This year, activists, the East Hampton Town Trustees, and the Nature Conservancy banded together to do something about it.

In a pilot program at Accabonac Harbor in Springs, volunteers conducted weekly mosquito larvae counts. After the data were entered on a smartphone app, the Nature Conservancy passed it on to the county, which had agreed to limit methoprene application as a trial based on the sample results. The program was, surprisingly enough, among the first evidence-based mosquito control efforts here; given the size of the county and limited staff and money, actual sampling was limited. Now, armed with information, the county Vector Control Department can make informed decisions about when and where to spray.

The problem with methoprene is that it appears to harm non-target insects as well as crustaceans. Strict restrictions on its use have been put in place in other areas, such as New York City’s Jamaica Bay. An increasing number of environmentalists and groups on Long Island, including Defend H20 and the Accabonac Protection Committee, would like to see it curtailed here. Bills are pending in the State Legislature to do just that, and a petition calling on Suffolk Executive Steve Bellone to end its use is circulating.

Vector Control has long sounded the alarm about mosquito-borne diseases, such as West Nile virus. However, given its rarity, that focus could be misplaced and its resources might be better directed to the demonstrated health risks posed by an exploding tick population. Mosquitoes may be irritating, but the real health crisis here right now comes from blood-sucking pests that crawl, not fly.

What the Accabonac test demonstrates as well is the power of cooperation among citizen volunteers, private organizations, and government officials. Agencies such as the Suffolk Health Department, the Department of Public Works, and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation are stretched thin by tight budgets and vast and complex responsibilities. By gaining better knowledge of mosquitoes’ breeding, the county can further reduce the potential harm to other organisms or, we hope, eliminate the use of methoprene altogether.

Giving the public a way to get skin in the game to make a difference can be an asset both for policy and a healthier environment. Much credit is due to Suffolk Legislator Bridget Fleming for backing the mosquito larvae sampling. The program should be a model for other public-private collaborations to come on a range of issues.

It is little surprise that the Trump administration is giving the go-ahead to renewed fossil fuel exploration in the Atlantic. What is hard to imagine is the potential environmental cost from both drilling and the seismic tests to determine where to drill.

Five companies recently were authorized to begin looking. They are to search from Delaware to Florida using powerful blasts to probe the seafloor. One respected marine environmental group has said the noise is so loud that it can be heard up to 2,500 miles away. And the work could continue around the clock for months, harming dolphins, the critically endangered right whale, and many less charismatic marine species. Studies from Duke University and the University of North Carolina indicated that fish had fled an artificial reef during seismic testing. How long it took them to return was unclear.

Beyond the immediate effect of the tests, they are but a precursor to oil and gas extraction, something opposed by nearly every sitting East Coast governor, as well as thousands of other officials, including the town boards of Southampton and East Hampton. Representative Lee Zeldin said he, too, opposes seismic tests.

Despite all this, the administration is undeterred. It may be that this will be settled in the courts. A host of environmental and fishing groups have filed suit. Let us hope they prevail.

East Hampton Village is about to jump on the water-quality train in a big way. After a discussion early this month, it was clear that the village board’s wait-and-see position on wastewater had gone on long enough and that it was ready to mandate low-nitrogen septic systems.

Elevated nitrogen levels are a cause of harmful algae blooms in fresh water and degradation of the marine ecosystem. That said, results of the few state tests of East End bays have been below the Peconic Estuary Program’s level of concern.

The Town of East Hampton led the way in 2017, requiring that modern waste disposal be mandated for new construction. Businesses that had failed to follow an Environmental Protection Agency rule on the elimination of cesspools were targeted. Upgrades also were part of the law, with penalties of up to $500 a day while a violation continued. Shortly after East Hampton anted up, Southampton passed a similar law targeting new houses, “major” upgrades, and increases of 25 percent or more of floor area in high-priority areas. 

Costs for the advanced, low-nitrogen wastewater systems can reach $20,000 for a house, with required annual maintenance on top of that. Rebates are available to help offset installation but not maintenance bills, with cash for the rebates coming from the community preservation fund, up to 20 percent annually. 

It is too early in the game to know if the modern systems, which cost more than traditional leaching pools, will result in demonstrable improvement of freshwater and marine ecosystems. This uncertainty comes from the lack of baseline studies of nitrogen levels, though some new studies are now underway. Given the lack of data, the program is really little more than a poorly designed experiment. Therefore, it is only fair that government provide subsidies in the form of the rebates. 

We remain concerned, however, about the community preservation fund being used on such a large scale for expensive technology that is untested. If East Hampton Village decides to sign on, it should seek a different funding source. Every dollar spent on unproven water quality projects is a dollar less for the fund’s original purpose — land and historic preservation. 

Nitrogen, this era’s environmental bete noire, also comes from road runoff, agriculture, lawn fertilizers, and atmospheric sources. Further limiting development in watersheds could well prove to be the most beneficial investment in the long run. About low-nitrogen systems, no one knows.