Rhode Island

Rhode Island is a New England state sharing borders with Connecticut and Massachusetts and having 40 mi. of Atlantic seacoast. It is the smallest U.S. state by area, but is the second most densely populated, with over 1,000 inhabitants per sq. mi (386 per sq. km). Most of the state’s population lives in urban and suburban areas.

Narragansett Bay, an arm of the Atlantic Ocean, is an important geographical feature of the state as it includes many harbors and inlets, which facilitated trade in the colonial period and now are an important asset for tourist development. Over half the state is forested, and it has many small lakes and streams. The leading industries are electronics manufacturing and jewelry manufacturing, with agriculture playing a minor role.

Major agricultural products include greenhouse and nursery goods (accounting for over half the state’s agricultural income) and dairy products. Rhode Island is already affected by global warming. Spring melt in New England currently occurs about two weeks earlier than it did 50 years ago, weather records show warming of average temperatures, and the number of safe days for outdoor ice skating and ice fishing have declined.

In Providence, Rhode Island’s capital, the average temperature has increased by 3.3 degrees F (1.83 degrees C) over the last 100 years, and this increase is expected to continue, along with an increase in the number of very hot days. Increased heat will also mean greater demands for Rhode Island’s limited supply of freshwater for both agricultural and residential uses; currently, 35 percent of state residents depend on well water. The ocean level is expected to rise 1–12 in. (2.5–30 cm) in Rhode Island over the next 50 years, requiring expensive containment measures and causing some coastal properties to disappear entirely underwater or otherwise become unusable. 

Rhode Island already has an air pollution problem (the number of smog days currently exceeds the legal limit), which is expected to continue in the future if the temperature continues to increase and nothing is done to reduce current sources of air pollution (including automobile emissions). Warmer temperatures provide an excellent environment for mosquitoes and ticks, and their populations are expected to increase, potentially resulting in more cases of insect-borne diseases such as West Nile virus, Lyme disease, and eastern equine encephalitis. Rhode Island’s forests are also impacted by global warning; for instance, the black and red turpentine beetle, which damages and can kill pine trees, was previously known only in more southern states, but has now become quite common in Rhode Island.

A 1997 lobster die-off in Rhode Island was associated with the onset of a bacterial shell disease because of warmer ocean temperatures. Other fish and shellfish populations are also affected by global warming, and the New England fishing industry is expected to decline as ocean temperatures become too warm for current fish populations, particularly cod. Warmer water temperatures are also expected to curb the spawning of winter flounder and to favor diseases that affect oysters, scallops, and quahogs. 

The Rhode Island Greenhouse Gas Stakeholder Project began in 2001 as a joint project among the Department of Environmental Management, State Energy Office, and governor’s office. Stakeholders in this project published the Rhode Island Greenhouse Gas Action Plan in July 2002, outlining policies intended to reduce the state’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to 1990 levels, with further reduction by 2020 (to 10 percent below 1990 levels) and in the long term (to 75 percent or more below 1990 levels). The Greenhouse Gas Action Plan includes 49 consensus initiatives intended to lower the state’s GHG emissions in the categories of buildings and facilities, transportation, land use, energy supply, and solid waste.

Among the highest-priority items in the plan are a program to retrofit facilities heated with oil or natural gas to conserve those fuels, a program to encourage households to select the smallest appropriate appliances, an initiative to retrofit buildings heated by electricity to conserve fuel, creation of tax credits for energy efficiency, creation of a program to impose fees on consumers buying low-efficiency vehicles and offer rebates to those purchasing higher-efficiency vehicles, and requiring that a minimum percentage of retail electricity sold in Rhode Island be generated from renewable sources.