South Carolina plans action on climate change issues

Senior environmental attorney Tom Mullikin of Camden – chair of the Governor’s Floodwater Commission – is leading efforts to help defend South Carolina from the effects of a warming planet. The job includes dealing with rising sea levels, persistent flooding and severe storms coming in from the Atlantic and up from the Gulf Coast, as he explained to Capital Rotarians during their Sept. 23 Zoom meeting.

Mullikin (in photo) said debate over climate change has been “hijacked by politics” that breed division, but the Floodwater Commission wants to “occupy the middle ground” via emphasis on solving environmental challenges. Plans have been made to plant 1.8 million trees throughout the state on Earth Day 2021 as an example of local, positive action.

“We in South Carolina can’t solve the world’s problems,” Mullikin said. “What we’re going to have to do is solve ours.”

Floodwater Commission solutions range from planting more shoreline vegetation to constructing natural and artificial reefs along the coast; from cleaning canals, ditches and rivers to replacing fossil fuel power plants with utility-scale solar.

“We’re in the process now of helping to create an electric highway, because BMW and Volvo are making South Carolina manufacturing one of the global leaders in e-vehicles,” Mullikin said, touting moves toward reducing the state’s greenhouse gases footprint. “‘Environmental sustainability and economic sustainability are not mutually exclusive,” he added. “We can be more protective of the environmental and more profitable.”

Mullikin graduated from the University of South Carolina with a law degree in 1986. The retired commanding general of the S.C. State Guard, he’s also a “National Geographic Expert” and a Fellow in both the Manhattan-based Explorer’s Club and London’s Royal Geographical Society.