In 1969, Hurricane Camille, a Category 5 storm, destroyed every structure on the coast of Mississippi, including the beach home of Duke University geologist Orrin H. Pilkey’s parents. Previously a specialist in deep-sea sediments, Pilkey began to investigate the relationships among climate, sea level, and beaches. As early as 1979, he began to sound the sea level alarm with books like The Beaches are Moving: The Drowning of America’s Shoreline. Like many whistleblowers, he was not always warmly received. “Twenty-five years ago,” Pilkey said in a 2006 Grist interview, “when I began speaking and writing about seawalls and how they destroy beaches, I was shocked at the tenor of the response to this idea both from professional engineers and from developers and politicians … As a scientist, I was unaccustomed to such personal attacks.” Nonetheless, he persisted.