It is seems quite likely that a lot of these measures and discussions are intended to avoid widespread panic and a real estate market collapse. All that precious real estate...... Miami, c'est fini? Is Mar-a-Lago within a flooding zone?
3
I grew up in Hialeah. The Little River Canal was in my backyard. Even back in the 50s and 60s the canal would flood to our house whenever there was a hurricane. I don’t even see the Canal on the map of flood prone areas today. Therefore I have my doubts about how accurate the predictions are. It will probably be much worse. Good luck, Miami/Dade, you’re going to need it
10
Most of the flooding that is happening is mainly from high tides. As the tide rises water moves up the drains and into the streets. This problem is only going to get worse as sea level rises. How is Miami (and may other cities) going to stop the tides? Some places put hatches on the drain outlets that don't allow the water to move up the drain. Eventually it would seem like the water will be over the drain outlet all the time. Over all I'd say good luck.
The efforts to control run off won't help this problem at all.
7
Miami and all of south Florida sits upon a limestone karst bedrock. Karst means that the rock under lying has more holes in it than a Swiss cheese has holes. The underlying structure is just holes and caves and more holes. And the level of fresh water that is the water of south Florida is a balancing act between sea water and fresh water. If the sea rises,, so will the fresh water, so will the rivers and the rain. You cannot build a levee or a dam on top. The water will go under.
Also a recent measurement of rise in south Florida measured a .79 inches increase per year. Per year. That is ten times the previous estimates of increases per year.
Ultimately,, you will not be able to save south Florida. All monies should begin today, toward relocating. There are seashells in the sand in Sebring, Florida. Center of the state. I've worked there, I've dug in the soils there. And they are not fossils, they are shells, still loose and lying in every shovel full of surface sand. Beach sand.
27
Florida's newest Senator, Rick Scott, who just left Florida's governorship, is a climate-change denier. He refused to allow policy officials to plan for climate change. Until we hold public officials accountable and act as an electorate and vote for climate-change activists, all major US coastal cities will suffer over the next few decades. It will be most severe on the east coast and gulf-coastal state lines, yet the cost will be nationwide. We conduct most (about 98 percent) of our trade through our ports. And two-thirds of our nation live on our coasts.
We are like ostrich's with our heads in the sand, but now it will be quick sand. So the question is: Can and are we willing to move fast enough to address the climate-change challenge?
29
Biscayne Bay, or most of it, has several State and National designation: Natiinal Park, Aquatic Preserve, Marine sanctuary. Unless the additional storm water they are pumping into it is adequately treated before discharge to the bay, it will become a very polluted body of water. Even the usual retention/ detention does not remove heavy metals, pesticides and other things you do not want humans and wildlife to ingest. I am also a bit confused in that I assume the bay level is also rising with the ocean since they are connected. Can’t quite get my head around pumping from one overflowing vessel to another accomplishes the long term goal.. maybe it is just me.
3
I doubt you can have a city where there is no fresh water nor where there is no vegetation. Long before the wave cover the building, the rising sea/salt water would have killed all the plants.
2
How long before Mar-a-Lago is underwater?
5
Nuttiness. As an article in the New Yorker a couple years ago clearly laid out, Florida itself, the very dirt Floridians walk on, is a sponge. As the oceans rise from underneath the state itself, the "sponge" will soak up the water and flooding will result. Are we going to laminate the ground to prevent that? Maybe take down and reassemble Miami on higher ground? There are all sorts of dumb and prohibitively expensive solutions to the problems we have brought on ourselves, but bottom line, Miami (and New York and New Orleans, etc. etc.), swimming lessons better be mandatory in school.
21
Wow, how crazy! Nothing is needed! Don't you know climate change is a hoax?
5
No mention of Governor Scott, who banned the Florida Department of Environmental Protection from even using the term "climate change"???
The Republican Party owns the damage the future will inevitably bring. Marco, teach your kids to swim.
13
MOVE MOVE MOVE!!!! you don't need to be a genius to understand that! the folly of humankind!
3
One way or another, we will adapt to climate change, or we will die, as has happened in many of these big storms. But adaptation is in many ways a chimera, if we believe that we can adapt to climate changes rather than control, reduce and eventually eliminate our fossil fuel emissions. Many of the fossil fuels lobbyists would like us to believe that we can easily adapt to whatever changes that take place, just like Trump's, Dr. Happer, would have us believe that CO2 is good for us. If we get distracted by adaptation, we may well lose the bigger battle of preventing the very effects we are trying to adapt to.
2
Is there any plan to move development away from the flood-prone areas? Will the buildings be demolished?
Remember that commercial form the past? "It's not nice to fool Mother Nature." My vote is with the water.
2
If you drain Biscayne Bay and build on it I think Miami might have this problem licked.
(sarcasm)
2
A complete waste of time and money. There is no doubt at all that Miami and much of the US coastal areas will be flooded in due time. The only unknown is "When".
4
Where were these inciteful intrepid alarmist reporters when Venice sunk to below sea level and Babylon disappeared? Henny Penny would be proud of these science impaired journalists. Why not develop technologies to deepen ocean trenches to swallow increasing seas and fast disappearing coastlines. Perhaps go the Dutch route and build sea bearing walls, oops dykes?
With pyrotechnics aplenty, this human-centric regarding climate control, catastrophizing generation could use a course in geology if not paleontology. A changing evolving system is just that. Guilt laden blame shifting is a political strategy not a scientific one for adaptation. At some point it is game over without space exploration and nuclear technologies which the green new deal eviscerates completely.
1
And who’s going to pay for those solutions? Developers? Florida taxpayers? Federal taxpayers? Why should a guy in Oregon pay to save Miami? If we were all in it together, maybe. That’s why Holland could do it. But this is the USA.
3
My question - if the ROI on mitigation efforts is so clearly positive, why don't the big insurance companies get together to fund it? They are the ultimate rational actors and this seems like a slam dunk for them - spend a dollar now and avoid dozens of dollars in claims in the future. Perhaps it is just inertia (they aren't there yet?) but I fear it might be that the risks are being exaggerated (and the efficacy of mitigation projects as well). I am not trying to ignore a real problem; I would like to better understand why something presented as so transparent a problem is being ignored by a large and powerful actor(s) (the insurance companies) who will be affected by that problem.
Although the actions are admirable, the fact is that they will not be able to stop the rising sea levels in the long run. Which brings up the bigger problem: As a society, we just don't have the processes, tools, government support in place to move an entire city, let alone one of the size of Miami. What will most likely happen is that insurance companies will pull out of flooded areas, impacting real estate values negatively, which will in turn bankrupt counties / states, which in turn will lead to abandonment.
5
It boggles the mind that the GOP has so many that deny there is a problem but more importantly that we can't adopt policies to work toward the problem - I guess there's just too much money at stake to lose for all the fossil fuel corporations and owners... we could help them out with another tax break or maybe do away completely with all regulations. Not likely to help the problem. Better to do nothing at the Federal level?
Several years ago one of the first govt agencies to call out climate change as a global threat and stating they had to act on it since they had a presence around the globe was the military. I guess even that voice has been silenced.
We've got an over abundance of corruption / self interest / dereliction of duty & a huge lack of even the most basic common sense.
As someone who grew up on the shores of Lake Michigan and watched my folks literally dump thousands of dollars into walls to protect their property from rising lake levels in the 80s to no avail, I have learned to respect and appreciate the power of nature. If the water is going to rise, there isn't much we can do to stop it.
Move.
8
While there is a segment of our nation that frets over redistribution of wealth and social services, what has occurred with our environment is redistribution of wealth to large oil companies.
We grant them access rights to public lands and tax them at a rate that does not take into consideration the real cost of the product they produce. Why should average Americans have to pay large taxes to build protection while oil companies make huge profits from a situation they are causing?
Every bit of flood prevention that gets paid for should come from the pockets of oil companies and others in the fossil fuel industries. That would properly refocus the issue and stop the corporate welfare we so blindly take for granted.
5
@Stew "Every bit of flood prevention that gets paid for should come from the pockets of oil companies and others in the fossil fuel industries."
Now, that's a bit unfair. We had flooding long before oil companies existed. While fossil fuel companies undoubtedly contributed to the problem, humans have also worsened the problem by building in inappropriate places or building to insufficient standards. Let's don't let them off the hook.
2
I am not sure how a higher sea wall can help, I understand the rock under Miami is all porous. The water will simply go under and rise up.
2
Somewhere in the North of Miami is a 30-foot high bluff. It is a fossil coral reef. All too soon to be a thriving environment again.
3
@VJBortolot
Pine Island Ridge in Davie in Broward County. 29 feet above sea level.
1
The Miami problem is much larger than for the Miami and Florida coastline, The reality is the problem is global and the environments of all human settlements are threatened by catastrophic climate change.
To avoid triggering a huge release of global warming gasses to the atmosphere from a thawing Arctic Permafrost there will need to be a dramatic change in the dependence of economies on energy created by coal, oil, and natural gas.
The key international institutions organized at the end of WWII, like the UN, the IMF, the World Bank, and maybe an institution that has not yet been organized will need to mobilize and share the international investment of capital to create a new non-fossil energy form to dominate the world market, invent the technology to scrub the global atmosphere of carbon dioxide, and desalinate ocean water that will eventually provide a livable, and desirable quality of life for about 10 Billion people by the end of the Century.
This is written mainly to catch the attention of Ban Ki-moon who knows the nature of the governments and people from a global perspective and he is urged to devote his attention to this issue.
Dr. James Powell, holder of the first M.I.T. doctorate in nuclear engineering and I have studied this issue for decades and conclude that there is an urgent requirement to develop space solar generated energy that can be beamed to Earth. This concept is outlined in his book, "Silent Earth", along concepts for water desal & CO2 capture.
3
Why do people express so much concern about rising co2 levels but they don't change anything in their own lives? I have an off the grid cabin in the woods that I have spent over $5000 on solar panels, wind turbines, batteries, inverters and other devices to enable me to survive without burning fossil fuels. In the winter when the days are short, I can barely produce enough electricity to run the furnace and some days I still have to run the generator to keep the batteries charged. If someone is truly concerned about our planet, find a solution! Solar and wind are not the answer so we had better come up with a solution. In the meantime, we'll continue to burn coal for electricity. The debate over climate change is useless. We should only focus on alternative forms of energy. At the moment we have none that are practical so this is a debate of morons.
4
Bravo to Miami fro taking a lead based on their obvious needs - the way communities and states ought to react!
What are the facts about the sea elevation change? Any real numbers?
It may not yet be time to leave Miami, but it's time not to buy there.
9
We can spend trillions upon trillions in a vain effort to mitigate the effects of Climate Change, or we can spend far less on efforts to curb it. Which makes the most sense?
We need a program equal to the Interstate Highway System to implement fourth-generation advanced nuclear reactor technology. This technology can CONSUME AND DESTROY nuclear waste in the process of producing clean, affordable electricity rather than CREATE waste like today's reactors do. This would be a great way to curb Climate Change and save trillions of dollars in mitigation costs.
2
Collective action? Isn't Florida the state that gave us Bush instead of Gore? Where they passed laws forbidding the mention of climate change?
Going to pump water during a flood into the Biscayne Bay and Miami River? It'll come right back, or will water levels magically be lower than normal in those bodies of water during high tides and storm surges?
You can't beat Mother Nature. And looking at the map, sayonara Miami Beach. Oh, and every prediction regarding climate change is noticeably worse than the prior ones issued just a couple years earlier.
This article was a pat myself on the shoulder nothingburger served with a side of Cuban rice and beans.
4
Instead of wasting billions of dollars of tax payers money on “adaptations” how about concentrating on PREVENTION now while there still may be time to stop the worst of the climate change destruction? Remember the old adage...An ounce of prevention...?”
1
Like all US cities that face the real threat of rising sea level, Miami appears to be going it alone without the federal government. To the mayors and city councils of all those cities the message is, your national government has abandoned you because its leader and ruling party doesn't care. It is a disgrace. Real harm is occurring now and those who should be doing something about this have forfeited their right to be national leaders.
4
This is terrible news for Al Gore. He will now have to sell his Miami beach front home.
2
Well, this brings up the 2000 memory of Gore v Bush for some. So many anomalies in that election, not the least of which was the overreaching Supreme Court decision. Florida, of course, was pivotal. We had a wonderfully prescient candidate willing to prioritize climate change as a national security issue, who won the popular vote, and we have the somewhat red state of Florida, ironically, supporting a man who spent billions on a deceptive war in Iraq. Guess where all of those billions might more wisely have been spent? And those two climate denying GOP Senators from Florida? May the people of that state finally hold non-corrupt elections, and, vote in their self-interest.
1
I suspect a lot of people believe the fix to rising sea levels is to build a sea wall. But that doesn't make sense, does it? Because the rain and the rivers need to get to the sea. Otherwise, we will flood from behind.
The water's rising. But Congress is lying down.
2
The fact that climate change is the new religion is seen here by the amazing number of comments which assume and hope that nonbelievers, "deniers", starting with the POTUS, will be smitten by Gaia with targeted floods...
4
The risk of destruction on many fronts is too high to wait for complete visible proof. Ocean rise is late in the destructive process. We have already borrowed much of the future from our grandchildren. Imaging: "Grandpa, why was your generation so selfish?"
https://climate.nasa.gov/interactives/climate-time-machine
1
As for right now I think there is little hope for Miami or Florida in general. The best tactic may be learn to float. Florida has just elected a new Senator who repressed the words Global Warming mush less gave any thought to the idea. Unless they just sort of try they need no help from the rest of the Nation. You guys want to stick around best to start looking at House boats. Good luck.
2
Florida is underlain by limestone - a relatively soft and porous rock that will allow rising seas levels to simply by-pass gates, pumps, seawalls, and all manner to technological fixes. The bad news is that Miami is already doomed. The good news is that if you operate a scuba/snorkel tour company, within a few decades there will be something called "The Miami Under Sea Experience."
3
Floridians, especially those on the coasts, live with climate change every day; yet they continue to elect governors and senators who deny it even as seawaters rise. Talk about voting against your own interests!
5
The Trump administration, much like the Catholic Church, has convened a commission to sweep something it doesn't want to deal with, under the rug. Unfortunately for both parties the problem already exists in the real world and will not go away. Outside entities are already mobilizing to deal with it on their own. In the case of the church it is the police. In the case of Trump and Climate Change it is the military, most government departments, states and cities. These organizations have already seen the effects of climate change on their facilities and cannot wait, or wish it away. It must be dealt with now. Trump will wind up looking foolish, again, congress with do nothing, again. Then there will be a disaster and the finger pointing will begin.
2
Why are the coastal municipalities and the county itself allowing all those huge buildings to be built, especially so close to Biscayne Bay and the Atlantic Ocean? That does not help Sea Level Rise or all the other problems caused by Climate Change. On the contrary, it exacerbates the situation, and that is the understatement of the millenia! We have to diversify our economy, so that we include other industries besides development, contracting, real estate and tourism.
4
Until the properties owned by Ron DeSantis, Rick Scott and Donald Trump are under water, they will deny any need to prepare for climate change and rising seas.
Mitch McConnell et al. are too far inland...maybe when the waters of the Potomac and lapping at the steps of Congress will they act.
3
@MomT
You can add Al Gore to that list as he doesn't really believe the oceans will rise either.
@Curtis Al Gore doesn't hold a post in government.
1
A large part of the impetus for building codes in this country came from the insurance industry - it is in their financial interest to have buildings be safer and lord knows the have large financials. Did we create a disconnect by letting them walk away from flood insurance by creating FEMA insurance? Would there be more push for flood mitigation efforts if insurance companies were more at risk?
2
@Paul de Silva If federal flood insurance didn't exist, it is likely the insurance companies just wouldn't write flood coverage, either. The disconnect caused by the insurance program isn't with the insurance industry, but with the private sector that doesn't have to face the financial consequences of building in a flood plain.
2
While climate change is a fact and most of this is true, there is so much wealth in Miami, and more importantly, that wealth belongs to those in power, those that legislate and those who call the shots.
Is the contention of this article that all of these people all of this wealth and investment will just throw their hands up and say, oh well, I guess we can’t live here anymore and abandon it ?
No, there will be billions of dollars thrown at this, and it won’t just be Florida, the Midwest will pay , the East Coast will pay for it, these will be federal dollars to build higher walls and water evacuation systems.
I hope the readership isn’t so naïve to believe that this property and lifestyle that the 1%’s enjoy will not be protected and preserved, please tell me that’s not what you were thinking .
4
The mayor of Miami concentrates now entirely on resilience, which is good, and which is a good use of public money.
Nowhere is there talk about putting money into changing the world climate.
After decades of snake oil politicians trying to sell climate control, Floridians had enough. They now elect politicians who can read the sea levels from actual sea gauges.
The cost of sea edge property in Miami has been rising much faster than the average for decades.
Cataclysmic predictions of Miami underwater (by the way, according to that kind of predictions 20 years ago, Miami and NYC SHOULD BE mostly under water now),
cataclysmic predictions are left to the NYTimes, see the article picture, not from the mayor.
These predictions somehow assume that sea levels rise, which was at the same rate for more than a century now, would get to become 10 times or 100 times faster by next Tuesday... Not clear how, but always, always the next Tuesday, after you ask. Never the one past.
You have to believe the experts on that, for their whole career was built on that scary prediction.
The only thing left out is to show the actual sea gauge measurements. Don't you find it strange that no article on sea levels in Florida ever actually shows the official measured NOAA sea levels in Florida.
As a scientist (QFT), I know that measurements are all that matters in modern science.
Here is the great Feynman
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OL6-x0modwY
I always show this to my honors students.
2
@novoad
"Nowhere is there talk about putting money into changing the world climate."
The people of Miami, or any other city, are not going to tax themselves in an attempt to change the world climate. That's just a waste of money because the $400 million would be ineffective in solving the global problem, but possibly very effective in mitigating local issues.
We need action at the national level, instead, where sufficient resources can be applied to the problem to actually have an impact.
2
Having lived in Ft. Lauderdale, Miami, and Key West at or near sea level, I'm happy I got out when I did in 1990. Since then, I've survived hurricanes in the Pacific along with several tsunamis. The ocean will not be driven back by engineering. I currently live on the Big Island at a comfortable 1100 foot elevation. Hopefully, that will be safe, in spite of the ignorance which drives the politicians to spend while ignoring the global warming threat.
3
What I can't figure out is why America's intelligent "progressives" keep living in -- and flocking to -- the New York metropolitan area, an area completely surround by water. Don't these intelligent and virtuous "progressives" know by now that Manhattan, Staten Island, the Bronx and all of Long Island will soon be under water, maybe as soon as 2020? Why on earth are they still there? Shouldn't they be heading for higher ground, or do they believe that taxing America's millionaires and billionaires out of existence or signing a climate document will make the sea levels drop?
2
@Ed L.
Brooklyn will flood more likely than the Bronx due to elevation and Bronx has schist bedrock. The catastrophic hurricane Sandy in 2012 has led to 20 ton flood gates being installed since 2017 in all the car tunnels leading out of Manhattan. There has been at least 9 inches sea level rise downtown since 1950 on the NY coastline exasperated by sinking land and winter noreasters.
3
@Ed L.The highest elevation in NYC is higher than that of the entire state of FL. And NYC is not sitting on limestone. N YC will survive, if in smaller form, but South Florida will not. BTW the most persuasive estimates I saw were talking about 2100, and the pace is accelerating. Facts are very sticky things... hard to ignore the water you're wading in.
3
I lived in FLA for 50 years, 30 at the beach.
Nature wins down there.
This is just posturing for the Chamber of Commerce, short-term thinking, & inexplicable adult denial.
South Florida has been an environmental disaster for decades. It's time to pay the bill at the adult's table.
We blew it and the party is over.
4
@Krista
Smart people like you will move away if conditions call for it. No one is being forced to live on the coast. Let them examine the facts and make their own decisions. And if they keep getting flooded in flood zones, remove the incentive to rebuild by abolishing the federal flood insurance which removes the moral hazard of rebuilding time and time again in flood zones. Tell people they'll have to live with their mistakes. Or is that too "conservative" an approach?
I live in Boca Raton, which is 40 miles north of Miami. On February 1, we experienced several hours of early morning rain. After the rain stopped, at one in the afternoon, I discovered that A1A, the main roadway along the coastline, was completed covered by several inches of water in two spots nearby my apartment. I have lived here for many years, and this is the first time that I have seen such a sight. I was afraid to drive my car under such conditions. The warning signs are already here. And yet coastal property values continue to rise. People need to wake up.
9
@Robert Lacks
Property values continue to rise because people want to live there. It's their choice. Let them live with the consequences. I'd ask you why, if you believe the end is near and your property is worth close to a million bucks, you aren't selling and leaving. If you're still there in 10 years and the flooding is more commonplace, will you still be complaining? When your property value plummets because of the apocalypse and you can't sell, will you be asking for a bailout from the rest of us?
3
Something similar could be written about the Jersey Shore, Charleston S.C, Mobile AL, Boston MA, NYC, London, Amsterdam, Hamburg, Bangladesh, Venice, Tokyo, Mumbai, and on, and on and....
If you think the world is chaotic now, just wait till nearly 1 billion people need to find new homes, new jobs, new sources of food and fresh water
5
@R.F.
You seem to believe that a billion people are going to move on the same day. That's not how civilizations evolve. Mankind wasn't born yesterday. People are not frogs in slowly boiling water.
@Ed L.
I do not believe that a billion people will all move on the same day. But even if it takes decades for this exodus from rising seas, it will still be a social, political, and economic upheaval of unprecedented proportions for which no one is preparing.
1
Please direct all of the diverted water a few miles north onto the palatial estate of the Climate Denier in Chief....
11
Sea levels in Florida are measured! For over 100 years!
Modern science is all about data, not opinions or reconstructions.
The official NOAA data is here
https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_station.shtml?id=8724580
The measured data is in blue. It has not been changed in any way. Here is the measuring gauge, a floater.
https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/stationphotos.html?id=8724580
The gauge shows that 100 years ago sea levels were rising at a natural, reassuring 2.4 millimeters/year = 0.8ft/century.
There were only a few train engines and factories, and a small fraction of today's population.
After a century of a huge increase in population and emissions, sea levels rise, according to the measured data at that gauge,
by THE SAME 2.4 millimeters/year = 0.8ft/century as 100 years ago.
But now it is assumed that the natural causes stopped. Replaced by human causes, miraculously to the exact same effect.
Like a glass falling off the table, because of gravity for the first half of the fall. Which mid way starts to fall because of human guilt.
Gravity stops acting and is replaced by EXACTLY THE SAME amount of human guilt. So one can see no difference. That is what guilt experts tell you.
Same with climate change.
CHECK ALL 500 sea gauges at that NOAA site. Click!
All sea gauges, some with a long record, show no change in the rate of rising seas over the last 200 years.
There are peer reviewed published papers checking this on ALL the gauge data.
6
@novoad
https://sealevelrise.org/states/new-york/
Coastal land sinks. We are talking about recent trends in sea levels not 100 year averages , ferocity and frequency of storms and damage.
1
@novoad
Science and journalism are not the same thing. Rising sea level is expected long after other major changes due to global warming. Global is the key word. Global warming will show itself in the frequency of powerful storms, droughts, fires, the COOLING of North Atlantic regions (due to the slowdown of the overturning circulation, the "pump", in the North Atlantic), acidification of the oceans (with the death of most coral) and THEN rising ocean due to ice sheet mass losses and the expansion of warmer water.
2
This piece reads a little bit like propaganda. I encourage readers to view this short clip prepared by Canadian Broadcasting Corp. about climate change effects on Miami in 2017.
https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/2557500937
Oh wait I thought that was about battling windmills I guess it’s rising seas now and if those bad bad seas get close enough to Key Largo that beautiful golf resort, we’ll have to spend whatever it takes, humanitarian aid, the military, navy seals, to fight those nasty nasty seas and we’ll win! Because that’s just what we do, we’re winners and Mother Nature needs to be locked -up. Lock her up!
5
What a waste of money for something that’s not even happening. Just put your heads in the sand, that’s free, and Conservative! Win, win.
1
@Rick And there is a lot of sand on the beaches -- well, maybe not as much as there once was but still an adequate amount for covering the head with.
1
I just finished reading The End of Ice by Dahr Jamail.
Sorry Floridians. You are toast. You can thank
Governor now Senator Scott.
Your grandchildren will need rafts.
5
For Readers who wish to know how the past 50 years of "Legal" Climate change came to be see
https://www.legalreader.com/50-years-of-legal-climate-change/
Too little too late
1
Hey people, rising sea level is a nice distraction from the people and policies that will actually destroy us all.
By the time the sea rises up, we will all be gone, thanks to anti-vaxers, Monsanto Foods (cancer causers) and the collapse of global our food systems (thanks to oil wars and massive drought). Oh, and also world war 3, brought to you by men with an inferiority complex, who usher in a nuclear winter. Have a nice day!
2
Miami Beach, a city entirely separate from Miami (also in Miami-Dade County) led the way through its proactive and costly efforts to address rising seas, detailed nicely in the Rising Above initiative. Nice to see Miami is following suit. http://www.mbrisingabove.com/your-home/flooding/
2
Gee, build a city on inadequately compacted landfill and it subsides.
Who knew.
http://www.ces.fau.edu/arctic-florida/pdfs/fiaschi-wdowinski.pdf
Put aluminum foil in your head and yell global warming, if it makes you feel better.
Geology, can explain this.
Cities like Miami and my nearby neighbor, Norfolk, face inundation with regularity. Adaptation is a modern way to whistle in the graveyard, relying on a few cubic yards of concrete locally to solve a much larger problem. (Also, that concrete itself can contribute to significant global warming as up to 5% of worldwide CO2 production occurs from manufacture of cement which makes up about 1/7th of the volume of concrete.)
We need a state and federal government which recognizes the fact and threat of global warming instead of a government which deals with global warming only by refusing to use the words in its documents and in its deliberations.
Water, like human excrement, relentlessly flows downhill.
4
To the Residents of South Florida - think Colorado, before your real estate values and homes disappear. Leave your Senators & Governor behind.
1
@GLO with no snow in Colorado, that property will soon be worthless, that will be the last place I would go
Too bad the Everglades are not around still
Go Midwest, young and old.
1
And still Florida, if given the chance, may in 2020 vote for another insane Republican who parrots the "no such thing as global warming" line.
Hugh Massengill, Eugene Oregon
8
Miami's rising seas is a forerunner of things to come because some refuse to acknowledge the reality of climate change. The "purpose" hardwired into humans by nature is the avoidance of pain, the pursuit of pleasure, attraction to sex, and survival. The other purposes assigned to humans by humans are mere products of the imagination. I realize that it is disquieting to think that our only purpose is a pain-free, pleasurable continuance, but in reality that is all there is - the rest is made up.
In the near future, we will program the survival program of humans in a computer (The "survival" program is the only program of the mind that can be programmed into a machine that cannot feel), and this program will teach us much about what the human mind actually does and what we have done to that programming in our societies. With this program of the mind, we shall finally know the truth, and, indeed, the truth shall set us free.
See: RevolutionOfReason.com
TheRogueRevolutionist.com
https://www.youtube.com/user/RobertLBlackburn
Nice photo.
A hurricane dumps 2' of rain on South Florida and there's 2' of water in the streets...and then the story goes on about how Miami is flooding due to global warming.
I checked the facts.
Miami's official sea level has gone up less than 1/8" the last 20 years.
At this rate..it will be up 1/2" by the end of the century.
OF course, since the planet is dead in 12 years, I guess we don't have to worry about that huge surge of 1/2" of water.
Get out the life boats matey!!
1
How is this possible? The Republicans told me that climate change is "fake news?"
3
Rich people waking up to the fact that their expensive Miami real estate is actually near worthless.
3
Sorry. A waste of money and resources. It's simply too late. Just move.
1
@s.s.c. They don't need concrete, they need U-Hauls! (RIP Sam Kinnison)
@Don. Yes. It took nature about 150,000,000 years to put all that carbon into the ground. We put it back into the air in a scant 150. We call that an industrial "boom". Now, we will get what we will get. No point at this point in worrying about "our role in climate change." Better to just figure out how we'll live going forward.
1
And yet Florida continues to shift to the right and vote for Trump, the world's leading climate change denier! Oh, the irony...
3
Miami will be destroyed by a hurricane before coastal flooding will ever get to be a chronic condition.
1
It’s good to know they’re preparing, because slowly but surely the water’s gonna come.
As a Floridian, I doubt that anyone else here cares about Miami. As Trumps speech the other day shows, it is part of Latin America not the US. The people there only care about their home countries, Cuba, Venezuela, etc.
1
As this inevitable progression takes place...how much money will be spent trying to save coastal cities and towns. At some point the cost/ benefit ratio will tilt to the negative. As this slow "boiling the frog" scenario takes place, we are going to have to make thousands of small decisions. For example, after a large hurricane or storm that destroys a coastal town or inundates a large metro area, should we actually re build those homes and businesses? Yes, I know, this is easy for me to say from the comfort of my inland location, but, that doesn't change the facts. Right now in NYC the Hudson Yards construction project is nearing completion, one of the largest projects ever undertaken. Investors build these giant towers, have they taken it into consideration that the subway's will be flooded? The train tunnels under the Hudson built in 1907? Did anyone think about the fact that the cancelled Amazon project was going to be in a flood zone???? Obama was right, climate is the biggest challenge facing the country today. The wall is a huge waste of money and beyond stupid.
3
I really love your headline photo.
It leads me to wonder, though, why we never, ever see the same scene with a $50,000,000 mansion in the background, Aston Martins floating away on the tide.
1
Maybe Trump who vacations just up the road in Palm Beach can declare another national emergency and build a wall around the state of Florida. That way he gets his wall and we save our state. Problem solved!
1
This article is very nice, Now all you have to do is convince Mother Nature... I wonder if she reads the Times.
Flood, heat, cold, fire, drought....the entire country and world has a story to tell. Permafrost melting, glaciers sliding, sea levels rising. A perfect storm.
We have almost two more season cycles before next election. My hunch is we’ll all have more stories to tell by then.
3
Miami was part of the Everglades--all of southern Florida was--and it will be reclaimed once and for all. The sea is going to rise and contaminate the aquifer. Sink holes are going to proliferate. And Miami will no longer be here in 30 years. Call it "adaptation" all you want. People are going to have to move.
72
@PersnicketyRph - Try doing your homework first before stating your case. There has always been dry South Florida land - Miami has been around since the 1800's and there are preserved native Indian burial grounds along Biscayne Bay in downtown Miami and obviously created long before Miami was a village! Now, Miami has built many miles west out to the Everglades and can go no further, as long as politicians refuse to allow construction west of the designated "urban development boundary."
Miami will always exist because much of it rests on ridges, above sea level. All one has to do is drive along Bayshore Drive in the Coconut Grove section of Miami to see "shallow cliffs", where some of the most expensive houses down here are located. No, we'll still be here in 30 years because we, unlike the "flat earth" people of this present administration, actually see the future and are acting upon it now.
5
@PersnicketyRph
What you say is true but men has always lived near the water, the water was and is life. Please consider the Netherlands and Venice both are vibrant cities that constantly fight the waters.
Miami's citizens have joined together to share the cost of remaining a viable city in the twenty-first century. This is certainly an endeavor that should be instilled in Americans, together we can.
The United States is under siege by the 1% and big Corporations who wish to continue their self-enrichment with continual tax and regulation avoidance. They have been very successful, with the election of trump, an obsolete Congress and a packed Court. Too many Americans are falling more behind and dazed by the circus and racial animosity. So the climate and our planet may be destroyed in the cacophony.
8
@PersnicketyRph
Unless we prepare for and adapt to mass migration, we are fighting a losing battle against high tides.
5
The only way to get Trump to focus on climate change is if Mar-A-Lago floods.
Oh, the irony. Please, Lord, make it so.
9
I think that Mr. Suarez is trying to swim against the current. The former governor of Florida, a climate change denier of the first order, forbade state officials from using the the term"climate change" and it was removed from all state documents. Sorry America but that governor is now a United States senator. Perhaps now that that governor is gone, Mr. Suarez might get more support from the state. However, it appears to be too little too late.
53
This seems a fool's errand, too little too late. The rest of Florida and the U.S. will end up subsidizing the wealthy on Miami Beach so they might enjoy an extra decade before becoming the new Atlantis.
7
@Philo Mcfadden - Amazing! You generalize by calling Miami Beach residents "wealthy"! Ha!
The worst wouldn't be the loss of a major city to a strong hurricane rolling in on higher sea levels.
The worst would be if we spent billions of dollars on a coastal defense, then built a lot of expensive infrastructure behind that defense under the mistaken impression that we can hold back the ocean.
"Today, we’re struggling with 3 millimeters [0.1 inch] per year [of sea level rise],” says Robert DeConto at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, co-author of one of the more sobering new studies. “We’re talking about centimeters per year. That’s really tough. At that point your engineering can’t keep up; you’re down to demolition and rebuilding.”
http://e360.yale.edu/feature/abrupt_sea_level_rise_realistic_greenland_antarctica/2990/
4
I would be selling now while the getting is good.
3
Just recently a article about the Dems may loose Florida voters. Since Miami is more under water from the damaging effects of coal and fossil fuels I had a laugh. They GOP supporters will be in tears coming back to the Dems when they are swimming in Florida asking for help . Very sad they keep siding with failure GOP politicians.
3
Florida could save lives and money by getting rid of climate change deniers in elected offices. That's the most important first step.
7
I encourage readers to view this clip prepared by the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. (CBC) about climate change in Miami in 2017.
https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/2557500937
1
The most important step Miamians can take is to get rid of your science-denying state officials, starting with the governor.
Just 15,000 more Democratic votes in Miami would have been enough. Try harder. The lives of our children depend on it.
8
Just like the alarmism around levels in SF bay...
Which conflates rising oceans with land subsidence – often caused by aquifer draining or building on fill...
Also, admittedly, man-made problems...
Probably some of each...
But how much - lost in the hand-waving...
The "degree" to which junk science has prevailed over real science in this country – with a few areas of exception, around electronics and physical chemistry and genomics, during the past half-century – has been disconcerting...
The war hasn’t been on boys – it’s been an over-reaching axis vs civil and economic equality...
Sounds noble – but overdone political correctness and patronage is just as corrosive to a meritocracy as overdone profiteering...
Leave the US out of it till our anger subsides – though our land will, well before then...
Why does Singapore see the ocean as half-full, while London sees it as half-empty...
Playing fields don’t get any more level...
2
It is strange that the former UN Secretary General and the Republican Mayor of Miami advocate a typically socialist, misleading solution of higher taxes to fight a bad situation that is, in this case, a natural trend created by humans.
If all the ice in the world were to melt rapidly, mean sea level would rise about 76 meters. Then good-bye not only Miami, but many other cities too on the Gulf and East Coasts.
1
It is not a kind thought, but I wonder if waves crashing on the Mar-a-Lago golf green might bring some depth of understanding to the great leader....
5
The article is well intended, but also ridiculous. It's trying so hard to be "balanced", when attaining balance between competing camps is the problem.
There have been recommendations backed by highly credible research for the last 40 years about what to do, which simply stated says....Don't build and develop wetlands/oceanfront/barrier islands/estuarial/etc. areas.
To point out the obvious solutions gets one labeled an insane and unrealistic alarmist. I'd vote for letting Miami and the rest of the coastal areas do whatever it is they want to do, but without Federal funding and insurance programs that subsidize and maintain the stupidity. I'd vote for Federal funding to begin the painful process of withdrawal, which I don't ever expect to show up on a ballot.
6
Much of the earth in Florida is porous, not bedrock. To suggest building seawalls is ludicrous in the extreme as the water simply burrows under it. If Florida has sinkhole problems now, they will be magnified in ways that they can't even imagine!
And what about that nuclear power plant south of Miami? It has to be relocated. You can't put seawalls around it.
And as the most recent analyses of glacier meltdown in Greenland showed over the past few weeks, the expected inundation of Florida by 2100 appear to be grossly underestimated. Essentially, it is appearing that a six foot sea rise is more likely, meaning that the entire state of Florida will be under water -- along with N.J.
Time to get out, folks.
2
This is ridiculous. We are literally engaged in the actions of King Canute the Great. the legend of which says that while seated on his throne on the seashore, with waves lapping round his feet, commanded the tides of the sea to go back. You realize how preposterous that was and is, yes?
As painful as my suggestion is; as intrinsically costly it may be viewed by readers; I have a suggestion to resolve this situation. It's very easy, yet so hard. MOVE!
You ain't stoppin' the sea and all the concomitant actions that will occur as a consequence of its rise. It's coming in; and projections are now saying in the ten's (if not hundreds) of feet.
So move, and start the process now.
John~
American Net'Zen
32
There's nothing wrong with what is here about what Miami is doing and the authors are right that more coastal areas need to be doing these things. But a lot appears to be missing--particularly in an "approach" described as "holistic." Are they going to the mat on carbon reduction, overcoming climate skepticism, supporting the New Green Deal, teaching climate change in school, voting for elected officials based, in part, on this issue? Are they discussing the difficult issue of "retreat" and getting people, at both sending and receiving ends, ready for migration? Have they studied whether some of the measures, such as walls, may backfire, or planted trees need to be nurtured, and how to design them to minimize the negative possibilities? Not quite sure how better drainage helps if getting water back into bays quicker only exacerbates the problem of sea water rushing in during hurricanes. How will they handle the need for even more air conditioning, which unless someone has a creative idea, will make things even worse?
Now that would be holistic. If Miami wants to lead the country on much of this, that would be welcome. We need it!
3
I live on the coast in Miami. The taxpayers here would be better off emptying dumpsters of money into Biscayne Bay.
Every time a new project and a new tax comes along, the projects take forever and way over budget. A 1/2 cent tax for transportation was passed, and almost nothing came of that.
Road projects leave roads torn up for years with no workers in sight.
Our condo association president told us we had to pay a $50,000 bribe to a city official to get permits. Then a 6 month job dragged out for over 4 years because the city wouldn't give us permits along the way.
Meanwhile, new condos are going up all over Miami.
Realistically, the best idea is to just move further inland.
5
I live in Florida and the reaction to carbon induced warming?
Drive big gas guzzling pick-up trucks!
SUVs, (named because pollution is a Sport?) are chosen on a bigger is better philosophy, and very useful for driving a couple of blocks to the mini-market.
How do you change this, especially when Ford announces the end of passenger CAR production in the U.S.in favor of the big profit truck/SUV market?
Perhaps we should replace the endangered bald eagle as the American symbol and instead have a candle burning at both ends.
8
And the GOP are still winning elections in this state. They support coal use and fossil fuel use all the problems. Is Trumps Mar largo getting flooded yet? Very sad
6
@D.j.j.k. and almost no solar or wind power.
3
This article should be required reading for The Donald. Best done with someone standing over his shoulder to explain its meaning to him-- Mar a Largo will be underwater Perhaps that will get through.
6
@The Ancient One
He can rename it Marsh a Lago
1
In 1960, the population of Miami Dade County was 935,000 and in 2018 is 2.5 million. If you go to Miami, you will see 40 story tower after 40 story tower lining the coast. You can build all the defenses you want but when you've paved over all the area where runoff would go, the sea will win. The authors need to address the issue of overpopulation as well.
6
Because of our failure to mitigate climate change we have a lot of adapting to do to the changes already in the pipeline.
How good are we adapting thus far to global warming impacts we knew we coming? The example of Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans is instructive.
The glaciologist Richard Alley mentioned in a presentation (linked to below) that for the decade before Katrina, nearly every geoscientist he knew teaching an Introduction to Geology course taught it was coming.
The course material was largely drawn from material prepared by the government, for the government, with government funding and everyone who was paying attention knew for decades that New Orleans is sinking, the protective delta is eroding, sea level is rising and maximum storm strength may be increasing.
All of these things affect optimal levee design.
So surely our economically efficient society appropriated the funds to raise the levees that protect New Orleans.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4oMsfa_30Q
1
In Charleston it floods the city streets every time there is a higher than average tide. Never used to happen. Add a rainstorm or hurricane winds and whole sections of the city are flooding.
Some officials are concerned. But it takes money and that means taxes and you don’t raise taxes in South Carolina. Citizens have been taught that everything is free: schools, roads, bridges, drainage, utilities. Any politician who doesn’t run on a “I’ll cut taxes” platform is defeated.
Bad roads, bad schools, bad bridges are easy to overlook. Flooded homes are not. And the public expects the gubmint to pay for repairs....with no new taxes of course.
10
Looking at the Florida map one wonders if the money spent saving Miami is worth it. We should not be fighting nature but joining with her. The ocean is going to take Miami one day especially if we continue to pretend we can control the natural world.
6
Climate change means a lot of places will become inhabitable. The march to destroy our world as we now know it is still in full force. How many people who have the means are going to stay in Miami and deal with the aggravation of inundation? The progression of climate change is happening quicker than we can adapt and all the money thrown at any resolve is being undone somewhere else in the world at a much faster pace. This is a global catastrophe in the making that requires everyone on board and we are light years away from that happening.
8
I advised my son, who lives with his family in Miami, not to buy a home there. I grew up in Miami/on Miami Beach and had lived in coastal areas all of my life until coming to the Pioneer Valley in Massachusetts.
We have obviously passed the tipping point where global warming is concerned and are now fighting a rear-guard action against the retribution of Mother Nature. Just one more reason to adopt a zero-tolerance policy toward illegal immigration as Americans will increasingly need to make plans to relocate to higher ground.
3
Remember Mangroves? Miami cut 330 feet at ocean edge in 2015 for a boat show and has not replaced them. Another 80 cut down in a sea water mitigation project to protect expanded Indian Creek Rd and to build a sea wall in 2017. Why is it important? Natural protection gone.
"Mangrove communities along the coastal areas of Biscayne Bay stabilize bottom sediments and protect shorelines from erosion and storm surge. Forest and fringe communities provide protection from storm surge and can potentially reduce damage to upland areas from hurricanes. Mangrove trees provide nesting and roosting habitat for many resident and migrating birds in addition to providing shelter and a safe nursery to growing marine life. Mangrove leaves are also a large component of the near shore food web." https://www.miamidade.gov/environment/wetlands-mangroves.asp
13
@poslug. Mangrove forests also sequester carbon much more than other forests.
6
The deniers of climate change are being proven wrong even as they deny. Storms and storm surges will grow worse and worse and the grand intentions of these various programs will be for naught.
The saddest aspect of this climate issue is the people who, in anger and misguided resolve, promise to rebuild. Our sea bordering states need to rethink and soon.
18
What I cannot accept about all of the projects designed to counter the effects of climate change, such as in this piece, is that the money would be better spent on addressing the climate change itself. It is accepting climate change as normal, creating the illusion that we can deal with it with various sea walls and raising roads. All of us, including myself, need to make sacrifices to stop the problem. It is like treating the symptoms but not the disease.
16
@TenToes
Looking at a plot of concentration of carbon dioxide in atmosphere vs time published by NOAA it appears that it takes nature tens of thousands of years to pull carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and that it can go in much quicker. The previous high point in CO2 concentration (300 ppm) occurred some three hundred thousand years ago. In the last few hundred year we have managed to drive it up to over 400 ppm. We don’t have the necessary time to reduce atmospheric CO2!
Florida, in large part, has itself to blame for climate problems. Floridians fail to support politicians seeking to focus on the cause of the problem. The majority of voters are science denying, climate change denying Trump supporters who deny that carbon emissions are causing the overheating of the planet. We don't need resilience projects. We need to wake up and try to save the planet before it is too late.
19
@Disillusioned South Floridians support Democrats. The remainder of the state could care less about South Florida. They are more Alabama than Florida.
1
Miami is apparently the US city most at risk from a hurricane, and if there was a significant storm surge, most of the city would be underwater for a considerable period of time. The water supply would probably be contaminated.
$400 million does not go a long way in preventing a flood risk on this scale, so it is my guess that the money should be spent almost entirely on preparing for evacuation - planning the routes and preparing for interstates to run one way only, for example. But it might also be sensible to plan assembly points, buy cheap buses and keep them on standby.
With a view to getting people thinking the right way, staging a large scale rehearsal would probably help.
3
Gosh, and here I thought the state of Florida doesn't have climate change. Real investment will happen once banks no longer write home mortgages for 30 year terms.
17
Unmentioned among the prescriptions for dealing with the adverse effects of climate change was the seawater rising from sewage drains.This, too, is a danger that must be addressed.
13
I'd bet some fairly serious money that this sentence will prove to be quite, if not wildly, optimistic:
If emissions continue to grow and sea levels respond moderately, by 2100 about 10 percent of the city of Miami will be below the height of a once-a-year coastal flood.
8
Wonderful story. Where is the State of Florida? Is the state still instructing its employees not to talk about climate change? Miami likely sends far more tax dollars to the state than the state spends on the city. The city and region are entitled to serious help in dealing with this from the State, which is clearly AWOL.
23
@Mark L. Zeidel, M.D.
And where would the state get the money? Florida has no state income tax. Miami and Dade County are on their own, YOYO!
1
There is no way of averting significant sea level rises over the next decades, even if we become aggressive in decarbonizing the economy. That will only slow the trend, not turn it around.
Realistic long-term thinking should be about applying funds to a migration away from low-lying areas, and turning them into natural barriers to flooding.
However, we are astonishingly bad at making investments of this sort, so the likelihood is that huge sums will be spent to defend these locales, leading to predictable disasters. And then, people will ask 'Why didn't anyone do anything when it was obvious we'd be flooded out?'
32
@Stowe Boyd
""applying funds to a migration away from low-lying areas, and turning them into natural barriers to flooding.""
If you can't live right on the water, what's the point in being in Florida at all? Serious question from former Miami resident.
1
My son lives near Miami Beach. The area recently spent millions of dollars to raise the streets in his neighborhood by 4 feet to offset the rising tide.
I fear that is not high enough.
17
Miami's problem, like many coastal cities, has nothing to do with climate change, but is rather a common sense "zoning" problem, a greedy real estate development problem, and a bought-and-paid-for city council problem. The last thing that city planners seem to care about is where water goes when it can't be soaked up...when porous soil is completely covered by cement and asphalt.
Stop building on every inch of coastal land, both East and West coast, and along riverbanks, and lake sides...and directly below man-made dams and reservoirs.
Let's encourage inland immigration. Let's discourage the rebuilding, and rebuilding, of communities that are located in obvious floodplains.
33
As a local I would add that without addressing the under lying cause of sea level rise (carbon spewed into the atmosphere) its kind of like adding some ice cubes to that slowly warming pot the frog is about to boil in. All it can do is slow the eventual date that most of south Florida is lost to the Atlantic Ocean.
20
In the end, Miami is doomed. The value of that real estate can never equal the cost of the infrastructure needed to keep it dry. Forget about the beach. You have a few decades to get out.
31
"Expanding drainage capacity to reduce flooding and new pumping stations to collect storm water runoff and discharge it into the Miami River and Biscayne Bay."
This will put the final nails in the coffin of Biscayne Bay, which is currently on life support. Vast areas of seagrass, vital for ecosystem health, have disappeared from the bay in the past ten years due to nutrient loading. Sewage spills to the bay from existing and poorly-maintained infrastructure are an almost weekly occurrence, and floodwater pumping stations already in place are dumping huge amounts of nutrients and other pollutants (including fecal bacteria) into the bay, an ostensible State Aquatic Preserve. The future is grim.
19
Thanks for the article on a tremendously important subject. I hope you will write future articles that provide more detail about the physical infrastructure that's needed, perhaps profiles of individual projects. I would also be interested to know what kind of changes are being made to building codes to deal with higher water. Will codes still allow homes to be built on concrete slabs very close to grade for example? Also what specific efforts are being made to reduce people's dependency of private automobiles and single occupancy vehicles?
10
Florida is a kind of Ponzi scheme, where tomorrow’s growth pays for today’s needs, and real estate is the largest employer. It’s a confidence game with everyone in on it.
15
Adaptation investments on this scale are quite simply out of reach for poor countries with populations vulnerable to rising sea levels and catastrophic weather events due to climate change.
10
My home in Miami's Coconut Grove was three inches above sea level. Miami doesn't have 30 years - it has three inches.
47
How far away from this is Mar-a-Largo?
If it's a short jaunt, then maybe this may explain there Trump Admin's new found interest in climate change.
Maybe the wall Trump is planning should be built around Mar-a-largo to keep out rising sea levels.
8
The tap water in Orlando is undrinkable, and that's the middle of the state.
9
@charles I don’t know Charles. I drink the water everyday. What do you mean?
Here's my solution: Today we purchased land on higher ground farther north.
18
There is no bed-rock in south Florida. It's all fossil coral reef. Coral grows underwater. Buy a boat with a good anchor.
8
And how far is the golf course at Mar-a-Lago? Hope it is close enough to be affected by rising sea levels. Then perhaps climate change will be declared an emergency!
9
But I am sure our president has a plan and has thought deep and long about it. It may involve a sea wall (Puerto Rico is going to pay for it!). It may involve landfill (I'm so good at moving earth and we have plenty in the Rockies, right?) to raise the entire state! It may involve the oil industry (we are using old derricks from the Gulf for stilts for all of those South Beach buildings! MAGA!).
But not one thin dime to reduce carbon emissions because climate change is a complete hoax!
23
Hard to take anything the mayor just said very seriously. 1st that 400 million dollars is actually spread out over 15 or 20 years and 1/2 of it goes to purposes other then mitigation measures. In other words it's an infintesable drop in the bucket for the scale of the problem and what needs to be done.
Secondly the city hands out density bonuses and construction permits to one highrise project after another within the worst flood zones along the coast and river front. Ironically the areas hardest hit are the wealthiest areas and in effect it is the rest of the city struggling for a safe, decent, and affordable place to live that is subsidizing the wealthy and their million dollar waterfront condos.
Meanwhile the city's desperate need for affordable housing is all but ignored with nothing but meaningless words, token policies, and more and more giveaways to big time developers.
I once had high hopes from our mayor but I'm beginning to wonder if hes just another slick talking politician. Prove me wrong.
24
In 1926, presumably well before global arming, a massive hurricane swept across Florida. The lowest barometric pressure ever recorded at the time produced a 15-foot storm surge that swept entirely across Miami Beach, inundating the entire island.
It was idiotic to allow human development in low-lying areas such as Miami Beach in the first place, a testament to the unparalleled greed of land developers and the corruption of public officials. And now taxpayers will be on the hook to save real estate that should never have been built in the first place.
The sensible solution for rising sea levels is simply not to allow the idiocy to continue. And it makes sense whether sea levels are rising or not. Whether or not a future hurricane is to be caused by global warming or by natural events, as in 1926, it is going to happen.
26
Sounds like a much sounder plan than spending trillions to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions.
2
Yes, just as the Covington kid, Nick Sanman, is battling media bullying! WaPo, down for $250M, Hollywood celebs millions more. It is time these battles are fought and won! Go Nick!
Paper towels, that's the answer.
35
Maybe Miami will survive.
For the rest of doomed Florida, there's nothing to worry about. Trump has appointed the hapless Happer to study climate change.
As Mar-a-Lago descends beneath the waves, Happer will be pointing out the benefits of excess CO2.
12
When King Canute tried to stop the sea rising, he was kidding; Miami”s local efforts may be futile.
2
Waste of money. They should make plans to relocate now before they can't sell. They're sunk, mother nature will win.
13
The action plan is simple for this reason: Humanity will not change - we in our huge numbers will insist on flying in our jets and driving our cars.
The end-result is simple: sea levels will rise, greatly.
Coastal dwellers have only one choice in the long run: abandon your most exposed properties and move inland. Insurance will not spare you from the consequences of the strong forces of nature.
27
Planting cypress groves or other aquatic plants will work better than sea-walls.
14
In places around Miami and Miami Beach, clear day flooding is proof of rising seas and climate change. Back in the day, only thunderstorms produced flooding unlike today when beautiful sunny days still have flooding not only on streets but in some restaurants and shops as rising seawater intrudes.
Florida is dominated by republican governments at the state and local levels. Miami and Miami Beach have been notable exceptions willing to take action.
With climate change challenges of rising seas and red tide on both coastlines, voters should be demanding action by all elected officials.
64
@JT FLORIDA So how much have the seas risen in the last hundred years?
@Jackson:enough to see on a clear day in Miami.
1
Let's not find an engineered solution to Adaptation when nature provides a simple solution that has withstood the test of time: migration. Why build walls and barriers to contain the ocean, when instead new businesses and people can start moving inland. There isn't a lack of space for goodness sakes! Obviously, the move wouldn't happen overnight. But, smart investments from the State would focus on development in the interior portions of Florida, thereby providing incentives that push the population inward.
17
The only meaningful long-term adaptation would be to start investing in a fleet of gondolas.
11
Methinks the money would be better spent figuring out when Miami, and much of Florida, will be impractical to shield and plan accordingly.
I won't be surprised if within fifteen years there will be much talk if not action concerning abandoning Miami.
23
@Slipping Glimpser Totally agree.
In the end you will not win this battle. Climate change and sea level rise are now unstoppable. Maybe it would be better and cheaper to relocate endangered communities to higher ground. It would not be the first time in world history that cities have been defeated by nature.
63
@TrevorN
This would not be defeat by "nature". This would be defeat by selfish, willfully ignorant and cravenly corrupt "leadership".
1
It's fine to invest money in Miami and New Orleans, so long as we understand that they are already doomed. Even if we stopped all carbon emissions today, there would still be 30 years of warming baked in. At our current pace we'll be lucky to get to zero emissions by 2050. By 2100 both cities will be in ruins.
37
@Jesse Can we engineer the appropriate mitigation measures at a reasonable cost if we have a long enough lead time? Yes. The problem is we can't foresee everything or we need to expand our scope. Personally, I think the biggest issue Miami and all of South Florida will face in 2100 is fresh drinking water. Most fresh water now comes from the Everglades ecosystem. If sea level rises it could contaminate Miami's biggest source of fresh water. Then this becomes a Florida problem not a Miami problem.
FYI, Colorado will face the same water problem in 2100. With diminished snowfall it will have a huge impact on the tourism industry (skiing) and development all along the front range. If Colorado doesn't take big steps in water conservation in the near future we are going to start to have big problems in 2050.
18
@Jesse Sure thing. Except that all prior doomsday predictions did not come to pass, so there is no reason to believe that these will prove accurate.
@Boraxo What doomsday predictions are you referring to specifically? Because flooding is happening now in Miami and getting worse as is all the other effects of climate change around the world. 100% of climate scientists are in agreement and that is the reason to believe.
24
Cost shifting yet again - socialism for the rich and capitalism for the middle class and poor. Taxpayers pay untold millions for additional security measures at schools because of mass shootings, while gun manufacturers simply skip away with their profits. And the oil and coal industries are sticking the taxpayers with the bill for climate change and pollution. It never ends. The rich believe in capitalism alright - for others, not themselves.
118
I don't know how many of you have tried to buy a house or rent an apartment in the Miami area lately, but if Democrats hate wealthy people, and the only people living along the Miami-area coastline are the wealthy, then Democrats should remind those 1% that this is the price they pay for clearly ignoring Settled Climate Science. Then tell them that politics will stop the oceans, just for fun.
12
@Ed in Syracuse. I am poor, and I rent an apartment in Miami. Poor people in Miami are for the most part nowhere near the waterfront. My biggest concerns are #1 protecting the fresh water supply for all residents and #2 investing in climate resilient affordable housing. Already, the effects of climate change are felt with 60 more 90 degree days compared to 60 years ago. In addition we have over 50 more days per year when the overnight low is above 80 degrees in the same time period. Every great city in this country needs major renovation of it's infrastructure to adapt to changing climate, technologies, and economic changes. Miami does a better job looking out for it's poorer residents than most cities. Unlike New York, free or half off public transportation is available for all our poorer residents. Something I am very grateful for.
29
@Ed L. Last I checked, most of those wealthy people contribute vast sums to the Dem party. So I am sure they are not in denial and are happy to pay higher taxes to save their fancy houses and condos.
@Ed L. Settled Climate change = settled by scientists who need their grants renewed
2
I once visited a friend and parked on a legal parking space on the street. It rained that evening in Miami Beach, when I returned to my car it had water inside and the computer under the front passenger street was damaged. Rick Scott the former governor prohibited state employees from uttering the word climate change. It is obvious that republicans are not protecting regular people.
67
The White House announced today that it's appointing a panel (with a prominent climate change denier) to study whether climate change poses a national security risk.
In the meantime, the seas and the atmosphere don't care about such "panels," nor about those who deny the facts of climate change. Like Miami, in Charleston, SC we now have many "sunny day floods" (not to mention hurricanes nearly every late summer).
As the oceans rise and our weather grows more dire, many of the same people who deny that humans are causing climate change will say that it's the "end of days," heralding the coming of the Lord and the Apocalypse. It's easier for them to believe a supernatural story than to confront the fact that WE are are the potential Apocalypse, complicit in our degrading climate.
103
Having grown up in South Florida, spending much time in Miami, this breaks my heart.
But how are we going to 'educate and inform' the populace when we have an official policy from the White House that climate change is a hoax?
While it's admirable that some cities, like Miami and New York, are taking proactive steps, there is much more than sea level rise at stake; there is the increased severity and unpredictability of storms, fires, droughts, etc. Our food production is at risk, among other things.
We need a Manhattan Project on climate change, and instead we're getting a 'nothin' to see here, folks, just move along."
55
@Sandi You'll love Gov. Jay Inslee. He advocates for a Manhattan Project on Climate Change. He is your best one-issue candidate for president, ever.
1
The risks will eventually be reflected in real estate. What happens then?
8
@Patrick; Prices in affected areas fall; people learn to stop buying and building in those areas; new development takes place on higher ground; this all takes place over an extended period of time. The economic impact declines as developers and investors learn what makes sense. The market solves the problem, commonsense prevails. There is no need for grand, sweeping, costly national and international initiatives. There is evidence that this is already happening in Florida. Bravo! markets, Boo! political fear-mongers.
2
@Patrick in Washington. What happens to privately owned flood zone property is that it becomes basically uninsurable by private insurance. And this is a national convention and policy that must take place...and soon.
7
@Patrick, the wealthy will seek a government bailout of some type, that’s what.
10
It is too late for Miami to do much except a rearguard action that will be progressively more expensive. Even if the rich most themselves behind 20 foot dikes their serving class, including waiters and dry cleaners, will have no where to live. What is the use of money if it can’t be spent?
7
Floridians voted for man made climate deniers Republican Governor Ron DeSantis and Republican Senators Rick Scott and Marco Rubio, and now they and future generations (their children and grandchildren) must live with the consequences of future super cell storms that will bring major destruction, flooding, and death.
Republican government at the federal, state, and local level, and their supporters are basically climate change deniers, man made or not.
Republicans, fossil fuel industry, and religious zealots (believe Earth is 6,000 years old?) are hazardous to any living thing on our planet.
114
To which I say, Enjoy! It’s very hard to be civil at this point.
19
@buffnick
And don’t forget they voted for Donald Trump
6
@buffnick the Jersey Shore is also in trouble. Cape May is 0 feet above sea level. Avalon is a whopping 9 feet above sea level. New Jersey will lose its beaches to the sea, just like Florida.
2
Miami's money would be better spent convincing the rest of Florida that climate change is a real threat, so that its efforts will be supported rather than undercut by the state government. Otherwise, the money will just buy Miami a few more years of viability.
With gridlock on global warming, people threatened by global warming's sea level rise should think in terms of individual solutions -- move to or invest in higher ground and make sure there are enough climate change deniers to buy up their low-lying properties at what the deniers are convinced are bargain prices.
32
@sdavidc9 If you look at a map of Florida from 10,000 years ago, it is 1/3 larger than it is today.
In 10,000 more years, it will be 1/3 less than it is today.
Such is the recurrent cycle of massive hurricanes and the earth spinning at 1000 miles per hour.
5
@sdavidc9 regardless, there is a need for adaptation as well as change. Given the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, even if we stopped today, we will still feel the effects for many years.
6
@Erica Smythe More like 1000 days ....by 2050 Climate Refugees will number in the 100s of millions...not caravans of a few 100.
Still, maybe your religion and gods will save you.
3
"One reality we have come to understand is this: Our current efforts to protect coastal cities will fall short of what will be required in decades to come."
When is the second reality going to hit every property owner / investor in the first "resilient" zones around the world?
Will you be a leader in the "the way forward" or are you consigned to your investment caving-in?
Who will flee and who will do everything necessary - not only for themselves - but for millions of others' children - those who will need the stage 2 resilient zones to survive?
"Robust" is PowerPoint magic that translates to imminent defeat. Southeast Florida Regional Climate Change Compact, Global Commission on Climate Adaptation, and 100 Resilient Cities are these - the names of Warrior Armies - who will conquer "our schedule", as David Wallace-Wells put it?
2
I see the conversation has shifted from climate change prevention to climate change mitigation.
Mitigation will save money but mitigation is not an investment. Mitigation is not a private venture at all. We're talking about public economics. You don't build a moat around a castle hoping your fields are going to get razed. Mitigation is an insurance policy. In a perfect world, your "investment" is a sunk cost. Nothing bad happened.
Prevention by contrast at least has the potential for commercial application. You can make money building newer and better things. We're going to need power generators one way or the other. If you make money with wind turbines over coal plants, you're only restructuring an existing business model. You can charge for wind power. Are you going to send Miami homeowners a utility bill for levies? The project is public.
That's why mitigation is not treated like an investment. It's public infrastructure.
Unfortunately, US citizens have spent so much time ignoring and denying climate change we no longer have any choice. We need prevention and mitigation. The only alternative is mass displacement and abandonment. At what point does Miami become a sunk cost? We should probably look at the number before deciding to build mitigation infrastructure there. I'll bet there are other cities where we can save more with less money.
18
Southern Florida is built on old coral reefs, not mud, like much of the rest of the East Coast. As the East Coast is swamped, they can build seawalls (a mere trillion-dollar endeavor). If Miami builds seawalls, the ocean will just bubble up from below (coral is porous). It's a good test case to see how to hold back the ocean. Also to see how organized Florida's retreat will be when they fail. If they leave it up to the GOP, the retreat will be "Not happening, Not happening, Not happening, Run for your lives, its every man for himself!"
30
@Phil South Florida soil consists of rock, sand, marl and muck. The rock is known as Miami limestone, which is an alkaline calcium carbonate. It is not coral rock. Oolitic limestone is found on the eastern edge of South Florida in what is known as the Miami Rock Ridge.
18
@Scott The point is still made that Miami will flood from beneath its streets and buildings.
Seawalls may slow down hurricanes and the like. But basic sea level rise and high tides is what will flood the entire area, regularly.
18
@Louis J As an owner of properties in the city of Miami Beach, where I have spent a tremendous amount of time for the past 2 decades, I am keenly aware of this.
7
I doubt that we'll get ourselves into gear much before we are standing in water up to our ankles, twelve months per year. An onmipresent realization will be that our powers pale in comparison to those of nature, and we'll decide that the 'more valuable' stuff rates preservation and protection. Many who lack economic standing will largely be, um, relatively out of luck.
14
@bill@bill
I was horrified to see parts of Miami are flooded after a Hurricane. The only possible cause is Global Warming!
I think that they should build a wall around Miami. It would have to be at least 10' high to allow for future sea rise.
@bill
I was horrified to see parts of Miami are flooded after a Hurricane. The only possible cause is Global Warming!
I think that they should build a wall around Miami. It would have to be at least 10' high to allow for future sea rise.
Historically the strength of America has been in its ability to analyze the evidence and make decisions based on empirical facts not political dogma. The dispositive element in Miami's response to rising sea levels has been to transcend the gridlock of of partisan politics. Americans benefit and make wise choices when scientific data supersedes political agendas. The Republican party and it's continued adherence to environmental policies that benefit fossil fuel oligarchs, and ignore the calamitous effects of global warming, are a clear and present danger to the future welfare of the American people.
80
@Don Shipp.------They should build a wall around the Republicans.
3
The money would be better spent, moving people away from coastal cities and other low areas, beach towns, etc. The water is going to continue to rise. What you are proposing seems to me to be an expensive and ultimately useless, bandaid, when major surgery is required.
72
@otto
It cost NY over 100 million dollars to move about 600 families from Staten Island after Sandy and tear down the houses. I imagine that they would bother to tear down the houses in FA, but still. I don't think the country has the money to move everybody.
3
Miami, and much of southern Florida, will be slowly surrendered to the sea.
1000s of miles of flat coastline along the eastern seaboard will face the same (due to continental drift the western seaboard is much steeper), but Florida is uniquely vulnerable.
The rates of future sea-level rise are somewhat uncertain, but even the most conservative models show almost all of Southern Florida going underwater in less than 200 years.
Miami has a mean hurricane return period of about 6 years. Our current best understanding is that this may not change much, but more of the hurricanes will be category 3 or greater.
In the not very distant future Miami is doomed. The issues here are about how to keep the party going a bit longer -- how much does it cost, how long does that buy relief, what are the risks ... and who pays?
39
@Lee Harrison
Your last two words: "who pays?"
Unfortunately, that's the US in a nutshell.
5
@Lee Harrison----
"In the not very distant future Miami is doomed. The issues here are about how to keep the party going a bit longer "
That's beautiful! Almost poetic [sniff, sniff]
5
For those readers who are smirkly commenting or thinking that Miami will not be able to withstand a rising Atlantic Ocean let me remind you that you don't need an ocean to be inundated by water. Exhibit A - One-third of the city of Houston was under water in 2017 after Hurricane Harvey. The last time Miami was hit with flooding that was anywhere that bad was in 1926. Exhibit B - New York City in 2012 after Hurricane Sandy. Exhibit C - The Great Mississippi and Missouri Rivers Flood of 1993. Exhibit D - almost the entire state of North Carolina in 2018 from Hurricane Florence. So unless you live on the top of a mountain somewhere I wouldn't get too cocky about not having to deal with flood issues. At least Miami is doing something concrete about it.
42
@Jay Orchard --- Miami is 2-1/2 feet above mean high tide. It can withstand anything.
Miami Beach is that low. The City of Miami which is on the mainland averages about 6 feet above sea level and up to 40 feet at its max. I live less than a quarter mile from the bay and I’m at 18 ft.
2
@Randy Dandy
Where I live its 7 feet above sea level.
2
Most of Miami & South Florida should already be under a long-term evacuation plan, due to rising sea level and threat to drinking water supply from sea water contamination.
The “sunny day floods” are the harbinger of more to come.
135
@Kevin Greene People still buy homes in these doomed areas. That's real sunny day optimism!
5
@Kevin Greene - Yeah, right. Let's tell over 2.75 milllion people they've GOT TO LEAVE! With that attitude, much of the Netherlands shouldn't exist. Let's turn them into refugees too!
Or, let's move the people of Seattle out because, after all, the city sits on an earthquake fault line.
3
A wise comment was posted in these pages a year or two ago:
"Miami is spending (80?) million dollars to pump the ocean back into the ocean"
49
The only sensible approach to this problem is both to limit (and preferably remove) greenhouse gas emissions AND attempt to reduce the bad effects of global warming. Unfortunately, the life most people aspire to is energy intensive (air travel, air conditioning in hot climates, heating in cold climates, more space per person in a house or apartment etc.) As billions of people are lifted out of poverty they too will want what we in prosperous countries have in the way of energy consumption. It won't all be satisfied with "green" energy. That is why remediation is also part of way forward.
7
Florida already has a major problem: seawater inundation.
https://www.nps.gov/articles/parkscience33-1_63-73_park_et_el_3860.htm
https://www.sun-sentinel.com/opinion/editorials/fl-op-editorial-sea-level-rise-drinking-water-20180601-story.html
But a very slightly lagging issue of flooding has also manifested itself.
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/miami-beach/article129284119.html
It is already too late. Kiss the southern half of Florida goodbye.
ps. I going to visit Key West in a few months, before it slips beneath the ocean blue.
18
@oldBassGuy I live in Miami. Most of Miami is above base flood elevation. Sea levels would have to rise 2-4 feet for the whole city to be under water. So stop worrying and come on down to the Keys.
Climate change is a problem that has to be addressed. Insurers and reinsurers are now cognizant of the problem and taking steps to make sure that future extreme weather events do not put them out of business. Business will have a tremendous role to play: clean energy is going to be the biggest business opportunity in history. But let's approach this rationally. Calm down. It is not already too late.
9
@David Todd
I've been to Miami and other points many times since the seventies. My sister lives in Sarasota. I love it down there.
"... Calm down. It is not already too late. …"
You should not be this complacent. Sea level does not need to rise by 2 feet to make Miami uninhabitable. Inundation of all sources of potable water is enough to render areas uninhabitable. Sea level rise is currently ongoing, and baked in for decades to come.
https://www.businessinsider.com/miami-floods-sea-level-rise-solutions-2018-4
10
@David -- it's a matter of time. The sea level will rise more than 4 ft ... we are certain it will now, we aren't sure by when, but almost certainly within the next century, and possibly considerably sooner.
It is already too late to stop that sea-level rise.
Miami has been hit by 31 hurricanes since records started in 1851. That's about once every 6 years.
The next strong hurricane to hit Miami will pose real questions about what to rebuild. It's fair for those living there to make their own decisions ... as long as you don't expect others to pay for it.
6
There is a real financial incentive in addressing the impacts of climate change and rising sea levels, and there are beginning to be estimates of those costs.
Look to insurance companies and their actuaries. They have some numbers, and we will all start to see the broad impact in insurance costs and companies that will no longer insure property in larger and larger areas.
Perhaps if places like Mar-a-Lago were simply not insurable - not by commercial groups and not by the government - the concept of what the personal, right now, short term cost of climate change is. There will be fish swimming in the lobby and no financial relief.
How to make people pay attention before we run out of water in the great plains and lose large parts of our coast to becoming giant sandbars - well, I just don't know what more we can say.
19
"Fake News". All that water in the streets? That's just the weather, not climate change... nothing to do, not a problem. Just ignore it and it will all go away. There's still mountains in Colorado, so how can the sea be rising? And there was a drought too, somewhere, so that hurricane (and the string of Cat. 5's the last couple years) are just figments of a bad imagination. Trump will save us all (only he can!) and everything will be fine. Nothing needs to change, and the Koch's and Mercers can keep pulling down the coal and oil profits. See? Everything's better. Now take your medicine and go to bed. Upstairs, so you don't get wet.
57
@Jim Brokaw. Perhaps Soros should be spending his billions saving Miami instead of on the legalization of marijuana. In your panic, let’s remember that they can’t accurately predict the next day’s weather, and by the way, the “string of cat5’s” didn’t happen under Trump.
@Jim Brokaw --- ""Fake News". All that water in the streets? That's just the weather, not climate change... "
I finally realized that climate change is real when I saw that picture of parts of N. Miami flooded after a hurricane. That just shouldn't happen.
Miami will be underwater in just 12 years!
3
The article TOTALLY MISSES the impact of sea level rise and salt water will have on the aquifer South Florida relies on for fresh drinking water.
What's the point of spending millions on drainage if the pressure from the rising ocean will force salt water into the aquifer making it undrinkable?
I explore this in my play, "Sea Level Rise: A Dystopian Comedy".
41
@Henry --- I have to say, your play, Sea Level Rise: IS FUNNY. The part where the atheists converted to Global Warming made laugh and laugh.
Are florida state employees allowed to use the words climate change yet without being penalized? The entire southern tier, the most at risk states in the US continue to send climate change deniers to the Senate and voted the very stable genius into office. Just the other day the empty suit that goes by the name Marco Rubio came out against Trump's phony wall emergency because he stated that he was afraid that when the Dems got into power they might declare a national emergency to address global warming. I feel sorry for the decent citizens who are getting burned by their cowardly, ignorant, bought and paid for leaders, but politics matter and Florida politics have been a disgrace for a very long time. Call it an inconvenient truth if you like.
146
@runaway While I am far from someone who would ordinarily say anything complimentary about our newly elected governor, Ron DeSantis, he has, quite unlike his thoroughly abysmal predecessor, acknowledged the problem, at least insofar as rising seas and increased flooding are concerned. He has created a "resiliency office," as well a new office designed to ground the state's environmental polices on scientific research. Color me shocked. Yes, these are baby steps, to be sure, and there is plainly so much more that he could be doing, but at least he is pointed in the right direction.
2
Miami is doomed. It will be inundated from all directions.
Given our national incapacity to face large unpleasant truths, trillions of dollars will be wasted trying to save it.
167
@Mike Murray MD ---- "Miami is doomed. It will be inundated from all directions."
You're going to see a great increase in prescriptions for anti-anxiety medication, however.
Each script = another office visit.
I assume you'll just buy a house on stilts during this catastrophe.
4
@Mike Murray MD
The “Large Unplesent Truth” lurking here is the fact that at the end of the last ice age the seas were over 300’ lower than they are today! You could walk from England to France! At the beginning of the last ice age the seas were about 30’ higher than they are today.
The “Climate” has always changed and always will. The location of cities close to the shoreline has been and will continue to be chancy.
The Duch Know this Truth and have delt with it for hundreds of years. The rest of us can learn from their example!
6
"Climate adaptation"?
If you keep voting for people who deny climate change there isn't enough adaptation possible for what happens next.
But good luck with that .
113
@trudds
Florida will be reduced to an array of tiny, temporary, hopeful islets at the Georgia border. How many Florida residents will fit on the head of a pin?
2
"Our current efforts to protect coastal cities will fall short of what will be required in decades to come. For in spite of global efforts to rein in carbon dioxide emissions that cause global warming, they continue to rise and expose coastal cities like Miami to more extreme weather events and rising seas." That is a weak case for a bond to raise $400 million of which only half will be spent on coastal defense. Miami is ground zero for why a "Green revolution" is a life or death issue for America as we know it.
12
I'm thinking New Orleans is right up there with Miami.
12
Excellent and timely piece by Ban Ki-moon, former Sec. General of the U.N., and Francis Suarez, Mayor of Miami, on Miami (and other coastal cities under threat of rising seas) moving aggressively to finance projects which will build resilience against climate change.
President Trump is creating a committee on climate to study whether climate change is a national security threat, though he and his loyalists believe climate change is a hoax. He pulled the U.S. out of the Paris Climate Accord and he believes that mining fossil fuels, coal, oil, is the way to provide air-conditioning for the fauna (human beings. animals, fish and sea-creatures) who are slowly being boiled in higher temperatures all over the earth.
Is it even possible to protect the world's regions which will be overcome by rising sea levels in the near future? Can such global networks as the Global Commission on Climate Adaption provide solutions for coastal cities under threat of flooding? Earth needs a holistic, long-term approach to overcoming climate challenges today and tomorrow.
Research and business are sine qua nons of dealing with predictable wind and water damages to our countries. Flood defenses have worked for centuries in the Netherlands. Innovative approaches to building sea walls and drainage solutions are needed now. How will private sector investment save our flooding coastal cities? Not likely our 45th president will back investment in climate change solutions.
12
Was somewhat sensible until this conclusion:
Clearly, more investment is needed to build resilience, especially to protect the world’s coastal regions and cities.
How about not throwing money away on what is clearly a lost cause? Or worse, expecting everyone to join in a pay up for it.
16
Miami better be in it for the long haul. Even if somehow the nations of the world got together to limit global warming to 1.5C or 2C, the goals of Paris Climate Accord, scientists predict sea level will rise for hundreds of years and perhaps longer. Climate scientist James Hansen has emphasized that the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere must be reduced to below 350 parts per million to stabilize the climate. The carbon dioxide level is now over 410 ppm and the trend continues to be up.
13
I find it a bit discouraging that our supposed leaders are already abdicating from the responsibility of rallying the world's people to save this lovely gem of a planet. Oh they will build some levees or whatever but the real message from Trump and I fear the rest is that things are too out of hand already and so why not just consume as much as possible now and not worry about future generations? There is stuff in our gene pool that got us to travel across the Bering Land Bridge, to cure pneumonia and solve the polio horror...to build complex, fascinating cultures in every habitable and almost inhabitable corner of the planet...to walk on the moon for Christ's sake!
We need better leaders who can focus us on real problems and help us empower ourselves and others to solve them...not economists and technocrats and con artists who want to eat the last lobster and drink the last shot of really good single malt as the world burns.
69
@greg make that eat the last CANADIAN lobster. Maine is getting too warm for lobsters.
I live 16 feet above sea level. My home will eventually be under water. Trump/GOP denies all of this. Florida is 50% GOP and 50% Democratic. How the Florida Republicans can continue to support all of Trump's nonsense is a huge puzzle. Trump is Americas number one Con Man . In 2020 a Democratic President will declare Climate Change a National Emergency. Ray Sipe
152
@Ray Sipe, I live 427 feet above sea level and recently heard that in 30 years the VT climate will be like southern Virginia. For various POLITICAL reasons I always said I would never live south of the Mason-Dixon Line. I am contemplating moving further North. And they have universal health care further north too.
4
@Steve Beck
I live in CT. Our pine trees are dying because of the arrival of the Southern Pine Beetle. Our winters are no longer cold enough for long enough to keep them out.
PS. Canada is going to be the big winner in all of this. I hope they let the refugees from America in to the country
4
Would someone please forward this article to 1400 Pennsylvania Avenue. And have it read to Mr. Mar a Largo, hopefully if it's explained to him that he'll lose $millions if he doesn't act he might just do something, maybe even declare a national emergency.
One can hope!
23
@cherrylog754
Given that we have never seen his tax returns, it would be interesting to know who really owns Mar a Largo.
2
@cherrylog754 Better to forward it to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue or 1100 Pennsylvania Avenue (Trump International Hotel).
2
My money is on the sea.
316
@Blue in Green
Well said.
Since when did anyone believe that we can 'hold back the tide'?
Mother Nature bats a thousand. Always.
7
@Blue in Green Yeah, and it's in it with the clouds. Oh-oh.
Wouldn't south coastal Florida also be challenged by salt water seepage into the ground?
7
@Cal Yes: "Sea-level rise isn’t just a flooding threat to South Florida. The invading sea is also seeping in underground and coming for your drinking water.
Decades of too much pumping and draining to provide both drinking water and flood control leave South Florida susceptible to “saltwater intrusion” — when the ocean moves in and contaminates underground freshwater sources.
Now in some of South Florida’s most vulnerable spots, sea-level rise is expected to push that underground line of saltwater inland at twice the rate it would otherwise move, according to U.S. Geological Survey projections." https://www.sun-sentinel.com/opinion/editorials/fl-op-editorial-sea-level-rise-drinking-water-20180601-story.html
30
The average elevation in Florida is 6 feet. Some places are as little as 3 feet above sea level. There is little room for rising seas there without devastating consequences.
74
@Evan Meyers
No need to worry, storm surges will devastate those areas long before the sea gets that high. Hurricane Michael had 14' storm surge.
And to another comment, no walls will not prevent flooding, walls make erosion rates go up and undermine construction or buildings. Broad Beach in Malibu got seawalls in the 80s and now there's no longer a beach!
There's a 10 million dollar breakwater there now but no beach. All because a home owner wanted a pool overlooking the Pacific Ocean!
40
@Evan Meyers - The Dutch figured out hundreds of years ago how to live in harmony with a high sea level. But the first step was to understand the reality of the situation and the second was to work together with a plan, a two-step dance of which the GOP is fundamentally incapable.
19
@J Jencks
I really wish people would stop pointed to the Dutch, saying "see they can live with it". I want to point out that the Dutch face the North Sea, not the Atlantic. Big, big, difference. The North Sea is surround by land on 2.75 sides and they don't get yearly hurricanes like FL does.
3
It's a good thing that Miami is attempting to adapt to storm surges during hurricanes. That's probably something they should have been doing for decades. The authors could also lobby for the end to taxpayer subsidized flood insurance for for rich folks who want to live in homes on the water.
But the problem is storm surge, not sea level rises. The IPCC Fourth Assessment Report referenced studies that estimated sea level rise for the 20th century between 0.5 and 3.0 mm a year. The most likely range, according to the IPCC, was between 1.0 and 2.0 mm a year. So in 100 years sea level has risen 100-200mm (4"-8")
A 4-8" rise in sea level did not cause the flooding shown in the picture at the head of this article. Development in flood plains, subsidized by the federal government is the major problem.
26
Commenter is mistaken about sea level rises in Miami. The numbers he cites are for predicted changes in average global sea level. The rise in sea level in particular coastal areas will vary widely. More accurately predicting these local variations is high on research agenda of scientists modelling climate change.
14
@J. Waddell sea rise aside, the Eastern Seaboard is sinking.
1
@Jonathan Most people think of sea level as if the world's oceans behave like a big bathtub. As you point out the degree of rise and impacts vary widely by locale on the planet.
2
Florida presents a very disjointed picture about fighting climate change. There's this positive column, but the state's two U.S. senators are climate change deniers. It won't be long before Florida is begging the Federal Government for billions to fight subsidence, and Rubio and Scott will be leading the parade. Republican hypocrisy is more reliable than death or taxes.
312
@Ed - I believe Francis Suarez, the mayor of Miami, is already begging. That's what this column is about. Please save Miami; we'll be a model for future climate endangered cities. The question is do we, the general public, want Miami to succeed?
I'm not sure saving Miami with federal tax dollar sets a good precedent. However, by what standard do we decide to save climate endangered cities? When is New York fugetaboutit? When do we leave the Midwest of California to drought and ruin?
The question we then face is how do we manage migration and resettlement. We're not talking about temporary displacement either. We're talking about massive geographic population shifts. Something along the scale of Grapes of Wrath or worse.
Irony of ironies, climate change deniers in their quest for a conservative libertarian government are actually promoting a fascist future for the United States.
Eventually there won't be any choice whether to stay or go. The government will order you to go. The only alternative is death. The government will also necessarily tell you where to go. You won't have many other options available in the near term.
I wish more voters would recognize the tyranny of climate is going to get worse, not better, as we continue to sit idle.
53
Miami needs a real wall to stop real water.
50
@Roland Berger -- southern florida is all very porous rock and coquina (compacted shells and coral). It cannot be diked.
2
@Roland Berger
Now if they could just get Mexico to pay for it . . .
1
Florida votes republican and they know climate change and rising sea levels are just a Chinese hoax, fake news, and nothing that Trump can’t fix even if it was true because he is a master builder and has lined up trillions of dollars to finance US infrastructure projects.
131
Florida is a swing state. Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties are democrat strongholds, not to be lumped together with the rest of the state that leans republican.
5
@Andrew
The “Fake” part of this “News” is that climate change began in the last few decades! The climate has always changed. Sea levels have risen over 300’ since the end of the last ice age. Today you need a boat to travel from England to France!
None of this was caused by “Politics” and it won’t be fixed by it either! The Duch have delt with living below sea level for a long time. The rest of us can learn from their experience or move inland.
To the extent that humans have added to the rate of climate change only vastly reducing our numbers will actually accomplish anything positive! That will remain true without regard to who is in charge!