Houses can be moved, especially ones already built on raised foundations. Don't expect the rest of us to pay for your choice of mansion site- just move it.
13
I feel sorry for the man who still believes something can be done to avoid this calamity.
No Sir, nothing at all can be done at this stage to avoid this calamity. And no amount of your wealth, aggregated a billion-fold, can change that.
A house on four sticks in the middle of the water doesn't sound like a great way to live.
You may hate every word I write here, but no amount of anger will change any of this, either.
14
"“What’s government for? They’re supposed to protect your property,” Mr. Silverman said from behind the wheel of his shallow skiff boat on a recent afternoon. "
Well well well... I wonder who this guy voted for? We were on the right path before the current admin came into power and then we just abandoned the global warming effort because of the current WH occupant not seeing the value in it. Maybe, just maybe, these people will vote for a leader who will do something about GW.
20
Reality is setting in. Many low-lying areas in Florida, Louisiana and South Carolina, among others, will not survive climate change. This is one reason why climate change denial by the Trump administration is so destructive. Trump relaxes pollution standards and fiddles while we sink into the sea. He has done nothing for infrastructure outside of low-lying areas, let alone within them. The future looks dire.
11
I am surprised that the good people of florida even accept that there is a problem. But I guess it is hard to ignore when your road is under water.
Have they started blaming Democrats for the flooding yet? I know they do not believe in climate change so what do they think is making the water rise? They probably just call flooding fake water.
24
I hate to make assumptions, but you reap what you sow. Vote Republican and you get climate deniers who want to cut taxes (which pay for essential services like maintaining roads) so rich people can get richer. So unless you voted to throw the climate-denying bums out, don’t cry to me. Or was it all worth it, now that health care for women is being slashed? (Yes, I AM angry.)
20
but there is no global warming at all, Trump told me so, so it must be true
7
Several people have commented that they see no difference in water level outside of their Florida homes or just completely deny that the seas are rising at all. The seas are indeed rising but you will not notice it much by sight. One inch of water is a LOT of water on a global scale, even 1/4 inch is a lot. The difference is in the tides. The article mentions the fall tides. Tidal shifts around the world are much higher than previously. Parts of Miami flood monthly when they never did before. This is happening in low lying areas around the globe ocean. It's time to stop using your eyes as the barometer of measurement.
14
Every time I try to talk climate change with my Florida sister she goes on and on about how this is all normal and natural and how things have always been this way. All my Miami relatives are equally oblivious and in denial. And the condos and developments keep coming!
The day is approaching when they will all be desperate to sell and it will be too late. Very disheartening.
15
I guess the 15 homes on Sugar loaf key will need a ferry in addition to the road that takes residents home. The residents could join together, they likely already have boats.
This doesn't mean I don't care; I do. Love the keys. Efforts to build roads and a rail line were ambitious at the time. Flagler build the rails and roads that go from Homestead to Key West; a private operation. Most thought he was nuts, but the Keys are what they are today because of this man, not the government or the state of FL.
When people choose to live on an island in relatively remote areas, they make a choice. I applaud their choice and love the Keys, but it's still their choice and living on an island usually means you'll need a boat at some point.
"The Keys were long accessible only by water. This changed with the completion of Henry Flagler's Overseas Railway in the early 1910s. Flagler, a major developer of Florida's Atlantic coast, extended his Florida East Coast Railway down to Key West with an ambitious series of oversea railroad trestles. Three hurricanes disrupted the project in 1906, 1909, and 1910." It's been a little over 100 years that the keys were even accessible without a boat. Now we're going to pretend that it's climate change?
7
Governments, be they local, state or even federal, should not be expected to financially or even physically protect homeowners from a planet-wide environmental catastrophe that is obviously beyond their capabilities. No amount of money is going to stop the rising waters. No walls will hold it back. Gradual abandonment of these communities is the only answer. Should residents receive some sort of financial help for their losses? Probably, particularly for long-term residents. Those who purchased within, say, the last decade, should be on their own because even 10 years ago all signs pointed towards this eventuality -- rising seas that can't be held back, yet they went ahead and bought anyway. What's the response going to be when major cities like Miami have to be abandoned? It's going to happen, and there's no stopping it due at least partially to our own refusal to face the hard truths about climate change. Those Photoshopped photos we've all seen of Miami under water are going to be the real thing in a very few years. America -- and the world -- better be ready for the ultimate battle -- saving mankind.
14
Our real estate is worth way more than the fossil fuel companies. If we need to buy anyone out--it should be the fossil fuel industry.
3
RE: “What’s government for? They’re supposed to protect your property,” Mr. Silverman said.
Sorry, Mr. Silverman. There's not a thing government can do to other than what we should have done 30 years ago. Drastically lower our carbon emissions.
11
The level of ignorance is astonishing to me. It's simple science. If water level rise at Key West due to climate change, then sea level at other parts of the world would also rise by the same amount. However, historical sea level gauge data do NOT indicate water level rise everywhere. The few places that you hear about rising water, are small islands like Pacific islands, because their land are sinking slowly. It has nothing to do with climate change. Climate is cyclical that involves many complex factors. Few dishonest scientists are using climate data starting from 1969 to present in order to show a warming trend due to CO2. The fact is, historical weather data, collaborated by historical news articles from those periods, show various warming and cooling cycles in our history. In Australia, droughts and wet seasons happened in cycles if you look at their historical data. I get it, people always freak out what is happening in front of them. A historical perspective is needed.
5
The most important part of this story, missed by these writers, are the Mangrove trees and their role in protecting Sugarloaf Key. Until humans learn how to properly care for the environment, we must allow nature to protect itself.
As for the current owners of these properties, let the County use eminent domain to turn the area into an environmental impact zone and let them enjoy their ever increasing water views while they can. After all, you can't take it with you.
6
Wait. This is getting silly. I just googled Sugarloaf Key, and, from what I can tell, it wasn't an incorporated community until the 1960s. It just hasn't been there that long, like, really, 90% of Florida, which was considered a fetid, insect filled swamp until the turn of the twentieth century. Then an enterprising railroad builder put a line in all the way to Key West, which, you have to admit, was pretty wacky, and the race was on to populate a place with millions of people, most on the waterfront coasts, directly in harm's way when the frequent hurricanes hit. Such is the post WW2 history of almost any available waterfront property all along the East coast of America. There was nothing there until the time we developed trains and highways and our car culture. Now everyone is crying "climate change, climate change, the world is sinking!", when, maybe, just maybe, you built your home and community in a place that no self respecting citizen of even the 19th century would have thought of doing. Like, all of the residents of the Jersey Shore, who received billions in taxpayer funded help to REBUILD after Sandy. Its nuts. But, we do it, anyway. I understand. Nothing like sitting on your own deck, drink in hand, watching the dolphins play in the ocean.
13
Yes, and Florida was unlivable for most people until air conditioning came along, then it really took off.
8
Next our politicians will probably just expand the federally subsidized flood insurance program to cover these issues. What better use could we possibly have for our tax dollars?
3
Just spent a week with family in the Keys. As we looked around at how little elevation above sea level they have and drove through flooded parking lots, I kept asking myself: Are these people living in a fantasy? What do they think is going to happen? Apparently, many of them think the government can, should and will save them. I have news for them, there isn't enough government money to save all of the places that are in danger.
17
As a former lower keys waterfront property owner who experienced 30 years of tidal observation, 2 severely destructive hurricanes and many lesser storms, there is no denying that the keys have become a non sustainable environment.
In 1990 the bay that we lived on would routinely "dry up" during the low tides exposing plant life and creatures which would feed the many coastal birds. As the years progressed the lower tides became higher, covering the bay floor most often and sending the birds elsewhere.
Currently the low tide is like a "medium tide" and the high tides flood the banks as if each were a major storm event.
Key West streets are forever flooding and washing the filth into the waters, it is a mess and people need to quit investing in the destruction of this unique and fragile environment and just leave!
17
Expect Northern Cape Cod to become an island regardless of man made climate change. There is a place in the town of Wellfleet where the Cape is one mile wide. A hurricane of sufficient intensity will be all that it takes to cut off Provincetown, Truro and part of Wellfleet. I will be 60 soon and I believe there is a chance this will occur in my lifetime.
4
I'm really surprised that no one has thought to ask why on earth it would cost $25 million per mile to upgrade the road. That's more than 10x the average cost according to the Florida DOT (https://www.fdot.gov/programmanagement/Estimates/LRE/CostPerMileModels/CPMSummary.shtm). Does no one else find that remarkable?
2
"“What’s government for? They’re supposed to protect your property,” Mr. Silverman"
Well Mr. Silverman, the rest of us shouldn't have to pay for your poor choice of a place to live. It's not like rising seas and climate change and living right at sea level are novel ideas that are just now coming to light. I think it would be best for you to shed some of your entitlement.
11
Expecting local governments, and ultimately, ANY government, to "command the tide" is a foolish, short-sighted game. It may be the government's job to protect our homes, but clearly, some forces are stronger than government. Homeowners who expect any government to outlay $millions while paying far less than that in taxes, are asking for pie in the sky. And, again, ULTIMATELY, some areas can't be saved at any cost.
4
It IS Florida, they could just make a law to ban high tides and banish all talk about it, problem solved.
15
Yeah really boo-hoo. I’m sorry you’re losing your beautiful tropical home but I’m more concerned with the millions and millions of people around the world they have to leave the grass shack and move inland with no way to make a living feed themselves and raise the family good luck world
21
Go to YouTube and "search" King tide flooding in Ft Lauderdale and then King tide flooding in Key West. Sobering. A picture really is worth a 1000 words. I was on the White Street Pier, early last month in Key West and was stunned to see how high the water was. It nearly over topped the pier.
1
So why do governments continue to issue construction permits for land that will be under water in 5,10 or 20 years.Dumb
11
Welcome to the world of the Republicans, the religious right and the Heritage foundation. Too caught up in their backward thinking to realize the future will come crashing on their conservative thinking. The Trump administration spends time on creating chaos in the world, hoping to burn more coal, reducing health care support, reducing money spent for food for the underpaid and wishing the court system will destroy the rights of women to control their reproduction, only to ignore the top issues of the day: seas swamping our towns and cities, storms ruining livestock and buildings and people migrating to avoid the effects of climate change. Maybe, Trump should stop his trade attacks on other countries, take the $26 billion given to farmers who lost their global market, the $10 billion for a wall between Mexico and the USA and build a road to Sugarloaf Key. Although all three are likely to be found a bottomless pit.
7
The obvious answer is buy out by eminent domain. Far less costly.
6
It is good to see this story in the Times. As someone who has read the Times ever since he delivered the Sunday Times 70 years ago, one thing that disappoints me lately is its inadequate coverage of climate change's existential threat to all of us no matter our age or gender or race or ethnicity. More stories about this please and less coverage of the circus in DC.
Thank you.
8
Florida may want to follow the lead of the artist formerly known as Prince, and begun using a symbol, like a blue upward pyramid and embed the symbol into documents to represent climate change or rising sea levels.
Dear Silvermans on Sugarloaf Key, climate change is not new. Thomas Edison warned about it in the 1930's. By the 1970's Europe accepted the glaciers were retreating much faster than before and started talking and planning for climate change. U.S. saw Glacier National Park (and many locations) losing most ice. Today it should be called Montana National Park, because the glaciers are mostly gone.
I bought a property on the beach, in Cocoa Beach, in the 1990s, knowing full well a hurricane or ocean change could wipe that island anytime. I accepted the risk and enjoyed. The new people will have to accept their fate, when the time comes. We don't owe you anything. You took a risk. A house sitting on stilts more than 2 stories high is a big clue what can happen.
If the government was to protect us, it needs to be from ourselves. Decades ago they should have curtailed fossil fuels and building in zones that WILL be underwater/destroyed by hurricanes. As one comedian says "You can't fix stupid".
Despite scientific facts, agreements and declarations, many decades later films like "An Inconvenient Truth" & "Chasing Ice", still haven't pounded the message in. Spoiler alert: the book was clearly titled "An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do About It".
Enjoy your property while you can. Enjoy the planet while you can. Failed politics/greed in the U.S. has made what our children will live through (or perish from) inevitable.
7
@Mark B First of all, please check the live webcam at Glacier National Park:
https://www.nps.gov/glac/learn/photosmultimedia/webcams.htm
I think the glaciers are doing very well. Thank you very much. The park just removed the "Gone by 2020" sign because the glaciers are actually growing. The demise of Glacier National Park had been predicted for several decades (the 1st news article about glaciers melting I could find was from 1923). The fatal mistake these predictions made was that they only look at what's immediately in front of them, instead of looking at a long term historical context. You mentioned Edison warned of warming in the 1930s. You're correct. In the 1930s, worldwide temperatures were at historical highs, higher than today's temperature. Also, 1921 was another hot year. Thus the report glacier melting in the 1923 article. After the 1930s, it follows a cooling period until 1970. During this period, the concern was global cooling. All these weather patterns are collaborated by news articles from those periods. Now we're in a warming trending. As you can see, climate is cyclical. A simple question to ask is, was the hot temperature in 1930s and 1921 caused by CO2? Or just part of cyclical pattern?
@S, You say one glacier is growing, Compare that to virtually other glacier and ice mass in the world which is shrinking, and rapidly. I'm sure you have your reasons for choosing to avoid avoid believing the hard science but I find it unconscionable. The human and financial costs of rising seas and climate change are far too damaging to ignore and will dwarf the economic gains of ignoring the problem. Ask the Pentagon their opinion.
3
People who fly private planes, often have multiple homes and ride around in boats burning gasoline talking about addressing the causes of climate change. It would be cute and funny if it weren't so sad.
160
@Mike Here's the oxymoron...They think 'government should fix it' and then they vote Republican. Pure, unadulterated insanity.
81
@Mike the only sad thing is, the land for those residences are slowly sinking, not because of climate change. Ask yourself this simple question, do you see sea water rise at Miami or NY? If climate change cause the Atlantic ocean sea level to rise, you would see it everywhere on the coastline.
1
@S You mean like in Miami with a substantial increase in 'storm-less flooding', or the New York region increasingly inundated during strong storms, wildlife education centers in the Carolinas being abandoned because they're going under water or people with dockside homes or businesses wondering what they're going to do because high tide is now mere inches below dock level?
Several of those things were reported in just the last month or so - and all of those items easily came to mind without any searching - which would have turned up substantially more events.
Surely that's all due to sinking as well though, yes? Am still partly hoping your comment was a sarcastic joke, but sadly that's probably not the case. The ocean isn't completely level, and land slope/elevation has much to do with local flooding and inundation.
41
Barack and Michelle Obama recently bought a $14.5 million bay/ocean-front property on Martha’s Vineyard.
Is it possible they don’t believe in global warming or climate change?
Or do they know something the rest of us don’t know?
5
@Mon Ray sadly, you are repeating fake news. No such sale has been recorded.
7
If the government buys out the owners of homes, they will be seen as the lucky ones. In the not too distant future, there will not be enough money to buy out all of the people who will need to retreat. I do not feel bad for those who knew what was coming, and did nothing, of those who denied it climate's change existence. Think of it as evolution in action, where the non-adaptive individuals are culled from the herd.
5
I live in the Florida keys. Right now I look out my window and can see the water level is no higher or lower than it was 25 years ago when I bought the house.
3
How about the autumn tides? Are they higher?
1
You can’t stop the sea. There needs to be massive buyout programs and individuals must either sell their property now and move inland, or succumb to reclamation programs. Reclaim all coastal and near coastal properties with each successive storm or water invasion, and create conservancies. Those too will have a limited lifespan, but the coast will recede and the conservancies move accordingly.
1
@Zane I live in the Florida keys. Right now I look out my window and can see the water level is no higher or lower than it was 25 years ago when I bought the house.
2
@I live in Day ain’t over yet...
2
I would suggest that the local government and citizens propose a budget (and necessary taxes) to protect everything that everyone wants to protect, and campaign for it. I doubt it would pass, because of the high cost. But something like this process might help legitimize the triage-like decisions that will have to be made.
I can't help but wonder how many of the people complaining about the proposed lack of spending to combat the effects of climate change have staunchly voted Republican for the last 30 or so years? The chickens are, as they say, coming home to roost.
12
Does Venice come to mind?
As the world won’t change and they continue to elect climate change deniers, humans had better learn to do a better job of adapting.
Important to note: raising the roads is a temporary band-aid with unintended consequences of causing year round flooding; gravity being what it is, all of the run off water will go onto the surrounding land. You can’t build a Stormwater system large enough to hold to hold the Atlantic Ocean/Gulf of Mexico.
Why should the taxpayers buy the homes under an eminent domain scheme? No one told these people to build there, a bad investment is what it is and nobody’s responsibility but the owners.
5
Everyone of us contributes to climate change, but many are loath to pay for it and most people are not even aware of what is going on around the world. Catch up time is rapidly approaching for all those good years fossil fuels have given us. Denial is all good and well when it doesn't affect you, but eventually it will affect every one of us. The blame game continues while carbon increases, fossil fuel companies continue to surge and make money while more and more people suffer the effects.
3
So, buyers of low-lying property expect government to spend untold millions (billions, trillions ?) to protect their property. I own oceanfront property 5 above mean high tide and I expect to lose it to the ocean, possibly in my lifetime. I built it for current enjoyment and have no expectations of being bailed out by the general population.
8
Climate Change is a threat caused by greed, laziness, and our leaders complete unwillingness to do what is right - can you hear me Trump!
But I have been drawn to the Keys for on 50 years now - the free spirited & tropical life style that felt almost like a foreign country removed from the madness up north. But folks that want to build in precarious weather spots like small keys just a few feet above the rising tides, or the Outer Banks - can't expect others to bail them out after the next predictable weather outcome slams their house & sinks their boat. The Keys was once a lifestyle not for everyone - the greed of developers & builders is on full view for all to see. The Keys should not have been built up to the level it is now.
5
I expect the National Flood Insurance Program will be expanded, as many rich Republican (and Democrat) donors have houses right on the water, and taxpayers will pay for it. This program is already a boondoggle for the rich and has resisted needed reform for many years.
3
@Adrian - Many more people who are not wealthy live in coastal areas (and river areas) that are getting more likely to flood, to flood more, and in some cases will eventually be below tidelines.
So it's not a wealthy boondoggle, but we have to rethink how programs like that work. At the federal level, continue helping states as they will get hit with coastal or river floods. But change the focus of what "help" means.
Federal programs are going to have to stop being mostly carrot and put some stick in - force states to start putting in buyout programs, stricter zoning and limits on rebuilding on repeatedly-hit structures.
States have to start putting more of their own money in, too. Texas put in for federal aid while Harvey was still spinning, but didn't touch their $8 billion rainy day fund. That was the Houston area's third consecutive 500-year flood in three years.
States and cities have to become more realistic before qualifying for funding beyond the basic saving-people part. Saving structures with federal aid needs limits.
Again to Harvey - Houston approved a new development after that storm - it was in a storm reservoir-designated area.
That's insanity we need to cut away from federal aid.
1
@b fagan I completely agree with your points about rethinking the way this program works. However, I stand by my claim that the NFIP benefits the rich far more than anyone else. https://www.npr.org/2019/03/05/688786177/how-federal-disaster-money-favors-the-rich
1
@Adrian - so we'll need to factor that into the changes. One thing to remember is that during the mortgage crisis in 2008, wealthier people (at least in some areas) were more likely to walk from an underwater mortgage than less-wealthy people, so perhaps we factor in decisions there on who gets aid.
The aid will have to be to help people least able to afford it on their own, and should also should focus on what's going to be the much more difficult task of triaging as entire towns and areas begin losing tax base. What's the best way to help a place that's heading into ever-more-costly bandaids? What parts of infrastructure gets focus? And do we maybe allow creation of areas that decide to 100% self-insure.
Americans are going to have to face the reality of not competing with Mother Nature. Resisting the rising oceans is ridiculous and a fool's challenge. Instead of fighting the oceans, how about fighting what is causing the rising oceans, climate change? Oh, and anyway, Floridians as a whole, need to learn a lesson about for whom to vote if they want their coastal regions to be saved. Hint: it ain't the conservatives!
11
"What’s government for? They’re supposed to protect your property".
- Henry Silverman
Democratic leadership has been trying to protect your property for decades, Mr. Silverman - Republican leadership has opposed them every step of the way.
So how have you been voting?
13
First of all, how does a yoga instructor from Buffalo afford a million dollar home in Florida?
Second, let's remember how Florida came to own the Overseas Highway in the first place. A bankrupt train company dumped their rail on the state because they couldn't maintain the line. A motor club along with real estate developers then lobbied the state to convert the rail into highway. This was in the 1920s.
Arguably, the road never should have been built in the first place. The project is the legacy of one wealthy train baron who made a bad business decision. Once purchased, the line should have been abandoned. But no, people wealthy enough to own cars in the 1920s wanted a weekend getaway. A getaway from Florida.
The Overseas Highway is another example of welfare for the rich. The person living in Miami or Jacksonville shouldn't have to pay a dime for the Florida Keys. You live on an island. Buy a boat.
17
@Andy
"You live on an island. Buy a boat" Priceless! Best response I've ever heard.
10
Climate Change has it's benefits. People leaving the Florida Keys due to rising sea levels is a positive. Look at Key West on a map. What a stupid place to live. No wonder Key West is full of Jimmy Buffet beach bum types. The road to get there did not exist until 1935 when Democrat FDR insisted that the road be built. Fossil fuel burning trucks and boats bring in supplies to a place that couldn't possibly sustain itself. Even the start of the Keys at Key Largo should not be inhabited. The entire area is a history of boondoggles starting with the US Military fort built in the Dry Tortugas for the invasion that never came. Abandon the Florida Keys now.
10
@Dan M why don’t you come down here and see the truth for yourself? There isn’t any rising seas. You can’t touch any decent real estate in Key West without $2 million in your pocket.
Florida is doomed. Besides its unbearable climate it is now about to be flooded out. Everybody in Florida will have to buy a boat and wear rubber boots. Tough to dance in rubber boots.
5
Astounding that many have no problem being in denial over climate change and the US doing nothing about it. But once their beachfront home is at risk, suddenly the government is expected to swoop in and save the day. No mention that it’s making anyone rethink their stance or possibly modify some behaviors to address the root cause.
20
The same people who wants lower taxes wants the government to spend tens to hundreds of millions of dollars to save their property, which probably isn't worth that amount. Real smart.
5
Might I suggest those people wishing to live on remote keys learn about things called "boats"?
There was a time when that's how all keys dwellers got around.
9
@Carey Sublette this is exactly what I thought. Before the islands were connected, people who chose to live there managed just fine.
1
If you can't afford to protect your own house from the encroaching sea, I don't see how you can expect the rest of us to pay for it. You decided to live in a place that gets flooded and I decided to live in a place that doesn't so I frown on my tax payer dollars being used to insure you a life of beach front living. Sorry.
21
“What’s government for? They’re supposed to protect your property,” Mr. Silverman said. Really??? That's laughable.
7
Isn’t Florida a state without state income tax??
9
@Mary M , either they will be passing one, raising property taxes sky high, borrowing at ever higher rates, or levying special climate change taxes. We can't write it off as a few areas with a dozen residents that, well, it's unfortunate, but have to be abandoned. It's a hundred thousand miles of roads and other infrastructure, and millions of residents. What to do with those raw numbers?
1
In 2006 I sold my beachfront Florida condo for top dollar because I feared rising seas. I was a bit early, but better than a bit late.
The willfully ignorant narcissistic climate change deniers deserve no help from those of us who saw this coming.
10
No worries. In a thousand years all of Florida will be under water.
6
"The future is already here, its just not evenly distributed. "
- William Gibson
9
If Trump stops playing golf so often, Sugarloaf Key can be saved.
I'm willing to bet that enough money will be found to save Mar-a-Lago
5
Even if the road goes permanently under water, it sounds as though most of the residents will still have homes to go to---perhaps by boat, as the article states.
That's at least hopeful news. Depending on how the residents of Sugarloaf Key play it, having to take a ferry or other waterborne conveyance to get to their neighborhood might even make it seem more exclusive. You know, that special 'apartness' that people who live on islands feel about 'mainlanders'. Put another way, having to take a launch to get to your front door sounds rather exotic, rather like living in your own little Venice.
I say this without being cheeky. I truly wish these homeowners well.
5
Just a tiny sampling of what is to come. The earth isn’t being destroyed, but humans might be.
5
Cheaper to give the residents money to buy homes elsewhere.
What 40 years of denial has done: the chickens are coming home to roost.
2
I loved the Silverman passage.I chuckled. You know how Republicans refuse to believe the facts of global warming.
My first thought was, why would you spend trillions and trillions of wealth trying to hold back the sea steadfastly holding your ground, you know Florida indiscretion, like some war movie addict? Why not save trillions instead by reducing fuels use?
4
“Retreat!”
That’s the command now after the war against climate change failed because Republicans refused to fight it. They just laid down their arms and gave up because they didn’t believe it was real and so failed to protect us from this harm that scientists predicted.
Where will we have to retreat next?
113
@Sherry America can change its policy rather quickly as our economy is relatively nimble for it size. Brazil, China and India are the major players here and our economy cannot compete with cheap labor and cheap energy. Until those countries change we will be stuck because there will not be the political will to support the initial costs for major climate change policies in the US. We will be dinking around no matter who is in office. I do think you are incorrect when you say the Republicans didn't believe in climate change. They just lie about it.
7
@Mr. Buck I look out my window and can see the water level is no higher or lower than it was 25 years ago when I bought the house.
2
@Sherry I live in the Florida keys. Right now I look out my window and can see the water level is no higher or lower than it was 25 years ago when I bought the house.
2
Got to love Mr. Silverman's comments about the government protecting his property while the photo shows him motoring around in a boat, and the article references how he used to fly south in a Cessna. Some people will never get it...
9
A couple flies their private Cessna to their second home in Keys.
And I should bail them out?
No thanks.
16
I truly feel sympathy for all the families who find themselves who must face the harsh reality that their homes might no longer be sustainable. The thought of having to leave what might be a coastal paradise must be a nightmare.
While I get why these residents are are grieving I am baffled why anyone living in coastal community is outraged by the thought that their communities will not be economically sustainable over the long run. The soggy signs have been right under their feet for the last decade and if that was not enough, the science was there as well supporting that what they saw was actually going to get much worse.
So when the water in the front yard was ankle deep, Floridians voted for “climate change is a hoax” Donald Trump.The Trump who wanted to invigorate the coal industry and the Trump that said wind power caused cancer. The president you elected delivered the edict that the term “climate change” not be used in environmental impact statements as if the water in your yard was a figment of your imagination. You even went so far as to elect Rick Scott as your Governor whose number one skill turns out (luckily for you) hurricane management and unfortunately not water abatement.
For the families who might have to leave their homes,I am sorry that your options are limited. Your new neighbor Donald Trump will be spending Christmas in Florida. Please invite him to visit your homes after all he said “he alone” would make things great again.
14
Standard American attitude toward taxes on display here; you don’t “take out” what you put in to taxes. They’re no longer “your taxes”, and when the government decides how to use them, it is generally because there are experts who figured it out.
2
...meanwhile, in other coastal areas around Florida, the boom continues of multi-million dollar high-rise buildings being built right on the beach! I guess insurance companies know something we don’t. Even the UN Building in NYC is on prime waterfront-view property and was renovated for over two billion dollars in 2015 so they can watch the water encroach on their own building in a glorious “I told you so!” moment, somewhere in the near future according to them and their computer models. (Which they program and don’t show us the procedures! That just smells of science, right?) Since insurance companies NEVER bet against the odds, they will also know something in NYC and Florida too which we don’t — and that thing is: it ain’t going to flood in at least 100 years in those insured areas even if the media squawks like chickens daily as if it will!
1
"what are governments for? They're supposed to protect your property".
No. Governments don't protect YOUR property. You do that.
4
So tough.
You're talking about marsh, wetlands, swamps and rising ocean levels. The delusional folks who imprudently built homes and businesses in problematic places will now pay the price for their folly. I don't feel one bit sorry for them. All behavior has consequences.
4
The standard home mortgage is 30 years. When you run an article like this one, why don't you include a map showing projections of which parts of in this case Florida will be underwater 30 years from now? All this text obscures the subject, a map showing these projections will vividly demonstrate what is going to happen and by extension where not to build or buy property today because of climate change.
4
I doubt that insurance policies cover rising water due to climate change. Hurricanes yes. Rising water due to global warming is a slow death for The Keys and other low lying areas. Insurance companies are too smart to write coverage for the inevitable.
73
Exactly right. Only FEMA covers flooding from rising waters. Insurance policies cover water coming in (due to hurricanes, etc) through the roof or windows - not “seepage”.
3
@Rob D If you knew six years in advance that your house was going to flood, you wouldn't think about moving before the water rises?
4
Aren't these states - FL, NC, and other such affected states - governed by Republicans (aka climate change deniers)? Normally I wouldn't feel much if any sympathy for such folks (sorry, I am just exhausted), except that we all sink . . .
1
@PS
Sorry. It’s not just red states that will be affected by climate change. All states will be affected to varying degrees. As will the entire globe. Climate doesn’t care about your politics.
1
@PS the seas are not rising in the keys. Come down and see for yourself.
1
Amazing. These people will have passed in a near enough time that their concerns are primarily their own and short term — and then they will be gone. The 73 year old? How much longer would she be there in any case? Of course, she will just throw her hands up and leave n— perhaps to a nursing home or to be with one her children. Meanwhile those of us in our twenties, thirties, and forties — what are we supposed to do?
1
I cannot get my head round the fact that it would cost about $8,000 to raise each FOOT of road a couple of feet - that’s right - that’s 30 centimetres of road .....
Must be paved in gold !
3
@Arthur the roads are not flooded. The seas are not rising. Come down and see for yourself!
1
Climate change is real, sea level rise is real, and it's man made. Al Gore warned us of this more than 20 years ago, and people laughed at him. I am not at all sorry for those who live near the shore and are affected by sea level rise. Not one bit.
Oh and say hi to Bob Lutz, former auto exec. and major league climate warming denier when his house floats by. https://www.yahoo.com/news/bp/astrophysicist-neil-degrasse-tyson-takes-former-gm-chairman-053956067.html
@Steve :O come to the keys and see for yourself that all of this is lies. The seas are not rising. We are not flooding.
1
@Steve :O Al Gore?! LOL! Scientists have been warning about this since the 1950s. Even Rachel Carson discussed it.
1
Cheaper to buy them out than to spend millions on a road for a few houses.
1
One might characterize our nation as sinking under Trump or is it that the Sea is rising? Perhaps a combination is more to the truth.
1
I am actually enjoying this debate. Climate change is a old issue - we've known it was coming for decades, unless you have your head in the sand. This is a choice we have made as a country. The Chickens have come Home to Roost, as they say. Let it begin. I have no pity for anyone on the climate change issue. Good God, we still have a President and a Republican majority in the Senate who deny its existence. And we are about to re-elect the President. Sorry America, but we deserve all of this. Europe will have to lead.
5
In the year 2000 Al Gore (an environmental champion) won the popular vote but Florida gave the presidency to Bush (who led us down a path to endless, trillion dollar wars).
Could it be Karma - perhaps - that Florida is sinking?
8
Roads? Cars? The species that caused all of this? What about plants and wildlife and and and?
1
As if that taxpayer hasn't impacted others - locally and not-so-locally - with his carbon-contributing ways! If he can convince me his polluting self has contaminated only his own air, his own land, and his own water, he can keep every dime of his taxes.
4
Within a few decades of continued warming droughts worse than the Dust Bowl are projected to severely impact the breadbaskets of the world causing massive famines and economic decline. (1)
Weakened by that we’d be shortly faced with retreat from the large coastal cities as the West Antarctic Ice Sheet begins to collapse into the ocean.
It is hard to imagine us walking into this with our eyes open, yet here we are, steadily driving emissions up.
1. https://www.ted.com/talks/james_hansen_why_i_must_speak_out_about_climate_change/transcript?language=en
1
People need to realize that this isn’t a one off offer that this will be something that has to revisited again and again. Scientists are predicting that when the seas rise it will reach the elbow of the Statue of Liberty. So let say that it only rises half of that, that is still over twenty feet how many road and houses will need to be saved then. Better move
1
I have not been to the Keys in person, so can only comment based on this kind of article, and photos and maps ... but the string of pearls of land and water looks like an impossibility to protect against the inevitability of ever-higher water. What frankly appalls me more is the attitude of people like Mr. Mease : egotistical absence of any solidarity, or for that matter sense of self-preservation : how long will his medical clinic survive if tax money isn’t spent on a solution so that his patients can get there? Well, if he believe ‘every man is an island’, he’s about to literally find out if he’s right.
1
I haven’t been to Florida in 14 years and you know what, I don’t miss it. I prefer to go to blue states and spend my hard earned money in states that acknowledge climate change. California is beautiful with no toxic algae.
4
There is plenty of toxic algae in CA.
http://www.capradio.org/articles/2019/06/25/despite-record-snow-melt-toxic-algae-continues-to-bloom-in-california-lakes-and-ponds/
1
Here is a paragraph from an announcement just today about local road improvements in St Tammany parish, Louisiana.
"Parish President Brister, along with Governor John Bel Edwards and DOTD Secretary Shawn Wilson, announced in September that the funding for this expansion was secured through a State LADOTD allocation of Federal Redistribution Funds. This funding is in addition to the $25 million in Federal BUILD Grant funds Parish President Pat Brister secured in December of 2018 for the widening of I-12 from LA Highway 21 to US Highway 190."
This also is a three mile stretch of road and the total cost is $54 million.
People never ever should have been able to build so close to the shore, in flood zones, or on cliffs that give way in rain. Blame the localities and greedy builders who allowed it. This was preventable long before global warming became a topic in the news. And how on earth am I responsible for someone else’s risky choices?
3
I was born in Florida in 1952. One of my very earliest memories was a road trip we went on around 1956 from Fort Myers to Key West. I became so interested in the history of the modern day development of the Keyes from when the Spanish had possession, through the construction of the railroad, to today's modern highway.
Nobody lived on the little Keys, which were mangrove swamps with brackish water; mosquito infested places no one wanted to really even visit unless the snow was 3 feet deep where they came from. First the coal port at Key West, the sale of the island to 4 U.S. citizens when it became apparent that it would become part of the U.S., the construction of the railroad really was the quantum leap. They had to bring in workers from the Bahamas: after trying whites, they figured out the only humans who were acclimated to the heat to any degree (pun unintended, but noticed), and who would work there, were Bahamian blacks.
Modern technology has made it possible to live about anywhere, in deserts which have nary enough water to support large cities, and in places like the Keys where air conditioning is almost mandatory. So it goes right back to the question: just because we can do something, should we?
5
I left South Florida October 2017 after living there over 50 years because of rising water, ever higher insurance costs, stronger and more numerous hurricanes, horrendous traffic and the inability of my follow citizens to elect informed governments that could comprehend and grapple with the real effects of climate change.
I voted with my feet, got out while my waterfront property was still worth something, and now live in Dallas which is over 600 feet above sea level. South Florida is a disaster waiting to happen and when everybody runs for the exits property values will plummet.
It doesn’t make sense to expect government to bail you out when the handwriting has been on the wall for decades,
6
"What’s government for? They’re supposed to protect your property,”
Interesting viewpoint.
Where does that leave people who don't own property?
1
This same sort of thing is happening on Cape Cod, where the sea has always been reclaiming land since the ice age ended. I have noticed we’re never looking at homes from the 17th, 18th, or 19th century are falling into the sea. Only those built in the 19th and 20th century are built on sandy beaches for the viewing pleasure of their owners.
Then, when the sea comes close to their doors, the owners demand heroic, hideously expensive, engineering projects to save them. Ordinarily, these beach palaces are lived in for a few weeks a year. Only in the last 40 years or so have people been dumb enough to build homes in these areas, destroying natural habitats in the process.
Instead of protecting these monstrosities at taxpayer expense, they should be dismantled piece by piece, and the land they sit upon given back to the sea.
2
What’s government for?? The same people who clamor for less regulation and “small government” always hold their hands out first for help. It’s getting old. Make better choices is all I can say to these people.
4
For the eight years Rick Scott was our governor he prohibited any state employee to utter the words "climate change" and worked diligently to relax or rescind regulations that protected us. He got elected to the Senate in 2018 defeating Bill Nelson, a believer in climate change. We in South East Florida are outnumbered by wealthy white folks on the coasts and maga heads up north.
4
Hardly surprising. The consequences of maintaining the use of fossil fuels are being felt by people all over the world. Spare a thought for the impoverished in places that don't even give their citizens the right to complain. Blame successive governments for this predicament, they have been derelict in their duty to the planet.
63
Lots of people in denial. Unfortunately, that doesn’t make the problem go,away.
5
The Federal Flood insurance program is itself under water. The rates offered do not cover the claims processed and the risks assumed. Don’t ask me for more federal tax dollars to bail you out.
Climate change is real. Florida voted for the Climate change deniers: Trump and DeSantos. Until you believe in Science, I don’t care what happens to Florida.
3
Yes, we should buy these people out for the price their property is going to be worth: $0.
4
Open up a parking facility on the adjacent key for these people to keep their cars. Just take a boat over when the water is high. Essentially it will be like living on an island.
1
@C. M. Jones
It already is an island...
1
How about raising taxes on Floridians to pay for all of these improvements. They don’t pay any income taxes but then come crying to the federal government to bail them out of disaster after disaster. I’m tired of MY tax dollars subsidizing people who live in “paradise .”
2
It would be far cheaper for the city to buy out the few properties along that road, and to let nature take its
course. I wonder how many of the owners have given
serious thought to global warming until now. Reality
bites.
4
Maybe they should have considered the impact of their lifestyle? They don't care that they are leaving a wreck of a planet to the next generation. They don't take responsibility for their own failure to act over their lifetime. They got their tax breaks and now, no matter what anyone does, the ocean will take a bit of their precious wealth. I trust they sue and inflict all the pain their wealth allows.
1
What we are talking about is triage for land masses and the residents living there
The costs of global warming will be beyond the ability of people to create the new wealth needed to cover them at some point. Republicans need to take it seriously and join in preparing for this. Denying it is just allowing any opportunities to manage the challenges far more difficult.
You can be sure Mar-a-Lago will stay dry, even if a 60 ft. retaining wall is needed.
1
I suppose that for space reasons, parts of this article had to be cut out: The part about these Florida Keys residents who are among the earliest victims of anthropogenic climate change have been turning off Fox “News” and reading, say, Scientific American to learn about anthropogenic climate change. The part where these people have been vigorously fighting the climate science denial industry for decades. The part where they limited flying, especially in private planes, to reduce their carbon footprint. The part where they fought against the Republican turn towards a medieval mind-set of simplistic religion which denies science.
I have little sympathy those who CHOOSE ignorance. The overwhelming scientific information about climate change caused almost entirely by our emissions of CO2, and the consequences of that, has been very widely available for decades now. All it has taken is a trip to a bookstore or a library or a public lecture and a reasonable choice about media to follow. They have chosen ignorance instead. No sympathy from me now.
3
“ “What’s government for? They’re supposed to protect your property,” Mr. Silverman said from behind the wheel of his shallow skiff boat on a recent afternoon.
The couple listed the variety of jobs that depend on the people who live on this street: Landscapers, construction workers, caterers, carpenters, the restaurants up the road. “There’s a lot of trickle-down,” Mr. Silverman said.”
This is the epitome of unbridled arrogance and entitlement.
4
And yet Florida has voted in recent years for climate change-denying candidates for president, governor, and senator.
3
The future of climate change adaptation does not appear to have been clarified by this conference.
Balancing the risks of litigation against the risks of remaining sounds emphatically dystopian.
1
Both retreat and protection carry significant costs, though retreat probably costs less (buyouts and litigation). It is taxpayers who will be paying these costs. I know federal agencies will pick up a lot, but state taxpayers will be on the hook too. What does that mean for a state like Florida, SO vulnerable and with many, many areas with more than a dozen residents that will need more than one road raised?
I do not see how Florida will be able to continue as a low-tax state.
4
What is evident around many low lying areas including greater NY and Florida - The price of a home does not vary adequately between zones prone to the temporary or permanent encroachment of water versus higher land which is quite unlikely to be affected in the next 75 years. If one buys on the higher ground, there is the avoidance of not only water but also the cost of buying insurance too. Finally, it can be projected that the properties five or ten meters above sea level may one day become fine waterfront real estate.
2
A rising tide lifts all grievances. Even the climate deniers don’t want their claims denied. Perhaps these folks who chose to live on the keys , which are by definition are islands strung along from Key Biscayne to Key West, should embrace that the loss of road. It simply grants them a more ‘exclusive island’ as it seems they sought isolation considering the distance, boundaries and fences around their properties.
4
Yes, we will need to talk about retreat. We cannot afford to save everything. We also need to start talking about how to ensure that when properties are put up for sale that both the current and future prospects for the land and/or access to it being under water is fully disclosed.
Having seen what flooding has wrought here in VT during several major storms I'm very sensitive to this. I'm house-hunting and finding it difficult to get adequate info on the flood risk status of properties. Many are listed as "unknown". Others are in the flood zone but you have to look for the fine print in the listing to know this. Flood risk for a property is way more important than granite countertops and trendy appliances yet it seems to be the elephant in the living room.
3
I do think there is a simple dollars and sense argument that those of us with the ability to accept what will come with climate change can be making and have failed to put forth so far. In this case, these homes in Key West will require hundreds of millions of dollars of road improvements to continue to be accessible year round by car. The Green New Deal is not policy the average Joe and Jane can wrap their head around. Having to choose between an annual road tax of $5,000 or more for each resident or supporting regulations that help reduce carbon emissions to reduce potential impact. Do we just accept that it is the risk of having a home here that you wont be to drive to and from your home without a ferry a few months per year? I personally think thats smarter than trying to continue to elevate roads at a huge cost.
2
This is very similar to the problems with wild fire in California in that homes and businesses, entire towns, have been built in locations no longer suited to the current land use. At least with rising tides the ownership issue is currently settled in US east coast states. Once the tide rises to cover land then ownership reverts to the state. Be interesting to see how people react once that starts happening to a lot of land owners.
6
@ebmem
"Uncontrolled forest fires in California is a result of human activities as listed."
"Neither have anything to do with CO2 levels or the burning of fossil fuels."
The hot dry climate does indeed have something to do with the uncontrolled forest fires. It is getting hotter and dryer. And there are other factors in the mix, including, as you say, "a result of human activities as listed."
Rising temperatures will turn vast areas of Earth into areas uninhabitable by humans and most other species. We started burning coal, then oil, all while increasing our population at an incredible rate, year after year, decade after decade, and yes is a contributor to the warming in desert areas all over the planet. The atmosphere is thin but critical.
6
@ebmem Since you clearly deny the consensus of the majority of world climate scientists and don't 'believe in' the climate change crisis, I know where you can get real good prices on ocean front property. Where I live, big homes on cliffs overlooking.the ocean are going for about 200k. They have maybe 2 to 5 years before the cliffs collapse due to something ( what couldn't be??) making the ocean waters rise, the superstorms and stronger winds occurring, and the cliffs deteriorating. Must be a coincidence, all the flooding, the huge storms, the glaciers melting, the rising seas, all happening at once.
And science? All a big conspiracy, right?
1
@Federalist
You are making the assumption that forest fires in California and flooding in Florida are the consequence of global warming.
If you were aware of science, you would know that the flooding described in this article is the consequence of land subsidence, not global warming, an increase in atmospheric CO2 or warming oceans.
If you were honest with yourself, you would admit that the forest fires in California are the result of years of fire suppression, poor electricity infrastructure investment and maintenance, poor tree trimming and brush clearing, failure to invest in water storage to address the needs of a large population, in addition to the building of houses in areas too close to fire hazards that you mention.
Flooding in coastal areas is the consequence of human activities. Pumping water out of shallow aquifers causes the land to sink. Uncontrolled forest fires in California is a result of human activities as listed.
Neither have anything to do with CO2 levels or the burning of fossil fuels.
Your comment about ownership is somewhat irrelevant. The couple of dozen houses that are the subject of this article do not appear to be at immediate risk of being submerged. The value of the properties will seriously decline if they no longer have road access to the rest of the island and to the mainland. The same is true of homes destroyed by or endangered by wildfires.
1
“So somebody in the city thinks they deserve more of my tax money than I do?” Mr. Mense asked. “Then don’t charge us taxes, how does that sound?”
A three mile stretch of road. An estimated $75 million, at minimum. Two dozen homeowners will NEVER pay that much in taxes. But the homeowner wants some other homeowner's taxes to pay to keep him in an unsustainable location.
25
@Emcd
Sort of like how we taxpayers get to have our tax money used to keep paying out federal insurance money to homeowners who keep having their palatial homes washed out by hurricanes. When does this end?
2
Somebody in this article in a family boat on Sugarloaf asked “ what’s government for?”
As a people , Americans , taxpayers , homeowners , hourly and salaried workers all pay into a regressive tax structure while the Billionaire class is buying elections and building monolithic homes in Florida that can be locked down against the tides and the weather.
Florida has some of the most unsustainable approaches to its natural beauty and resources. When a problem arises in their state they analyze it to death then do nothing. The state has been mulched to death and built up along the major routes with massive condo gated communities that are as big as small towns . The landscape is destroyed of mangroves and wildlife. Florida is a deeply confederate leaning state once you leave Orlando or the wealth of south Florida. The keys were altered many times by the government in negative ways. The Army Corp of Engineers brought in invasive plants and destroyed mangroves and redirected water flow in the early 20 th century. So government by the people , for the people and of the people has never been a real thing for taxpayers .
We have heard about the demise of the Key Islands for 50 years now. So young adults do not think this is a new issue related to climate change alarms. Environmental activists woke a long time ago. Florida won’t help itself. It will just complain and rip rights from taxpayers.
8
If you have not read Jeff Goodell's wonderful book, The Water Will Come: Rising Seas, Sinking Cities, and the Remaking of the Civilized World, I commend it to you most enthusiastically.
None of this is, or should be, a surprise. The thing is, it's only going to get worse.
We've had at least forty years to prepare for this. But we've preferred to deny that our use of fossil fuels is changing our atmosphere and our oceans. We will pay the price for it. And it will be a high one.
29
The coasts are already heavily subsidized, with flood insurance being artificially cheap and fema funds going towards rebuilding in unsafe areas. If you want your waterfront property, thats fine, but theres no reason everyone else inland should have to pay. For dense urban areas like NYC, large scale mitigation strategies like in the netherlands are warranted, but for FEMA to pay tens of millions for a single town to fill the sand in its beaches is ludicrous and unsustainable. The sand will just wash away again.
I remember earlier this year when people ridiculed Andrew Yang for saying at one of the debates we need to move to higher ground as too defeatist, but he is essentially right. Moving out of high risk areas is usually the most economical option. There are many areas that we should not publicly insure or subsidize. This will be tough, because the places are beautiful and are currently far overbuilt, but we have to bite the bullet and face facts: the ocean always wins eventually.
23
@Will
In primitive times, people moved to higher ground when flooding occurred. Indigenous people in the arctic zone migrated out of the paths of slowly moving glaciers.
Today, the population of NYC and DC is growing.
If the federal government is going to do anything, assisting migration makes more sense than elevating roads, paying for a new Amtrak tunnel to connect NYC to DC and the like.
But NYC, for example, far prefers to beg and demand federal funds because if people moved away, they'd lose a Congressional seat.
2
It's unfortunate that residents of low lying areas across the country are facing the prospect of destruction or abandonment of their property caused by anthropogenic climate change. It is also unbelievable that states like North Carolina have banned consideration of climate science in zoning and development considerations.
https://www.ua-magazine.com/north-carolina-bans-climate-change-data/
And a number of other states, like Pennsylvania, and Florida have banned the use of the term "climate change" in their official communications.
https://weather.com/science/environment/news/north-carolina-pennsylvania-officials-ban-climate-change-global-warming
Sad.
However, the brunt of the damage caused by anthropogenic climate change will be borne by those least responsible for it and least able to protect their very lives, let alone their beach front property.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/mar/31/climate-change-poor-suffer-most-un-report
The coming climate changes will cause immense suffering around the globe, creating even wider inequality. First world problems like declining property values seem quite trivial in comparison.
11
It's clear that the seas won't stop rising before the Keys become untenable. Everyone there has been fairly warned. Sell now, get to higher ground or accept that you're on your own. The city and county governments will never be financially equipped to deal with it even if the political will existed.
13
Building in a hurricane prone place directly above the ocean, whether it's 18 feet above sea level or not, is irresponsible. The flood insurance company Mr. Silverman uses almost certainly got the money to repair his vacation home time and time again directly through the government's National Flood Insurance Program. Mind, the constant recipients of such funds rarely put in the money that they get in return for repairs.
For Mr. Silverman to complain that the government is supposed to protect his property when they've almost certainly already been paying for his repairs, is laughable. And then to suggest that he stop paying taxes because they can't afford to keep his home and a handful of others on what sounds like millionaire's row above water for the foreseeable future, is even more self centered and selfish than he realizes.
25
Well, now the Republicans will pay more attention to the seriousness of global warning and climate change, especially given that its going to impact the state of Florida. My sympathies for all the FL residents.
It's a problem Japan has had to contend with as well. There are several sparsely populated islands in the Japanese archipelago. Over time, the nation decided to stop offering services to them, and people had no choice but to move to the mainland. Unfortunately, coastal areas in the US must face this fate as well. As Haag says, it doesn't make sense to protect every single home.
11
There are topo maps that show just what land will be underwater at 6 feet, 10 feet, etc.
I've read that the wealthy are buying homes inland in Florida now.
In 50 years almost all of SE Florida and all of SW Florida will be under water. Safest to be about a mile inland, and north of Boca on the East and north of Largo on the West.
I am very curious when this will hit real estate values. That is a bigger deal in Florida than in almost any other state, since they have no income tax (and no oil to tax to replace it, unlike Texas).
14
“What’s government for? They’re supposed to protect your property,” Mr. Silverman said.
I think one of the things government is for is to watch our back. To pay attention to science and not be bought by corporate interests.
That happens only when the population is paying attention and Is made up of critical thinkers.
The people bashing folks for living in the Keys have a point. There has always been risk involved with coastal living. That risk didn’t used to mean extreme climate change though. A phenomena that science has proven.
But now we have risk for being part of a population that allows ignorance to run our governmental policies. Ignore science, turn a blind eye on corporations allowed the rights of individuals.
So yes, living on the coast is risky.
I’d say it’s not as risky as living in a society willing to ignore the obvious though.
Truth tellers make uninformed people say and do uninformed things.
The Florida keys are spectacular. To lose places like this at the hands of greed and misinformation is where the danger really is.
If you think you can’t be touched by climate change because you don’t live on the coast, you are misinformed.
Where can I get insurance to protect me from uninformed science denying, flat earthers? Is that a thing yet?
20
It is too late. And it was not due to lack of warnings but because climate-change deniers polluted the political and scientific discourse. It is too late because of the inertia of climate change: whatever happens tomorrow and in the next decades, the weather we will have 30 years from now is basically decided, for the same reason that one cannot stop a supertanker at once by adding more tugs. It is too late and I can predict that a lot of “acts of God” are going to be invoked in the future in the US to justify not defending indefensible areas: try to preserve everything and everything will be list. The smart thing to do, as it is slowly being implemented in Europe, is to develop contingency plans to defend only the highest economic assets (harbors etc.). Saving New-York makes sense. The Keys? Sorry for the residents, especially for those who never denied climate change, but not so much.
12
@Gvaltat
It was too late in 1950 - we just didn't know it then.
And yes, rich, large cities will be able to afford to build seawalls and other infrastructure to hold back the water. San Francisco is a good example; however, the entire Bay Area will not be spared the effects of rising waters.
2
The carbon cycle for the last 2 million years was doing 180-280ppm atmospheric CO2 over 10,000 years and we’ve done more change than that in 100 years.
The last time CO2 went from 180-280ppm global temperature increased by around 5 degrees C and sea level rose 130 meters. (graph of the last 400,000 years of global temperature, CO2 and sea level below)
One amplifying feedback alone out of dozens, loss of albedo or heat reflectivity from Arctic summer sea ice melt, over the last several decades has been equivalent to 25 percent of the climate forcing of anthropogenic CO2. And that will continue to increase as that ice disappears by mid century.
The Titanic sank because by the time the lookout called the warning the ship had too much momentum to turn. The Earth has a lot more momentum, e.g. we've already likely locked in ~6 meters of sea level rise from the marine sectors of Greenland and West Antarctica, and decade to decade warming in the near term is also locked in.
That momentum is building and the higher we let global temperatures rise the greater the risk of them going really high as amplifying feedbacks strengthen.
http://www.ces.fau.edu/nasa/images/impacts/slr-co2-temp-400000yrs.jpg
14
People, and local governments, have been dealing with this issue in parts of coastal Louisiana for decades. Maybe it depends on state law. There are many ways the county can fund necessary road improvements without sticking the taxpayers with the bill directly. Besides $75 million is chump change. I bet Trump could do it cheaper.
It sounds like the local government officials are in over their heads and don't really know what they are doing.
2
@Aristotle GM, yes, and we have had to build a huge flood protection program for Nola after Katrina, much, if not all of which was designed, built, and partially paid for by the Army Corps of Engineers (ACE). At some point during those design stages, the decision was made not to include certain small communities inside the protective walls/barriers. Too expensive and didn’t meet the cost/benefit requirements. The people and home owners in those communities now live “on the wrong side” of the flood protection. I don’t know if they filed any legal action to complain about being “hung out to dry” as it were, but they are definitely stuck.
So while I feel for the people in this Florida community, the fact remains that you literally can’t save everyone, and hard decisions have to be made. The question is, who makes the decision, and who pays for it?
7
75 millions for 12 houses, that’s 6.25 millions per house. Even if it can be done a little cheaper, how many years these residents would have to pay taxes to basically balance the expense?
9
@Gvaltat
The local official's approach to funding those road improvements is all wrong. They are either lying or are incompetent. The estimate of $75 million is also much too high.
See my post above. Our local government is funding three miles of interstate widening to six lanes, including three bridges, with grants and reallocation of other funds to pay the $54 million cost. The local government is only paying $8 million.
Shouldn't the petroleum industry foot the bill?
Within 15 years there should be enough incontrovertible evidence that the pollution created by the fossil industry is what caused all these issues.
However,
In the universe there is never a process without a beginning and an end, with a source at one end and without a sink at the other end. There will always be debris from any process.
Put corn in one end and get methane out of the other! You get the idea.
We like to ignore the cost of the repairs or pass it on to the consumers but that is the inherent flaw of the capitalistic system which never wants to look in the rearview mirror and forgets that everyone is a consumer.
Time to pay the piper for most of us, the makers and the takers who forget or willfully ignore the laws of physics!
Hopefully some surviving descendents will study the data we are leaving in the digital clouds and profit from the lessons of history.
5
A good example of how markets all throughout the U.S. -- real estate and commodities being the prime ones -- are grossly mispriced because they have not reflected the ongoing and upcoming costs of dealing with climate change. In the same way that climate change has been moving slowly, and now will move all at once, these markets will re-price practically overnight as it becomes evident what must be done. Because the country has not been planning for these eventualities for the past several decades, many people are going to suffer. Because the problem will start impacting the lives of rich whites, we may finally see some action. Sad but true.
4
Not exactly, Mr. Silverman. The government is responsible for public property, not private property.
11
I sold my marsh-front house in Charleston SC 4 months ago for this very reason. I got top dollar, and knew full well that this is THE time - before the conversation changes from "such a nice place to live!" to "floods all the time...".
Sea level rise is on the march, there is no stopping it now, and all the money the world has or will ever have won't be enough to adapt to this new coastal world. Charleston has a lot of great ideas to adapt. They will cost multi-billions the city will never have.
Shoot, we can hardly keep the potholes filled! Now we're going to rebuild everything to a set of moving targets? We are so woefully unprepared for all of this.
26
There was an interview with a hall of fame baseball player on local San Diego news. He was upset because our local government was making plans for how we can retreat from the beaches. The lack of public funds to support sea walls puts his beachfront property at risk.
He said “ we can’t abandon these homes”. Those beach front homes cost 10 to 20 million dollars. I was pleased to hear that my elected officials are not planning on using my tax dollar to keep out the ocean and to try to prevent beach erosion that is inevitable.
24
At some point people living in places like this will probably be unable to get insurance, and their property values will decrease regardless of what the county does. The fact is that spending millions and millions of dollars to protect a few homes isn't economically viable. I suspect in the future it will also be more difficult to obtain a loan to purchase such a property - or it should be. Low lying land like this is going to be under water within 10-20 years. It appears inevitable regardless of what steps we take regarding climate change.
15
There's a pretty good graphic program done by NOAA for both king tides and sea-level rise in our area. I live in a development that is in flood zone X (insurance optional). We do have flood insurance, and in the programs, we stay high and dry for the next hundred years in the worst envisioned scenarios. However, the land and dwellings around us yield to the sea after about 2075. "No man is an island entire of itself," John Donne wrote, if I recall him correctly.
Nor is it possible to build sea walls: the water just seeps through our porous limestone substrate. Perhaps we'll become like Venice is now. But in the not-too-distant future we'll all need to bail (figuratively and perhaps literally).
13
Climate change is worsening the problem but for too long people have been building in forests, on beaches and in flood plains. When there is a fire, a flood or a storm they expect government to pay to repair or rebuild their homes. We have now reached the point where that has become unsustainable. In such areas people need to be told that they are building at their own risk and government will not be responsible when the inevitable happens.
12
There was an article in the Times recently about how the Canadian government was proactively buying out people from compromised areas. When will we wake up and smell the water?
12
Since 1986, we have a law in France named “loi littoral”. Broadly, the concept is to avoid real-estate speculation and preserve the costal areas for public use. In some areas, private properties are being bought by the state. In the next decades, when we will be all hit hard by the rise of sea level, France will be much more prepared than the US, still very probably not enough. Also, I just moved back to France after having spent the last 10 years in Seattle, I am quite astonished to see how many discourses/news/documentaries are dealing with climate change: we as a society are getting ready, the US as a whole are definitively not.
10
I had the opportunity to interview for a job on the coast of NC about 20 years ago. It was a job I probably could have gotten and a beautiful community that would have put me closer to family. But climate change. This is nothing new. My sister got out of Charleston, SC just in time to miss Hugo, and every hurricane season seems to get worse and worse. It never made sense to me then, even less now. Of course, I live now in a desert that has suffered drought for over a decade so I question my own judgment too.
16
Here in the Tampa Bay Area, there is a boom in waterfront residential construction. A large townhouse development just completed near where I live right on the intercoastal. Sold out very quickly. I give it perhaps 20-30 years before the rising seas claim it.
14
Maybe next time instead of voting overwhelmingly for Trump, the residents of the Keys will cast a vote in their self-interest, but I wouldn’t count on it.
35
@David Williams
I understood that the Keys were one of the few areas in Florida that went Democratic. Some statistics?
1
@N I just looked it up myself. You are correct, in that 54 percent of Monroe County voted for Trump. Only Key West went for Clinton, with 53 percent of the vote. That was the source of my confusion -- I spent time in Key West shortly after the election, and there were a lot of upset voters there.
1
The real estate sign advertising land for sale for $3million is arguably false advertising - that's a punishable offense under federal law. Entire coastline areas in the U.S. need urgently to be made off limits from (any further) development by law.
12
Why not just raise the roads to 2060 heights the first time? Why the need to rebuild every few decades?
2
@Adam - same reason people today are avoiding paying the price of carbon emissions up front? Besides, building to 2060 heights would beg the question of why they don't build to 2100 heights, and so forth.
8
Could be better written but I took that to mean X dollars to keep things dry until Y year. A three foot raise now keeps it dry until 2060.
Any attempt to raise roads or build sea walls is very short sighted. Sea level rise is just beginning, and the rate at which it will rise will increase in the next few decades and beyond. There is enough ice in Greenland and Antarctica to raise seas 200 feet, and that’s where we are headed. By the time any remedial action is completed, it will be apparent that it is not enough.
No one wants to say the word “retreat”, and it’s nice to think that there is some “solution”. But if we don’t start organized retreat now, we will face disorganized retreat later. The Florida coastline, and all other low-lying coastlines around the world, will become uninhabitable, there is simply no other possibility, short of removing 50-100 ppm carbon from the atmosphere in the next 10 years.
But we won’t begin this retreat any time soon. No one wants to because we don’t know how to do it. So, here comes chaos.
Best to get established on higher ground now, while those areas are still affordable....
23
It is sad that they are losing their homes. Yes, there were probably some flaws in their decision making around their homes, but who among us is perfect in their process?
And yes, government should be protecting their property instead of ignoring the science that was predicting this.
2
You pay for it Bob. Lenders should have stopped lending in such areas 15 years ago. Cash buyers, caveat emptor. If you bought in an area of low costal plain and the issue of perhaps being overcome by raising oceans, well they weren’t paying good attention. No government entity owes anyone a buyout. Adults are responsible for their own actions and decisions.
1
I'm 76 and a Key Largo property owner on 9 feet above sea level. Yes the fall high tides are 6 inches higher now than a few years ago, but I'll be dead before they reach 9 feet so I'm just going to enjoy the fantastic life down here in the time I have left. I'll do my part to combat global warming and vote for politicians who have the courage to join me, but I tell my kids and grandkids that they shouldn't expect to inherit my paradise. They'll have to create their own.
66
The obvious answer is just that the county should buy the houses itself. While it won't be obvious what the price shoudl be or that everyone would be happy with a price determined by fiat, but it would certainly be cheaper than raising the road and would mitigate the injustice that some roads will be raised and others not.
10
Insurance companies generally exempt "acts of God" from coverage.
However, climate change is something that human beings have brought upon themselves.
So what are insurance companies going to do about their customers affected by climate change?
9
@ms Expect lawsuits.
Welcome to the future. It is here, now. Watch the insurance companies. They won't lie about the impacts of our warming world. The cost of insuring places like the Keys will skyrocket, if it's available at all. We are in for a ride the likes of which we've never seen, and unless something changes really soon (tomorrow?), this ride will be very bad for a lot of life on this planet of ours.
625
@curt hill I used to pay over $8000 a year for homeowners insurance in Miami, and that was 15 years ago. I fortified my paid off house for hurricanes, but was unable to drop my storm coverage because they wouldn't give me fire/theft without is.
3
@curt hill Judging from continuing development in salt water risk areas such as Miami, the insurers (private, taxpayer, whatever) don't seem to be backing away very fast. So far, their loss experience has not been too bad. Maybe the short-term nature of their policies can largely keep climate change from becoming an existential threat to their solvency? The really big rush for the exits may come, not so much in ST insurance risk capital, but in long-term RE investment capital, and perhaps not until another major storm or two hit.
2
@curt hill
Their insurance is probably already high just because of the geography of the place.
What a great idea, moving to a place that had a steam locomotive literally knocked off it’s tracks in the 1920s by a hurricane, but then, Florida is a republican state that doesn’t believe in climate change.
I cannot feel sorry for stupid people.
55
So Florida wants a little socialism huh, see how that works?
112
So it begins. The slow death of humans in this planet. Thanks Republicans. You should all be very proud.
34
Save this article! You'll only have to change a name or two for the next low lying town, island, etc. in trouble. I predict there will be a cascade of towns, islands, beach settlements in trouble over the rest of the foreseeable future. And of course!, we will wait till the wolf is at the door to do anything-and because we will wait, it will be tremendously more expensive. Aren't we humans smart????
16
I was in WPB 18 months ago and sat next to a couple of locals who met on the train (he was trying to talk to her). Somehow climate change came up - both of them seemed to think it was a complete non-issue dreamed up by worry-wart "East Coast liberals" - he says "they've been talking like this for 20 years and I still have my place in Boca (laughs in reply). She then explains that flooding is natural and we all used to be underwater and we'll be underwater in the future, it's God's will but until then let's enjoy life.
My takeaway - I don't want a single cent of my federal tax money going to enable the poor decision making of these troglodytes. They're happy to blame the poor for not being "responsible," but expect the government to bail them out after years of ignoring the issues, voting for low taxes, and literally building on sand. No federal money at all should insure these properties.
180
Oh Gee, let's wonder whose homes will be saved or "bought-out". Follow the money honey. Once again, the rich will run to the government for a bailout--and then complain about food stamps.
48
There are two related problems here.
Sea level rise is the obvious one: even if the road is elevated by one foot or two feet or five feet, it is simply delaying the inevitable. Absent wholesale return to dredge and fill, the islands between Key West and Key Largo are going to disappear.
The other problem is more subtle but no less surprising. How can it possibly cost $25 million dollars to elevate one mile of existing roadbed by a foot? It wasn't long ago that four-lane highway development was expected to cost a couple of million dollars a mile, brand-new. I know the keys are the land of nepotism and sweetheart deals, but that figure is just ridiculous.
15
@Greg -- That's an eye-popping cost, but you also have to consider the very local conditions. Here's the map to Sugarloaf Key.
https://www.google.com/maps/@24.6156465,-81.5620587,2976m/data=!3m1!1e3
Go into satellite view and you can see the road and the fact that it's essentially going to be road construction at water table level, on a very small island that's probably a good distance down the highway from the large amounts of building material.
In contrast to the dozen or so homeowners the article says this would help, consider that Miami Beach has been raising taxes over half a billion to do road elevation and install pumps for the tidal flooding that's picking up steam. That amount is spread over many more people and businesses - but it doesn't address the much higher price tag as they eventually have to do a strenous revision to their city sanitation systems. Sea level and sewage are a bad combination when sea level is rising.
7
"Do we buy them out? " Um, no. And no, Mr. Silverman government's purpose is not to protect your property. I find it so galling that people think the government should spend billions bailing people out of their own willfulness and denial. Give people enough money to move and let it all go where it's going to go.
The horse it out of the barn with global warming. It's over. We had a good run. Raising the road in the face of the coming doom is a thumb in the dam.
37
Buy low-lying coastal land, vote for low, lying Republicans. What could go wrong?
147
@ Abraham, that would make a great bumpersticker!
3
It's truly fascinating how the reporter neglected to mention that Henry Silverman's net worth is 300 million dollars.
68
@Paul Dejean You’ve got the wrong Henry Silverman.
2
Maybe Floridians will get this wake up call and not vote for the climate denier extraordinaire Trump and vote for someone who might take their plight seriously before parts of Miami make Venice Italy look like a desert.
11
I’d love to know if these ppl voted for trump lol
8
The New York Times readership is so predictable. Probably half the comments are some variation of the following: Floridians sometimes vote Republican, so they deserve to experience the ravages of climate change.
Yet these same tough-love liberals would never ascribe any blame to the poor (or any other "protected" group) for problems that disproportionately affect them. Failing schools, single-parent house holds, high crime, poor health, lack of health insurance, drug addition--these are all the fault of society and racism, sexism, etc. According to these so-called progressives gleefully watching presumed Republicans lose their homes, it is positively fascist to even suggest that those afflicted by these problem share any blame for or responsibility to solve them.
10
You are trying to equate not wanting underprivileged people to literal die with not having sympathy for beachfront mansion owners who have enough leftover for boats and Cessna flights?
1
@Edward Kiernan yes, don’t blame the rich, blame the poor!
With so many Americans homeless or paying exorbitant rents to keep a roof, really? I would suggest the couple head themselves and their boat to safer harbor. Taxpayers aren't born to support your lifestyle.
Get over it.
30
Saltwater intrusion into the productive agricultural region of the Nile Delta, which is the breadbasket of Egypt may render that country uninhabitable by 2100 according to a recent study.
And Egypt is not alone there.
A population of a few million human hunter-gatherers was apparently beyond the carrying capacity of the planet as many places where we showed up the megafauna disappeared.
Around 10-12,000 years ago, when large climate oscillations settled down, we developed agriculture which allowed us to double our population many times into the billions.
But agriculture faces big challenges if we don’t change our ways soon (1), as do our fisheries, and if they both decline significantly, forcing us back to being largely hunter-gatherers, history tells us that out of every 1,000 people you see maybe one survives.
Except this time it won’t be meat on the hoof with Mastadons and large, flightless birds and picking up lobsters off of New England beaches.
Going back to hunting and gathering during the current 6th mass extinction is poor timing, so the one in a thousand could prove wildly optimistic.
1 IPCC Western N America drought 1900-2100
http://icons.wxug.com/hurricane/2013/drought-western-us-1900-2100.png
12
I often think about how, if the Republican dominated Florida political machine hadn’t worked so hard to steal the election from Al Gore 20 years ago, we would not be in such a panic about climate change right now.
Yeah remember Al Gore who was trying to warn us about it and pledged to do something 20 years ago.
As president he would have made important changes to our energy policy...but then again I suppose that’s the main reason the Bush big oil family stole the election.
We reap what we sow.
77
As the watercontinues to rise the Florida real estate market will collapse as people desparately try to sell even at steep loses. Good bye tax base. As the beaches disappear so will the tourists. Good bye tax base.
24
It's very unfortunate and I've had some wonderful times there, but perhaps it will take losing some of the Keys for people to finally see the writing on the wall and that action is needed. But these are the same people that won't take the doctor's word that they have Leprosy, they wait till their arm falls off.
12
If you want to read a clear narrative about the future of coastal communities, and some good ideas of what can be done, read “A New Coast” by Jeffery Peterson.
The clear message for communities and landowners on America’s coast is to flat out ignore the slipshod trump administration “policy” and get a plan.
9
Instead of raising the roads, why not turn them into canals. People can keep a boat at their canal side house. When they need to drive somewhere they would take the boat to a parking lot where they keep their car.
11
Perhaps when the sea begins to consume Mar-a-Lago, Trump will take notice. In the meantime, the complete failure of American leadership on this issue guarantees that problems will only get worse.
20
Keep voting Republican and pretty soon this won't be a problem that taxpayers have to care about. Actually that's a silver lining as we won't have to raise taxes to deal with these kinds of problems.
2
This isn’t just the keys as the Alaskan permafrost is melting. We have out quick response national security apparatus there. What about all those parts of the world where literally millions if not billions of people must begin mass migrations. Where will they go, how will the world be fed? The longer we ignore the more it’s gonna cost all of us on this planet.
16
How ironic that this story appears on the same day that the NYT reports that the Trump Administration plans to throw 700,000 low-income people off food stamps.
If ever a picture was worth a thousand words, it's the one of the seemingly well-off couple on their motor boat with the caption "What's the government for? They’re supposed to protect your property.” Um, no, that's not its purpose, and that's the attitude that got us to where we are today on climate change and a host of other issues.
Florida, that flat land of no income taxes, the quality of public services to prove it, and many who think THEIR particular government bailout is entirely justified.
48
I just bought a condo in key West a few months ago. I did look at sea level rise when buying it. I am near Mallory square cruise ship dock, which is higher. we all make choices. that is mine. unlike a Trump I won't ask the government to bail me out if I lose it.
6
I have a feeling the people who say “then don’t tax me” are also against the idea of human-caused climate change and paying even a single dime to help fix it. I wouldn’t have any problem to just cut them off completely from the tax that I pay, but it would be in terms of all services too! If they feel like they can expect taxpayer money to help them protect their slice of heaven against climate change, but not do anything about the problem itself, then good luck to ya!
16
And yet a majority of Floridians voted for Trump and still would vote for him. I don't get it.
8
The county should just buy them all out. Surely this is cheaper than building and then rebuilding roads as the water continues to rise. Give everyone a fair price and call it a day. Because sooner or later mother nature will render her verdict and it will not be in favor of the owners .
3
No the government should not buy them out. Th government should tell them that they are going to let nature do what it is going to do, and the land owners need to face the consequences. Climate change is real, sea levels are rising. If you buy a piece of land that might be flooded by sea rise in the near future, that is the buyers problem, not the governments problem. It is the responsibility of the government, developers and insurers to make the buyers aware of the risk they are taking.
10
Cost benefit analysis says don't spend the money. Move.
9
There are countless places where property has always been at risk of natural events. The Outer Banks are periodically transformed by storms with whole sections of islands swept away.
Large parts of Louisiana are sinking into oblivion, no longer replenished by silt from the Mississippi.
Those buying property in places like the Florida Keys or Outer Banks KNOW that they are buying land that is at high risk of disappearing at any time.
The fact that a house's first floor is elevated by 18 feet makes it clear that those building it - and those buying it know that this is a location subject to the extremes of nature.
I'll bet that the only flood insurance you can get for such property is through the Federal Government - no private company would write a policy on that property. That alone is stupidity on the part of government. How many beach houses are built and rebuilt at taxpayer expense? Let current policies pay for ONE incident and then expire for good. Government cannot keep making good on losses incurred by people making bad decisions.
20
If this is true, I bet you can find a bargain on real estate in the keys. But it’s not true that the seas are rising any more quickly than they have, on average, risen for the last 150 years. And that is why property in the keys and other coastal property continues to go up.
2
So, as the sea level rises more and more congressional districts will disappear and eventually the entire state will disappear. The states political power will actually be diluted. The Country will actually be better off without this climate denying red state.
9
I wonder how many of the residents have been advocates for fighting climate change and how many are Republicans that have been dragging their feet on this calamitous issue -- or making things worse.
4
I don't see the point in raising he roads that connect the Keys to mainland Florida... given the Keys themselves will be largely under water eventually as well.. some parts sooner then even a road rebuild could be completed.
Not to mention.. the Keys are perpetually one direct hit from a bad hurricane and complete destruction.
Cut your losses.... let it go... you can reclaim it during the next ice age.
9
The comments from Mr. Mense and Mr. Silverman embody the type of selfish thinking that’s got them and us into this mess: me, me, me. The government has to bail me out and why should I pay taxes if it won’t?
They, along with the Republican Party, seem to have lost sight of the idea that the point of government is the common good. How is the common good served by wasting tens of millions of dollars on a road for a few dozen people?
Where’s their sense of personal responsibility? Where’s their homeowner’s insurance?
30
Don’t buy waterfront property. Move to higher ground. Welcome to the climate crisis.
10
Hate to be cold about this, but no matter what, the sea is going to win.
20
Well, the Florida GOP say they have solved the problem. All government workers are not to say climate change, therefore it isn’t there. Maybe everyone in Florida should just have a hard long look in the mirror. Average elevation 35 feet. You know an ostrich is not a good swimmer. Good luck time for change in 2020.
22
As Florida Key's residents are forced to relocate, I hear there's quite a bit of inexpensive property available, not far North of them, in a place called 'Mar-a-Lago'. Just, when you arrive, claim to be part of the 'Chinese Hoax'. It's kind of a 'code word' for acceptance in that location.
5
Welcome to the world of climate change refugees. No one will be exempt.
7
Houses going under on the Florida Keys is probably the wake-up call that Republicans need. The rest of us knew long ago that climate change was going to inundate that area.
Some people won't be able to figure it out until their house literally goes underwater. Or they can't get homeowner's insurance....
8
The idea that you should not have to pay taxes at all, unless you get the specific thing you personally want from your local government, seems to epitomize the entitlement mentality ("So somebody in the city thinks they deserve more of my tax money than I do?” Mr. Mense asked. “Then don’t charge us taxes, how does that sound?”). You live in a privileged area, and likely a very privileged life. And yes. There probably is another citizen of your city who needs help more than you do. Just no concept at all of the common good.
24
For people interested in this subject, I highly recommend the book "Geography of Risk" which was written by an award winning reporter for the Philly Inquirer.
That book shows how all American's taxes, even those inland or well above sea level, have been subsidizing those who live on the water with federal flood insurance and disaster relief. We have been doing this for years and the moral hazard is staggaring. Difficult choices need to be made.
12
Poetic justice after Florida decided the election against Al Gore. They come face to face with An Inconvenient Truth.
20
Raise them up on stilts and use a boat a high tide. It's silly to spend millions to raise up streets to guarantee access at all times.
2
It is not the responsibility of the general public to reimburse the residents of low lying areas for your loss of property due to rising seas that will take place around their homes. Those residents have made a personal choice to assume the risk that comes with living in paradise. We all knew this was coming so my advice is to stuck it up cupcake...
13
As the bills come due it will be every denier for himself.
8
The change of climate is here and not going away. How we adapt (and this especially includes you Floridians) is fundamental to our children's survival.
Alert: I do not believe Trump, as a newly registered resident of Florida, will have room for you on his uge beautiful perfect Ark.
So adaptation begins by putting a Democrat into the White House and that means VOTE!
6
Someone in FL will but it all for pennies on the dollar, rename it “Atlantis II” and charge for glass bottom boat tours of the lost continent.
2
Florida, in 2020 you have a choice. Vote those whose party is not willing to address climate change out of office!
4
What ever happened to Americans taking risk and taking their lumps like adults if the risks run against them?
“ and risk it all one one turn of pitch-and-toss, And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your lose.”
4
Have Donald Trump and Mike Pence lead a prayer circle and I’m their prayers will be answered.
6
Sorry, I’m not inclined to listen to “poor me” problems from a reliably Red state seeking relief from the Federal government to address an issue those Red staters deny even exists.
18
Sorry, that’s what government is for guy. You enjoy something that 99.999% of Americans will never experience, and you want those same people to save your “paradise of circumstance” that is time limited by its very nature? That’s a level of greed that your leader would commend, but the rest of us are just scratching our heads in disbelief at the callowness on full display!
18
As Rome burns. Republicans empty the treasury.
7
Dear Florida voters,
There is still time, but if you continue to vote for a man who denies climate change, you get what you deserve.
2
“Governments supposed to protect your property.” No sir. Not when you build in a swamp and it keeps flooding! Tax payers can’t keep paying for that!
10
These people in Florida have absolutely nothing to worry about. The Republican Party has been telling us for years, in the strongest possible language, that climate change is a hoax. So...
8
At the price point where it's cheaper to buy people out, the state should, with federal help. I wonder what will happen to Hemingway's place and his lovely diploidy cats (descendants).
You've heard "there are no atheists in foxholes", but how about "there are no libertarians in Florida when climate change floods your property"?
10
Who is this arrogant guy who believes the government exists in order to protect his personal property? He could use a remedial lesson in civics.
17
Poor babies. Give them each a kayak and let them paddle when the road is underwater. Not our problem.
8
Well, if we can kick 700,000 people off food stamps, then what is really the big deal about two dozen homes not having a road year-round? And if their homes lose value? - well, too bad, you knew that was a possibility when you bought it... or did you think it was all a Chinese hoax?
14
Everyone loves Hemingway.....what would Mr Snows of Kilimanjaros say about the ice there, the ice not everywhere and the assault on Trump....I'm listening...especially from those coastal folks who still can't stand those of us in the flyover states
1
Uh... Thoughts and prayers!
10
The stretch of road mentioned in this article is the beachfront road on Sugarloaf Key, and checking satellite photos of it, it seems to only have at best 20 residences, most of them large lots and million-dollar homes. Duly noted that the wealthy resident pictured in his boat is insisting that the government protect his property - a pretty vulgar demand coming from someone wealthy enough to live in such a place. As a regular visitor to the Keys, I have noticed in recent years a lot of MAGA yard signs among the retirees who reside there, and their politics are sure to doom them. They insist it's the government's job to protect them; at the same time, they don't want to pay for any of it through taxation.
24
In the last ice age, global temperature was only 3 C cooler than preindustrial (year 1900). And sea level was 300 feet lower. So, this indicates that a 3 C temperature excursion is a big deal.
Double CO2 from year 1900, and Earth will warm 3 C. This is a fairly trivial calculation, first done with pen and paper. Everyone who has sat down to do it, in the last 120 years, has gotten the same answer: 3 C. You can do the calculation yourself, on a spreadsheet: you'll get 3 C.
We'll double CO2 by 2050. There's no way now to avoid it. So, expect 3 C. And expect that will be as radically different a planet as the last ice age, eventually.
And how many 'climate models' did I use to arrive at this conclusion? None. It's common sense.
1
I am left wondering how much of the estimate given for the roadwork comes from existing environmental regulations.
2
Florida, Florida, Florida....
When then-governor Rick Scott, now Senator Scott disallowed any climate change language to be used by his administration did Floridians complain? No, they re-elected him and eventually made him senator.
It's a sad irony when people who want to deny government services to other Americans in need express their own righteous entitlement to those services during difficult times.
Let's hear about the virtues of rugged individualism and boot-strapping now.
24
A suggestion for everyone who sees immediate threat from climate catastrophes-vote for candidates who pledge to make adapting to climate change a major priority.We have had our warnings and sooner rather than later we will all have to face the problem.Clear eyed and innovative problem solvers are needed -rage and wailing will not change the inevitable.Private companies and governments will have to work together-this problem is too big for small communities and presently endangered areas.
4
The Florida Keys were underwater at the beginning of the last ice age. They emerged as sea levels fell during the last ice age. They will re-submerge as the ice continues to melt and sea level rises. They will emerge once again during the next ice age as sea levels fall.
2
And so it goes.
3
@Rob D
My own ancestral home—Doggerland—vanished beneath the waves about 8,000 years ago as sea level rose after the last ice age. Doggerland once connected Scotland and England to the European continent. It now lies at the bottom of the North Sea. My ancestors fled to to the British Isles as the water rose around them.
2
I understand that this is tied to climate change, but why are we so intent on fighting it, or treating it any different than any other natural disaster making homes unlivable? And why do we each feel so entitled that the government should and ought to save each and every home or community related?
This is not an overnight change. It would seem that residents of here, or any other climate affected areas have time to let go of their property and move on.
The world will be a very different place in 100 years, some of it due to human activity. And likely some of it unavoidable as time goes on. In 20 years this will no longer be a question of should we save a few houses, it will be a story about people moving, moved, and various areas becoming uninhabitable.
5
The Keys holds a special place in the hearts of many of us who grew up in Florida--back when there were no mansions, when people built in accordance with the dictates of the land and climate. I wish ill on no one, but when the sea is obviously encroaching, and when history has shown what works, why would you build in a place that's harbored mangroves for eons? The Keys were once underwater, and will be so again. No amount of road-building will change that. I'd take the water taxi, residents of Sugarloaf Key, if it's offered to you.
17
Property and zoning laws occasionally have to deal with the fact that the property they cover may have its borders changed: the entire lot may vanish when a river's edge moves, or a rockslide. Assigning responsibility to restore the status quo after a catastrophe has been the thrust of those laws.
This kind of existential legal invalidation is now going to be experienced more often. Sea and mountainside properties can be affected by more than just general changes, since one or two weather related anomalies can permanently change the borders.
The idea that there is permanence that can be governed now has to be rethought.
Even if the climate gets under control - not likely soon - the old land will probably not reappear. Real estate is now ephemeral estate. The same goes for indirect resources of potable water and arable land with a predictable growing season. Laws and insurance guidelines have to adapt to these rapidly changing conditions.
4
I wish Floridians early on designated Florida Keys as a National Park. It is pity to see sensitive and unique habitats turned into endless housing estates, restaurants and hotels.
18
I love the Keys. I lived in south Florida about three decades ago and frequently drove to Key West. The sad reality is that not every great place can be saved for the benefits of a few, and we shouldn’t even if the resources are available. It’s time for people realize that they need to live in cheaper and less at risk places.
5
"Henry Silverman, a retired teacher from Long Island in New York, bought a house on the southern edge of Sugarloaf Key 10 years ago. The building’s first floor is 18 feet off the ground..." Mr. Silverman must have heard of climate change and rising sea levels before he bought his home 10 years ago. He also probably paid a big premium for ocean frontage. If he has a mortgage, he's probably paying big premiums for insurance. It sounds like he'll be able to park his boat right under his house some day in the not so distant future. If the road , a STATE road, disappears, what happens if there's a house fire or a serious medical emergency? The county has a lot to consider, and so do residents.
4
"what's govt for?", i guess if it's supposed to help people who built where climate change adversely effects them, then it should also be forcing people to stop creating the conditions for the crisis too. can't have one without the other.
this article illustrates the cold hard reality that isn't going away because a govt (or its citizens) finally realizes it must fix the problem. you can't buy/legislate/mandate/whatever a new planet.
5
Earlier today I read the NYT's article about cutting food stamps. Many of the commenters said poor people without jobs should move to places with jobs. Never mind that moving is expensive and poor people don't have money.
It looks like people who own expensive property want government handouts to give them access to that property, but poor people who own nothing are supposed to move. What's wrong with this picture?
129
Florida voters voted for trump whom denies climate change and quits the climate accord.My sympathy is limited. People on islands and barrier islands up north don['t deserve unlimited gov't spending to support their poor choices.
21
How will we humans respond to the unfolding climate tragedy. Will we join together to address this issue head on, given it’s existential threat, or will we turn on each other leaving each to fend for themselves. As of today, given my lack of sympathetic for the plight of these Floridians I fear I know the answer.
Write this same article about the plight of people that have contributed practically nothing to this problem, and my sympathy tips another way.
7
The more Floridians keep voting for GOP/Republican climate change deniers the sooner they will be under water. As a sure thing, government subsidies and bailouts will becoming their way soon, as Saint Reagan said, "the government is the problem!"
20
Retired schoolteacher with a house in the Keys, a boat, and a Cessna? Sweet! That’s the first positive thing I’ve heard about being a schoolteacher in some time. That gives me hope.
I feel bad for these folks however, news of the risk of sea level rise isn’t new so they shouldn’t act like they didn’t know it was coming. We can’t foot the bill for fighting the will of water. It is a staggering impossibility.
15
As much as this is an environmental issue, it is just as much a political issue. Science does offer us some solutions. But it will take a political redirect to effect these changes.
Perhaps Floridians, the state with the most to lose from climate change, should start to vote for the people who have their interests in mind.
20
The Outer Banks of North Carolina represent a similar situation - only one road to connect the various communities. I had to leave from a vacation there due to a storm and it was frightening to be sitting in traffic on that narrow road, with ocean on both sides.
I'm amazed that properties in these precarious sites continue to be mortgaged and insured.
516
@Cal you can probably thank the Federal government for mandatory flood insurance on these homes. That has to stop.
63
@Cal Wait, in the coming year(s)..change is on it’s way.
2
@Cal As long as someone believes they can make money someone down the line, this will continue.
12
A few years ago I stayed in a beautiful house just off 4A on Sugarloaf Key. I went there to recuperate after a particularly trying and painful time in my life and the time I spent there was the most restorative and healing of my life. Reading this makes me sad, but not surprised. As a species we’ve known this was coming for at least 40-50 years and we did nothing. This is the heartbreaking consequence of our inaction.
634
@WesternMass ...,and we did nothing’ the epitaph of the 21st century Empire that is gradually going under
47
@WesternMass
Remember what Al Gore said about an inconvenient truth?
69
@WesternMass
Wow, I have deep, decades-long ties to Western Massachusetts and I personally know two different people from there who separately lived in the Keys for a while, both recuperating from difficult times. One is a beekeeping herbalist, the other the husband of my best friend who passed away years ago. They knew each other and know me, their old friend from LA. Seeing this comment at the NYTimes within this context is quite surreal; is that either of you?
Even if not, I know how much they each loved the Keys and how those stays healed both of my friends. I am saddened daily by the degradation of the planet and even more heartbroken that yet another place of incredible natural beauty that has meant so much to people I love is now so threatened.
22
Gotta love Republicans, who believe in small government and hate taxes yet expect small local governments to spend tens of millions of dollars on them, personally: "They're supposed to protect your property." Why do I suspect this same gentleman scoffs at widely adopted climate science? Has he personally made fun of their "sustainability" job?
Seems like a good time to remind Republicans of their other mantras -- the one about "personal responsibility," for example.
I do hope there are enough solution-oriented people on these beautiful islands to bring energy to this problem and save as much of their communities as possible.
458
@raph101 This is the second comment I've seen assuming this man's political affiliation and his supposed hypocrisy. There is nothing in this article to base what you are saying on. Not to say there aren't Republican hypocrites on this matter, but you have no idea if he is one.
19
@raph101
I am a Republican and now a Florida coastal dweller. I don’t see it this way at all. I don’t think people of Iowa should be protecting coastal properties. The flood insurance program and federal infrastructure subsidies should retreat as the sea levels rise. Some people will pay for the lifestyle knowing that they or their heirs will hold a worthless deed. That is their choice. I may make it.
56
@Phil The person interviewing should have asked his affiliation, that was a major oversight. If Silverman is going to assert that other people must cover his and his wife's poor decision to move to a flood plain, let's hear why that is. Perhaps he will read these comments and shed some light himself.
23
“What’s government for? They’re supposed to protect your property,” Mr. Silverman said.
No sir. That's what insurance companies are for. Build too close to water; lake, ocean, or river, and you are at higher risk than those who build on the more prosaic dry land. You have to pay more to insure against that risk - substantially more, the closer you want to be to that water.
Odd that those who demand that government pay to protect their real estate, are the same ones who think government should not be involved in public health.
If you can afford high end health care premiums and get the best medical care money can buy, then you should be able afford insurance to live at the shore of oceans, lakes, and the banks of rivers. If you can't afford to pay, you have to move, the way we've always had to move on this planet.
906
@Memi von Gaza
“So somebody in the city thinks they deserve more of my tax money than I do?” Mr. Mense asked. “Then don’t charge us taxes, how does that sound?”
Don't worry Mr. Mense. There's a silver lining in all of this. Soon, your property will be worthless, and you won't be charged taxes.
234
@Memi von Gaza On what basis are you assuming that Mr. Silverman is against public health? I
10
@Memi von Gaza
Mr. Silverman must have been aware of the risk he took building a home there 10 years ago. Insurance was probably expensive and increasingly more so since.
However, we don't know his political affiliation so assumptions are unfounded.
28
I don't understand why they can't just sell their properties to climate change denialists. If you believe climate change isn't happening, you could get a good deal on all of this property.
Also, a note on the comment that "This is what government is for..." What? Government's job is to protect your property rights, not the condition of your property. That's what insurance is for.
1197
@Scott Elder
Scott, I completely agree with our suggestion !
32
@Scott Elder
Barack and Michelle Obama recently bought a $14.5 million bay/ocean-front property on Martha’s Vineyard.
Is it possible they don’t believe in global warming or climate change?
Or do they know something the rest of us don’t know?
14
The fact that none of the denialists are willing to buy these properties ought to tell you something. Scott and Rubio ought to be forced to buy them.
73
In 30 years there will be a mass exodus from coastal areas, and places like upstate NY will be re-populated. Probably not a bad time to start planning for the inevitable.
7
One reason people move to Florida are because the taxes are low. I looked at real estate in St. Augustine (just daydreaming) and I couldn't believe how low the property taxes were. Lower than where I live. I'm not sure, but I think there is no income tax in Florida either.
If people don't want to pay taxes, they can't have it both ways. If they want services, such as raising the roads, then everybody has to contribute to the collective pot. If they don't want to pay taxes, there is no money for services. That's how it works.
71
You’re right, NO State Income Taxes, for anyone. My Parents live there. Florida survives only because of Tourism. They soak all Tourists with outlandish taxes and fees, not to mention high sales tax, on nearly ALL purchases, if your aren’t a legal resident and qualify for exemptions. Very low Taxes, and very low Services. You get what you pay for, or Not.
28
Exactly.
3
@Phyliss Dalmatian
You pay a high sales tax in Florida even if you are a legal resident. It’s no different. I pay 8.5 % in Hillsborough County where I live. They don’t check your driver’s license at the cash register.
The damage is done. Even if the world did slow global warming or even stop carbon emissions, sea levels are going to continue rising for a very long time. Banks need to be way more forgiving for people whose homes are being destroyed by climate change. Especially by sea level rise since it directly correlates to climate change. This is not something that can be undone.
5
“Nobody feels sorry for anybody living down here,” Mr. Silverman said.
Considering Florida's voting record on the environment, I'll agree that's likely an accurate assessment. Ya'll may remember Rick Scott? After he hit term limits as Governor, Florida made him a Senator. And here we are.
81
@Denis
And when Rick was governor he stated that climate change and refused to deal with it. And the people supported him.
I wonder if the guy who is complaining about the government not protecting his property voted for Rick Scott and trump.
19
@Skip Moreland
Considering his very next quote in the article is “There’s a lot of trickle-down,” ... in reference to the economic awesomeness he and his neighbors are responsible for .... I'd say high probability yes.
13
Really, what's so difficult about raising roads? Take a look at old mid-19th cent photos of Manhattan being built. Nearly all the streets and avenues above Houston Street (the numbered ones) are raised way above the original ground level.
2
@DG
It costs far more money to build roads these days. The materials are more expensive, labor is more expensive.
8
Well, we no longer have poorly paid Irish laborers to raise roads.
My father-in-law remembered seeing a house being moved in Brooklyn. On rollers. With horses and men pulling. We don't do that either nowadays.
Besides, old roads were built to last. We don't get more than two or three years out of the new ones.
4
@DG for a dozen homes though??? The Keys are not Manhattan.
1
I bought a tiny house on the Long Island Sound ten years ago... worst broken-down house in the best neighborhood I could find, type of situation (it's all I could afford anyway). I patiently searched for three years for just the right house - My first and biggest priority was the elevation. I finally found it high on a bluff, 60 + feet above sea level and set back a couple hundred yards from the sound. So I've never really had to worry about flooding... deer ticks though, that's another story.
19
The smart money is already leaving Florida real estate. Many but not all voted for Republicans and inaction on climate change and now the sea levels are rising.
39
@Rojo
I live in Tampa and the cost of real estate has increased precipitously in the last few years. And there is constant development, including a $3 billion project by Jeff Vinik. From where I sit, the real estate is becoming vastly more expensive. It may not be smart money. But it’s money. And I’m twenty feet above sea level and concerned about global warming. It wasn’t really an issue when I bought my house.
4
14,600 years ago the ocean rose at 4 meters per century for 4 centuries during Meltwater Pulse 1A.
There were larger ice sheets then but that rate indicates that ice sheets can do dramatic things when they collapse.
And according to the most renowned glaciologist in the US, Richard Alley, the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is poised for collapse sometime over the next several decades to 100 years.
He said that it could deliver more than 4 meters of sea level rise to the Northern Hemisphere in decadal time scales or less once the collapse begins (1)
1. https://youtu.be/a7MNA44RMNA?t=31m38s
21
@Erik Frederiksen
That's West Antarctica alone. You'd also have thermal expansion, alpine glaciers, that little block of ice on Greenland and the much larger East Antarctic Ice Sheet.
11
This article seems to dwell on the cost to raise a road. Granted that was the example from Ms Haag’s discussion. What people fail to realize about Florida, as well as a lot of coastal communities, is that it’s not just about the rising tide as mentioned in this article. It’s also about the rising water table. Think flooded lawns because water will come up through porous limestone. Think septic tanks that no longer work. A raised State Road 4A will simply be a road through wetlands, marsh and swamps in the future — i.e., what Florida once was.
116
@FogCityReader, it's not just flooded lawns and dysfunctional septic tanks. One of the things in Florida's future is dislodged coffins, some of which will open and spill human remains as the water rises.
10
All Florida property owners should take heed.
Sarasota and Manatee counties will be watching tens of thousands of homes go under water in due course. Nobody is going to save anybody’s home.
41
There’s a “don’t retreat, repurpose” solution. The property owners should be able to donate the development rights to a land trust, creating a conservation easement. Then they should be able to live there without having to pay property taxes for as long as they want. The county, as part of this deal would limit road work to minimal maintenance only until the road becomes permanently submerged. The properties would still have considerable value, as tax exempt boat accessible vacation homes for at least another generation. But ultimately the built structures lose to wind and water.
26
I totally get the angst of giving up one's home in paradise but this is what more and more will be facing all over the world. They are not the first and they won't be the last. The salty seas are rising. Other taxpayers cannot afford to raise roads that affect so few people.
Sad. I get it. I feel for ya. Put more pressure on your political reps to do something about it? Though it's too late for you, people have got to wake up and demand that we change.
28
Adults make decisions with available information. Science and common sense have shown climate crisis to be here now with estimates moving faster than expected. These homeowners took on too much risk. It's on them.
41
They didn’t just take on too much risk, they wouldn’t have bought there in the first place if they believed climate change was real. So now they are deducing its real after all, just like the scientists were insisting this whole time. Tough luck.
27
It is what it is. We’ve decided as a country that climate change is not a priority to be addressed. Additionally, several voters stayed home or voted Jill Stein. These are the consequences.
Florida is a GOP State. Tax cuts and low regulatory regime is the top priority in order to grow the economy. They will have to develop strategies and spend the money to mitigate climate change. Otherwise, they have to abandon tracts of land, towns and cities to the rising water.
124
Why should taxpayers pay to try to sustain the unsustainable? There a place in Maine that is eroding and a lot of money has been spent trying to stop the inevitable. I feel sorry for their situation but asking their neighbor to pay to fix it over and over again is not a solution. It would be much cheaper to buy out the owners but then you have to ask what a sinking property is worth. Would you pay top dollar or a fire sale price? The current appraisals would probably be disappointing for people who bought waterfront property thinking it would be a good investment.
Cities and towns should have stopped development in vulnerable places years ago but even now they let people rebuild on the same site when their houses get washed away. There’s something wrong with this picture.
46
@Cindy Mackie
I would say it's far cheaper to buy them out now at top price than to try and protect them.
Agree. After Katrina I wondered why so much was spent in areas below sea level in New Orleans. Seems so short sighted
4
@Cindy Mackie Speak up the people in New Orleans cannot hear you
1
Saving the planet would seem to include saving the Keys. So, then it's practically an imperative to have one within the other to survive.
@Richard Hahn : How are we going to save the Everglades as well as the Keys? We can't. Some things will be lost. Nature is expensive to control. Unless we want to choose to cut the military, where is the money going to come from to save all that is 'imperative' to save? Even then, it's just a matter of time.....
15
In many ways I feel sorry for the people living there, I love the Keys, and they are going to be on the front line of what climate change is going to do. I wonder, though, who the people who own the gated mansions vote for in elections, do they vote for people wanting to try and do something about climate change, or did they vote for politicians like Trump and Rubio who to this day pretend climate change is a hoax? And what happens when coastal land in the Carolinas (states notorious for laws requiring that official documents make no mention of climate change) gets destroyed time and again, and the government basically says we can't do anything? Wanna bet that all those good little supposedly conservative types will turn around and blame the 'liberals' for 'doing nothing' and letting their homes be destroyed, rather than cursing the Koch brothers and Exxon Mobile and the like for basically destroying their lives.
122
At least these folks are addressing climate change and the impact on their area. We have a President that cannot see what lies ahead. Worse he ignores science and appoints individuals that are devoid of a moral compass and rip apart our environmental department with deregulation.
13
Welcome to Florida! Where the GOP runs the state, prohibits talk of sea level rise or climate change, but where republicans are first in line to collect $$ from the government while advocating for limited government. It is all so very Florida.
391
@AlexMcC Ah, but in Florida, it's a Whole New, Environmentally Aware GOP! You're now allowed to say "global warming" and "sea-level rise" even if you're a Republican state legislator or state employee!
Why, Gov. De Santis, noted climate warrior, even earmarked a whole $6 million in next year's budget to help local governments deal with higher tides and rising seas!
Of course, that's enough for about a quarter-mile of raised roadway described in this article, but . . . . did I mention that it's a Whole New Environmentally Aware GOP?
17
@AlexMcC
But that’s always been true of Republicans. They are against government “welfare” unless they are the recipient. Just look at the midwestern farmers with their hands out for their government bailouts, necessitated by the man most of them voted for.
31
Sorry folks, but it is not going to get any better rather, understand that we on earth have seen our precious planet pass the tipping point. So we must ask ourselves “do we owe these residents any special services or treatment”? As is stated in the article, many of these residents have erected gates to ward off potential users of their driveways to turnaround. Frankly, you knew what you might be getting yourselves into but we’re hoping that it would not occur in your lifetime. Surprise!
18
It's not a "retreat", as if the land was a war zone to be protected forever. It's a recognition.
14
In 2016 a paper by Pollard and DeConto incorporated new mechanisms into an ice sheet model.
DeConto noted that his ice sheet model indicated that sea level rise over the next 100 years could be several meters under BAU. (1)
But as DeConto said, to be conservative they set an arbitrary speed limit (2) based on observations at Jakobshavn Glacier in Greenland. That glacier has an observed calving rate up to 13km/year, so they told their model not to exceed 5km/year, less than half the observed rate at Jakobshavn.
Now as Richard Alley pointed out to DeConto, Jakobshavn Glacier is 50km up a narrow fjord, is 5km wide, and has a marine-terminating ice cliff 100m high.
By contrast, Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica fronts the ocean where there are very strong winds and currents, is 120km wide, and when it backs up it is going to try to make marine-terminating ice cliffs higher than El Capitan (1000m).
As Alley noted, “the wider glaciers and deeper beds of Antarctica will likely allow faster or much faster retreat than has been achieved in Greenland”.
1. https://youtu.be/9z_oFDoQTXE?t=1418
2. https://youtu.be/aqVPlBf4ydo?t=3381
3. Retreat rate of Thwaites Glacier is below, About 14 km in 19 years in the main flow. Maybe 70 km until it gets deep and starts a rapid retreat.
https://cloudfront.escholarship.org/dist/prd/content/qt0wz826xt/qt0wz826xt.pdf
8
Florida residents need to think very carefully about whom they choose to vote for. Climate change is real, whether it's "politically correct" to admit it, or not. The present administration chooses not to believe--but, like gravity, sea level rise is now a fact.
41
@Astorienne. As so many comments here so clearly reflect, this is all about politics, not science. And it reflects an abominable ignorance of history, both recent (last 150 years) and ancient (last 100,000 years). Things change, including the climate, with or without man. Blaming Trump, SUVs and our need for heat and electricity is not helpful.
1
@ehillesum
So the actions of mankind have no effect on global warming? That appears to be what you are saying.
1
And of course, in 2015 Florida's Republican leadership ordered its state Department of Environmental Protection – which is on the front line of studying the effects of climate change – to never use the phrases “climate change” or “global warming” in any official communications, emails, or reports. The denial is strong.
I feel for the hardworking Florida engineers, scientists, and local officials who are trying to figure out solutions that balance the needs of the broader communities and individual homeowners. But there will always be some residents who say: "Climate change is a liberal hoax! Also, I demand that tax dollars protect my property from all this water that is suddenly surrounding it."
88
Really this applies to all of Florida. How long are the Feds going to keep bailing out/subsidizing disaster prone areas. If you want to live in a swamp with no elevation gain during times of climate change, then you should bear the full cost.
36
@EVO
How about if you live where there are tornadoes, wildfires, earthquakes, etc. And Florida is fourth on the list for paying federal taxes. Alaska gets more federal money per person than any other state. Talk about subsidies.
Here are two things to try in line with the current trends in the US:
1/ Fla can pass a law against global warming and sea level rise
2/ Pray that global warming and sea level rise won't happen.
Isn't the govt bailing out these tough individualists just socialism? It's peculiar how the narrative about socialism changes when it is a suburbanites private property or a poor person who is dying from lack of medical care.
83
Sorry folks, but it is not going to get any better rather, understand that we on earth have seen our precious planet pass the tipping point. So we must ask ourselves “do we owe these residents any special services or treatment”? As is stated in the article, many of these residents have erected gates to ward off potential users of their driveways to turnaround. Frankly, you knew what you might be getting yourselves into but we’re hoping that it would not occur in your lifetime. Surprise!
3
As much as I agree with the idea that we can’t save every place this is somewhere where the majority believe climate change is fake, keep voting for people who say so, and who think taxes are evil. You get what you pay for.
24
What is really frightening about climate change is not that it is happening, but that on a geologic timescale it is happening at hyperspeed.
39
@Alan Dean Foster
You're right. Watching these changes in just the last decade both scary and fascinating. It's going to be quite an ugly ride for the next few hundred years.
2
The couple used to fly down from Long Island in a Cessna, until one day the runway at the island’s airport was underwater.
And they haven’t heard that the carbon load of flying is far greater than driving, so they’ve worked extra hard to put themselves underwater? Sorry, not my job (or that of my taxes) to protect them.
81
Most people NEVER get to live in a home by the water. Perhaps these homeowners should feel blessed that they were able to do that, if only temporarily.
37
Where I’m from, we had to deal with something similar. My town is next to a river that frequently floods and the city had to put up dikes that necessarily went through riverfront residential property. Th city offered to buy people out, and told people if they didn’t take the deal, the dike would be built around their house and they wouldn’t be protected in the next flood. All but a few people took the buyout. This isn’t rocket science, and people shouldn’t act like this is a ridiculous ask of people. Tell people that you will either buy them out or they will have to figure out what to do next time a flood comes. If they don’t like that, they should start lobbying the federal government for sane climate policy.
8
The axiom "You can't fight Mother Nature" doesn't seem to hold any water with most of these property owners. What nonsense, the talk about raising the road. And as for the owner worried about property values -- good luck with that.
I don't mean to be mean-spirited, but it's past time to acknowledge climate change and get with the program.
12
“So somebody in the city thinks they deserve more of my tax money than I do?”, says Leon Mense. I can't imagine that even one other tax payer in the state of Florida will ever personally get the benefit of $3.1 million apiece for 24 or so households. If the policy is to do whatever it takes then the cost will be overwhelming. It's just not compatible with reality.
Sorry Leon, I am sure that your situation is very unfortunate but there are millions that will be just as impacted by climate change.
21
Here is what the county will do. Nothing. The can will get kicked down the road until people’s homes are literally underwater year round.
17
The selfishness of some of these homeowners is staggering. They expect to have access to their homes provided regardless of the cost. They should be bought out at a reasonable price and that should be the end of the discussion. Either that, or let them fund the cost of raising the roads themselves.
24
Why buy them out? That is effectively giving money to people who made a bad decision. We can’t possibly afford to buy out everyone who is going to be affected by rising sea levels, so let’s stop subsidizing right now.
8
This article baffles me. In the first place, anybody could have seen that this day was on its way. You had to be willfully blind not to have known it and yet they all sound so surprised. Second, you have all these people who are just fine with spending millions and millions to save their homes. No state has that much money. Third, somebody is trying to sell land on 4A for 3 million?? Who would be crazy enough to buy it?
PS. Someone I know who is in real estate told me there a movement out of Florida but that its being kept as quiet as possible as to not jinx sales. A lot of people are selling now while there are still buyers
23
What a boondoggle: Spending Tens of Millions of dollars to "protect" (but only temporarily) the mansions and second homes of a few tesn of Millionaires.
Whole towns have been moved from the floodplains of rivers, when the flooding gets too frequent. It's frankly cheaper for the County to buy these people out, at something close to a Fair Market Value. Or take the property via Eminent Domain.
Most galling of all, even before the awareness of Global Warming and the rise in Ocean levels which that entails, it was manifestly obvious that it was a tenuous proposition to reside in the Keys. The whole chain ought never have been developed. Let the Causeway fall into the sea.
18
"Mr. Mense, who lives in the last house on the road, suggested that officials focus instead on slowing global warming, without which no amount of adaptation will be enough for these islands."
“Maybe we should think about stopping, or trying to stop, the cause of the water rising,” Mr. Mense said. “At what point will the road be high enough?”
Wisely spoken, Mr. Mense. I'm sorry it won't save your home.
14
@nom de guerre Something else that needs to be said is that we needed to start doing something to prevent climate change twenty-five years ago. But Republicans decided there was a political advantage in denying the scientific consensus in order to obstruct the changes needed to prevent the seas from rising. Anybody in the Florida Keys that is bemoaning the rising ocean and voted Republican, needs to look in the mirror and admit they themselves actively promoted the coming catastrophe by voting for Republican politicians. It is too late to save your home, but please quit voting for climate change denying politicians.
24
@nom de guerre Yep. Too late. So sorry. The tide is rolling in and the low country will be flooded.
4
@hrvatska
Agree, except I recall media coverage of climate change in the 1970's. Then Reagan was elected and he promptly removed the White House solar panels Jimmy Carter had installed.
5
Perhaps the government can use some of the savings from cutting foot stamps for 700,000 people to buy out these multi-million dollar mansions.
21
As a Native New Yorker who lives in a Brooklyn area with high degree of potential flooding I am very aware of the potential for flooding in my Nabe. What drives me bonkers is the amazingly entitled attitude the people of FLA, mostly white wealthy and privileged who have very large house RIGHT on the oceans edge, sometimes with in 50 yards of oceans and major tidal swings. The crazy thing is, FLA is water logged, flying over it recently the key fact from 20,000 feet was the vast majority of FLA is water logged, and that's on a sunny day! as we lumber forward to a ever rising climate disaster we are facing a serious make or break moment. WE MUST adapt and create sustainable housing for 10-20 foot sea rises in the next 100 years. If we do not deal with it on a national scale we are doomed. AND STOP building on tidal plains! Full stop. The FLA land next to the an ocean, basically 75% of FLA cannot sustain such rampant overdevelopment!
Will we heed this major warning and do something intelligent about it in next 5-10 years? I highly doubt it, what with the orange one denying everything and his merry band of supplicants! ah yes, Mar a Largo swampo!
14
Climate change and rising sea levels are just a hoax. There is no reason to worry. This straight from the state’s brand new resident with several resort properties there.
24
As more and more of these outposts in the US are threatened, perhaps climate change will be taken seriously as opposed to it being yet another hoax perpetrated by the Chinese and Democrats.
If efforts are made to stop climate change, what's the worst that could happen? The environment is cleaner?
3
The hard reality is sinking in. There's no turning back now, as it's all downhill from here. Publish another story on why educated people have stopped having children.
10
@Thomas Payne : I was speaking to an acquaintance today. I told her my daughter (32) told me at age eight that she would never have children because of overpopulation/global warming and she has held to that. She then told me that both of her children (around thirty) have said they will not have children. One reason was climate change but the other was they could not afford children, nor a house and furnishings.
I think a lot of young people are opting out of having children.
10
If those two dozen home owners want their roads raised to protect their home, let them pay for it -- up front.
For those who think there is still time to turn the climate "clock" back a hundred years consider this:
“If we do not take urgent climate action now, then we are heading for a temperature increase of more than 3°C by the end of the century, with ever more harmful impacts on human wellbeing,” said WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas. “We are nowhere near on track to meet the Paris Agreement target.”
https://public.wmo.int/en/media/press-release/2019-concludes-decade-of-exceptional-global-heat-and-high-impact-weather
There is no indication that this country (or many others) is about to take "urgent climate action now".
Monroe County, you have a problem and it ain't going away.
6
Watch the actions of insurance and mortgage companies to see the truth and risks of rising sea levels. Florida will become a wasteland without South Florida and tourists to pay their taxes. Keep voting Red and then ask your friends and neighbors to foot the $25 million per mile? Pull yourself up by the proverbial bootstraps. Small government is small government until the selfish need help.
33
Will Mar a Lago be one of the first places under water? Only then will there be any chance of a response from the current "authorities".
4
@Scientist; Mar-a-Lago is situated between the beach and the Intracoastal Waterway. The approach road and entrance to the south could be flooded (though I haven't seen it yet) and I would think the private beach has already been severely eroded. Just across the water, Flagler Drive in West Palm Beach is regularly flooded at high tides during the fall, with water covering front yards and driveways of many homes. Unlike the Keys, the water does at least recede on a daily basis.
6
https://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/17213-Starfish-Ln-E_Sugarloaf-Shrs_FL_33042_M50567-06542
Buy em out at market, see listing above $739k.
Found a couple others in 550k to 1 mil.
The demand that government owes em 1 million per house , with another 5 plus in the next 30 years. No way.
The “ retired Long Island school teacher” really we owe him millions? Maybe we figure out real property tax, take 75% as he uses other state services. Contribute to funding a ferry service, until house gone.?
2
Hmmmmmm, hope they’re paying attention in New Orleans!
3
@stevevelo The major difference between retirement houses in the Keys and New Orleans is that New Orleans is a major port in the world on one of the major rivers of the world. The port has to be there. All the oil, the wheat, the corn, the rice, the cars being exported come down the Mississippi River. The cargo is moved onto ships in New Orleans. There is no other spot on the Mississippi River to put a port. Farther south and there is even less suitable land. Farther north and seagoing vessels can't get up the river.
There is a huge difference between a few second homes and one of the world's major seaports.
7
@Linda - you’re certainly correct about the port. And since ships float, the higher waters will not affect them that much. However, the homes, roads, offices, schools, parks, churches, stores, etc. are a different story. As far as the few retirement homes situated at one foot above sea level in the Keys, perhaps they can be moved to the rim of the Mt. Etna volcano! The view is great, and what could possibly go wrong? Besides, it’s the government’s job to save us from the “unfortunate consequences” of our decisions.
The government does not have the job of protecting your property or making you happy.
It has the job of doing what you, the taxpayers, pay for. You can't sue the Atlantic ocean.
If you don't like that, move.
28
Kudos to the officials who determined not to spend resources trying to fight mother nature.
Climate change and global warming will produce negative consequences of various kinds in many areas. Although the climate change scaremongers won't admit it, climate change will also produce positive consequences of various kinds in many areas (increased temperatures will mean more rainfall and longer growing seasons, also melting glaciers over land will expose more land, some of which will be suitable for food production....the result will be more food and more fresh water for the ever growing, already too large world population).
Throughout human history, mankind has faced serious natural threats in many areas. Mankind adapted by moving from seriously threatened areas. That is what should be done in response to the sea rising a few feet over the next 100 years, not expend enormous resources fighting the change.
Look at the response to New Orleans destruction from hurricane Katrina. New Orleans was stupidly built in a man-made hole in the ocean. When the ocean reclaimed its territory, our politicians stupidly wasted over $100,000,000,000.00 of our resources to rebuild the hole! They should have let the ocean keep the hole and rebuilt miles away on dry land for a fraction of the cost.
Much of the speculated costs from global warming are the costs of fighting mother nature rather than adapting. Stupid political response is as much or more our enemy than is global warming.
8
So instead of solving climate change we all just go live on a hill. Brilliant plan.
What’s the problem here? Move. Or you can each pay approximately $7.5 million to upgrade your road. Then you can wait for the next hurricane.
7
How can it cost 25 million dollars a mile to raise a rural 2 lane road 1.3 feet? Makes no sense.
4
@JAY LAGEMANN Good question! When they really got going building the interstate highway system (& I became a taxpayer) back in the 60's, it supposedly cost about $1,000,000 per mile for a 4 lane concrete divided highway in semi-rural areas. Where I live now, they're trying to build a new 8 mile freeway and it's gonna cost a couple BILLION because 1/3 of it is in an urban area. Oh, and they've been talking about it for more than 40 YEARS and it still is only 1/2 built.
1
What nonsense on these homeowners part. The seas are rising worldwide but they want their roads raised at who cares what the price is. Or they want government to pay for their unwise choices that were totally foreseeable ten years ago. But wait...how many of these people moved from high tax States to low tax States to avoid taxes.
18
The Netflix series "Bloodline" is set in the Keys, and Sissy Spacek's character is devastated to discover that the beautiful resort her family has built will soon be worthless because of rising seas. Sad fiction too close to the sad realities of global warming.
7
You would think Florida residents would advocate for and demand state action to address global warming. Sorry, this state votes republican now, you know republicans are the ones who call global warming and rising sea levels a hoax. Florida residents will face the economic consequences of rising seas some time around 2040.
10
@Rose, I think it’s important to debate trivial semantics as the world (and your life) succumb to climate change.
1. Argument that EV’s are not cleaner gets an update: https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/12/study-that-argued-evs-arent-cleaner-gets-an-update/
Talk to me when you get around to doing something.
Change that contractor! The $25-million/mile sounds totally absurd. All you have to do is truck in extra gravel. I could do that project for $5-million. Give ME that contract, seriously.
7
@Gabe
If the sea will be rising up around these raised roads, you'll need something more substantial than gravel to do the job. Gravel would wash away.
1
Hey! These Florida people vote for Trump, and he says there's "NO CLIMATE CHANGE". So, no need to spend any money.
Goodbye Florida
17
Too bad.
The Keys and Everglades are the only parts of Florida worth saving.
11
Um, the reality based community has known about climate change for decades. Anyone who bought after, say, 1975 knew this was coming. No buyouts.
8
Hopefully people will remember which party is the climate change denial party when they go to vote in 2020. The keys now, Miami later, New York soon after, will all be losing land and homes to rising seawaters.
4
But the problem is easily solved. Just declare climate change a hoax and ... presto! Nothing to worry about!
Isn’t 21st century Republican ‘conservatism’ a marvelous thing?
9
I wonder whether Marco Rubio is still denying climate change--or is he waiting until the water is up to his knees?
8
We just need to accept the fact that many parts of the inhabited world will be under water in the coming decades.
7
Floating away in Margaritaville.
12
We just had our first big snowstorm up here North of Boston, and that invariably gets me browsing the Florida real estate listings. But an article like this makes it clear that you'd have to be insane to buy in low-lying coastal areas now.
8
Isn’t there a state law in Florida banning any mention of climate change? I guess Mother Nature wasn’t notified.
12
Islanders, get your plight covered on Fox News. The president and governor DeSantis will be happy to cut you a billion-dollar check. Money is no object when satisfying red-state bailout needs.
11
President Trump says that Floridians are worried over nothing- Climate Change is all a hoax. Floridians who are about to lose their land/homes, how do you feel about Trump’s nonresponse to your problem?
10
The homeowners' greed and selfishness blinds them to the ridiculousness of asking their fellow citizens to spend 25 million to elevate their road.
11
This was pretty obvious from the get go.
2
Yes, we should stop climate change so rich folks can fly their planes to their mansions.~
6
OMG. Republicans in Florida have finally abandoned the "Climate change is a hoax, don't worry about anything" position to the "Climate change is here and we can't afford it" position.
12
The only hope is the trumper. Afterall, with him there is no climate change so everything will be 'great again'.
2
To sum up: retreat.
3
__Henry and Melissa Silverman live on Sugarloaf Key, along State Road 4A. “What’s government for? They’re supposed to protect your property,” Mr. Silverman said.__
That's the caption under the fourth to last photograph of the article.
Which is rich, coming from a red state resident who pays no state income tax, yet receives financial aid from the rest of the other state's residents who are charged income tax.
24
When Millennials and GenX say “ok Boomer”, they referring to the Silvermans.
22
When this reality happens to enough people and their property the so-called "real estate" markets will collapse and then the entire "market economy" house of cards will follow it down. After that people may start to realize how real their belief systems always were.
6
If you really wanted to stop and even reverse the growth of anthropogenic CO2 in the atmosphere, the only possible solution that would have any real effect would be a crash program to build hundreds or even thousands of nuclear power plants all around the world to replace coal-fired plants. Do the math. That would have a real impact. Nothing else will.
2
@Douglas
The ONLY possible solution is much simpler
Reduce the demand for 'stuff' that creates CO2 - reduce the things that cause the CO2 to be generated
Reduce the things that have so over-used their environment that they are destroying it and endangering the survival of their species
Reduce the number of people. There are 7,600,000,000 people. Kill off 20% for a 20% CO2 reduction -- better yet killing 50% would cut the CO2 50% and get the population back to 1950s-60s levels.
Just exterminate 20-50% of the world's population and presto -instant drop in CO2 from all the stuff they want (travel, phones, heat etc)
(And then of the remaining population, neuter or spay 50% of those of reproductive age -- slows the re-population)
Much faster to get the CO2 reduced by killing off the excess people than by pretending that
* electric cars with limited range where in this cold climate, it would turn a 12 hour roundtrip into a 16 hour trip and HUGE price tags
* solar panels and windmills with environmentally unfriendly production and battery systems - have to cover pretty much all of New Mexico & most of Arizona & Colorado with solar panels to power the US
* etc etc
would allow humans to keep breeding without severe limits and a culling of the population (like is done with deer when there are too many for their habitat)
1
Do not worry.
Our modern day King Canute will just will it all away.
To his Florida supporters: This is just a hoax, right?
10
Spending $181 million to keep the road dry year-round for the next 40 years for 24 houses is not feasible. But a lot can still be done.
A ferry during the high-tide times could work to buy a few more years of time. Perhaps other low cost options are available to extend the lives of these properties. Wooden planks, personal tugboats, airboat, etc.
The county could depreciate the value of the home starting now, resulting in less tax on the homeowner. Also the depreciation could be tax-deductible on income tax.
A larger entity could be formed to purchase these properties and turn them into vacation rentals. The negotiated price would take into consideration the time these properties remain viable.
Lawsuits are the worst option. Every dollar spend on lawyers and court cost is another dollar that's no used to adapt to the climate change. Plus no action will be taken during lawsuits, so valuable times also are lost.
7
I feel like the simplest and most economical option for this problem would be to buy homeowners out of their property at the market value as if the flooding were a non issue. They can make it a voluntary departure, but allow people to live there as long as they please without them being afraid of losing their property value.
2
I bet many of the people hoping for the government to help them are the same who are against taxes (or government in general if it means any kind of obligation or constraint), and don’t believe in climate change.
36
How many homeowners who say "What's the government for if not to protect us?" have moved there from "high tax" states that support the less fortunate among us?
How many vote for politicians who don't think it is the government's role to ensure quality public education and healthcare? How many support politicians who want to cut food stamps?
It's amusing to see them come around to support "big government" when the value of their private property is at stake.
67
Nearly everyone supports big government, but they won’t admit that, because they don’t believe the parts that help them are big.
8
@cornell How do you know these people's politics? I think you are making wild assumptions about them just due to where they live.
With that said, I would not support a bailout of these people. I just want us all to refrain from making assumptions and creating backstories for people to enforce a simple narrative.
There is a reason for everything. The polar ice caps are melting; the reason is not because nothing has changed but because warming is a fact. The water locked into the polar ice caps is being released into the oceans, one ice shelf after another. The permafrost in Siberia is similarly softening causing villages to be evacuated as all turns to mud.
All weather is affected by the oceans; that has long been recognized in the periodic warming and cooling of the Pacific, and as the ocean temperatures rise even a degree or two, it affects the migration of fish as shown by the New England fisheries and lobster business seeing marine life move north to adapt to the temperature of the water. They are like water thermometers.
Residences close to water level and demonstrably punished by increased frequency hurricanes need to know that as draught-fed fires devastate homes in the west, and flooding leads to drowning cattle and mid-west farm flooding, changes in climate affect the entire country. Yet denial of this abounds from the White House to tiny islands being severed from the island change which is a wonderful part of this country. Some see it, many don't.
We breathe air, and that is under assault in some areas. We cannot breathe water as we are not fish. Have we as a country abandoned the "can-do" spirit in favor of "you do it for me?"
3
Also, remember the weight of water (about 60 lbs. per cubic foot, depresses the land it floods, further exacerbating the problem for those unfortunates living there. We COULD actually try to reduce the toxic fossil fuel burning pollution responsible for the climate crisis. But, no, we could never confront Big Oil, the root cause of the problem. Apes going under.
19
I spend my entire life in the northeast, where it snows every winter. Many times the snow left on a driveway that was up a hill from the perpendicular street would frees into a block of ice. As the Sun heated the area up the top of the ice would be covered with water. Later on the ice would develop holes from the top to the bottom. This would take water beneath the ice sheet and it would eventually begin moving down the driveway to the street.
This is what is happening on Greenland and Antarctica. When the ice covering those islands slides into the ocean the waters around the world will rise by many feet or meters, not by millimeters. This is what will happen and it won't take decades, it will be upon us quite suddenly.
We don't need to discuss controlling CO2, we need to figure out how to relocate multiple millions of people to higher ground, how to develop land and plants that can grow crops in previously unknown conditions, and figure out how we can move our cities upland so as to keep our economy alive.
Raising our roads will do nothing but delay the critical decisions we must make to survive as a people. We must gather now and make plans, not to raise roads or build ocean walls, but to relocate our people.
17
@Joel Friedlander "We don't need to discuss controlling CO2," No, that would make too much sense. Besides, won't life be grand in those high cities, in unbearably hot temperatures, when atmospheric oxygen starts to diminish?
5
In response to Joel Friedlander:
You have just posted a comment on an article that you presumably read that indicates the prohibitive cost of elevating a few miles of roadway to mitigate the impact of rising sea levels. You propose that we should simply abandon coastal areas, including most of the planet's major cities, and relocate (hundreds of) millions of people. Where do you propose that we find the money to do this? Cities such as Miami and New York took generations to build and represent trillions of dollars in investment in structures and the associated infrastructure. Your "solution" is utterly unrealistic. What is needed is urgent action to stop the impact of human activity on the global climate.
1
@truthtopower40 Hey, no one has to move anywhere, but the entire planet is going to undergo changes that make certain areas uninhabitable. You can spend all you want trying to save New York, but Manhattan will disappear everywhere south of Washington Heights and Florida will be completely underwater. It is too late for urgent action on climate, especially when one of the two major political parties in power in Washington is virulently opposed to any actions on climate change, which they deny is taking place.
7
Years and years of Republican dominance in the pockets of developers has made Florida a huge burden and an example of deregulation gone wrong. A prime example of sprawl and coastal development has created a disaster waiting to happen on many fronts. Aside from coastal flooding there's also red tides, environmental ruin, quality of life, and drinking water issues. Developers, with the help of the government, promised that raising the tax base would pay for all the new development but now it seems it will just be taxes (along with the tides) that will rise.
14
Aside from the obvious consequences of climate change, these are the hard decisions that have to be made in general by any body of water. It's wonderful to live near the sea, and expensive for a number of reasons.
I'm not a fan of just throwing home owners to the wind, though. Not if that is their primary home. People need to face the hard decisions, it's about time.
1
@D Collazo It would make sense to buy the homes from the people who live in the areas that will soon be impacted by the rising waters. That would be much cheaper than trying to elevate the roads, considering only about 2 dozen homes are located there.
2
@sohy: This article concerns one road and two dozen homes, but it is the tip of a huge iceberg. The local government chose to estimate the cost for just one of the most vulnerable roads. Key Largo, Miami, Ft Lauderdale and West Palm Beach also contain roads that have been flooded by high tides. The state cannot afford to start buying out affected homeowners because the numbers would increase exponentially as waters rise.
6
People who govern us have to realize that we live on a finite globe that is undergoing significant climatic change. We do not have unlimited resources to deal with this.
Rather than looking to the law for guidance, the serenity prayer may be more appropriate.
1
Some places should not be protected. It's not worth it.
Change is inevitable. Don't be frightened of it.
9
Some change can be avoided.
2
@Jonathan Katz
"Don't be frightened"
Right.
From David Griggs, former head of the IPCC science working group secretariat, in a conversation with four Australian climate scientists discussing their fears for the future and where they are moving their families to to minimize coming impacts:
“You can say you don’t believe in gravity, but the apple will still hit you on the head.
You can say you don’t believe in climate change, but that’s not going to stop it getting hotter.
I think we are headed to a future with considerably greater warming than 2 degrees C. … that means a lot of people will suffer. A lot of people will die.”
https://youtu.be/jIy0t5P0CUQ
9
If it will cost less to buy out coastal residents than it will to raise roads and infrastructure several times over the next fifty years, then buyout is the only reasonable and equitable solution. $75 million can buy a lot of homes.
12
@DisplayName Maybe in the Midwest, but that amount won't go far in coastal Florida.
5
@DisplayName: This article is about two dozen homes on one of the most vulnerable roads. But high tides already flood roads along the rest of the Keys, Miami, Ft Lauderdale and West Palm Beach. The cost of buying out affected homeowners is already much more than $75m and will grow exponentially as the waters rise. This is the tip of a very large iceberg.
8
@Phillip
No doubt! But raising roads and houses is even less feasible than cash settlements for retreating property owners. Cash amounts could also be used to incentivize preemptive demolition of structures in order to reduce waterway pollution.
At the risk of sounding cruel or glib, I can't believe the ignorance of the people interviewed. The yoga teacher is the only one who gets it. The rest are lying to themselves or hoping for the government to bail them out. "What's the government for if not to protect us?" Sir, the government cannot protect you from making bad decisions. The people who bought 10 years ago? Exactly when a more thoughtful person would be selling. I am constantly amazed that supposedly rational adults can be so short sighted, but that is what got us here after 40 years of warnings by the people we pay to study it and warn us. The people buying homes in fringe and at risk areas have no one to blame but themselves, especially if they vote republican.
314
@JP
"The people who bought 10 years ago? Exactly when a more thoughtful person would be selling."
It would have been interesting if the reporter had interviewed the person who sold the property to Silverman to know why he/she sold it. It's not unreasonable to think that they sold it because they foresaw the disaster that was coming.
4
At just one meter of sea level rise we start to get into real trouble, like no airport serving cities like NY and SF.
And we could see 4m this century. I'm not sure how they plan to deal with that.
Throwing up their hands?
12
@Erik Frederiksen I believe "thoughts and prayers" are the political go-to these days.
2
Here is the reality:
Without quick action to curb CO2 emissions, global warming is likely to increase by 4 degrees Centigrade (7.2 degrees Fahrenheit) above today’s normal during the 21st century and that is dangerously close to the temperature of 6 degrees Centigrade above normal that initiated the Permian-Triassic extinction event 252 million years ago when 96%* of all marine species and 70% of all terrestrial vertebrates were wiped out. *(current estimate 81%)
www.InquiryAbraham.com
9
@David Anderson, in certain areas of the world and in the United States as well it's already risen 2 degrees Celsius. We can't reverse it - we passed the tipping point probably 10 years ago, as scientists are now dismayed to see for themselves. Global warming particularly of the oceans and melting of the ice caps and glaciers is happening at a much more frantic pace than any computer-generated scenario predicted. They can't keep up with the literal FLOOD of data coming in. This is what the fossil fuel industry wants to keep suppressing. Profits over people, they don't give a hoot about what happens to anybody as long as they think the money their stuffing in their pockets will keep them safe! It won't - but they'll have to learn the hard way, won't they. Meanwhile, billions will die, and a minimum of half of all animal and plant life will go extinct. I'm glad I'm an old lady, I won't live to see my loved ones and descendants struggling to try and survive it all for the next several hundreds of thousands of years.
12
Time to end the denial of climate change, and enact a Green New Deal.
These islands are just the first signs of a much bigger climate problem that we have been ignoring (some actually denying) for years.
This is a massive, global problem, and requires a massive, global response.
We can not let the fossil fuel companies continue to undermine our children's future.
40
This is just the beginning of the climate disaster awaiting Florida. When will they realize it and stop supporting and electing climate deniers like now Sen. Rick Scott? If they're not willing to save themselves, they will only slowly vanish under the relentless rise in sea levels. This is a national and global emergency, but until those most imperiled stop buying the Republican line they, and we, will not be bailed out (pun intended).
26
@Paul Wortman
The problem is that the climate change is baked into the cake. Even if you stopped all carbon emissions tomorrow it would take decades if not longer to notice a difference. We need to plan accordingly.
22
@Sue
"decades"
A recent paper indicates just how long lasting will be the impacts from increased atmospheric CO2.
"By analyzing the fish fossils inside, researchers determined that global temperatures were stable for a long time before the asteroid impact, but then, afterwards, temperatures quickly rose and stayed about 5 degrees Celsius warmer for about 100,000 years.
MacLeod says it's notable that the impact pumped up carbon dioxide over a short time span that, geologically speaking, is comparable to what humans have been doing in burning fossil fuels since the start of the Industrial Revolution.
"The atmosphere was loaded for a very brief interval of time, and the consequences of that change in atmospheric composition lasted for 100,000 years," MacLeod says. "So it illustrates, I think, really strongly, even if we went back to 1850 levels of carbon dioxide emission, it's going to take a 100,000 years for the carbon dioxide that we've already put in the atmosphere to cycle through the Earth's systems.”"
Biodiversity would take orders of magnitude longer to recover.
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/05/24/614105843/asteroid-impact-that-wiped-out-the-dinosaurs-also-caused-abrupt-global-warming
8
@Sue This is why we need a Manhattan-style Project to develop affordable efficient carbon capture technology.
This same process is being played out on a tiny island in the middle of Chesapeake Bay, Tangier Island, that has been continually inhabited by colonists since the 17th century. The island is slowly slipping into the sea by force of erosion and rising sea levels.
Interestingly President Trump has taken an interest in the dwindling population's future. They think he will put a seawall around the entire island to slow the process. The cost would be astronomical. We've not heard much about this other Trump wall since he called the island's mayor to commiserate about matters. Needless to say, nobody mentioned climate change as contributing to the inevitable.
Hence, if you visit the island--it's a very pleasant place--you'll see bold Trump in 2020 banners everywhere.
15
@Steve We all know how good Trump is at building walls.
5
“Maybe we should think about stopping, or trying to stop, the cause of the water rising,”. Amen brother.
That would require voting habits be focused on removing climate change deniers and replace them with climate change activists. If there were old-school conservatives (who believed in conservation), I'd say look there. Unfortunately, the GOP has largely abandoned that position to the Democrats.
Perhaps now that the costs and impacts are becoming inescapeable, a rational discussion about CO2 mitigation strategies (carbon taxes, renewable energy, etc.) can be had that cuts across the entire US population. I just hope it is not too late.
28
@Steve
There are parts of the system that could already be out of our hands. And those parts are related to the ocean. Because we know that we’ve already put a lot of heat content into the ocean.
And in the case of the Antarctic Ice Sheet, regarding the marine based ice which is very sensitive to ocean temperatures—West Antarctica 3.3m, East Antarctica 19m—we may end up being committed to some response of the ice sheet to the heat that has already gone into the ocean. And Greenland has around 3m worth of marine based ice as well.
How much response? According to the paleoclimate record, at 1.5-2 degrees C above preindustrial temperature, around 6-9m sea level rise (we’re likely already committed to at least 2C)
At 3 degrees C, tens of meters eventually.
Times scales are the big question and the community in general has been conservative with time scales.
It is not the current rate of sea level rise of around 4-5mm per year which concerns glaciologists, but a past rate from around 15,000 years ago of 4m per century for 4 centuries during Meltwater Pulse 1A.
http://vademecum.brandenberger.eu/grafiken/klima/post-glacial_sea_level.png
13
It's hard to feel sorry for them. If you live on an island and can see that the climate is changing and encroaching on your property, then get out. Insurance rates are already through the roof in FL. Anyone living along the coast is going to have to contend with rising water. The hurricanes and insurance rates were the main reason my family moved further inland. We used to live on a barrier island.
The truth is everything at this point is shoulda, coulda, woulda. To avoid current climate change and rising waters needed to be addressed decades ago. It's too late now.
26
The cost to move the first village in the US due to climate change impacts is estimated to be $180 million for 600 people. The US alone has 1,400 cities and towns threatened by sea level rise.
That one impact alone could stretch the resources of the world's superpower to the breaking point were it to arrive rapidly. And later this century it could arrive rapidly.
20
My mother left me her home at MM 21. Even decades ago, living there was clearly unsustainable.
15
The problem is far too massive to settle with a few buyouts. The favored few paid for by the greater public are being given gold-plated service. Why them? This sort of thing needs to stop immediately. Tens of thousands of people are going to be penalized for their poor decision making, or their lack of decision making. Perhaps this ties back to former governor Scott's forbidding of the topic of global warming causing massive flooding even being mentioned during his administration.
55
Get out.
Normally, I’d discourage more people to move to Colorado. But I feel bad for people who are going to be displaced by climate change.
Come to Denver. We have one of the best local economies in the world. Low unemployment, good jobs that pay above the national average... Just try not to inflate our housing market even more than it already has, please...
15
@Austin Ouellette
Plus it's a mile above sea level.
1
@Austin Ouellette Not to forget rampant fracking eating up drinking water; and climate change promoting future out of control forest fires.
6
@Austin Ouellette
Do not come to Denver. Denver will continue to get drier and hotter with severe drought, dead trees, and wildfires. No one is going to be unscathed.
4
Why are they saying government should pay to hold back the ocean, or buy them out? Where is all the big Republican talk of individual responsibility? "The scariest words you will ever hear are: I'm from the government and here to help."
This is just more of privatize the profits and socialize the costs. They bought their million dollar gated mansions and denied that climate change could happen. Now they want someone else to pay for their free access and eventually to be bought out at peak profit prices.
I feel some sympathy, but there's not nearly enough money to pay for everything, especially the not needy and not the most deserving.
225
I don't think all the options have been explored.
If there are 10 - 20 residential properties on the island why can't the residents band together and purchase a couple of small boats or contract for the use of a couple of small boats at the times they are needed? And perhaps petition the local authorities to help by giving them a grant for some of the costs?
12
Why buyout property owners at all. For the most part they have as much information as others and still choose to live in areas prone to extreme weather and rising tides. Most people who own property choose to own property where it is situated and may do so. They do not get to choose subsidized federal insurance or government bailouts for there choices at the taxpayers expense.
88
Imagine how much strife and conflict awaits humanity given how much turmoil is evident from this tiny example?
The current consequences of climate change aren't good, the future consequences of climate change will not be pretty.
44
Another story yesterday referenced Loudon County in Virginia using several million dollars (FEMA 80%) to buy out 12 homes in a development known as "Selma", which is less than 12 years old, due to flood problems.
Although global warming does not exist it is starting to get expensive. The Keys are just the "tip of the iceberg" for Florida.
Another recent story examined the rise of property values in Miami's "Little Haiti " because it is west of the flood zone and is now experiencing Global Warming Gentrification.
As a grandfather, I worry for those who will have to solve the problems we continue ignore.
23
Looks like the only option is to install an anchorage system while it is a straight forward task and buy a houseboat and a skiff to get back and forth to dry land if you want to live in the same place. It looks as though the most important thing is to determine ownership rights once the land is submerged. I live along a riverbank in eastern Ky. The last few years during high water in the Spring, the river has eroded away several feet of the lowest flood terrace as it meanders back and forth as such a river is wont to do over time. I have no expectation of suing any government entity to recover my loss. By now my eroded property is probably spread from here to New Orleans. Am I supposed to sue somebody to get it back? The river was there when I brought the property and I knew the risks. Stuff happens.
100
@John Warnock Currently the Florida Constitution assigns sovereignty and ownership rights of lands under navigable water to the State. Once the mean tide level covers land then the state owns it. Since no State act is involved there is no 'taking'. It will be a pretty puzzle when this hits home.
6
@Federalist Thanks for the response. Do you know if this is the norm for most states?
Just buy these people out. Give them a reasonable price and if they choose to stay, they stay at their own risk.
7
These are multi-million dollar homes and these people chose to buy right next time the ocean. It would cost almost as much or more to buy their homes than to build the highway. People keep building and buying along the ocean knowing the risk. The answers is not to buy these people’s vacation homes. We need systemic change to confront global warming.
41
@BMD I live in Florida and no way would I agree with a buy out by the government. We have known for years that our beaches and islands are temporary. Not the problem of the masses to bail out the rich when they knew what they were getting into.
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@Natalie Stevens
Buy them out at a price that takes into account the value to be lost due to rising water. It might be cheaper than you think to do it that way.
2
It is what it is folks. If road improvements can save homes at a responsible cost, ok. If not, then it will not be done. One cannot fault the government for making accountable decisions.
51
@NOTATE REDMOND
But if the road is flooded, isn't the land also flooded?
5
I live in South Florida. I purposely chose to reside in a non-flood, non-hurricane evacuation area. I do not have water views. But I do have peace of mind that I will not be forced out of my home from sea level rise or storm surge. And the added bonus is my insurance costs are a fraction of those in the keys or the beach areas.
54
@John McFeely And another added bonus is you and others in FL have no income tax.
1
@John McFeely The implications of 9 meters - 30 feet - of sea level rise , which is potential with 2+ deg C of warming, would wipe out nearly any location in south Florida. Your current refuge may not last through the century. But, perhaps it will remain a refuge for your expected lifetime in it.
4
The government (town, city, county, state, or federal) shouldn't be buying anyone out. Climate change was first suggested in print over 100 years ago, and we've known quite definitively about it for the past few decades.
If your beachfront home is your only asset, sell now while there are still some people who might buy it.
252
It is a lot less expensive and a modest cost to buy the properties from tax paying owners as if this were to be a condemnation. They clearly deserve help if the roads and access can not be protected as a practical matter. If there is any insurance coverage, it can be considered in the value of the loss. The properties can become a nature preserve/park.
11
@John B Wood Agreed, but you have to factor the future lost tax revenue into the equation (albeit partly offset by the elimination of maintenance costs for the road...)
1
I suppose giving up is the only choice.
I own two Nissan Leafs. We’re a two-person household. I own them because (1) they’re basic transportation (2) they’re efficient transportation and (3) I’ve stopped emitting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere via automobile.
The Florida Keys _can_ be saved. As the pitchmen on TV say... ya just gotta want it....
Own up to the solution unless, of course, giving up is the preferred option.
7
@PC : The Leaf is a great start, but it doesn't mean you've stopped emitted carbon from the automobile.
First, where does your electricity come from? Is it truly all renewable? If not, there's some carbon there.
Even if it is, there is carbon associated with the mining and production of the elements to make the wind or solar that's making low-carbon energy for your Leaf.
Then there is the making of your car -- the mining of the metals for the body of the car and the battery (have you read about what's happening in Bolivia to get the metals to make the batteries?).
Then there is maintaining the roads on which cars are driven. All that asphalt, repaving, plowing/sanding/salting if you live somewhere where there's snow.
Don't get me wrong -- a Leaf is a great start. And an especially good option if you can power them with 100% low-carbon sources. But electric cars aren't not a truly zero-carbon form of transit even under the best of circumstances.
36
@Rose Until the entire infrastructure changes to support that, and even then ... some externalities will be hard to reduce.
1
@PC @Rose Transportation decarbonization is a three legged stool.
- increase fuel efficiency
- decarbonize fuels
- reduce vehicle miles travelled (VMT)
We:
- have one Nissan Leaf for 2 adults
- have solar panels on our roof, although they do not cover all of electric needs
- drive the car 1/4th the average US VMT by walking, biking and taking the train
We would drive even less if the local infrastructure supported it better.
3
When land prices go up due to any variety of factors the government does not collect the capital gain. When land prices drop because of sea level rising why does it make sense for the government to compensate the home owners? And I have a house on the sound and I figure it will be underwater at some point and other areas will be above water. Our road gets flooded out in winter with storms. When you buy shoreline property don't you assume some risk in exchange for the beautiful view?
279
@AS
By "government" you mean "taxpayers", no?
Real estate taxes go into government coffers, so there is some "gain" as long as values increase.
4
@nom de guerre
And as property values fall, so do the taxes. Your point?
The government (or "taxpayers" as you prefer) did not take any part of the capital gains, and have no reason to compensate for any part of the decline in values.
6
In 2014 we got the news from two independent teams of scientists that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet was likely irreversibly retreating. (1)
That's over 4 meters of sea level rise in the Northern Hemisphere with its more heavily populated coast. Then there's thermal expansion, alpine glaciers, Greenland, and the much larger East Antarctic Ice Sheet. (2)
The most important line on the planet, the shoreline will be moving inland faster over the next millennia, affecting most of our large cities, sea ports, naval facilities, groundwater, rich agricultural lands and other coastal infrastructure like the "chemical alley" in Houston, TX.
We've a lot of adapting to reality to do, as well as mitigation.
1. Marine Ice Sheet Collapse Potentially Under Way for the Thwaites Glacier Basin, West Antarctica
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/344/6185/735
Widespread, rapid grounding line retreat of Pine Island, Thwaites, Smith, and Kohler glaciers, West Antarctica, from 1992 to 2011
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2014GL060140/abstract
2. Four decades of Antarctic Ice Sheet mass balance from 1979–2017
https://www.pnas.org/content/116/4/1095
55
A significant carbon tax and a massive investment in alternative energy would be the best ways to protect coastal property. Maybe the "green new deal" isn't such a bad idea?Our country is able to tackle great things when we pull together, and I suspect with everyone pitching in we could make progress on this problem too. Granted, it would have been less expensive and more effective if we'd started 25 years ago (sorry Al Gore) but better late than never!
70
There could be cost effective albeit non-permanent solutions that would extend the high water use of the road such as pontoon bridges.
1
@Mark
In this discussion of raising roads, I wonder why nobody has raised the point that if the roads are flooded, so is the land around them. In other words, what good is a dry road if it takes you to a wet house?
148
@sjs : I wondered the same thing. Though I have noticed in other articles that the houses often do appear to be at a slightly higher elevation than the roads. Not sure why that would be, and not sure that that is consistently the case.
Also, I know in Miami (and elsewhere in coastal Florida) developers are building new houses and buildings that are effectively on stilts. Which is great, but if the road is flooded, how do you get to/from the building.
15
@Mark
Yes-- in WW2 the military used pontoon bridges effectively. As, in the early stages, this is a seasonal problem, pontoon bridges seen to be a good idea
(WW2 vet)
5
Mr. Flavelle and Ms. Mazzei thank you so much for writing such a great story. You captured so many sides of this prism which is exploding right in our faces as we speak. I look forward to more of your superbly balanced reporting. Thank you for doing such a difficult job and making it look so easy.
32
I would say it's more than fair to offer buyouts at market value as of, say, a year ago (well before it came out that these houses wouldn't be saved). If we assume the average value is a couple hundred thousand, maybe the government can spend $5-6 million on buyouts instead of tens of millions trying to maintain the access. And the homeowners would have plenty of money to afford a place further inland.
9
@Hans
Tax dollars should not be used to do 'buyouts' for these people, that's the job of insurance. Same for people who build homes in heavily wooded areas, as I saw in Colorado Springs in 2012 (Mountain Shadows fire) and 2013 (Black Forest fire). If insurance firms won't insure you then you're on your own.
247
@Hans : We've known about climate change for years. If people bought coastal houses barely above sea level, why should the government bail them out? If they bought them long enough ago that they truly didn't know, then why do a buyout at last year's price -- the likely paid a lot less than that if they bought them before the facts of climate change were known.
48
@Hans
I live on the coast and the houses around me sell for seven figures. Why should the government buy me out at market value or any value? And the houses on the Keys or on the coast in south Florida are not cheap. North Captiva, for example, is not cheap and you can only get there by boat. Buying out wealthy homeowners is just more welfare for the rich...including me since I am well into the 1%. Let us fix our government first and cut our defense budget and provide for the millions of poor Americans and millions of migrants here now and coming because of global warming.
112
I worked for this state over 20 years ago and we knew the issue of lots of coastal communities eventually going underwater was inevitable.
314
@Sasha Love Me, too - I worked for the Florida Coastal Management Program. It was known more than 20 years ago what was likely in store for the Keys and other low-lying areas. Politicians, developers and other money-grubbers may have peddled deliberate ignorance (and still do), but for anyone who wanted to do the basic research, the facts on saltwater encroachment, erosion, increasing tides and rising sea level were all there to be understood by anyone who wanted to understand. What is happening is not a new discovery!
95
Three thousand miles away from Sugarloaf Key, just down the street, multi-million dollar beach homes are facing the same fate where flooding is now a seasonal feature. There are a finite amount of resources that the city, county, and state can allocate for that stretch of land and others like it along the California coastline. Yet, in denial, people are still building in areas where rising sea levels and bigger storms are sure to bring disaster. The last word in the stay-or-go decision making will certainly be the insurance companies that will simply refuse to insure at-risk properties forcing people to leave.
129
@jmilovich
I live within a mile of the water. When I retire, I'm moving inland
8
@jmilovich "... insurance companies that will simply refuse to insure at-risk properties forcing people to leave"
Actually, from what we see for the past decades and now, I doubt it. They stay, get flooded, burned out, their dirt hillside slides away, or whatever the inevitable disaster, and then they demand that the local/state/federal governments either give them the money to rebuild or buy them out at the prices their properties were once worth.
These are the same people saying "build the Wall", throw people off food stamps, if someone has no health insurance or no retirement funds it is individual choice and responsibility so they are on their own to deal with it. And cut those taxes to minimize government and all that wasteful spending.
There are lots of issues for people who care about their country and communities to deal with and invest in. Saving millionaire deniers from the consequences of their choices should be way down on the priorities list.
8
Impacts associated with sea level rise are likely to be more severe, and occur sooner than many expect.
One problem with sea level rise is that the closer sea level approaches the top of a coastal defense, the greater the risk of a storm surge breaching the defense, as in New Orleans with Hurricane Katrina.
This means that many of our largest cities, being coastal, will likely go away swiftly in catastrophic storms rather than slowly with sea level rise.
There's only one narrow road leading out of the Florida Keys and it will be become a parking lot when people finally get scared by the strong hurricane rolling ashore.
We need to start adapting to the reality we've set in motion.
78
@Erik Frederiksen The people in the Keys have known this for years but they're in a sense of deep denial. The same with people in Miami.
9
In Vancouver, many industrial and residential developments have substantial cost implications on account of raising the site, building dikes, etc. At the same time, density, development, and a reasonable 200-year flood level allow for a strong degree of protection and "success".
Without knowing the specifics in this case, I would guess that being in a low-lying, hurricane-prone area is unthinkably costly to future proof. Unless there is density, that is the harsh reality. People have been talking about climate change for over 20 years, and if you didn't take that into consideration when purchasing then it's not on the government (and other taxpayers) to bail you out.
135
@Jared Kind of like buying a house under an airport flight path and complaining about the noise!
12
@Jared Morons are everywhere, I’m afraid. The provincial government here in British Columbia is moving the largest downtown Vancouver hospital (Saint Paul’s) from the top of Mole Hill, the highest point in Vancouver’s West End, to a reclaimed tidal mudflat at the eastern end of False Creek.
The decision was made by the previous right-wing government, but the present left-wing government is staying the course. Denial comes in all colors.
4
@Jared
The dwellers of the keys can take matters into their own hands, if they wish to remain.
Put their houses on concrete pylons, and buy a boat.
1
South Florida’s future doesn’t look good. The paleoclimate record clearly shows that increasing global temperature just 1.5-2 degrees C commits the system to 6-9 meters of sea level rise.
A large fraction of that could arrive within 100 years due to the inherent instability of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.
NYC is the most defensible major city on the US East Coast, but we saw what Hurricane Sandy’s storm surge did to lower Manhattan. The seas may rise higher than that this century and not go down again for hundreds of thousands of years.
65
@Erik Frederiksen I'm not so sure we're the most defensible. We have over 520 miles of shoreline and we're spending about $1.6 billion (with a "b"!) to protect a little over 2 miles of it. Even with our density, graceful and strategic retreat is the best option.
18
@Chris
NYC is built on bedrock and has the wealth of Wall St behind it.
Contrast that with the porous limestone under Florida …
But even NYC may be uninhabitable later this century.
13
The impacts of climate change are becoming ever more apparent and undeniable. The problem faced worldwide by low-lying coastal areas like the Florida Keys might no longer be avoidable: eventually, and perhaps even in a few decades, much of the Keys will be submerged. The problem is so vast, so existential, that most people appear unable to comprehend it. And what a genuine tragedy for mankind that is.
149
@Mhmllr
They'll have to move to higher ground.
When the Keys are submerged, there will be other new coastal areas.
We created this problem. And we made it worse by pretending it isn't happening, and endorsing false narratives denying the science. So now we have to lie in the bed we made.
9
@Mhmllr. Thankfully we don’t live in Bangladesh...
5
@rlschles
The newly created coastal areas will eventually be under water too. It’s an ongoing process.
3
I would visit Sugar Loaf Key to go fly fishing for bonefish, permit and tarpon. The area is so beautiful. Fishing was great, guides were wonderful and evenings spent on Sunset pier at the end of Duval street were hard to beat. Oysters and beer while watching the boats return each night. I will miss it.
80
@md4totz
Indeed. The Keys are beautiful, the wildlife enchanting. The diminutive Key deer, the sound of all the frogs...
I suppose Little Palm Island will also fall victim.
12