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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsMiami, the great world city, is drowning while the powers that be look away
Low-lying south Florida, at the front line of climate change in the US, will be swallowed as sea levels rise. Astonishingly, the population is growing, house prices are rising and building goes on. The problem is the city is run by climate change deniersA drive through the sticky Florida heat into Alton Road in Miami Beach can be an unexpectedly awkward business. Most of the boulevard, which runs north through the heart of the resort's most opulent palm-fringed real estate, has been reduced to a single lane that is hemmed in by bollards, road-closed signs, diggers, trucks, workmen, stacks of giant concrete cylinders and mounds of grey, foul-smelling earth.
It is an unedifying experience but an illuminating one for this once glamorous thoroughfare, a few blocks from Miami Beach's art deco waterfront and its white beaches, has taken on an unexpected role. It now lies on the front line of America's battle against climate change and the rise in sea levels that it has triggered.
"Climate change is no longer viewed as a future threat round here," says atmosphere expert Professor Ben Kirtman, of the University of Miami. "It is something that we are having to deal with today."
Every year, with the coming of high spring and autumn tides, the sea surges up the Florida coast and hits the west side of Miami Beach, which lies on a long, thin island that runs north and south across the water from the city of Miami. The problem is particularly severe in autumn when winds often reach hurricane levels. Tidal surges are turned into walls of seawater that batter Miami Beach's west coast and sweep into the resort's storm drains, reversing the flow of water that normally comes down from the streets above. Instead seawater floods up into the gutters of Alton Road, the first main thoroughfare on the western side of Miami Beach, and pours into the street. Then the water surges across the rest of the island.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/11/miami-drowning-climate-change-deniers-sea-levels-rising
BillZBubb
(10,650 posts)Not much is going to change there except the water level.
Katashi_itto
(10,175 posts)Agnosticsherbet
(11,619 posts)So the state government doesn't give a flying fuck how deep Miami is submerged.
a kennedy
(29,663 posts)WTF????? Not talking about it is going to not make it happen? WTF.??
Scurrilous
(38,687 posts)..my home (on the western fringe of NW Miami Dade) may someday be seafront property.
csziggy
(34,136 posts)And it's 200 feet above current sea level in North Florida! I certainly won't live that long, but it could happen someday.
dissentient
(861 posts)Maybe when or if they start sinking into the ocean will they realize there is a problem. Maybe.
HockeyMom
(14,337 posts)to surpass the Mall of America, including a SKI SLOPE in Florida???? Can you say out of their minds????
steve2470
(37,457 posts)Sienna86
(2,149 posts)What will it take for those living in free-willed ignorance to wake up?
City Lights
(25,171 posts)Ghost in the Machine
(14,912 posts)ground and hitting water. I also remember in the 80's, while installing cable tv, in some places it took 3 hours or more to pound an 8 foot ground rod into the ground because or the coral rock that was the bedrock of the area...
Peace,
Ghost
DeSwiss
(27,137 posts)The Florida Department of Environmental Protection has issued directives to all employees that they must refrain from using the term ''Climate Change'' in official state correspondence.
- This should put an end to the water problems, forthwith.
K&R
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RandiFan1290
(6,233 posts)The changes shift the financial burden for the next destructive hurricane, tsunami or tropical storm onto the neighbors of these wealthy beach-dwellers and ultimately onto all American taxpayers.
In more than 500 instances from the Gulf of Alaska to Bar Harbor, Maine, FEMA has remapped waterfront properties from the highest-risk flood zone, saving the owners as much as 97 percent on the premiums they pay into the financially strained National Flood Insurance Program.
Gman
(24,780 posts)They will ask why would anyone live there.
drm604
(16,230 posts)who will end up paying for disaster relief because of the willful ignorance of Florida's politicians.
I wonder how much of the denial is being funded by people and organizations who own beachfront property and want to unload it while they can.
tclambert
(11,086 posts)Senator Snowball Inhofe of Oklahoma demonstrated scientifically that all climate change was a hoax by making a snowball in Washington, D. C. This proved undeniably that the weather was cold that day in Washington. And, of course, one day's weather in Washington, D. C. corresponds exactly with long term climate across the entire globe. He must know his stuff because he is the Chairman of the United States Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. Just like that he has saved us all from the diabolical schemes of the science industrial complex, led by Al Gore, and their attempts to destroy the fossil fuel industry and wreck America's economy.
Makes one proud to be an American, doesn't it?
(Oh, all right, what the hell . . . )
OldRedneck
(1,397 posts)So -- as a result of global climate change, Miami is flooding.
However, I read in another DU article that Rick Scott, Floriduh governor, has banned the use of the phrase "climate change" by state employees.
I'm confused.
GreatGazoo
(3,937 posts)Apparently the State of Florida doesn't want anyone using "climate change" etc in email, or other communications that would be subpoenaed in a lawsuit like this one:
Filed by Farmers Insurance Co. on behalf of itself, other insurance companies and customers whose property was damaged by the surge of storm water and sewage overflow, the lawsuits allege the governments of Chicago-area municipalities knew their drainage systems were inadequate and failed to take reasonable action to prevent flooding of insured properties.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/05/19/climate-change-get-ready-or-get-sued/
So if/when such a suit is file against them, their defense will be: "Not liable due to Act of God / Force Majeure. We did not or could not foresee these accidental and unusual events so we are not liable for our inaction."
genxlib
(5,527 posts)This article is about 6 months old and I remember when it came out.
On one hand, it is always encouraging to see the media sound the alarm.
On the other hand, this article is a little over the top. I happen to be an engineer working directly on projects of this nature for Miami Beach so I am very familiar with the problems.
The issue I have with this article is that it is a little over dramatized. But this is exactly the problem. The issue is deadly serious but not really dramatic. It is a slow motion disaster but it doesn't really have the dramatic visuals that will sell newspapers.
I actually give the City of Miami Beach a lot of credit for being one of the first to attack the problem head on. They are currently designing the City to withstand 2' of sea level rise. But they are in denial about what happens beyond two feet.
progressoid
(49,990 posts)genxlib
(5,527 posts)It's actually Miami Beach which is a different municipality than City of Miami or even Miami-Dade County.
The County and other regional organizations have done a ton of committees, studies and reports but none of them are actually taking concrete action except for Miami Beach
If you want the broad strokes, this Huffpo piece isn't bad. |http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/03/miami-beach-king-tide_n_5925950.html ]
If you want to go deeper, this 3.5 minute youtube video by the city is very informative.
And this one isn't bad http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/miami-beach/article2541332.html#/tabPane=tabs-b0710947-1-1
If you are interested in the technical side. In a nut shell, they are designing all new drainage systems as if the water were already 2' higher than current. Based on the current elevations, that basically eliminates all options for gravity drainage such as outfalls, wells or exfiltration trenches. Everything gets pumped. It is expensive but is fairly straightforward for areas adjacent to the Bay. It gets more complicatd the farther you go towards the interior of the island.
The more complicated part is that they are trying to raise the roads, which is massively complicated in an existing situation. Imagine trying to raise the roads several feet when you have historic Art Deco Buildings with floor elevations at the old street level. In the residential neighborhoods, there are multi-million dollar homes that are barely above current high tide and will end up being below the level of road when it is raised.
I give them credit for taking on this task but it is a huge uphill battle. the challenge is that making any long term preparations instills short term pain in the way of costs and inconvenience that makes it a tough sell.
They have budgeted around $500 million over the course of the next five years and they are already coming to the conclusion that it won't get them nearly as far as they wanted to go.
In the end, it is an impossible battle so it remains to see how long they can hold out.
Feel free to ask any other questions.
kwassa
(23,340 posts)The first time I visited.
Beach erosion had reduced the beach to almost nothing. It got replenished. Back then all the Art Deco buildings that are now so trendy were old folks homes, and the pensioners would sit out front in chairs and watch traffic go by.