A Moving Experience

The Southern US Coastline Expected by the End of the Century - NeoGAF.com

 

Paradise, California during and after the late autumn Camp Fire inferno

 

Notwithstanding statements from autocrats or politicians with a hidden agenda, the rantings of religious fundamentalists who rather dramatically misread their own holy scriptures, the irresponsible avarice of corporations unwilling to pay the cost of stopping their greenhouse emissions or workers facing obsolescence in environmentally unsustainable jobs with few alternatives, nature just doesn’t care. Make those environmentally damaging choices, and nature will wreak her havoc. She started with nothing and is fully capable of starting over again. The innocent animals, living without environmental choices but fully subject to the callousness of man, well, nature will sprinkle them with havoc too. Global warming is very real and very impactful.

I have been writing blogs on the environment of late that focus on how societies all over the world will be forced out of their comfort zones, literally unable to continue life as they know it, uprooting hordes of people, creating political instability, undesirable migration and armed conflict over remaining resources and land. Add accelerating population growth and the accumulation of down and dirty

pollutants to the mix, and you have an unending era of dire consequences. 

My last blog on this subject, Dry without a Sense of Humor, dealt with the continuous and rapidly-rising searing heat that will render significant parts of currently arid/desert lands fully uninhabitable, a trend that has already begun. I reviewed scientific work that dealt not only with the probable temperature rises over this century, but how those trend lines may very well continue well beyond. Half the earth could be recaptured by oceans or rendered barren and uninhabitable. I discussed the rapidly-approaching tipping points, led by the release of ultra-dense methane (23 times heavier than carbon dioxide) from melting tundra (permafrost) to the increase in heat-absorbing darker areas of the earth as heat-reflective ice melts, that will continue global warming even if mankind were to stop releasing greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere. 

But what is particularly troublesome is what is already happening. “Last June, temperatures in Iran and Pakistan soared above 129 degrees. As climate change continues, one study suggests that parts of the Middle East and North Africa will suffer heat waves so intense that they could become uninhabitable. Indonesia is sinking as the sea level rises, making disasters like the 2018 tsunami deadlier. As sea level rise increases flooding and threatens freshwater supplies in some island nations, they could be uninhabitable by the middle of the century. But even regions like inland Sweden, which might seem relatively safe from the worst effects of climate change, are already experiencing some impacts; last summer, after a heat wave and drought, wildfires raged across the country, including areas north of the Arctic Circle.

“In India, drought in some areas has forced millions of farmers to move, while others have fled flooding. In Bangladesh, sea level rise, worsening storms, and declines in crop productivity may displace nearly 20 million people by 2050; in South Asia as a whole, that number could be 40 million. In sub-Saharan Africa, a lack of rain for crops in some areas could displace 86 million people. In Latin America, threats to farming could drive 17 million climate migrants to cities. While much migration many happen within borders, climate change will also contribute to the refugee crisis and that, in, turn, could contribute to the rise of nationalism as other countries react against the influx of new residents. In some areas, it already is–the beginning of the conflict in Syria was linked to climate change, and many of the migrants currently fleeing Central America are being driven out because of the impacts of drought on agriculture. As rainfall drops farther in the future in countries like Honduras, and disasters like tropical storms increase, more people will be forced to move.” Adele Peters writing for FastCompany.com, January 8^th.

Unconcerned with the plight of other nations? There are a few of us like that. Well, here’s a question for you: do you think that you or your children will ever have to move because global warming is making where you or they might live too risky or downright uninhabitable? Right here in the good old U.S.A.? Not just the “let’s just rebuild” scenarios, like the flooding from Hurricanes Katrina, Sandy, Harvey and Maria, but literally losing access to the very earth upon which our homes and businesses are built?

Let’s start with the simplest recent disaster – the almost complete destruction of an entire town, because it sat in the line of constant dry canyon winds in a tinderbox of flammability: Paradise, in Northern California. It was part of a number of late autumn, ultra-powerful fire storms that wracked through northern and southern California. Dubbed the “Camp Fire” blaze, the Paradise inferno swept across the town and destroyed more than 6,700 homes and businesses, making it the state's most destructive fire in at least a century. And that was just Paradise. 

Should the homeowners in Paradise return and rebuild? Should the homeowners in Malibu – where the recent Woolsey Fire claimed 400 homes – rebuild? Knowing that these areas are exceptionally likely to burn again, knowing the resources that will need to be deployed to save lives and attempt to protect property, who pays? A whole lot of these property owners intend to do just that.

If you’ve been in the Miami area after heavy rains (not just hurricanes), you might have noticed some nasty street flooding. It happens with increasing frequency, and pumping stations cannot keep up. Florida mortgage lenders are already looking warily at long-term real estate loans in southern Florida, and insurers are questioning their willingness to write policies. 

Sooner or later, many Americans will be forced to move. Look at the top map for an example; waters will also rise all over the coastal United States, from Hawaii and our island territories, California, to the Eastern and Gulf coast. It will hit the poorest segment of our population the most. And when mass migrations occur, even within the United States occur as is inevitable, how will the communities that receive them handle that influx?

Adele Peters embellishes: “After Hurricane Maria, thousands of Puerto Ricans moved to Florida. In Arizona, where extreme heat in Phoenix killed a record 172 people in 2017, so many people are moving north from Phoenix to Flagstaff that Flagstaff residents joke about building a wall to keep them out. In Louisiana, the federal government is paying to relocate an entire community from an island that is slowly sinking underwater. In Alaska, as the permafrost melts and water rises, villages are relocating. By the end of the century, around 13 million Americans may be displaced by sea level rise alone; globally, that number may be around 2 billion.

“The risk is not the same everywhere. In the U.S., ‘Florida will have, by far, the most climate refugees,’ says Orrin Pilkey, a professor emeritus at Duke University and author of an upcoming book about the consequences of sea level rise in America. In Miami Beach, where parts of the city already regularly flood when tides are high, nearly 60% of the city could face chronic flooding by 2060, according to a recent study from the Union of Concerned Scientists, if emissions continue at the current rate. By 2100, more than 90% of the city could be in the ‘chronic inundation’ zone, or underwater at least 26 times a year.

“Miami Beach is spending millions to raise roads and install pumps and other infrastructure. But because of the local geography–with neighborhoods built on a bed of limestone that lets groundwater up through Swiss cheese-like holes–it’s possible that the problem can’t be engineered away. ‘I think Miami will have to be basically abandoned before the end of this century, Pilkey says. One study estimated that around 2.5 million people will leave the area around Miami, Fort Lauderdale, and West Palm Beach, with many potentially ending up in inland cities nearby, like Orlando or Atlanta.

“In the meantime, the area is beginning to experience so-called climate gentrification. Some investors are starting to buy property in lower-income neighborhoods that are on slightly higher ground, like Little Haiti–a historically black neighborhood in Miami where property values have risen steeply in the last few years. At the same time, some other low-income neighborhoods in the city, like Shorecrest, are already experiencing chronic flooding, and, unlike richer communities like Miami Beach, don’t have the same level of resources to try to deal with the water’s impact by installing pumps or other expensive infrastructure.

“Poorer communities elsewhere will also be hit hardest, including parts of southern Louisiana or coastal Maryland or New Jersey where the poverty rate is high and there’s a risk of chronic flooding. As property values drop from the flooding and the local tax base erodes, cities will struggle to be able to afford to build infrastructure to adapt. Those who can least afford to move may also be most likely to be stuck in neighborhoods that can’t mitigate damage…

“For those who can leave, no destination is immune from the effects of climate change. Some parts of the U.S. will be hardest hit economically, particularly the Southeast, but the whole country is beginning to see negative impacts. In the Albuquerque area, where the Mesku family moved, the risk of severe drought is increasing. In the Pacific Northwest, a region that is often cited as one of the places that will be less impacted by global warming, wildfires are incurring record costs and smoke is starting to impact local economies. In Seattle, where most people don’t have air conditioning, there was a record-breaking heat wave in 2017 and again in 2018. In Madison, Wisconsin, record rainfall, a problem that is also linked to climate change, caused widespread flooding in August 2018. In Maine, as the ocean warms and acidifies, fisheries and the lobster industry could collapse. In Canada, a heat wave in Quebec in July 2018 was linked to more than 90 deaths. San Francisco hit a record 106 degrees in September and then in November went through 13 days of dangerous air quality as smoke from the Camp Fire blew into the area. As many as 13,000 properties in the Bay Area are at risk of chronic flooding by 2045.”

How will that future of displaced Americans look back on the legacy of Donald Trump’s vision for America? It is hardly just Trump that is causing a bad problem to move into horrible; most of the rest of the world, even to those world leaders still bound to the Paris climate change accord, is simply not doing enough to stem this impending catastrophe. As coal plants continue to generate electricity, Mother Nature is watching. She does not forgive stupidity.

              I’m Peter Dekom, and it is fascinating, in a very bad way, to watch the momentum of the past usurp the common-sense solutions we really all know must happen now.