Environment & Energy
Related: About this forumEnormous & Accelerating Threats Stacked Up For Florida - Sea Level Rise Just One Of Them
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Sea level rise
The threat: By any estimation, Florida is drowning. In some scenarios, sea levels will rise up to 31in by 2060, a devastating prediction for a region that already deals regularly with tidal flooding and where an estimated 120,000 properties on or near the water are at risk. The pace of the rise is also hastening, scientists say it took 31 years for the waters around Miami to rise by six inches, while the next six inches will take only 15 more. At such a rate, many of Miami Beachs landmarks, the world famous South Beach, and the picturesque art deco hotels of Ocean Drive, will be lost within three decades, according to some studies.
Possible solutions: Dozens of municipalities, the four counties of south-east Florida, and partner groups such as the Nature Conservancy have combined their efforts through the south-east regional action climate plan to tackle the crisis. In Miami Beach, dubbed the ground zero of sea rise, a multifaceted and costly Rising Above program is already under way. It includes elevating roads, building new sea walls and installing new and higher capacity pumps and drainage systems to alleviate flooding. In the Florida Keys, the approach will probably tilt more towards managed retreat: abandoning areas too expensive to maintain and focusing on measures with a better cost-benefit ratio. Parts of the Keys are going to simply disappear, some within two decades.
Water contamination
The threat: Saltwater from sea level rise is seeping further inland through Floridas porous limestone bedrock and contaminating underground freshwater supplies, notably in the Biscayne aquifer, the 4,000-sq mile shallow limestone basin that provides drinking water to millions in southern Florida. Years of over-pumping and toxic runoff from farming and the sugar industry in central Florida and the Everglades have worsened the situation. The Florida department of environmental protection warned in March that existing sources of water will not adequately meet the reasonable beneficial needs for the next 20 years. A rising water table, meanwhile, has exacerbated problems with south Floridas ageing sewage systems. Since December, millions of gallons of toxic, raw sewage have spilled on to Fort Lauderdales streets from a series of pipe failures.
Possible solutions: A comprehensive 30-year Everglades restoration plan was authorized by Congress in 2000 to restore, preserve and protect the south Florida ecosystem by improving water flows to help flush the salinity, and a 78bn-gallon Everglades agricultural area reservoir (EAA), a key component of the congressional plan, is earmarked for land once leased by big sugar. The restoration plan, however, has stalled amid funding wrangles, and the storage reservoir plan delayed several times.
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And, of course . . .
Politics
The threat: Florida has long been plagued by political leadership more in thrall to the interests of big industry than the environment. As governor from 2011 to 2019, Rick Scott, now a US senator, slashed $700m from Floridas water management budget, rolled back environmental regulations and enforcement, gave a free ride to polluters, and flip-flopped over expanding offshore oil drilling. The politician who came to be known as Red Tide Rick, for his perceived inaction over 2018s toxic algae bloom outbreaks, reportedly banned the words climate change and global warming from state documents.
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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/apr/21/florida-climate-crisis-sea-level-habitat-loss
Ferrets are Cool
(21,110 posts)Maine Abu El Banat
(3,479 posts)Up to their waist in water. Holding a Trump sign.
hatrack
(59,592 posts)mitch96
(13,924 posts)mountain grammy
(26,647 posts)twodogsbarking
(9,805 posts)Climate change is gonna get you.
certainot
(9,090 posts)RW radio has played a huge part in enforcing global warming denial in republicans and electing assholes like disantis scott and gaetz. it is fucking absurd for floridians to keep letting their schools broadcast sports on global warming (and COVID)-denying talk radio stations and helping them attract advertisers to pay for it. and they help pass voter suppression legislation that even effects students at those schools
FLORIDA 20 Florida 10, Florida St. 4 Miami 2, South Florida 2, Central Florida 2
it is absolutely absurd
lark
(23,155 posts)Gators switched from an AM channel that played Rush & Hannity to one that's sports only - great news! I'm sure it had to do with $$ not politics, but it is still an excellent change and now that horrible station will never get even one second airplay from me or my family who are big Gator fans.
certainot
(9,090 posts)station they deserted it may not be, although the contractual situations may have played a part.
thanks. i need to research that. similar may have caused the major AM station in denver -KOA - to drop limbaugh to smaller station. CU had been getting low level pressure for a decade and the station may have wanted to do it before advertisers got wind of CU looking elsewhere.
if it was politics it needs to get to other universities. they all need to be shamed.
sdfernando
(4,941 posts)Last edited Sun Apr 18, 2021, 12:48 PM - Edit history (1)
and that time is shrinking. If I lived there (NEVER IN A TRILLION YEARS!) I'd sell my property and high tail it out of there now.
lark
(23,155 posts)Housing in NE FL is cheaper than almost any place else. We can't sell our house and buy a house any of the other places we've looked - we tried about 3 years ago. Sure, if you want to move to MS, AL - it's cheaper - but those places are worse than here so no thanks. Hubby also has a nice part time job he likes with no stress and with full benefits and those are hard to find. Also, both our children live and work here. We live in a nice diverse neighborhood with a number of good neighbors and live on 2/3 of an acre of elevated land across from the river. We are at least 20 ft. above the river with great drainage and Jax. has only been hit 1 time in 200 years with a hurricane. Even when it did get hit in 1969, the area where I live now stayed dry, no flooding.
If drumpf has won, however, that would have been game changing time. If that happened, we were strongly considering moving to NZ - we will not willingly be part of a fascist right wing state. Our friends there tell us that this can happen and they will get us in. If that didn't work, we were thinking about buying some of our friends' land in Sonora CA and getting a trailer. Since thankfully that didn't happen, we are hanging in here.
Mickju
(1,805 posts)As much as I love CA I wouldn't go back there. Eventually there won't be any place to go.