Who Is Responsible For Drowning South Florida?

The map of a truncated Florida, above, is famous already. People who are alive today will have beachfront property in Orlando. It isn't just the Florida Keys that will disappear under the ways. So will every inch-- or in a few cases, almost ever inch-- of the congressional districts currently represented by-- in order of who prioritizes Global Warming most:

• Frederica Wilson (94.87)
• Alcee Hastings (94.44)
• Ted Deutch (91.89)

[the 3 above care a lot. The 3 below care as long as it doesn't get in the way of business as usual]

• Debbie Wasserman Schultz (88.14)
• Kathy Castor (86.54)
• Lois Frankel (80.0)

[the 7 below are working to drown as much of Florida as they can]

• Joe Garcia (60.0)
• Patrick Murphy (20.0)
• Vern Buchanan (7.69)
• Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (5.97)
• Bill Posey (4.0)
• Dennis Ross (2.33)
• Mario Diaz-Balart (1.47)

[these 2 will see all their constituents drown too, but they haven't been in Congress long enough to vote on any Global Warming bills that have been included in the scores yet, though both voted for David McKinely's amendment Thursday to prohibit the Department of Energy and the Army Corps of Engineers to take any actions or make any plans to ameliorate anything whatsoever to do with Climate Change; more on that tonight.]

• Curtis Clawson (n/a)
• David Jolly (n/a)

The number next to each name is their lifetime ProgressivePunch Global Warming crucial vote score. All the Florida Republicans are in favor of drowning their districts, along with 2 from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party, New Dems Joe Garcia and Patrick Murphy. Among the cities that will disappear off the face of the earth are Tampa, Clearwater, St Petersburg, Bradenton, Brandon, Sarasota, Port Charlotte, Fort Meyers, Naples, Homestead, Coral Gables, Hollywood, Fort Lauderdale, Boca Raton, West Palm Beach, Fort Pierce, Vero Beach, Melbourne, Cocoa Beach, Okeechobee, Belle Glade and… did we mention Miami? We'll come back to Miami in a moment.

The map up top is premised on a 14 meter rise in the ocean level, a worst case scerario. Some climate scientists are certain that the the Arctic ice cap has entered "a death spiral" that will see it melt away entirely in summer within the next five to 15 years. The Greenland ice sheet is collapsing at a rate that will raise sea levels by 6 meters by itself. The Larsen B ice shelf on the Antarctic Peninsula has been stable for 12,000 years and it isn't stable any money; it's been collapsing. Were Dennis Ross and Mario Diaz-Balart to notice that low-lying areas of Florida are disappearing, and say "oops, we better do something," the only something would be to move north of Orlando. Not "oops, we better do something"-- "oops too late; why didn't someone tell us it was serious and not just partisan game-playing?"

Shoreline retreat in Florida and other Atlantic Coast states is already causing the narrowing of beaches, the washing away of vacation homes, salt water intrusion into groundwater. The Pacific island nation of Tuvulu is looking for someplace for the country to move. Half of Bangladesh's arable land is under severe threat and tens of millions of people will be displaced from fertile food-growing lands in Vietnam, China, India, Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia and Egypt. Now, back to Miami, which the British are extremely fond of and have helped drive up the property values, even in the light of evidence that the city is drowning. And that caused Robin McKie, the Science Editor of The Guardian to take a closer look.

"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.

The effect is calamitous. Shops and houses are inundated; city life is paralysed; cars are ruined by the corrosive seawater that immerses them. During one recent high spring tide, laundromat owner Eliseo Toussaint watched as slimy green saltwater bubbled up from the gutters. It rapidly filled the street and then blocked his front door. "This never used to happen," Toussaint told reporters. "I've owned this place eight years and now it's all the time."

Today, shop owners keep plastic bags and rubber bands handy to wrap around their feet when they have to get to their cars through rising waters, while householders have found that ground-floor spaces in garages are no longer safe to keep their cars. Only those on higher floors can hope to protect their cars from surging sea waters that corrode and rot the innards of their vehicles.

..."There has been a rise of about 10 inches in sea levels since the 19th century-- brought about by humanity's heating of the planet through its industrial practices-- and that is now bringing chaos to Miami Beach by regularly flooding places like Alton Road," says Harold Wanless, a geology professor at the University of Miami. "And it is going to get worse. By the end of this century we could easily have a rise of six feet, possibly 10 feet. Nothing much will survive that. Most of the land here is less than 10 feet above sea level."

What makes Miami exceptionally vulnerable to climate change is its unique geology. The city-- and its satellite towns and resorts-- is built on a dome of porous limestone which is soaking up the rising seawater, slowly filling up the city's foundations and then bubbling up through drains and pipes. Sewage is being forced upwards and fresh water polluted. Miami's low topography only adds to these problems. There is little land out here that rises more than six feet above sea level. Many condos and apartment blocks open straight on the edge of the sea. Of the total of 4.2 million US citizens who live at an elevation of four feet or less, 2.4 million of them live in south Florida.

At Florida International University, geologist Peter Harlem has created a series of maps that chart what will happen as the sea continues to rise. These show that by the time oceans have risen by four feet – a fairly conservative forecast-- most of Miami Beach, Key Biscayne, Virginia Key and all the area's other pieces of prime real estate, will be bathtubs. At six feet, Miami city's waterfront and the Florida Keys will have disappeared. The world's busiest cruise ship port, which handles four million passengers, will disappear beneath the waves. "This is the fact of life about the ocean: it is very, very powerful," says Harlem.

Miami and its surroundings are facing a calamity worthy of the Old Testament. It is an astonishing story. Despite its vast wealth, the city might soon be consumed by the waves, for even if all emissions of carbon dioxide were halted tomorrow-- a very unlikely event given their consistent rise over the decades-- there is probably enough of the gas in the atmosphere to continue to warm our planet, heat and expand our seas, and melt polar ice. In short, there seems there is nothing that can stop the waters washing over Miami completely.

It a devastating scenario. But what really surprises visitors and observers is the city's response, or to be more accurate, its almost total lack of reaction. The local population is steadily increasing; land prices continue to surge; and building is progressing at a generous pace. During my visit last month, signs of construction-- new shopping malls, cranes towering over new condominiums and scaffolding enclosing freshly built apartment blocks-- could be seen across the city, its backers apparently oblivious of scientists' warnings that the foundations of their buildings may be awash very soon.

Not that they are alone. Most of Florida's senior politicians – in particular, Senator Marco Rubio, former governor Jeb Bush and current governor Rick Scott, all Republican climate-change deniers-- have refused to act or respond to warnings of people like Wanless or Harlem or to give media interviews to explain their stance, though Rubio, a Republican party star and a possible 2016 presidential contender, has made his views clear in speeches. "I do not believe that human activity is causing these dramatic changes to our climate the way these scientists are portraying it. I do not believe that the laws that they propose we pass will do anything about it, except it will destroy our economy," he said recently. Miami is in denial in every sense, it would seem. Or as Wanless puts it: "People are simply sticking their heads in the sand. It is mind-boggling."

Not surprisingly, Rubio's insistence that his state is no danger from climate change has brought him into conflict with local people. Philip Stoddard, the mayor of South Miami, has a particularly succinct view of the man and his stance. "Rubio is an idiot," says Stoddard. "He says he is not a scientist so he doesn't have a view about climate change and sea-level rise and so won't do anything about it. Yet Florida's other senator, Democrat Bill Nelson, is holding field hearings where scientists can tell people what the data means. Unfortunately, not enough people follow his example. And all the time, the waters are rising."

…Nor will south Florida have to wait that long for the devastation to come. Long before the seas have risen a further three or four feet, there will be irreversible breakdowns in society, he says. "Another foot of sea-level rise will be enough to bring salt water into our fresh water supplies and our sewage system. Those services will be lost when that happens," says Stoddard.

"You won't be able to flush away your sewage and taps will no longer provide homes with fresh water. Then you will find you will no longer be able to get flood insurance for your home. Land and property values will plummet and people will start to leave. Places like South Miami will no longer be able to raise enough taxes to run our neighbourhoods. Where will we find the money to fund police to protect us or fire services to tackle house fires? Will there even be enough water pressure for their fire hoses? It takes us into all sorts of post-apocalyptic scenarios. And that is only with a one-foot sea-level rise. It makes one thing clear though: mayhem is coming."

Stoddard is right about Rubio. He is an idiot. But there are worse things than being an idiot-- and being a partisan hack endangering the country by pandering to Hate Talk Radio is one of them, something that has always fit Rubio to a t. Florida voters may not get a chance to defeat him as he runs for Senate reelection in 2016 though. That's because he's still harboring delusions that he can run for Vice President. Over the weekend he has babbling incoherently to right-wing Hate Talk Radio host Hugh Hewitt that he could beat Hillary Clinton. What about a unicorn in every garage?