I am following two climate writers who are telling us the reality of what is happening to our planet, David Wallace-Wells [who wrote last weeks article in our special DDD] and Jeff Goodell, who gave us "Goodbye Miami" for Rolling Stone five years ago.
"Hothouse Earth" is the latest article from Jeff Goodell, and it's the same message.....unless there is a political revolution immediately our planet is cooked....literally.
This isn't his imagination, but a report on a new scientific study on the climate published this month:
A new paper published last week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences called “Trajectories of the Earth System in the Anthropocene”
He also quotes from a climate scientist [James Lovelock] who has a very pessimistic view of where we are going:
In Lovelock’s view, the scale of the catastrophe that awaits us will soon become obvious. By 2020, droughts and other extreme weather will be commonplace. By 2040, the Sahara will be moving into Europe, and Berlin will be as hot as Baghdad. Atlanta will end up a kudzu jungle. Phoenix will become uninhabitable, as will parts of Beijing (desert), Miami (rising seas) and London (floods). Food shortages will drive millions of people north, raising political tensions.
The weather extremes this summer are just the beginning folks - we all need to decide how and where we are going to spend the next 20 or so years....
At the very least in the short term we need to protect our homes against extreme weather conditions, and if you live in somewhere floodable think about moving....
A 747 Global Airtanker makes a drop in front of advancing flames from a wildfire Thursday, August 2nd, 2018, in Lakeport, California.
Kent Porter /The Press Democrat/AP
“Our future,” scientist James Lovelock has written, “is like that of the passengers on a small pleasure boat sailing quietly above the Niagara Falls, not knowing that the engines are about to fail.”
I thought about Lovelock the other day as I drove across Idaho, watching plumes from a forest fire rise in the distance. My mom and two of my kids were texting me about their experience driving through Redding, the city in Northern California where a “firenado” had devastated the region and accelerated a wildfire that killed six people. Not far away, in Mendocino, the largest fire in California history was burning an area the size of Los Angeles.
"Goodbye Miami"....Jeff Goodall in Rolling Stone June 2013.....
Read this again and see how five years passing has confirmed everything he wrote then.
Now Miami has king tides in November that overwhelm sea walls on canals throughout South Florida, "sunny day flooding" in Miami Beach, flooding everywhere after a big rain and still no major hurricane - five years later.
Developers are building more and more condos, selling them to Central and South Americans with no new roads or infrastructure.....traffic in Miami has to be one of the worst in the nation.
There is a telling paragraph in this article.....
The financial catastrophe could play out like this: As insurance rates climb, fewer are able to afford homes. Housing prices fall, which slows development, which decreases the tax base, which makes cities and towns even less able to afford the infrastructure upgrades necessary to adapt to rising seas. The spiral continues downward. Beaches deteriorate, hotels sit empty, restaurants close. Because Miami’s largest economies are development and tourism, it’s a deadly tailspin. The threat of sea-level rise bankrupts the state even before it is wiped out by a killer storm.
But as George Carlin once said "Nobody seems to notice, nobody seems to care"....and the band plays on.
There is a narrowing time window if you live in SF to sell your property for a decent price and get out [or stay and rent], but all it's going to take is one big hurricane or a wet tropical storm for the exodus to start. Winners get out early.....
Jack Black in a five minute summary of South Florida's dilemma......sea level rise is coming, but everyone is in a state of denial.......
A very good video.....some interesting interviews, including a developer who's builds, sells and gets out......
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