by Ben Bovarnick
This week, while the Republican National Convention gave the floor to climate change deniers such as North Carolina State Rep. David Rouzer — author of the recently passed bill legislating against accelerated sea level increases off the North Carolina coast — Louisiana residents were battling a 12-foot storm surge swept in by Hurricane Isaac, which topped over levees and induced heavy flooding in some parishes.
Unfortunately, with a platform of continued fossil fuel addiction and increased carbon emissions, Republicans are inviting similar future risks to their convention’s host state of Florida, and low lying coastal areas in general.
Climate change is expected to increase sea levels by more than three feet over the coming century, while strengthening hurricanes and storm surges, thereby placing residents in low lying areas at greater risk from flooding. This is particularly pertinent to Florida, which has 2.4 million people and 1.3 million homes at risk from a four foot rise in sea levels.
For Florida’s southern counties, this trend is particularly troubling. The majority of residents in danger of flooding live in these low lying areas built on porous limestone, which renders levees like those in Louisiana ineffective.
Further accentuating denial of these dangers, House Republicans held disaster relief funding hostage repeatedly in 2011 and the Ryan Budget would force lawmakers to offset disaster relief though budget cuts. Requiring the $60 billion in budget cuts for relief necessary to respond to Hurricane Katrina would have been a disaster unto itself.
A report published by NOAA predicts that “anthropogenic warming over the next century will lead to an increase in the numbers of very intense hurricanes in some basins,” that these hurricanes will “be more intense on average,” and that “anthropogenic warming by the end of the 21st century will likely cause hurricanes to have substantially higher rainfall rates.” These trends will all contribute to greater risks of coastal flooding and property damage.
In spite of this, Republicans continue to call for an “oil above all” strategy, under the guise of job creation and suppressing gas prices, while ignoring both the plan’s unrealistic nature and the consequences of these actions.
Rather than helping Americans “leave the same legacy to their children,” as Sen. John Hoeven (R-ND) proclaimed during his speech Tuesday, this plan would leave a legacy of costly flood protection for Florida’s low-lying cities and inhabitants.
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Not everyone in Florida is a climate denier. The counties in southeast Florida have formed a compact to jointly plan for the effects of sea level rise. The county commissioners involved are both Republicans and Democrats. A link to sea level rise information from the compact is http://www.broward.org/NaturalResources/ClimateChange/Documents/SE%20FL%20Sea%20Level%20Rise%20White%20Paper%20April%202011%20ADA%20FINAL.pdf
They are just going to have to move.
Meanwhile Hurricane Isaac threatens to make a bad drilling-related situation worse/faster:
http://abcnews.go.com/US/hurricane-isaacs-eye-wall-expected-barrel-louisiana-sinkhole/story?id=17104569
Issac the new face of a Cat 1 hurricane. The new stuck slow moving weather patterns of late. When the bills are paid for Issac will it be one of the costliest Cat 1 hurricanes in U.S. history? That seems to be the headline reality of 2012. Really scarey to consider, it will only get worse.
Joe,
love your stuff but the figure is not Isaac, the eye is too well developed….
IMHO, it looks like Katrina..
When reporting on sea level rises most mainline media give Pacific islands and Bangladesh as examples but one meter wipes out South Florida as well as Holland, London and New York.
Don’t frighten people or ruin the real estate market.
Did anyone see this coming…..
(its behind a firewall. google it to get a pass)
How Romney could go wrong from Day 1 – FT.com
http://www.ft.com
True to his word as a candidate, a few hours after taking office as US president on January 20, 2013, Mitt Romney issued his first executive order, declaring China guilty of currency manipulation. In accordance with the Omnibus Trade and
Oh, look. Isaac is ONLY a Category 1 hurricane and look what it wrought. CATEGORY 1. Just like what Irene brought with her.
Imagine what a Category 2 will do next time it hits NO. Oh, unless you’re a Republican. Don’t imagine it. DENY that hurricanes exist.
So exactly what do you propose we should do to prevent hurricanes?
Last night (final night of RNC) the republicans finished their trifecta. During the primaries they’ve booed a gay US soldier. Cheered someone dying because they didn’t have health insurance and last night laughed at a climate change reference. My fear is that the lure of money will keep them obstructing climate legislation until it is past the point to have a meaningful fix. If that happens, 100 years from now when coastal cities are gone and countries near the equator are uninhabitable, people will look at a video of the reaction by RNC delegates and wonder how such a large group could be so misinformed.