Last Sunday, at the annual meeting of Friends of the Everglades, Dr. Harold Wanless -- chair of the Department of Geology at the University of Miami -- gave an updated presentation on sea level rise. While Dr. Wanless focused the audience's attention on South Florida, I couldn't get out of my head a PBS documentary by Ken Burns on the life of Mark Twain.
Twain was America's most popular writer in the late part of the 19th century. His fame and fortune grew in parallel with the ambitions of a young nation. He showed Americans the good and the bad, slavery, opportunity, misfortune and the technicolor (hadn't been invented yet) portraits of the human comedy.
As Dr. Wanless spoke, I wondered what would Mark Twain write about the pile-up staring billions of people around the world in the face?
What would Twain have written about a former Miami-Dade County Commissioner-- Natacha Seijas -- who Dr. Wanless mentioned for her role halting public distribution of advanced radar imagery that shows in exquisite detail which areas of the county vanish underwater at various rates of sea level rise?
I was on the same committee as Dr. Wanless -- the Miami-Dade Climate Change Advisory Task Force -- that spent a few thousand man-hours coming up with some clear statements about the certainty of sea level rise and the need for mitigation.
It was shocking that an elected official -- Seijas then controlled the county commission -- would deliberately inhibit the public from viewing maps delineating sea level rise. But perhaps unsurprising given the fierce determination of special interests to weather every storm in its path, including the ones they steered the rest of us onto: financial speculation, mortgage fraud, gerrymandered ideas of democracy and "what the market wants".
All those "free market" housing subdivisions in South Dade built during the building boom, built from policy corruption and campaign contributions: they will be the first to go because they are built in flood plains.
It is not going to happen next year or the year after, but according to the science it will happen within the service life of a thirty year mortgage. It is hard to find a shred of humor in that, even if the behavior of elected officials is entirely predictable and within the scope of Mark Twain's observations about human nature.
Sea level rise should have some people thinking; especially in the insurance industry that populated in Hartford, Ct. where Mark Twain made his home.
In thirty years I will be at the end of my own service lifetime, God willing. By that time we will be just be experiencing the tip of the climate change iceberg.
Mark Twain did not suffer fools gladly, but he did often portray them in ways that made readers comfortable with our shared human weaknesses. In light of our own circumstances -- through which our generations are elevating levels of greenhouse gases the earth has not experienced in millions of years -- it is hard to be anything more than dead serious when confronted with the sham posturing and denial funded by large polluters.
As a young man, Twain faced the terrible conflicts of slavery, climbed aboard a stagecoach and sat out the Civil War in the American West.
Where would he go, today? All those depictions of grand life and beautiful vistas down the Mississippi River; clogged with detritus of an industrial age. All those stagecoach stops and trails through the midwest where his mind rested, preparing for the great work to come, they're all paved over with fast food stops, gas stations and convenience stores. America's rural hinterlands are pools of hopelessness.
Dr. Wanless noted how rudely he was treated by staff at Florida Power and Light -- that operates two nuclear reactors at Turkey Point and is planning two more -- when he presented facts that even under the lowest predicted range of sea level rise, Turkey Point would be cut off from the mainland. That could begin to happen by mid century; certainly within the service lifetimes of the Turkey Point nuclear reactors. At the lower level of sea level rise projections, from half way to three quarters of the way through THIS century the only fully functional roadways from Miami to South Dade will be those servicing Turkey Point.
The point that Dr. Wanless makes clear, too, is that it will not take that level of sea level rise before insurance companies abandon Florida. We are now in the era of Florida mortgage roulette. Certainly, in the case of FPL-- there will be massive disruptions in the rate base; no sound business operations, dealing with the incredibly complex operation of a nuclear power plant, would invest where so much liability is in view.
FPL's nuclear at Turkey Point would disappear right quick if the wealth of its top executives were tied up in escrow accounts as a hedge to mitigate the costs of moving South Floridians. Somehow I can't make that as funny, humorous and incandescent as Mark Twain would have, but with climate slavery you get my drift.
Twain was America's most popular writer in the late part of the 19th century. His fame and fortune grew in parallel with the ambitions of a young nation. He showed Americans the good and the bad, slavery, opportunity, misfortune and the technicolor (hadn't been invented yet) portraits of the human comedy.
As Dr. Wanless spoke, I wondered what would Mark Twain write about the pile-up staring billions of people around the world in the face?
What would Twain have written about a former Miami-Dade County Commissioner-- Natacha Seijas -- who Dr. Wanless mentioned for her role halting public distribution of advanced radar imagery that shows in exquisite detail which areas of the county vanish underwater at various rates of sea level rise?
I was on the same committee as Dr. Wanless -- the Miami-Dade Climate Change Advisory Task Force -- that spent a few thousand man-hours coming up with some clear statements about the certainty of sea level rise and the need for mitigation.
It was shocking that an elected official -- Seijas then controlled the county commission -- would deliberately inhibit the public from viewing maps delineating sea level rise. But perhaps unsurprising given the fierce determination of special interests to weather every storm in its path, including the ones they steered the rest of us onto: financial speculation, mortgage fraud, gerrymandered ideas of democracy and "what the market wants".
All those "free market" housing subdivisions in South Dade built during the building boom, built from policy corruption and campaign contributions: they will be the first to go because they are built in flood plains.
It is not going to happen next year or the year after, but according to the science it will happen within the service life of a thirty year mortgage. It is hard to find a shred of humor in that, even if the behavior of elected officials is entirely predictable and within the scope of Mark Twain's observations about human nature.
Sea level rise should have some people thinking; especially in the insurance industry that populated in Hartford, Ct. where Mark Twain made his home.
In thirty years I will be at the end of my own service lifetime, God willing. By that time we will be just be experiencing the tip of the climate change iceberg.
Mark Twain did not suffer fools gladly, but he did often portray them in ways that made readers comfortable with our shared human weaknesses. In light of our own circumstances -- through which our generations are elevating levels of greenhouse gases the earth has not experienced in millions of years -- it is hard to be anything more than dead serious when confronted with the sham posturing and denial funded by large polluters.
As a young man, Twain faced the terrible conflicts of slavery, climbed aboard a stagecoach and sat out the Civil War in the American West.
Where would he go, today? All those depictions of grand life and beautiful vistas down the Mississippi River; clogged with detritus of an industrial age. All those stagecoach stops and trails through the midwest where his mind rested, preparing for the great work to come, they're all paved over with fast food stops, gas stations and convenience stores. America's rural hinterlands are pools of hopelessness.
Dr. Wanless noted how rudely he was treated by staff at Florida Power and Light -- that operates two nuclear reactors at Turkey Point and is planning two more -- when he presented facts that even under the lowest predicted range of sea level rise, Turkey Point would be cut off from the mainland. That could begin to happen by mid century; certainly within the service lifetimes of the Turkey Point nuclear reactors. At the lower level of sea level rise projections, from half way to three quarters of the way through THIS century the only fully functional roadways from Miami to South Dade will be those servicing Turkey Point.
The point that Dr. Wanless makes clear, too, is that it will not take that level of sea level rise before insurance companies abandon Florida. We are now in the era of Florida mortgage roulette. Certainly, in the case of FPL-- there will be massive disruptions in the rate base; no sound business operations, dealing with the incredibly complex operation of a nuclear power plant, would invest where so much liability is in view.
FPL's nuclear at Turkey Point would disappear right quick if the wealth of its top executives were tied up in escrow accounts as a hedge to mitigate the costs of moving South Floridians. Somehow I can't make that as funny, humorous and incandescent as Mark Twain would have, but with climate slavery you get my drift.
3 comments:
Gimleteye,
Has memory failed you? You do not recall the CCATF meeting when the issue of LIDAR maps were discussed and it was the DERM Director that was refusing to provide the maps? There was even a bit of levity noted as both you and Seijas were advocating for the exact same thing - LIDAR mapping. Dr. Wanless is excused if he has been mislead by the worms of DERM, but you know better. You were there.
I seem to remember hearing that a close relative of Sejias’ chief aide was in the LIDAR mapping business, so that may have had something to do with her supporting it. Don’t know what else factored into the DERM director’s decision.
The South Pacific island nation of Kiribati is planning to buy land in Fiji to move more than 100,000 residents threatened by rising sea level. What are Florida's elected officials doing to prepare for this, besides denying the science? Which one is the Third World country?
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