The Miami Herald editorial board took many years to swing to view climate change for the threat it is.
As evidence accumulated on the costs of unsustainable growth, the Herald was not only silent … it was complicit in the ruinous policies leading to the housing boom and bust. EOM earlier posts, in the archive under 'housing crash', chronicle the dismal times and political gains when housing developments were seeded in low lying flood plains like rice thrown at bride and groom on wedding day.
Those were also the years -- in the late 1980's and 1990's -- in which the buffer areas between the Everglades and farm land and developments in western Dade were lost to conservation purposes and, later, when the coastline was buried in a condo boom that cost banks billions of dollars yet kept speculators like Jorge Perez on the Forbes list of wealthiest Americans.
The Herald was a poor record of note on these subjects. The bankers and downtown land use lobbyists at Greenberg Traurig held sway at the Herald publisher and Knight Ridder board. Too bad.
On sea level rise, the Herald's editorial board finally swung around. In its Sunday editorial, the Herald asks:
We did have options and there were voices to those options, but they were denied space in the media and in decision making processes. For example, the two terms of Jeb Bush as governor of Florida -- leading up to and during the housing boom -- were marked by glee and high-fives at blocking advocates for the environment and sensible growth management policies. The Rick Scott years simply delivered the coup de grace, using the excuse of "jobs" and "economic stimulus" that is -- in respect to the record of bad development patterns in Florida -- rubbed by over-use to a nub.
Now in Miami today, there are many pots on boil at the county, with respect to more dumb development -- not to accommodate more people, as the lobbyists would have city and county commissioners believe -- but to bail out investors who bought farmland in the hinterlands or on the coast at speculative prices during the housing boom.
In its recent editorial on rising seas, the Herald editorial board leads with the "good news" that sea level rise is going to be good for jobs for engineers and construction projects. It goes on to point out that the prudent course for decision makers is to deny any more building and construction in unprotect-able flood plains or on vulnerable coast lines.
But what about Lennar's Parkland? A massive development in west Dade that folds alongside Little Crooks' Krome Gold? The Herald editorial board might take the lead from its pivot on sea level rise to criticize the schemes of wealthy insiders who once held sway at 1 Herald Square. It wouldn't make for comfortable Christmas parties where insiders, comfortable in their status as "community leaders", toast with representatives of the free and independent press.
And while we are at it: isn't it time for the Herald editorial board to weigh in on the idiotic plan by FPL to put two new nuclear reactors at sea level in South Dade? This silence, from the Herald, is deafening.
Read: Combating rising seas, Miami Herald - Editorial, September 28, 2013
OUR OPINION: Miami Beach on right course to keep low-lying areas dry
Calling all hydrologists and civil engineers - South Florida's got jobs for you as it seeks to fend off rising sea levels from climate change over the next one hundred years. That's one of the main messages that emerged from a recent day-long seminar in Miami Beach, where local officials met with experts from Holland to learn how that low-lying country defends itself from an ever-persistent sea.
Another message: Remedies for staving off rising waters along our shores won't be cheap or simple. But they are necessary.
Scientists forecast that, over the next century, seas could rise from 1-1/2 feet to six feet. That's a lot of water. And it won't just be coastal areas that are affected.
South Florida's porous limestone foundation could increase ground water levels far inland as the ocean rises. Studies have shown that a three-foot rise in sea level would flood western Miami Beach permanently, but also overrun inland communities like Weston. There will simply be no place for the water to drain away.
Some of the Netherlands' methods for restraining the sea won't work here in Florida. Oceanside dikes are out of the question, for example. So are mountainous sand dunes, which the Netherlands have built along its coast. Building such dunes here would damage coral beds and raise other environmental concerns.
But, as the seminar's participants learned, there are some solutions, like Miami Beach's $200 million overhaul of its aging drainage system, which now leaves major streets and low-lying neighborhoods inundated for days after even normal rainstorms, not to mention our seasonal high-tide periods.
While Broward, Miami-Dade, Palm Beach and Monroe counties all joined a climate-change agreement several years ago to assess and reckon with the risks of rising sea levels, the Beach is the first city in South Florida to put money into combating increased flooding. The project includes wells to store runoff water, installing more pumps to eject flood water and using "backflow" preventers to keep shore water from backing up into city street grates.
What lies in South Florida's future? More elevated roads and buildings, more so-called "retreats" from building on the coast, more 24-hour pumps to keep water at bay everywhere, more storm-water runoff collected from urban areas and redirected for irrigation - all feats of engineering that will require big financial investments over the next 50 years.
And government officials in coastal cities will have to rethink zoning laws near their beaches. When an aging Miami Beach hotel is razed, it should not be the site for another high-rise condo, for example, which simply puts more people at risk. It could become green space instead. Better to take a hit on city property-tax coffers than put more residents in harm's way.
Sure, all these changes in attitude and policy sound daunting. But what other choice do South Floridians have?
Stand by and wring their hands as the underpinnings of beachside condos and resorts are washed away during a hurricane's storm surge, the tourist industry drowns as beaches disappear under water and a whole way of life is permanently altered for the worse? Those aren't options.
The folks at that seminar have the right idea: Plan now to prepare and pay to control what the future is bringing our way - higher waters, eroding beaches and more flooding risks. The Netherlands has held the sea at bay for centuries. Now it's South Florida's time to face the inevitable and act early to combat this very real threat.
As evidence accumulated on the costs of unsustainable growth, the Herald was not only silent … it was complicit in the ruinous policies leading to the housing boom and bust. EOM earlier posts, in the archive under 'housing crash', chronicle the dismal times and political gains when housing developments were seeded in low lying flood plains like rice thrown at bride and groom on wedding day.
Those were also the years -- in the late 1980's and 1990's -- in which the buffer areas between the Everglades and farm land and developments in western Dade were lost to conservation purposes and, later, when the coastline was buried in a condo boom that cost banks billions of dollars yet kept speculators like Jorge Perez on the Forbes list of wealthiest Americans.
The Herald was a poor record of note on these subjects. The bankers and downtown land use lobbyists at Greenberg Traurig held sway at the Herald publisher and Knight Ridder board. Too bad.
On sea level rise, the Herald's editorial board finally swung around. In its Sunday editorial, the Herald asks:
What lies in South Florida's future? More elevated roads and buildings, more so-called "retreats" from building on the coast, more 24-hour pumps to keep water at bay everywhere, more storm-water runoff collected from urban areas and redirected for irrigation - all feats of engineering that will require big financial investments over the next 50 years.
And government officials in coastal cities will have to rethink zoning laws near their beaches. When an aging Miami Beach hotel is razed, it should not be the site for another high-rise condo, for example, which simply puts more people at risk. It could become green space instead. Better to take a hit on city property-tax coffers than put more residents in harm's way.
Sure, all these changes in attitude and policy sound daunting. But what other choice do South Floridians have?
Stand by and wring their hands as the underpinnings of beachside condos and resorts are washed away during a hurricane's storm surge, the tourist industry drowns as beaches disappear under water and a whole way of life is permanently altered for the worse? Those aren't options.
We did have options and there were voices to those options, but they were denied space in the media and in decision making processes. For example, the two terms of Jeb Bush as governor of Florida -- leading up to and during the housing boom -- were marked by glee and high-fives at blocking advocates for the environment and sensible growth management policies. The Rick Scott years simply delivered the coup de grace, using the excuse of "jobs" and "economic stimulus" that is -- in respect to the record of bad development patterns in Florida -- rubbed by over-use to a nub.
Now in Miami today, there are many pots on boil at the county, with respect to more dumb development -- not to accommodate more people, as the lobbyists would have city and county commissioners believe -- but to bail out investors who bought farmland in the hinterlands or on the coast at speculative prices during the housing boom.
In its recent editorial on rising seas, the Herald editorial board leads with the "good news" that sea level rise is going to be good for jobs for engineers and construction projects. It goes on to point out that the prudent course for decision makers is to deny any more building and construction in unprotect-able flood plains or on vulnerable coast lines.
But what about Lennar's Parkland? A massive development in west Dade that folds alongside Little Crooks' Krome Gold? The Herald editorial board might take the lead from its pivot on sea level rise to criticize the schemes of wealthy insiders who once held sway at 1 Herald Square. It wouldn't make for comfortable Christmas parties where insiders, comfortable in their status as "community leaders", toast with representatives of the free and independent press.
And while we are at it: isn't it time for the Herald editorial board to weigh in on the idiotic plan by FPL to put two new nuclear reactors at sea level in South Dade? This silence, from the Herald, is deafening.
Read: Combating rising seas, Miami Herald - Editorial, September 28, 2013
OUR OPINION: Miami Beach on right course to keep low-lying areas dry
Calling all hydrologists and civil engineers - South Florida's got jobs for you as it seeks to fend off rising sea levels from climate change over the next one hundred years. That's one of the main messages that emerged from a recent day-long seminar in Miami Beach, where local officials met with experts from Holland to learn how that low-lying country defends itself from an ever-persistent sea.
Another message: Remedies for staving off rising waters along our shores won't be cheap or simple. But they are necessary.
Scientists forecast that, over the next century, seas could rise from 1-1/2 feet to six feet. That's a lot of water. And it won't just be coastal areas that are affected.
South Florida's porous limestone foundation could increase ground water levels far inland as the ocean rises. Studies have shown that a three-foot rise in sea level would flood western Miami Beach permanently, but also overrun inland communities like Weston. There will simply be no place for the water to drain away.
Some of the Netherlands' methods for restraining the sea won't work here in Florida. Oceanside dikes are out of the question, for example. So are mountainous sand dunes, which the Netherlands have built along its coast. Building such dunes here would damage coral beds and raise other environmental concerns.
But, as the seminar's participants learned, there are some solutions, like Miami Beach's $200 million overhaul of its aging drainage system, which now leaves major streets and low-lying neighborhoods inundated for days after even normal rainstorms, not to mention our seasonal high-tide periods.
While Broward, Miami-Dade, Palm Beach and Monroe counties all joined a climate-change agreement several years ago to assess and reckon with the risks of rising sea levels, the Beach is the first city in South Florida to put money into combating increased flooding. The project includes wells to store runoff water, installing more pumps to eject flood water and using "backflow" preventers to keep shore water from backing up into city street grates.
What lies in South Florida's future? More elevated roads and buildings, more so-called "retreats" from building on the coast, more 24-hour pumps to keep water at bay everywhere, more storm-water runoff collected from urban areas and redirected for irrigation - all feats of engineering that will require big financial investments over the next 50 years.
And government officials in coastal cities will have to rethink zoning laws near their beaches. When an aging Miami Beach hotel is razed, it should not be the site for another high-rise condo, for example, which simply puts more people at risk. It could become green space instead. Better to take a hit on city property-tax coffers than put more residents in harm's way.
Sure, all these changes in attitude and policy sound daunting. But what other choice do South Floridians have?
Stand by and wring their hands as the underpinnings of beachside condos and resorts are washed away during a hurricane's storm surge, the tourist industry drowns as beaches disappear under water and a whole way of life is permanently altered for the worse? Those aren't options.
The folks at that seminar have the right idea: Plan now to prepare and pay to control what the future is bringing our way - higher waters, eroding beaches and more flooding risks. The Netherlands has held the sea at bay for centuries. Now it's South Florida's time to face the inevitable and act early to combat this very real threat.
6 comments:
The Doral Herald FKA the Miami Herald is incredibly disappointing. Weak thinking. This is the same editorial board who loudly recommended the $3 BILLION Marlins Stadium and Garage scam.
So many issues. We are going to have to get control of the state if we are going to have a chance of addressing some of these issues. When Scott is removed we can begin to tackle some of these issues on a statewide basis. Miami Beach is now forced to deal because the water is already rising and soon they will have to leave certain areas unless they will have condos on stilts. The philosophy seems to be destroy as much as you can and make as much money as you can and forget about everything else. We need a new generation of caring leaders.
Does the herald board live in broward? Maybe they are used to being on the edge of the glades.
Maybe they don't know what it is to drive from Kendall to work everyday and home in time to gracrey shop, do homework and feed the family.
Maybe they clueless in a selfish way.
The Herald promoted a "yes" vote leasing our Grove waterfront for the next 80 years! Part of the lease is that if a disaster occurs (i.e. 25 foot surge during a hurricane), the property will become a problem for the city, not the developer. I think we all know who the Herald works for. Its a rag that continues to mislead the public by ignoring the issues. Do the writers even know what investigative reporting is?
The Herald could end the condominium market today. All they have to do is audit a ten year old condominium building in Miami Beach. Miami is only stuck in a growth segment because of easy money and ignorant buyers.
Don't forget the Herald endorsed the $3 Bil Marlins scam. $3 Bil is being diverted from taxpayers to pay for the Marlins Stadium and Garage. The Marlins again lost 100+ games in a season and again no one attends their games.
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