Tuesday, May 28, 2013

On sea level rise, local elected officials are still shoveling sand against the tide: does anything matter to voters? ... by gimleteye

EOM has been tracking the billion and a half dollar consent decree between Miami-Dade County and the EPA; the result of litigation brought by Biscayne Bay Waterkeeper. The agreement entirely avoids the reality of sea level rise, in assessing whether current plans to invest tax dollars are simply shoveling sand against the tide.

Local government's reaction to climate change is a kind of "bi-polar disorder": on the one hand it participates and even funds meeting after meeting on climate change -- even picking the 'low lying fruit' like buying hybrid vehicles for staff, on the other hand it is ignoring the fundamental issues like whether local water and wastewater infrastructure can even function under the three foot rise scenario by the end of the century, accepted by mainstream scientists.

Along this line, more than 500 scientists from 44 nations have signed an appeal to policy makers with the sobering title: "Scientists' Consensus on Maintaining Humanity's Life Support Systems in the 21st Century".

The scientists state, "By the time today's children reach middle age, it is extremely likely that Earth's life-support systems, critical for human prosperity and existence, will be irretrievably damaged by the magnitude, global extent, and combination of these human-caused environmental stressors, unless we take concrete, immediate actions to ensure a sustainable, high-quality future."

The yardstick to assess the performance of your elected representatives is to measure the scientists' calls for "concrete, immediate actions" against the specific concrete actions the county is making on the wastewater fiasco.

Remember that major infrastructure investments -- ie. your tax dollars -- can take decades to materialize.

Think about that, next time you see children happily at play. Think how history will judge those elected officials who could have done so much more with our tax dollars when they had the chance to plan in advance.

Why do they get away with it? Because they can. (Read the press statement here.)


ESSENTIAL POINTS FOR POLICY MAKERS
Scientists' Consensus on Maintaining Humanity's Life Support Systems in the 21st Century.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Earth is rapidly approaching a tipping point. Human impacts are causing alarming levels of harm to our planet. As scientists who study the interaction of people with the rest of the biosphere using a wide range of approaches, we agree that the evidence that humans are damaging their ecological life-support systems is overwhelming.

We further agree that, based on the best scientific information available, human quality of life will suffer substantial degradation by the year 2050 if we continue on our current path.

Science unequivocally demonstrates the human impacts of key concern:

* Climate disruption-more, faster climate change than since humans first became a species.

* Extinctions-not since the dinosaurs went extinct have so many species and populations died out so fast, both on land and in the oceans.

* Wholesale loss of diverse ecosystems-we have plowed, paved, or otherwise transformed more than 40% of Earth's ice-free land, and no place on land or in the sea is free of our direct or indirect influences.

* Pollution-environmental contaminants in the air, water and land are at record levels and increasing, seriously harming people and wildlife in unforeseen ways.

* Human population growth and consumption patterns-seven billion people alive today will likely grow to 9.5 billion by 2050, and the pressures of heavy material consumption among the middle class and wealthy may well intensify.

By the time today's children reach middle age, it is extremely likely that Earth's life-support systems, critical for human prosperity and existence, will be irretrievably damaged by the magnitude, global extent, and combination of these human-caused environmental stressors, unless we take concrete, immediate actions to ensure a sustainable, high-quality future. As members of the scientific community actively involved in assessing the biological and societal impacts of global change, we are sounding this alarm to the world. For humanity's continued health and prosperity, we all-individuals, businesses, political leaders, religious leaders,
scientists, and people in every walk of life-must work hard to solve these five global problems, starting today:

1. Climate Disruption
2. Extinctions
3. Loss of Ecosystem Diversity
4. Pollution
5. Human Population Growth and Resource Consumption.

The full statement has been signed by 520 global scientists from 44 countries. Those signatures were obtained within a month of completion of the statement, by direct email requests from the authors and their close colleagues to a targeted group of well-regarded global change scientists. The signers include 2 Nobel Laureate, 33 members of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, 42 members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and several members of various European scientific academies.


SUMMARY OR THE ENTIRE REPORT
http://mahb.stanford.edu.

AT THE SAME SITE PLEASE TAKE A MOMENT TO ENDORSE THE REPORT IF YOU AGREE WITH IT. THE MORE ENDOSEMENTS THERE ARE FROM PEOPLE IN EVERY WALK OF LIFE, BETTER THE CHANCE THAT DECISION-MAKERS WILL PAY ATTENTION AND START TO TAKE ACTION. PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD AS FAR AS POSSIBLE AND URGE THOSE YOU KNOW TO SPEND A COUPLE OF MINUTES TO REGISTER THEIR SUPPORT.

Paul R. Ehrlich
Bing Professor of Population Studies
President, Center for Conservation Biology,
Stanford University

Adjunct Professor,
University of Technology, Sydney

https://www.stanford.edu/group/CCB/cgi-bin/ccb/content/paul-r-ehrlich
WANT TO HELP TRY TO SAVE THE WORLD? VISIT http://mahb.stanford.edu/

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

People drive in seawater in Miami Beach during Lunar high tides. Nobody cares about sea level rise. Just buy another car and live on the top floor of a condo. Everything is all good as long as Zillow says my property values are going up.

Anonymous said...

Everything is all good until it isn't. By then it will be too late to do anything about it. If the County Commission doesn't make the infrastructure investments now to protect and provide resilience as the water rises, it will be a self-fulfilling outcome that South Florida and low-lying coastal and barrier islands, as well as western lands will be flooded and abandoned and the fresh water supply will be contaminated by salt water intrusion. Perhaps this is OK with current elected officials who apparently operate on election cycle timelines, leaving future generations nowhere to go but away.
By not talking about the issue or pretending that everything is being taken care of, keeps the residents in the dark and not interested in changing the status quo either. Party on Miami. Party on.

Anonymous said...

When the land eventually goes permanently underwater, will the owners absorb the loss? Will flood insurance cover it? Or is there some other program that will? Miami Beach is a big chunk of real estate to be swallowed by the Atlantic ocean.