Miami, the great world city, is drowning while the powers that be look away

[Peikko 1,575]

Low-lying south Florida, at the front line of climate change in the US, will be swallowed as sea levels rise. Astonishingly, the population is growing, house prices are rising and building goes on. The problem is the city is run by climate change deniers

A drive through the sticky Florida heat into Alton Road in Miami Beach can be an unexpectedly awkward business. Most of the boulevard, which runs north through the heart of the resort's most opulent palm-fringed real estate, has been reduced to a single lane that is hemmed in by bollards, road-closed signs, diggers, trucks, workmen, stacks of giant concrete cylinders and mounds of grey, foul-smelling earth.

It is an unedifying experience but an illuminating one – for this once glamorous thoroughfare, a few blocks from Miami Beach's art deco waterfront and its white beaches, has taken on an unexpected role. It now lies on the front line of America's battle against climate change and the rise in sea levels that it has triggered.

"Climate change is no longer viewed as a future threat round here," says atmosphere expert Professor Ben Kirtman, of the University of Miami. "It is something that we are having to deal with today."

Every year, with the coming of high spring and autumn tides, the sea surges up the Florida coast and hits the west side of Miami Beach, which lies on a long, thin island that runs north and south across the water from the city of Miami. The problem is particularly severe in autumn when winds often reach hurricane levels. Tidal surges are turned into walls of seawater that batter Miami Beach's west coast and sweep into the resort's storm drains, reversing the flow of water that normally comes down from the streets above. Instead seawater floods up into the gutters of Alton Road, the first main thoroughfare on the western side of Miami Beach, and pours into the street. Then the water surges across the rest of the island.

The effect is calamitous. Shops and houses are inundated; city life is paralysed; cars are ruined by the corrosive seawater that immerses them. During one recent high spring tide, laundromat owner Eliseo Toussaint watched as slimy green saltwater bubbled up from the gutters. It rapidly filled the street and then blocked his front door. "This never used to happen," Toussaint told reporters. "I've owned this place eight years and now it's all the time."

Today, shop owners keep plastic bags and rubber bands handy to wrap around their feet when they have to get to their cars through rising waters, while householders have found that ground-floor spaces in garages are no longer safe to keep their cars. Only those on higher floors can hope to protect their cars from surging sea waters that corrode and rot the innards of their vehicles.

Hence the construction work at Alton Road, where $400m is now being spent in an attempt to halt these devastating floods – by improving Miami Beach's stricken system of drains and sewers. In total, around $1.5bn is to be invested in projects aimed at holding back the rising waters. Few scientists believe the works will have a long-term effect...

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/11/miami-drowning-climate-change-deniers-sea-levels-rising

Whatever the cause, can they really deny the rise of sea levels and ignore it? That's a tad mad, if true.

[lostinblue 1,989]

Population builds at sea level then they are astonished by the ocean when it washes at the foundation.

Here is some news you were not aware of

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-07-12/brisbane-records-coldest-morning-103-years/5591890

Brisbane records coldest morning in 103 years

Updated Sun 13 Jul 2014, 12:22am AEST

Brisbane has recorded its coldest morning in 103 years, with low temperatures also being felt across the rest of Queensland.

Coldest night of the year for Perth

James Casey, Friday June 13, 2014 - 14:30 EST

And

Latest Data Shows Arctic Sea Ice Volume Has Increased

www.reportingclimatescience.com/.../latest-data-shows-arctic-ice-volume...

Feb 5, 2014 - Satellite data shows that Arctic sea ice is getting thicker as Antarctic

Antarctica sets new record for sea ice

Jun 29, 2014

[Peikko 1,575]

Population builds at sea level then they are astonished by the ocean when it washes at the foundation.

Here is some news you were not aware of

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-07-12/brisbane-records-coldest-morning-103-years/5591890

Brisbane records coldest morning in 103 years

Updated Sun 13 Jul 2014, 12:22am AEST

Brisbane has recorded its coldest morning in 103 years, with low temperatures also being felt across the rest of Queensland.

Coldest night of the year for Perth

James Casey, Friday June 13, 2014 - 14:30 EST

And

Latest Data Shows Arctic Sea Ice Volume Has Increased

www.reportingclimatescience.com/.../latest-data-shows-arctic-ice-volume...

Feb 5, 2014 - Satellite data shows that Arctic sea ice is getting thicker as Antarctic

Antarctica sets new record for sea ice

Jun 29, 2014

What has that to do with what I posted about which is an actual quantified and verifiable sea level rise that is factually accurate regardless of the cause and what Miami proposes to do about it?

Edited July 13, 2014 by Peikko

[Peikko 1,575]

Ooh, more fun stuff on how climate change (or whatever you want to call it) is causing problems in the real, tangible world we live in. Of course, if insurance companies are now left wing conspiracies, I can see how this fits in to the climate change deniers portfolio, read, enjoy...but you do have to wade through more than 2 sentences, sorry, this is no 'climate science is a left wing hoax' article, it's not freindly to the non reader.

Illinois Farmers has filed nine class-action suits against municipal entities in and around Chicago for losses the company sustained when the sanitation system backed up, spewing geysers of sewage into hundreds of homes, after extreme storms in April 2013.

The suit explicitly says that officials in various governments were aware that climate change would bring more extreme weather and yet failed to take steps (such as draining parts of the system) that would have prevented the losses. Regardless of the outcome — courts give governments wide latitude in immunity from lawsuits — it puts an end to the charade that global warming is some scientifically uncertain threat far off in the future.

It was predictable that a major industry player's first hardball action would be to protect itself from losses. Insurers bet their existence on being accurately able to detect, model and price changes in risk. The Farmers' suit tells the world that regardless of what politicians and pundits say about climate change, an insurer is going to try to avoid paying for losses that could have been foreseen and

Most property insurers base their pricing on historical data, which makes the industry retrospective and thus inherently conservative. This is one reason it has taken so long for insurers to react aggressively in the face of climate change — its losses only filter in slowly over many years. Even then, attributing blame is complicated by other factors, such as a vast increase in the building of ever-more expensive homes in coastal areas.

Moreover, a number of major insurers feel that the potential losses of climate change can be addressed through existing procedures for analyzing and pricing risk. For example, one thing they can do is simply leave the market in places that are highly vulnerable to foreseeable negative effects.

This was the case in Florida as insurers voted with their feet after the $26 billion in insured losses incurred by Hurricane Andrew in 1992, and after Florida regulators wouldn't let them raise prices to adjust for the increased risks created by a rapidly growing population in harm's way. In 2002, the state was forced to set up its own insurance pool to protect against losses from windstorms.

The Citizens Property Insurance Co., which charges below-market rates thanks to the voter-conscious state legislature that set it up, quickly became the biggest property and casualty insurer in the state. Noting its precarious financing, a report on the state insurance market prepared by Florida State University in 2013 asserted that "Florida could be one major storm away from the state having to take all wind risk."

Should such an event occur, Florida would cover these losses by issuing bonds, which would be paid off by a surcharge on all insurance policies. That means any insured Floridian, even those with just an auto insurance policy, would take a hit. Thus, Florida is shifting the burden of future catastrophic losses arising from wind damage from the affluent who have built along to coast to all Floridians. While Floridians wait for the next big storm, sea levels — the most obvious worldwide signal of global warming — continue their inexorable rise. Rising waters have already created Venice-like conditions in the Miami area.

All the nation's taxpayers have assumed this risk as insurers routinely exclude flood and storm surge damage from policies. This forces homeowners to seek coverage with the National Flood Insurance Program, a tax-dollar backed program also forced by political pressure to under-price its coverage.

Between the state program and federal flood insurance, the American middle class has been given the burden of insuring and subsidizing the affluent. Let's call it climate change socialism for the rich. After news of the Farmers' lawsuit broke, I spoke again with Nutter. He said he too was surprised at how long it has taken for the risk of climate change to percolate through the insurance community. He also pointed out that Farmers is owned by the Zurich Group, which is noteworthy because European insurers, with global reach and exposure, tend to be more attentive to the risks of climate change than domestic insurers.

Is it possible that U.S. insurers are also affected by climate-change deniers? A number of recent studies by the Insurance Information Institute have singled out Florida as having the most exposure to the combined impacts of climate change, but its governor, Rick Scott, and Sen. Marco Rubio are on record dismissing the threat. And yet everyone can see that sea levels are rising. Miami Beach Mayor Philip Levine told the New York Times last month, "We are past the point of debating climate change."Now, as insurers begin to shift the costs of that reality through rate increases, exclusions, lawsuits and market retreat, consumers can ask such politicians, "Why, if climate change is a hoax, are we paying for it?"

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-linden-insurance-climate-change-20140617-story.html

[DavenRoxy 1,073]

At an average rise of 1.8mm per year for the past 100 years, we are not in any danger of seeing past sea levels (300M higher than today) anytime soon.

[Peikko 1,575]

At an average rise of 1.8mm per year for the past 100 years, we are not in any danger of seeing past sea levels (300M higher than today) anytime soon.

So, everyone, including the insurance industry is wrong? Miami isn't in any danger of being permanently flooded? Would you buy a beach front property in Miami based on the things that have been stated in these two articles?

[DavenRoxy 1,073]

Insurance is a risk-based for-profit industry, just like any other. You weigh the risks, and charge a price accordingly. Life insurance premiums go up with age. Property & flood insurance will go up with proximity to water and any rise in sea levels. Depending on your belief (or lack thereof) in various sources, MSL used to be about 200~300M higher than it is today. May it get that high again? Perhaps, but not in our lifetimes.

A storm surge would be 1,000 times more likely (my own personal stat, don't bother looking it up) to cause a problem than an incremental increase in MSL. Living on a beach has inherent risks. As does living near a river bank. Or a volcano. Or a hot spring. Yet people do it all the time. Ignorance or indifference, IDK. But I don't think Miami will wash into the ocean any time soon, just as California hasn't (though I have heard that would happen "soon" since I was a kid).

[Neonred 3,562]

So, everyone, including the insurance industry is wrong? Miami isn't in any danger of being permanently flooded? Would you buy a beach front property in Miami based on the things that have been stated in these two articles?

No, Miami is NOT in danger of being permanently flooded, at least not in our lifetime and not our kids either. I was just over there this weekend. A lot of road construction not only on Alton, but also on Collins. Yes, the get flooding a few times a year from extremely high tides when the moon and sun align, and from storms especially due to the poor drainage system.

Sure sea level is rising a few millimeters a year. Didn't keep me from buying a house on the water in the FL Keys. As I said it won't permanently flood in my or my kids lifetime.

[lostinblue 1,989]

No, Miami is NOT in danger of being permanently flooded, at least not in our lifetime and not our kids either. I was just over there this weekend. A lot of road construction not only on Alton, but also on Collins. Yes, the get flooding a few times a year from extremely high tides when the moon and sun align, and from storms especially due to the poor drainage system.

Sure sea level is rising a few millimeters a year. Didn't keep me from buying a house on the water in the FL Keys. As I said it won't permanently flood in my or my kids lifetime.

A voice of sanity ......Not afraid to buy ocean front property .....

[Peikko 1,575]

No, Miami is NOT in danger of being permanently flooded, at least not in our lifetime and not our kids either. I was just over there this weekend. A lot of road construction not only on Alton, but also on Collins. Yes, the get flooding a few times a year from extremely high tides when the moon and sun align, and from storms especially due to the poor drainage system.

Sure sea level is rising a few millimeters a year. Didn't keep me from buying a house on the water in the FL Keys. As I said it won't permanently flood in my or my kids lifetime.

You are saying that the insurance companies are wrong then? Who will rebuild your house if it gets flooded? You? Or, your more prudent fellow Floridians who have moved further inland, should they pay for your myopia?

[Neonred 3,562]

You are saying that the insurance companies are wrong then? Who will rebuild your house if it gets flooded? You? Or, your more prudent fellow Floridians who have moved further inland, should they pay for your myopia?

Who will pay? You will..... I'm covered by the Federal flood insurance program.

As I said before, it will not be permanently flooded in my lifetime. No need for me to worry.

Edited July 14, 2014 by Neonred

[Peikko 1,575]

Who will pay? You will..... I'm covered by the Federal flood insurance program.

As I said before, it will not be permanently flooded in my lifetime. No need for me to worry.

So, you get to be an idiot and I get to pay for your stupidity? That seems fair.

[eieio 1,594]

The climate has always been changing. It always has and it always will.

Why worry about it? Nothing we can do about it.

The sea levels may drop for the next 100 years.

[lostinblue 1,989]

So, you get to be an idiot and I get to pay for your stupidity? That seems fair.

Not very family friendly are we

[Neonred 3,562]

So, you get to be an idiot and I get to pay for your stupidity? That seems fair.

Yep, that's the way the government works.

But if you think you will ever see the sea rise 2 or 3 feet to flood my property then YOU are the idiot.