Rising seas: 'Florida is about to be wiped off the map’

In 1890, just over six thousand people lived in the damp lowlands of south Florida. Since then the wetlands that covered half the state have been largely drained, strip malls have replaced Seminole camps, and the population has increased a thousandfold. Over roughly the same amount of time the number of black college degree holders in the United States also increased a thousandfold, as did the speed at which we fly, the combined carbon emissions of the Middle East, and the entire population of Thailand.

‘Take the six million people who live in south
Florida today and divide them into two groups:
those who live less than six and a half feet
above the current high tide line, and everybody else.’ 

About 60 of the region’s more than 6 million residents have gathered in the Cox Science Building at the University of Miami on a sunny Saturday morning in 2016 to hear Harold Wanless, or Hal, chair of the geology department, speak about sea level rise. “Only 7% of the heat being trapped by greenhouse gases is stored in the atmosphere,” Hal begins. “Do you know where the other 93% lives?”

Read the story by Elizabeth Rush from The Guardian - “Rising seas: 'Florida is about to be wiped off the map’.”

Florida nervously tracks Hurricane Irma as Caribbean endures storm’s wrath.

MIAMI — As Caribbean islands pummeled by Hurricane Irma began to grapple with the monster storm’s toll Thursday, nervous residents of South Florida packed highways seeking safer ground amid forecasts warning that Irma posed an increasing threat to the highly populated area.

Sophia Johnson, 6, talks to her mom,
Kace Johnson after they finished filling
10 sandbags with dirt provided by
Sarasota County at the Newtown Estates
 Recreation Center on Sep. 6, 2017,
in Sarasota, Fla. 

The National Hurricane Center said a hurricane watch will likely be called later Thursday for parts of South Florida and the Keys — both areas that have begun ordering evacuations — as Irma’s Category 5 force pinwheeled eastward through the Caribbean leaving a wake of leveled neighborhoods, ravaged seafronts and at least 10 people dead.

Irma continued grinding onward toward the Bahamas with winds hitting 180 mph and higher gusts registered, according to the hurricane center, which warned of storm surges capable of swallowing huge sections of the coast.

Read The Washington Post story - “Florida nervously tracks Hurricane Irma as Caribbean endures storm’s wrath.”

Gltzty city 'sees and smells' the reality of climate change

High heels are fashionable in South
 Beach, Miami, but it seems that
what's really  needed to avoid "the shit"
left floating about because of climate
 change are boors like these.

America's glitziest city is frequently in the news for its celebrity status and addiction to the contemporary buzz.

South Beach Miami is pumping and the national media talks lovingly of the city’s wonders, but says little about the fact that attractions may well be soon gone.

The Sydney Morning Herald reported just a few days ago that “Warming world's rising seas wash away some of South Florida's glitz”.

It said: “What was not so widely reported was that South Beach stank of shit. There is no nice way to put it. The place smelled of human waste. There had been a brief, heavy downpour but the water could not escape, so the sewers backed up and filled the roads. The traffic slowed to walking pace or seized entirely, and the models tottering between the restaurants and hotels and clubs had to pick wide arcs on the pavements to avoid the nasty pools swelling from the gutters.”