Climate Change: 13 Million Americans in Path of slow-motion sea rise Tsunami

[unhappycamper]

http://www.juancole.com/2016/03/climate-change-13-million-americans-in-path-of-slow-motion-sea-rise-tsunami.html

“Once you take into account growth of population, the numbers end up being two to three times more.”

Climate Change: 13 Million Americans in Path of slow-motion sea rise Tsunami
By contributors | Mar. 20, 2016
by Nadia Prupis, staff writer | (( Commondreams.org)

In a scenario involving a 6ft rise by 2100, a total of 13.1 million people—more than 6 million of whom would be living in Florida—would be at risk of catastrophic flooding. (Photo: Getty)

U.S. coastal communities, home to more than 13 million people, are at risk of being completely flooded by rising sea levels within the century under a worst-case climate change scenario, new research . . . reveals.

In a scenario involving a 6ft rise by 2100, a total of 13.1 million people—more than 6 million of whom would be living in Florida—would be at risk of catastrophic flooding, according to the study, published in Nature Climate Change. In a 2.9 ft rise, 4.3 million people could be impacted.

“Sea level rise is widely recognized as one of the most likely and socially disruptive consequences of future climate change,” states the study, led by the University of Georgia. “Florida accounts for nearly half of the total at-risk population. Whereas other south-eastern states have substantially fewer people at risk, states such as Georgia, South Carolina and Louisiana have over 10% of future coastal populations at risk under the 1.8m scenario.”

[mikehiggins]

1. Ahem. And the rest of the world? Could possibly a billion people be at risk?

Not to mention the famines and storm caused floods not connected to the oceans?

And won't rivers be affected as well? What if the Mississippi raises a few feet where it flows into the sea.

I feel sorry for my grandkids.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

5. If a 6 ft rise happens, you could almost write off Bangladesh. Esp. if weather more violent. nt

[elljay]

7. India is building a wall

India knows this and is already building a wall to keep Bangladeshis out.

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2015/10/soaring-divisions-india-bangladesh-border-fence-151001055440520.html

[Baobab]

13. Tropical diseases and the Mississippi

Will kill more people. It will be like the Amazon. Tropical diseases will migrate into the heartland and since giving people healthcare will be a sin against the investors they will have to make up diseases "crapinsuroitis" to justify not diagnosing or treating their generic infections because it would be too time consuming and expensive. Or maybe they will kill or offshore poor people with communicable diseases.

In any case the tiered healthcare system must be preserved!!!

As Adolph Hitler said, 'nobody remembers the Armenians'.

Same thing with the Americans who sacrifice their lives for the hierarchy.

[Baobab]

20. The westward slope of the side of the La Palma volcano in the Canary Islands is very very steep,

and could collapse into the sea, causing a real tsunami to hit the East Coast and South America and (some people think) -causing loss of life. How much depends on the shape of the wave and the sea floor.

Some claim the risk is overrated.

My feeling is that even if the risk is small, it would be smart to build in a more tsunami and global warming aware manner. Coastal towns should be encouraged to build storm and tsunami shelters and have storm and tsunami alarms and especially shelters.

So people could stay safe if one was coming and not be killed on the highways trying to get out of town.

Large concrete buildings could double as parking garages.

[femmedem]

12. When I see how limited the options are for Syrian refugees, I hold out little hope

for future climate change refugees.

I hope we will be compassionate, but I think it is more likely that we will hold on to what we have with all our strength, while feeling a twinge of guilt for the many who will die.

[elljay]

16. Even the compassionate

will have limits. When hundreds of millions are on the March, what countries can sustain them, even if they want to? Besides the structural issues, there will be massive cultural and religious conflicts as countries are overwhelmed by the tidal wave of desperation. This is when the oligarchs decamp to their private reserves and leave the rest of us behind to deal with their mess.

[femmedem]

19. That looks like a likely future scenario to me. n/t

[Baobab]

25. Suppose we have a solar storm and millions of Americans and Candians try to move South

to escape some unknown number of subsequent nuclear power plant meltdowns due to "loss of the ultimate heat sink" and subsequent Fukushima-like radioactive contamination?

This is a very real risk that few people besides emergency planners and scientists are aware of.


There is a one in eight chance of a carrington-class CME (coronal mas ejection, or solar flare that heads straight at Earth) every decade. Perhaps higher.

That sounds way too high to me. Much higher risk of that than any individual being effected by terrorism or whatever.

A huge solar storm (we just missed one in 2012) would hit the electrical grid with an extremely strong EMP which would blow out all the transformers, that would have a chain effect on nuclear power plants that did not have enough fuel to tide them over to keep the spent fuel rods and core cool.

It could cause an unknown number of multiple Fukushima-like meltdowns all around the planet. A worst case scenario would have big portions of the global power grid out and starting a few days later many meltdowns as nuclear power plants became unable to cool themselves.

A short term workaround would be providing every single power plant with multiple means of powering colling pumps indefinitely (solar energy or possibly smaller non-water cooled reactors just for their cooling backup) but we really need to phase out the kinds of (boiling water/water cooled) reactors which are vulnerable and only use smaller passive heated ideally fusion reactors. The fuel is still going to be problematic though. We need to face the reality that we screwed up and deal with this before it deals with us.


We also should change our grid architecture to use DC and superconducting lines and store and forward electricity rather than attempt to keep it all in sync at 60 or 50 Hz. That way power generation would become decentralized and much more robust in emergencies.

See http://www.resilientsocieties.org/images/Petition_For_Rulemaking_Resilient_Societies_Docketed.pdf

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/25/us/nuclear-plants-should-focus-on-risks-posed-by-external-events-study-says.html

http://www.n3kl.org/sun/noaa.html

[Baobab]

22. I think that the poorer people are the more sharing they are.

Study after study shows that.

That would explain the (wealthy) neoliberals kind generosity of offering up other peoples jobs to the third world.

[PATRICK]

2. And wealthy housing

with flood insurance continues to boom at every opportunity in Florida. Fort Lauderdale caught between the Everglades and the sea with waters bursting from beneath. There might be Darwin Award in there somewhere.

[Baobab]

23. I would move.

No way would I want to live so close to the angry sea level.

Don't trust topo maps, many of them are inaccurate in the vertical direction.

[Lodestar]

3. I'm hoping that people along all coasts are educated about this

and advised to move. Perhaps even government incentives and relocation
efforts could be put in place. Of course, it would mean that the land that
is vacated would have to be guaranteed to be something akin to public park
lands or preservation sites so as to alleviate fears that this prime coastal land
would be bought up by private interests with profit motives for its use.

[freedom fighter jh]

6. The market may advise coastal communities to vacate

by making insurance unaffordable.

[Baobab]

14. For everybody else in those areas. Subsidizing the several million dollar homes

Like Obamacare, which subsidizes the wealthy by making health insurance for the poor impossible for them to USE when they need it, ensuring that the subsidy money lowers the wealthy's costs. The high deductibles and co-pays put health care outside of the range of poor people with chronic conditions unless they become nearly destitute.

See how and why?

>by making insurance unaffordable.

[Duppers]

18. True. And an important point!

[freedom fighter jh]

27. Um, no, I don't understand.

How do high insurance rates for most people subsidize expensive houses?

I would think that with no insurance available, no one buys a house and then the area gets abandoned before it is completely swallowed by the ocean.

[Kittycat]

10. I wouldn't count on it. We legislate in denial.

There isn't profit in truth, until people are drowning.

[Baobab]

15. In the Kubrick/Spielberg film "AI", most of lower Manhattan is underwater but at least one building

is still occupied, the building of the protagonists' manufacturer.

Its the best film depiction I've seen of a world in global warming. Also they make the point well that there will be very few jobs as we know them today, except in science. People all seem very rich, and there seem to be far fewer people.

What's left of Manhattan above water - at least the portion we see, has turned into a theme park like place.

Devoid of any of today's cities vitality.

[LW1977]

4. Didn't you know

Science has a liberal bias..

[zentrum]

8. Since the tsunami is coming, then...

…..we damn well better get big money and PACS and Wall Street the hell out of campaigns and out of Washington. It's corporate money that funds the anti-cimate narrative.

The Kochs alone (one of several founding funders of the DLC) have massively controlled media and rightwing lies about climate.

Getting money out of politics, public funding of campaigns, and Lobbyists not sitting at the table when trade deals are made is a number one priority.

The fact that we're in as much trouble as we are is the result of legalized corruption—pure and simple.

[mnhtnbb]

9. We don't have to worry about this in NC

because the Republicans have decreed that sea level rise isn't a worry.

Seriously, they passed a law. I'm sure the sea level will comply.




http://abcnews.go.com/US/north-carolina-bans-latest-science-rising-sea-level/story?id=16913782

[femmedem]

21. Sounds like a story from The Onion.

That right there is why people sometimes lose faith in democracy.

[cantbeserious]

26. This Citizen Thought That Mother Nature Trumped Government

eom

[Dustlawyer]

11. I would have some beach front property if that's the case!

Climate Change is by far the most serious thing we face, yet one Party totally ignores it when they are not denying it outright. Unless and until we get Publicly Funded Elections, we will never seriously address this problem! An incremental approach is no longer a viable solution, that's why I support Bernie!

[muriel_volestrangler]

17. Numbers in each county listed here

http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/extref/nclimate2961-s1.pdf

And you can look at a map that shows land below a level of rise that you input here: http://flood.firetree.net/ (though it should be noted that it doesn't mean there is a way the sea would ge in to those areas - it will tell you large amounts of the Jordan Valley are flooded at 1 metre, for instance)

[Duppers]

24. Our government is not the least bit prepared for this.

In 2004 Langley AFB/ NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton Virginia had a storm surge tidal flooding of 7+ feet.

The AFB and NASA center's highest elevation is only 11 feet above sea level. Runways and some buildings' first floors were flooded in '04. Add another 6 feet rise and it will be clearly underwater.

Yet..yet, our government in its infinite wisdom is constructing buildings! There is a single $94.7 million, 175,000 sq. ft. building to be constructed this year at the Center!
http://pilotonline.com/inside-business/news/technology/nasa-langley-spending-up-in/article_8fa13970-5cf5-5c69-bc70-5a94df4c1e8d.html

The irony-- Langley employs some great climate scientists!! Their advice is obviously being ignored.





Edited to add: the ONLY presidential candidate wanting to address this issue is BERNIE SANDERS!