credit ClimateProgress
The latest research indicates sea levels could rise by as much as six feet; planners are suggesting prudence dictates a level of two meters (7 feet) for infrastructure building purposes. Forget New Orleans, at six feet Miami will be reduced to an offshore archipelago or an Atlantis-like fantasy land depending on your politics. Miami is already flood prone with an antiquated and inadequate drainage system All of South Florida sits atop a low plateau of sponge-like limestone, totally unable to prevent sea water incursions. Ordinary flood barriers will not work here. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development lists Miami as the most vulnerable city in the world in terms of property damage from flooding with more than $416 billion in assets at risk. The attitude adopted by Florida's goofy right-wing politicians is to deny global warming is even occurring. US Person's advice: give the politicians the leaky life jackets.Don't like to get wet? More advice--move to Colorado which just experienced its worst wildfire ever in the Black Hills north of Colorado Springs. June broke or tied 3,125 high-temperature records across the United States. May was no slouch either, as it was the warmest in the Northern Hemisphere on record. The old record for a warm spring in the United States was crushed with the largest deviation from average ever recorded. Despite the unmistakable writing on the wall for which you do not need a problem employee like Daniel to decipher, humans continue to increasly dump CO₂ into the atmosphere. Last year global emissions rose to 31.6 gigatons on an upward trend line of about 3% per year. Continuing that trajectory will result in a six degree centigrade increase in global temperature by mid-century and a planet from hell. A non-catastrophic 2 degree rise is consistent with pouring 565 gigatons of CO₂ into the air by mid-century*. Humans are set to burn, wait for it, 2,795 gigatons of carbon worth an estimated $27 trillion in existing fossil fuel inventories, or five times the survival limit. The Alberta tar sand deposits alone account for as much as 240 gigatons of the 565 limit. We do not have to wait until the dying sun melts Earth billions of years in the future to meet our end, for we will kill ourselves first. Ask the executives of Exxon or Lukoil if they care as they pull out from Miami-Atlantis in their luxury yatchs headed for the Himalayas.
*this "carbon budget" number has been derived by scientists using a consensus of data from about 40 of the latest climate simulation computer programs. The data is becoming more and more consistent as the models are refined. Exxon CEO told Wall Street analysts the company plans to spend $37 billion a year through 2016 searching for more oil and gas.