
Miami is drowning while the powers that be look away - smacktoward
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/11/miami-drowning-climate-change-deniers-sea-levels-rising
======
CapitalistCartr
Living in South Florida is enlightening. It is a Latin American City. Locally,
it is called the capitol of Latin America; you can catch flights to any Latin
American countries from there, even when you can't get a flight between those
countries.

I am a Florida native; in my life I've seen this state go from just under 4
million people to almost 20 million. Most of the people live on shored-up
sandbars, filled-in swampland (me), and made land. Miami is a huge,
economically vital sprawl that isn't going anywhere. I saw the devastation of
Hurricane Andrew firsthand, and that didn't slow anything down. The
landowners, shopkeepers, and powers-that-be aren't in denial; they understand
just fine.

~~~
pbh101
"Infrastructure buildout lags population growth" is a way less sexier story
than "Miami will not exist soon because Republicans."

I too would bet that Miami isn't going anywhere because entrenched interests
(that is, the city and its population) won't let it. My comment below
neglected the insufficient infrastructure as a factor.

It's one thing for someone to say that "X phenomenon is going to occur." It's
another to uproot your life based on that assertion.

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kenrikm
I'm originally from Miami born and raised (Live in SF Now) and I have skin in
the game, I own a house in Miami. However this piece is largely fluff and fear
mongering, Miami has always flooded, The city of Sweet Water would be
completely flooded every few months until they finally put in proper drainage
after 20+ years of the same thing. The problem is poorly thought out city
planning over the last 40 or so years, not a recent sea level rise.

~~~
kephra
A good part of Netherlands is below sea level. Just build dikes like the
Dutch, and the problem is solved. But I guess the people in Miami would
protest against those dikes, when their houses are no longer water front, but
behind a dike.

~~~
mikecb
Does the Netherlands get hurricanes?

~~~
iamtew
We do. Maybe not that often, but it do happen.

There was one in October that made a lot of damage here [1], but also two days
ago (albeit not hurricane) there was a storm that flooded large parts of
Amsterdam [2] and killed on person. [3]

1: [http://www.cbsnews.com/news/hurricane-force-storm-batters-
no...](http://www.cbsnews.com/news/hurricane-force-storm-batters-northern-
europe/)

2: [http://www.at5.nl/artikelen/131015/honderden-meldingen-
van-w...](http://www.at5.nl/artikelen/131015/honderden-meldingen-van-
wateroverlast-door-noodweer)

3: [http://www.at5.nl/artikelen/131014/storm-eist-een-
leven](http://www.at5.nl/artikelen/131014/storm-eist-een-leven)

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xenadu02
Here in America, we always do the right thing... After exhausting all other
options.

The sea level rise will take decades to play out. We know exactly how it will
go: Conservatives will continue to deny climate change is happening, everyone
will procrastinate, then worsening flooding will force action.

When the maps of the US must be redrawn to exclude the submerged land, only
then will Conservatives begin to admit climate change is happening (while
denying they ever denied it). This is as expected, because the current
corporate masters will be dead and not required to pay any taxes to implement
mitigation measures (aka the system works as designed)

~~~
cpeterso
If significant climate change is countered by programs endorsed by liberals,
then conservatives will point to that success and say "Nothing happened
because climate change wasn't real." If climate change and sea level rise do
happen, even if their results are lessened, then conservatives will say "This
was an act off nature; nothing could be done to prevent it. Liberals' attempts
to stop it were a waste of money and just an excuse to raise taxes on rich
people. All these bad things that are a result of climate change are actually
the unintended results of the liberal's programs."

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zmanian
This seems like a tremendous failure of efficient markets at the moment.

The market has high confidence information that the value of land in Miami
will diminish towards zero in the near future.

There should be brisk trade in derivatives betting against the 10-30 year land
value in South Florida.

There should be massive downward pressure on land values.

Seems bizarre to me that this isn't happening.

~~~
presidentender
Can we short real estate?

~~~
adventured
Basically yes. You can buy ETFs that are short real estate. You can short real
estate ETFs that focus on various real estate specialties.

If you think the Florida real estate market will be destroyed, you can focus
on local, public real estate companies and short them.

~~~
presidentender
By what mechanism does the ETF go short on real estate? Stocks are fungible,
so borrowing shares to sell them makes sense, but I just can't make sense of
the mechanism for real estate.

~~~
dustcoin
The ETF could short REITs (Real estate investment trusts) that hold Miami
property.

------
dmritard96
My dad ran much of the planning for Broward County (one county north, home to
fort lauderdale) until he retired a few weeks ago. There are a lot of dynamics
at play in South Florida which make this very complicated and obviously an
impending disaster.

The first is that while Broward County is progressive and has been proactively
dealing with and planning for sea level rise, Miami Dade county has a very
large Cuban voter base which tends to sway the politics more center if not
altogether right. I always postulated that this is mostly a reaction to the
communism that they immigrated away from however it is my opinion that the
newer generations will slowly move more to the left (granted, this phenomena
is probably larger than just SoFla's cuban population).

As the article mentions, most of South Florida is built on top of limestone
(calcified reefs from a previous geological period). The water table is only a
few feet below the surface hence there are at least two major reproccusions
for sea level rise. In older neighborhoods (Hollywood, anything east of the
Atlantic Coastal Ridge [what I95 is built on]), a high tide + rain typically
stalls the drainage system with water flooding streets and homes.

A second major problem is that the Biscayne Aquifer, the water supply for the
millions of people in South East Florida, is experiencing salt water intrusion
due to higher sea levels. You can think of the aquifer as sort of a dome with
its highest point farthest inland and as the sea level rises the dome is
getting skinnier. Even while I was growing up, they were decommissioning water
well fields because of the salt content starting with the most coastal and
moving inland. Inland suburbs in Broward like Sunrise are then selling their
water to the other municipalities for a killing but at some point even they
will have issues as the aquifer becomes squeezed.

As far as development and the housing market, a big driver of change for the
middle class housing market I _believe_ is going to be insurance. Wind storms
and the accompanying flooding are eventually going to make living there more
expensive and insurance policies less affordable.

Another issue will likely be tourism as it is largely tied to its environment.
As the everglades experiences rapid salt water intrusion, the reefs continue
to be bleached due acidification, and mangroves migrate inland slower than sea
level, the productive estuaries might become less productive for popular sport
fish and commercial species. Another major industry in South Florida is the
boating industry which has tons of demand generated by fishing, scuba, and
general ecotourism. As those generators are put in jeopardy, there will
without a doubt be a ripple throughout the economy.

Lastly, county governments (which are the most substantial government players
in South Florida) will begin to experience issues because their expensive
properties closest to the water are the biggest contributors to the tax base.
As those low lying areas are flooded more frequently, there is a very real
possibility that the value of all the mansions lining the streets and canals
drop.

My view of South Florida is rather bleak but even if Miami Dade and Broward
manage to figure out sea level rise, I doubt the Florida Keys have much of a
chance.

Time to figure out how to short real estate.

And Lebron left

~~~
waps
You've got to wonder why global warming is dragged into this. The city cannot
possibly hope to do anything about that, even if it wanted to.

Obviously the solution is dykes, and better water infrastructure.

Ironically I'm betting the environmentalists will oppose that.

~~~
lifeisstillgood
I think what "environmentalists" are angry about is the logic of "climate
change is not man made, therefore climate change is natural / gods will,
therefore we won't do anything, _including_ dykes and infrastructure or like
movin people.

~~~
waps
Euhm, I would say it's the opposite. Environmentalists will oppose dykes and
infrastructure, because they will remodel the natural environment around the
coastline and make it artificial and managed by human interference (which is
of course, the very point of having them, so it's absolutely non-negotiable,
beyond carving out a few reserves maybe).

~~~
lifeisstillgood
Ok - then _I 'm_ angry about dumb politicians taking no action because of dumb
political opinions that are untested unverifiable or just plain dumb

Did I mention dumb?

:-)

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mschuster91
> Astonishingly, the population is growing, house prices are rising and
> building goes on. The problem is the city is run by climate change deniers

Well then, let those who are foolish enough to disbelieve science then just
drown. The government is supposed to protect people, sometimes even from
themselves... but this stupidity people are showing is beyond believable.

To those wanting to flee: sell your property to denialists, move off somewhere
safe and laugh your behinds off when you see the denialists realizing that not
even God can help them any more.

~~~
SoftwareMaven
Figure out who underwrites flood insurance and see if you still feel the same.

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nroach
The federal flood insurance plan carries some of the blame by disincentivizing
responsible construction.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Flood_Insurance_Progra...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Flood_Insurance_Program)

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socrates1998
Interesting read, but I am not sure how it will all play out.

If the rise in sea level is gradual, then I think there could be decent
solutions.

If it happens fast, like in a 3-5 year span, then it will get ugly, housing
prices will crash and people will leave.

Crazy, I hope we get more progressive politicians in South Florida to help
mitigate the damage.

And this isn't just for Miami, this is for most of Florida from the Treasure
Coast all the way down to the Keys, and including the Gulf Coast (Fort Myers,
Naples, Tampa).

There could be 7-10 million people affected.

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lifeisstillgood
Fascinating - much quicker than I supposed.

For me there are three lessons - one humans still love cities for good reasons
and will keep to them if possible. Two most major cities are coastal (fucked)
or river (property close to the river is fucked the rest is salvageable) and
three remote working and water rises will deal a double whammy to traditional
commutes and workin practises, spreading city life to some combination of
suburban and city

In short, I think i will buy land in Toronto and Greenland

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dan_bk
It reminds me of the "boiling frog" \- if you turn the heat up slowly (i.e.
climate change) the frog won't react.

~~~
SixSigma
Except even frogs aren't that stupid and get out.

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Debugreality
It's much easier to believe abstractly or understand the problem from afar.

In Australia we have a lot of advertising to highlight the dangers of
disasters to try and counter this psychological phenomena.

I expect people will continue to try and work around the symptoms of global
warming long before they start to work towards a real viable solution.

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thespace123
Fullstack javascript/html/css dev looking to get out of Miami, lol. HELP!

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onedev
So this is why LeBron left....

~~~
poopsintub
Bazinga? The picture of the street with water in it was actually from tears of
fans.

