This diary is reposted from my wordpress blog.
"There is no place on earth that's changing faster - and no place where that change matters more - than Greenland", wrote Bill McKibben in a Rolling Stone Magazine article. The Dark-Snow Project is the first-ever Greenland expedition relying on crowd-source funding; the project aims to answer the 'burning question': How much does wildfire and industrial soot darken the ice, increasing the melt rate? It's unconscionable that scientists have to beg for funds to study such critical planetary issues. Please donate to the project if you can.
What would happen to cities around the world when due to climate change, the sea level rises? A recent Rolling Stone article: "Goodbye Miami" describes a likely scenario:
Sea-level rise is not a hypothetical disaster. It is a physical fact of life on a warming planet, the basic dynamics of which even a child can understand: Heat melts ice...
Of course, South Florida is not the only place that will be devastated by sea-level rise. London, Boston, New York and Shanghai are all vulnerable... But South Florida is uniquely screwed, in part because about 75 percent of the 5.5 million people in South Florida live along the coast...
One of the first consequences of rising seas will be loss of drinking water -- Salt water intrusion is already a problem for many towns along South Florida's coastline...
By subsidizing insurance, lawmakers hoped to keep costs down and development booming. The problem is, Florida is now on the hook for billions of dollars. "A single big storm could bankrupt the state," says Eli Lehrer, an insurance expert...
According to Harold Wanless, the head of geological sciences at the University of Miami, the wisest course of action now is to stop subsidizing coastal development and create federal and state policies that encourage people to move out of at-risk low-lying areas.
"Instead of spending a billion dollars to build a new tunnel for the Port of Miami, we should be spending that money to buy people out of their homes and relocate them to higher ground. We have to accept the reality of what is about to happen to us". But that won't happen without political leadership, and on this issue, of course, the state of Florida has none...
Scenes from South Beach, Miami. Flooding 2009
Here is a link to a fascinating slideshow -
Earth: Your Fragile Planet. Enjoy.