Fort Lauderdale Beach
Rick Scott and Marco Rubio, two slimy and buffoonish politicians, who by their own words do not believe in science or climate change have willfully ignored the dire warnings on climate change impacts to the State of Florida that they claim to represent. So how can SE Florida be leading the way on climate change mitigation? The answer, Monroe, Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach Counties local politicians and planners formed the Southeast Florida Regional Climate Change Compact to share strategies, make joint plans and speak with a more unified voice to the state legislature.
In a 5-23-2014 Op Ed in the Sun-Sentinel, Cindy Lerner who is Chair of the Miami/Dade County League of Cities and Mayor of Pinecrest and Kristin Jacobs who is the Commissioner for District 2, Member of the White House's National Climate Preparedness and Resilience Task Force explain that Rick Scott needs to take Climate Change seriously. These 2 leaders specifically mention the findings of the U.S. Global Change Research Program's 2014 National Climate Assessment, an important report analyzing the potential impacts of climate change on the U.S. and its territories. Particularly troubling to SE Florida are the following impacts.
"Sea level rise poses widespread and continuing threats to both natural and built environments, as well as the regional economy."
"Rising temperatures and the associated increase in frequency, intensity, and duration of extreme heat events will affect public health, natural and built environments, energy, agriculture, and forestry."
"Decreased water availability, exacerbated by population growth and land-use change, will continue to increase competition for water and impact the region's economy and unique ecosystems."
The report found the southeastern U.S. and the Caribbean — an area that's home to more than 80 million people, including several major metropolitan areas right here in Florida — is "exceptionally vulnerable to sea level rise, extreme heat events, and decreased water availability" caused by climate change.
Another potential adverse impact of climate change on Florida is an increased number of extreme heat events, contributing to a deterioration in air quality, a rise in hospital admissions, an increase in respiratory illnesses and even fatalities.
In addition, increased water temperatures caused by a warming climate could result in "harmful algal blooms and several disease-causing agents in inland and coastal waters," damage to coral reefs, more rapid spread of non-native plants, reduced dairy and livestock production, drought and wildfires and many other problems. There's also the potential for stronger storms and more incidences of extreme weather.
As reported by
Climate Central transportation will endure crippling consequences due to extreme heat.
Climate change also threatens roads, pipelines, power lines and rail lines in ways that may not be quite as in-your-face as the stark images of homes washed away on a hurricane-eroded beach. Bridges and highways can be weakened or destroyed in floods. Power lines can be burned in wildfires and damaged in major storms. Roads and airport runways are vulnerable to extreme heat, which can soften and deteriorate asphalt.
You can add ‘sun kinks,’ or railways that buckle in extreme heat, causing derailments, to the list of things that are already taking a toll on U.S. transportation, a problem that figures to grow significantly as the U.S. warms.
As average U.S. temperatures warm between 3°F and more than 9°F by the end of the century, depending on how greenhouse gas emissions are curtailed or not in the coming years, the waves of extreme heat the country is likely to experience could bend and buckle rails into what experts call "sun kinks." Intense heat expands the metal, curving and misaligning rails that become a danger to the trains gliding over them.
The number of days per year with peak temperature over 90ºF is expected to rise significantly, especially under a higher emissions scenario1 as shown in the map above. By the end of the century, projections indicate that North Florida will have more than 165 days (nearly six months) per year over 90ºF, up from roughly 60 days in the 1960s and 1970s. The increase in very hot days will have consequences for human health, drought, and wildfires. Source: US Global Change Research Program
The insurance industry is taking note of climate change impacts at the local level. Let's face it, they do no want to pay out these huge payouts to local communities. The Insurance Journal reports the following.
Adapting to climate change is such a daunting task that it can be hard to know where, or how, to begin. Here’s one answer: in southeastern Florida, with yellow foam earplugs.
The plugs are needed to keep out the din of the South Florida Water Management District’s pumping station, with its 400-horsepower pumps submerged in the Miami River. They are capable of changing the direction of the river, ensuring that it always runs toward the ocean, as it’s supposed to, draining storm water. Gravity used to do the job, but with sea level rising — it’s up at least 8 inches (20 centimeters) from what it was a century ago — gravity doesn’t always do the trick.
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The need for a practical response, requiring both pumping stations and political cooperation, makes South Florida ground zero (sea zero?) in the debate over climate change. Its public officials, elected and otherwise, are showing how adaptation is not only necessary but also possible.
Miami Beach, for example, is installing 80 underground pumps to deal with the increasingly frequent “sunny-day floods” that inundate the western side of the island city during high tides in the fall and spring. The Miami-Dade County is reseeding mangroves behind the beaches and preserving coastal wetlands to soak up intensifying storm surges. Engineers in Fort Lauderdale and Pompano Beach are experimenting with new designs for “backflow preventers” to keep seawater from rushing into public pipes but still allow freshwater to flow out.
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Rising seas are a problem for other places, including New York Harbor; Norfolk, Virginia; and Rhode Island’s Narragansett Bay. But Florida’s flat landscape, barely above sea level, makes it instantly vulnerable. Even in the best of times, before climate change, modern life here has depended on one of the world’s most extensive public plumbing systems. The lower third of the Florida peninsula is laced with canals and levees designed to manage its abundant water (South Florida gets some 60 inches of rain a year) for agricultural irrigation, human consumption and drainage.
Except during powerful storms, the system has worked reasonably well. But sea-level rise is throwing a wrench in. Sunny-day floods and backward-flowing drainage canals aren’t the only challenges. Saltwater has also been getting into the drinking water. The city of Hallandale Beach, north of Miami Beach, has had to abandon six of its eight wells. When South Florida’s shallow freshwater aquifer is diminished — as during the drier winter months — seawater easily flows in through the porous limestone below. City and county officials have learned the importance of keeping the aquifer always full to maintain a healthy supply of freshwater.
The Journal continues by mentioning the Southeast Florida Regional Climate Change Compact.
Among the plan’s 110 resolutions are efforts to improve local flood maps and identify “adaptation action areas” — spots most vulnerable to sea-level rise — so as to tailor building codes and other ordinances accordingly. Climate-change mitigation is also part of the picture. The counties pledge, for example, to use more clean energy, increase use of public transit and bicycles, and provide incentives for saving energy.
These efforts won’t do much to reduce rising emissions of global greenhouse gases. But they can affect public perception of the problem, and help show to deal with it. The region’s efforts have already attracted official visitors from as far away as Durban, South Africa, and Legazpi, Philippines.
The article finishes with a mitigation summit scheduled in Miami Beach this fall.
Because while climate change is global, the response to it is local. For its annual summit, scheduled for early October in Miami Beach, the compact has invited representatives of Caribbean island nations. Maybe a few members of the U.S. Congress could attend, too — to see what productive cooperation on climate change looks like.
Kristin Jacobs and Cindy Lerner issue a challenge to Rick Scott.
That is why we are calling on Gov.Rick Scott to read this report, take its warnings seriously, and tell us his plan for meeting the EPA's carbon pollution standards. As Florida's top elected official, it's time for Gov. Scott to address the challenges we face from climate change, to devise a plan to deal with it, and to work with elected officials across the state to get the job done. There's no time to waste.
Kristin Jacobs, a SE Florida heroine, on implementation.
Broward County Mayor Commissioner Kristin Jacobs shares her ideas regarding local government's role in leading the way toward a more sustainable and resilient region at the 4th. Annual SE Florida Regional Climate Change Summit in Jupiter Beach December 6 & 7, 2012.