Building waterfront condos to pay for protection against the rising sea

[finehoe]

By 2020, Miami Beach plans to complete 80 new storm pumps that will collect and banish up to 14,000 gallons of seawater per minute back into Biscayne Bay. Construction started in February. The goal is to reduce sunny day flooding — which frequently invades streets at high tide whether or not it is raining — and prepare the community for future ocean swell.

The $300 million project is ambitious for a city with a $502 million annual budget. A new stormwater utility fee on homeowners, hotels and stores helped Miami Beach save enough money to borrow the first $100 million.

The project started before planners worked out all the funding. It's unclear how the city will raise the rest. "We don't have time for analysis-paralysis," said Levine. "We are going to have to get creative."

National Climate Assessment report, released earlier this year, identified Miami as especially vulnerable to the effects of climate change. The ocean around South Florida, which sits on porous limestone, is expected to rise nearly three feet in the next 86 years, according to Florida State University research.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/storyline/wp/2014/12/22/miamis-climate-catch-22-building-luxury-condos-to-pay-for-protection-against-the-rising-sea/?hpid=z4

[Ocklawaha]

Rising sea levels and ocean swells are two different things. You can pump out the effects of a swell, however in the case of rising sea levels, fold your tent and move to the Piedmont.

[ChriswUfGator]

They're going to have to build levees ultimately, pumps by themselves won't be sufficient as a long term solution.

[Charles Hunter]

When The Levee Breaks - originally recorded by the blues musical duo Kansas Joe McCoy and Memphis Minnie, recorded by Led Zeppelin on their 4th album
Cryin' won't help you, prayin' won't do you no good
No, cryin' won't help you, prayin' won't do you no good
When the Levee breaks, mama, you got to move

[finehoe]

[Ocklawaha]

I wouldn't run out and buy a life boat just yet, especially with 'experts' like Al Gore and Leonardo DiCaprio, making waves.

Father" of Global Warming changes his mind, says Doomsday scenario not likely
http://www.torontosun.com/2012/06/22/green-drivel

Two months ago, James Lovelock, the godfather of global warming, gave a startling interview to msnbc.com in which he acknowledged he had been unduly "alarmist" about climate change.

The implications were extraordinary.

Lovelock is a world-renowned scientist and environmentalist whose Gaia theory — that the Earth operates as a single, living organism — has had a profound impact on the development of global warming theory.

Unlike many "environmentalists," who have degrees in political science, Lovelock, until his recent retirement at age 92, was a much-honoured working scientist and academic.

His inventions have been used by NASA, among many other scientific organizations.

Lovelock's invention of the electron capture detector in 1957 first enabled scientists to measure CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons) and other pollutants in the atmosphere, leading, in many ways, to the birth of the modern environmental movement.

Having observed that global temperatures since the turn of the millennium have not gone up in the way computer-based climate models predicted, Lovelock acknowledged, "the problem is we don't know what the climate is doing. We thought we knew 20 years ago." Now, Lovelock has given a follow-up interview to the UK's Guardian newspaper in which he delivers more bombshells sure to anger the global green movement, which for years worshipped his Gaia theory and apocalyptic predictions that billions would die from man-made climate change by the end of this century.

Lovelock still believes anthropogenic global warming is occurring and that mankind must lower its greenhouse gas emissions, but says it's now clear the doomsday predictions, including his own (and Al Gore's) were incorrect.

He responds to attacks on his revised views by noting that, unlike many climate scientists who fear a loss of government funding if they admit error, as a freelance scientist, he's never been afraid to revise his theories in the face of new evidence. Indeed, that's how science advances.

Among his observations to the Guardian:

(1) A long-time supporter of nuclear power as a way to lower greenhouse gas emissions, which has made him unpopular with environmentalists, Lovelock has now come out in favour of natural gas fracking (which environmentalists also oppose), as a low-polluting alternative to coal.  As Lovelock observes, "Gas is almost a give-away in the U.S. at the moment. They've gone for fracking in a big way. This is what makes me very cross with the greens for trying to knock it ... Let's be pragmatic and sensible and get Britain to switch everything to methane. We should be going mad on it." (Kandeh Yumkella, co-head of a major United Nations program on sustainable energy, made similar arguments last week at a UN environmental conference in Rio de Janeiro, advocating the development of conventional and unconventional natural gas resources as a way to reduce deforestation and save millions of lives in the Third World.)

(2) Lovelock blasted greens for treating global warming like a religion.  "It just so happens that the green religion is now taking over from the Christian religion," Lovelock observed. "I don't think people have noticed that, but it's got all the sort of terms that religions use ... The greens use guilt. That just shows how religious greens are. You can't win people round by saying they are guilty for putting (carbon dioxide) in the air."

(3) Lovelock mocks the idea modern economies can be powered by wind turbines.  As he puts it, "so-called 'sustainable development' ... is meaningless drivel ... We rushed into renewable energy without any thought. The schemes are largely hopelessly inefficient and unpleasant.

(4) Finally, about claims "the science is settled" on global warming: "One thing that being a scientist has taught me is that you can never be certain about anything. You never know the truth. You can only approach it and hope to get a bit nearer to it each time. You iterate towards the truth. You don't know it.

[finehoe]

Your decrepit old ass will be dead anyway, so of course you don't care.

[carpnter]

I'm all for being environmentally responsible, I am not for wrecking the economy to get there right now. 

[Ocklawaha]

My, my, reality really pisses some people off doesn't it?

[Ocklawaha]

I'm all for being environmentally responsible, I am not for wrecking the economy to get there right now.

I actually agree. I'm all for green vehicles, buildings, solar, hydro and wind power, recycling and conservation, in fact every position check up I've ever taken I come down solidly in the Democrat side in these areas. But like you, we shouldn't run around screaming the sky is falling, and breaking the bank on what appears to be nothing more then the natural progression of the planets cycles.

[I-10east]

^^^I agree also. Greener and better energy? Yes. Far-left doomsday dramatics? No.   

[Ocklawaha]

Your decrepit old ass will be dead anyway, so of course you don't care.

You're no daisy! You're no daisy at all. Poor soul, you are just too high strung.  Why Finehoe does this mean we're not friends anymore? You know Finehoe, if I thought you weren't my friend... I just don't think I could bear it.

Eventus stultorum magister.

[finehoe]

Why Finehoe does this mean we're not friends anymore?

"A friend is someone who knows all about you and still loves you."

vox nihili 

[Ocklawaha]

Thats okay finehoe, I still love you!

Verba vana aut risui non loqui

[finehoe]

Thats okay finehoe, I still love you!

Now I'll be able to sleep tonight.