Tag: environment

Sea Level Rise Flooding Isn’t The Only Climate Change Symptom Vexing Coastal Real Estate

Climate change is posing many challenges to coastal communities. Sea level rise flooding is one of the more obvious symptoms of a warming planet. Other problems include longer, hotter heat waves and droughts. This time of year in South Florida, sargassum seaweed season begins and it can run sporadically right through the fall.

The smelly, scratchy seaweed washes ashore by the ton on hundreds of miles of beaches in South Florida, Mexico and throughout the Caribbean islands. The seaweed drives tourists away and could one day threaten local real estate markets when buyers get fed up.

Scientists say seaweed blooms in the Caribbean and off Brazil are getting worse every year due to global warming heating up the ocean and humans using too much fertilizer on farms and lawns. Runoff containing animal waste from large-scale farms is also a problem.

Coastal communities are employing a number of methods to combat the seaweed. Some plow it into the sand, others truck it away at great expense. Some communities are even exploring ways to harvest and process the seaweed before it ever reaches land.

The sargassum seaweed problem is expected to get worse until humans stop or at least cut back the use of greenhouse gas producing fossil fuels and get water pollution under control. Real estate buyers and owners in coastal communities need to keep an eye on the seaweed problem as it could one day impact the value of their properties.

Climate Change, Covid-19 & You: Lessons from Science

In this video, we discuss the disturbing similarities between how the US is coping with climate change and sea level rise and Covid-19.

There are many disturbing similarities between how the U.S. is dealing with the climate change and Covid-19 pandemic crises. In both cases, the science is well established. We know what’s driving climate change, global warming, and sea level rise and almost all there is to know about the coronavirus that has tragically killed over 200,000 Americans and sickened many millions more.

In this video, we discuss climate change and Covid-19 and the need to recognize the science behind them to create effective national policies to deal with them. If we don’t take an aggressive, comprehensive, science-backed approach, climate change and Covid-19 will continue to threaten America and the world. In the case of climate change, this will mean that the seas will continue to rise, flooding valuable real estate and threatening entire communities, wildfires will continue to burn out of control, and more animals will be put at risk of extinction.

Humans have through sheer numbers and technology assumed control over the world and its destiny. It’s time we take that responsibility seriously.

Texas, Louisiana and South Carolina Prepare for Climate Change and Sea Level Rise without Using the Terms

The more you study climate change and sea level rise, the more you realize that they’re political issues as well as practical, environmental threats. This point was hit home yet again in a New York Times report that found several conservative states at great risk from rising seas applied for federal funding to increase their defenses against flooding without actually using the terms “climate change” or “sea level rise.”

Texas produced a 306 page application for a share of $16 billion Congress set aside in 2018 to help states deal with climate change impacts without a single mention of climate change or sea level rise. South Carolina didn’t use the terms in its application, while Louisiana didn’t mention “climate change” until the last page of its proposal.

While it’s commendable that the states are actually taking steps to prepare for more intense heat and flooding due to global warming (another divisive term, I know), their reluctance to be frank about the issue and use the terms “climate change” and “sea level rise flooding”, are a tad cowardly. The public in their states deserve the truth, even if they’ve been conditioned to deny it. Real leaders would give them the education about climate change that they clearly need to make informed decisions that just might help them to participate in the process of finding solutions and protect their own financial futures.

Ultimately, the absence of the terms “climate change” and “sea level rise” from the funding proposals is a moot point. The atmosphere will continue heating up and the seas will continue to rise and flood valuable real estate regardless of climate change denialists’ inability to utter them.

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