Miami is drowning while the powers that be look away
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
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.
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.
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...
2: http://www.at5.nl/artikelen/131015/honderden-meldingen-van-w...
I think the bigger problem is that the resources for dealing with this sort of catastrophe will be stretched very thin when every coastal city the world over is trying to deal with rising water levels.
Exactly. The article says there has been about a 10-inch rise in sea levels since the 19th century. That's plenty of time to plan and adapt.
The Guardian article isn't actually talking about the general "problem" of climate change, even though it titled it that way for ideological reasons. Water backing up through storm sewers during high tides is an obvious issue regardless of the underlying long-term cause; it's bad design, and it shouldn't require a belief that climate change is a worldwide problem to understand that your own city's storm water system needs to be redesigned. I'm sure there are plenty of irrational political reasons why Miami hasn't fixed its storm water system, but I doubt that climate change "denial" is significant among them; I expect it's just, well, politics--elected officials don't get votes by forcing the city to make the hard choices that would have to be made to fix the problem.
You don't have to believe in climate change to fix Miami's storm water system. But you can't be stuck with a belief system that holds that sea levels aren't rising and that nothing needs to be done to adapt to the sea level rise that has already taken place, because doing something would be an implicit admission that something has happened which you believe hasn't.
Incidentally, apparently they won't even be maintained without a major disaster. It's now 2014 and a project to raise the Delta works was scrapped for the funds, which will go to some bank related measure instead (the dykes that form the Delta works are sinking into the ground due to their weight and should be raised to avoid the risk of water spilling over them : if the conditions of 1954 repeat, currently a disaster of about 1/3 the proportion of the 1954 floods would occur. It gets worse every year, and apparently by 2065 the Delta works will no longer provide any defense at all, meaning yearly flooding disasters will start occurring at that point).
Just providing a data point. Sea level rise is not a significant factor for the delta works (rather the standard deviation in average sea level is. In and around the channel there is an average sea level, and you see sea levels up to 6 meters higher than the average in most locations once per decade. A few centimeters don't really change the calculation. Hell, even a meter wouldn't significantly alter the situation. But the dykes are just barely 5.5 meters high anymore, and will fail entirely if water starts spilling over. Meaning once the water level goes more than 10 centimers or so above the top of the dykes, they will most likely fall over. Average sea level rise creates a problem for ground water, but that won't really affect anyone for quite some time. Btw: go to the page of the delta works linked below. Look at those towers. Just think of how much tonnes of water these guys are keeping out, yet those towers, impressive as they are, will fall over (more likely torn to shreds, but ...) in the next decade or two if nothing is done)
In general, I'd look at the Delta works though as an example of how everything can be fixed, but it comes down to this simple fact, and environmentalists won't like it. Humans need to take direct control of the ground water table, by erecting concrete barriers that make it look like the sea level drops several meters from the perspective of inland water tables. Those barriers can also prevent flooding by providing a large coastal basin of water where levels are maintained much lower than sea level (by opening the dykes at ebb and closing them at flood times), where storm floods can drain into. This will destroy fauna that depends on being exposed to waves (I'm sure they can be maintained in a few locations, like "Het Zwin" [1], but they'll no longer dominate the coastline), and will be replaced by inland river-fauna (frankly, I like that much better, but again, environmentalists will object to what amounts to artificial habitats).
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zwin [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rijkswaterstaat [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta_Works
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)
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.
If you think the Florida real estate market will be destroyed, you can focus on local, public real estate companies and short them.
And nothing in the article contradicts that.
In other words the downward pressure from the prospect of sea-level rise is probably being cancelled out by upward pressure from other factors -- e.g., the fact that Miami is an important nexus of flows of money and talent from and to Latin America.
1) In addition to there being many non-monetary factors in a housing market, as hollerith mentioned, housing markets are also generally not very efficient compared to others.
2) Any bet that land prices will plummet for this reason (this is something a hedge fund would do) would have to calculate the 'risk' of massive intervention when/if the problem gets to the unignorable/still-fixable-even-at-enormous-cost stage. If presented with the choice of "evacuate south florida" v. "here's a very costly plan to save Miami," I think America would choose the latter.
I live in Amsterdam, and I've (apocryphally, quick googling didn't reveal the number) heard that over the centuries the Netherlands has spent ~1 trillion inflation-adjusted dollars on its water management system. "Rationally"—and very simplistically—speaking, these people "could" all go live somewhere else, but that's not how the world works. (Nor should it, IMO, but off-topic)
I'd be very reluctant to short Manhattan real estate because protecting Manhattan from higher sea levels is merely an engineering challenge and affordable relative to NYC economic output. Manhattan is basically made out of granite. South Florida on porous limestone.
Miami seems f'd to me.
> Seems bizarre to me that this isn't happening.
The obvious conclusion is that either the market does not believe the high confidence information, or that they are sure that people will do something before anything bad happens.
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
Obviously the solution is dykes, and better water infrastructure.
Ironically I'm betting the environmentalists will oppose that.
I think you have a point in the sense that building a consensus may require a tacit agreement not to mention global warming, but simply to look at the frequency of flooding in specific areas (which will show a rise) and the inland creep of the 'potable water contour'. I'm saying agree about the phenomena and agree to disagree about the cause.
Did I mention dumb?
:-)
This can't be overstated. There is no state income tax in Florida. Property tax and tourism-related taxes are major sources of income for municipal organizations in FL. As these go, so goes the funding for public entities.
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.
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.
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
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.