| This article is patent nonsense. Nobody knows what the fuck is going to happen to Miami in 50 years including the author, and an anecdotal poll of front line real estate agents is mindless. Even in that context the real estate agent’s worldview seems a lot more sanguine than hers. History has shown in this country that you’re a lot more likely to be right predicting that the rich will figure out how to preserve their assets than betting on the other side of that argument. A shame because it’s an interesting topic. What will a city like Miami look like in 50 years? It’s an interesting question with a lot of unpredictability in it, based on combinations of climate science, financial predictions, cultural shifts, and some guesswork. Would have loved to read an article about the various perspectives on that, but that would have required the author to really do some work. Instead they decided they knew the answer already and flew there to make fun of people just trying to get through a day at work. |
True enough if you want detailed predictions, but the generalizations that are pretty much assured are bad enough. Will there be 3 feet of rise in that time? Unlikely. 1? Maybe, maybe not. How much rise does there actually need to be for raw sewage in the streets to be an issue any time there's a heavy rain?
The other thing is storm surge in hurricanes. Nobody can tell you now exactly how high future storm surges will be, but a foot of rise still means that the same amount of storm surge will be a foot higher than in the past - 2 feet higher than a century ago. With increasing storm intensity due to higher energy levels those surges and rainfall totals are only going to get higher.