KEY WEST, Fla. — The course of long denial finally hits when officials in the Florida Keys announced, that due to constantly rising sea levels and flooding not at all places can be protected nor can everyone be saved.
“And in some places, it doesn’t even make sense to try”, the officials said.
On Wednesday morning, Rhonda Haag, the county’s sustainability director, released the first results of the county’s years long effort to calculate how high its 300 miles of roads must be elevated to stay dry, and at what cost. Those costs were far higher than her team expected — and those numbers, she said, show that some places can’t be protected, at least at a price that taxpayers can be expected to pay.
“I never would have dreamed we would say ‘no,’” Haag said in an interview. “But now, with the real estimates coming in, it’s a different story and it’s not all doable.”
The results released Wednesday focused on a single 3-mile stretch of road at the southern tip of Sugarloaf Key, a small island 15 miles up U.S. Highway 1 from Key West.
Cost forecast
| Year of the project | Requirement of road to be elevated (in Feet) | Approximate Cost (in US dollars) |
| 2025 | 1.3 | $75 million or $25 million per mile |
| 2045 | 2.2 | $128 million |
| 2060 | To protect against flooding | $181 million |
The approximate costs to fix the roads in order to protect them from flooding are seen surging up. The data reflects the problem of funds due to limited capacity of tax payers. The consequences may be adverse, if roads are not elevated and residents of the areas may have to take odd alternatives. The county’s recommendation to offer residents a ferry, water taxis, or some other kind of boat during the expanding window in which the road is expected to go underwater will also be not responded well to by the residents.
The law generally requires local governments to maintain roads and other infrastructure, because failure to do so will reduce the property value of surrounding homes, according to Erin Deady, a lawyer who specializes in climate and land-use law and is a consultant to the county on adapting to rising seas. But local officials retain the right to decide whether or not to upgrade or enhance that infrastructure.
Global Threat
Rising sea level produces a cascade of effects. Bruce Douglas, a coastal researcher at Florida International University, calculates that every inch (2.5 centimeters) of sea-level rise could result in eight feet (2.4 meters) of horizontal retreat of sandy beach shorelines due to erosion. Furthermore, when salt water intrudes into freshwater aquifers, it threatens sources of drinking water and makes raising crops problematic. In the Nile Delta, where many of Egypt’s crops are cultivated, widespread erosion and saltwater intrusion would be disastrous since the country contains little other arable land.
The Arctic is warming twice as fast as anywhere on earth today, and every 10 years the sea ice is diminishing by more than 10 percent. As this ice melts, darker ocean patches begin to appear, removing the impact that previously cooled the poles, producing warmer air temperatures and disrupting natural circulation patterns in the arctic.
The glacial melt we are witnessing today in Antarctic and Greenland is changing the circulation of the Atlantic Ocean and has been linked to collapse of fisheries in the Gulf of Maine and more destructive storms and hurricanes around the planet.
Often called the “water tower” of Europe, the Alps contain 40 percent of Europe’s fresh water supply. The dramatic disappearance of ice on the Matterhorn last year has prompted the need for the border between Switzerland and Italy to be redrawn.
Sea ice is simply frozen seawater. Although found only in the Arctic (North Pole) and the Antarctic (South Pole), it influences Earth’s climate in numerous ways. Its bright surface reflects sunlight back into space. Icy areas absorb less solar energy and remain relatively cool. When temperatures warm over time and more sea ice melts, fewer bright surfaces reflect sunlight back into space. The ice and exposed seawater absorb more solar energy and this causes more melting and more warming.
This scene shows a mixture of sea ice types commonly seen in the Southern Ocean. The different thicknesses of sea ice form a spectrum of colors and shapes ranging from dark black open water, a thin grease-like covering called grease ice, and thicker grey ice. Older sea ice has a bright white covering of snow and many chaotic deformation features visible as ridges and rubble fields caused by the continuous motion of the ice pack. (Courtesy M. Staudinger/NASA)
Scientists have been watching this feedback loop of warming and melting in the Arctic. To them, Arctic sea ice is a reliable indicator of a changing global climate. They pay the most attention in September when Arctic sea ice shrinks to its smallest extent each year. Measured by satellites since 1979, this minimum extent has been decreasing by as much as 13.7 percent per decade. Antarctic sea ice, on the other hand, has not been considered a climate change indicator. Whereas Arctic sea ice mostly sits in the middle of land-locked ocean—which is more sensitive to sunlight and warming air—Antarctic sea ice surrounds land and is constantly exposed to high winds and waves.
The global mean water level in the ocean rose by 0.14 inches (3.6 millimeters) per year from 2006–2015, which was 2.5 times the average rate of 0.06 inches (1.4 millimeters) per year throughout most of the twentieth century. By the end of the century, global mean sea level is likely to rise at least one foot (0.3 meters) above 2000 levels, even if greenhouse gas emissions follow a relatively low pathway in coming decades.
Studying the cause and effect, Global Warming: Climate change.
Researchers monitoring the health of the planet see incontrovertible evidencing that Earth is getting warmer due to global warming, consequently leading to climate change. The studies reflect that the major causes contributing to global warming include human activities such as burning of fossil fuels, industrialization and green house gases build up in the atmosphere due to them. Human activities are responsible for almost all of the increase in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere over the last 150 years. The largest source of greenhouse gas emissions from human activities globally is from burning fossil fuels for electricity, heat, and transportation.
In rice belt regions of northern India burning of ‘Parali’ or the rice stock is a common practice that, every year becomes an issue of great concern for Indians. “The increased biomass fire activity in Haryana and Punjab highly influence AQI (air quality index) of the neighboring states.
Countries like Pakistan, China, Mexico, India and Central American countries including some Middle Eastern countries are affecting the Earth’s atmosphere by carrying out space and research projects which include launch of rockets, satellites etc delivering gases and particles directly into the middle and upper atmosphere and resulting into debris trap. The pollution caused by space research projects and space junk is known as “Space Lift Pollution” and is not yet addressed properly. Space hardware falling back to Earth can affect the atmosphere as well, so re-entering orbital debris also needs to be studied.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration states that greenhouse gases are gases that keep heat in the earth’s atmosphere. Human activities such as use of electricity, driving cars and population growth contribute a great deal to greenhouse gas emissions. Your carbon footprint — or your impact on the environment — measures the greenhouse gases that you are responsible for creating.
Global Outreach
There is a necessity to reach out to humans globally and understand the need to reduce every person’s carbon footprint. There is a need to draw attention towards possible steps that can be taken by individuals so that the planet is saved and sustained for the future generations.
How to reduce our carbon footprint?
There are several ways to combat climate change by reducing our carbon footprint. We can simply follow ‘Four R’s’ recycle, reuse, replace and reduce. Encouraging carpool and use of public transportation also helps. Cutting down on our electricity consumption by constructing ventilated and naturally lighted work spaces, or by using solar energy panels are good ideas. In addition to these lifestyle changes, many companies now allow you to buy credits that neutralize your carbon usage. In fact, this movement has been popular with some commercial companies. A carbon credit is a dollar amount that will go towards offsetting emissions. Individuals and companies buy the credits through environmental improvement agencies, who dedicate them to carbon-offsetting projects. Many companies sell carbon credits online, but it is important to ensure you buy credits from reputable organizations in order to ensure that you are reducing your carbon footprint.
