The world may have been warned. But the threats of climate change remain as 64,000 South Florida homes are expected to face constant and chronic flooding in the next 30 years due to rising sea levels, a new study revealed.
“In the coming decades, the consequences of rising seas will strain many coastal real estate markets—abruptly or gradually, but some eventually to the point of collapse—with potential reverberations throughout the national economy. And with the inevitability of ever-higher seas, these are not devaluations from which damaged real estate markets will recover,” the study read.
The study said that apart from homes, government infrastructure is also at risk. These include roads, bridges, power plants, airports, ports, public buildings, military bases, and other critical infrastructure along the coast.
National Geographic reported at the rate the burning of fossil fuels is going, “global warming will eventually melt all the ice at the poles and on mountaintops, raising sea level by 216 feet.” This would result to the vanishing of the entire Atlantinc seaboard, not just Florida but even the Gulf Coast.
“In California, San Francisco’s hills would become a cluster of islands and the Central Valley a giant bay. The Gulf of California would stretch north past the latitude of San Diego—not that there’d be a San Diego,” the report added.
In a report back in March 2018, alternative news website Truthout said the US “is poised to become the world’s top fossil fuel producer.”
By 2023, the US is expected to produce 17 million barrels of raw liquid hydrocarbons a day from 13 million in 2017. This is due to the US government’s policy to continue and intensify oil production, when, on the other hand, oil-producing countries have already agreed to slow down their production to combat its falling prices.
The increased oil production in the US has not only put the environment in peril but also threatens to displace rural communities as the government work on laying down new oil and gas pipelines. This has been met with strong international resistance, including the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline.
The study said, “there will be no simple solution. But continued inaction is unacceptable; we must use the remaining response time wisely to meet this serious threat and protect coastal communities as effectively as we can.”
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