Climate change poses nightmare scenario for Florida coast, Bloomberg warns
Joe Romm
Dr. Joe Romm is Founding Editor of Climate Progress
Apr 24
Climate change poses ‘nightmare scenario’ for Florida coast, Bloomberg warns
America’s trillion-dollar coastal property bubble could burst “before the sea consumes a single house.” Here’s why.
“Pessimists selling to optimists.” That’s how one former Florida coastal property owner describes the current state of the market in a must-read Bloomberg story.
Right now, science and politics don’t favor the optimists. The disintegration of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets is speeding up, providing increasing evidence we are headed for the worst-case scenario of sea level rise — three to six feet (or more) by 2100.
The impacts are already visible in South Florida. “Tidal flooding now predictably drenches inland streets, even when the sun is out, thanks to the region’s porous limestone bedrock,” explains Bloomberg. “Saltwater is creeping into the drinking water supply.”
At the same time, President Trump is working to thwart both domestic and international climate action while slashing funding for coastal adaptation and monitoring. E&E News reported earlier this month that the EPA has already “disbanded its climate change adaptation program” and reassigned all the workers.
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But this is not just South Florida’s problem. The entire country is facing a trillion-dollar bubble in coastal property values. This Hindenburg has been held aloft by U.S. taxpayers in the form of the National Flood Insurance Program.
more...
https://thinkprogress.org/bloomberg-coastal-real-estate-638716394641
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