Time to Wake Up 292: The Looming Economic Catastrophe if Climate Change Left Unchecked - Senator Sheldon Whitehouse

[Rhiannon12866]

May 8 - Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) delivers his 292nd speech urging his colleagues to wake up to the threat of climate change.

Whitehouse highlights multiple reports predicting a massive systemic shock to the economy that will be triggered by climate change unless the world undertakes major intervention to lower emissions. Assessments from the Potsdam Institute, The Economist, and Deloitte now predict climate-related damages will reach tens of trillions of dollars by 2050.

[ancianita]

1. K & R with thanks!

Re looming climate cascading catastrophes, Joe Biden is totally with the MVP of the Senate.

[Uncle Joe]

2. Kicked and recommended

Thanks for the thread Rhiannon.

[appalachiablue]

3. K/R

[ancianita]

4. Flooding in Porto Alegre on 5 May

[Rhiannon12866]

5. Yikes! We have flooding here in New York as well, but fortunately nothing like this!

[ancianita]

6. The fact that you're having flooding at all means that New York is getting "like this."

https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/06/climate/sinking-cities-us-sea-level-rise-climate/index.html

As oceans rise and the coasts sink, up to 343,000 acres of land will be exposed to destructive flooding by 2050, from hazards such as hurricanes, coastal storms and shoreline erosion, according to the study published in the journal Nature. In a worst-case scenario, roughly 1 in 50 people in the 32 cities analyzed could be exposed to flood threats.

According to the researchers, this is the first study to combine the increasing threat of sea level rise with high-resolution measurements of sinking areas to determine which coastal locations are most at-risk of inundation. “Every single result of this research is novel,” said Manoochehr Shirzaei, a geophysicist at Virginia Tech and co-author of the study.

Boston...

[Rhiannon12866]

8. Yikes! And it's not just in the City, but more frequently up North. There are flood warnings all the time.

[ancianita]

13. Coastal flooding will happen sooner than predicted.

New York, the financial center of the world, will probably have to move all its systems and infrastructure to higher ground upstate.

[Brenda]

16. Yes, this. People should be proactive not just sit in denial.

Recently there was a story about the extreme flooding in the coastal South and people blamed the red states.

Um. New York? Cape Cod? Maryland?

The ocean doesn't do politics.

[ancianita]

7. Water damage, landslide damage, along with heavy rainstorms, cause the mostly irreparable damage.

Meaning there will be no flood insurance (no one in Florida who pays premiums for flood insurance will be covered by "acts of God" climate events). No recompense for property lost. Migrations from coasts will be costly in jobs, education, shelter, health and safety.

Who runs this country will matter more than ever.

More from The Hill
https://thehill.com/homenews/nexstar_media_wire/4516635-map-shows-which-coastal-u-s-cities-are-sinking-face-greater-flood-risk/

[Rhiannon12866]

9. Thanks! And, as I said, it's not just near the Coast, but Northern New York frequently gets flood warnings.

[ancianita]

10. I'm so sorry that's happening. La Nina will also bring a lot more rain this summer.

The 32 coastal cities evaluated in this study are highlighted in a. The cities include: US Atlantic coast:
1. Boston, MA; 2. New York City, NY; 3. Jersey City, NJ; 4. Atlantic City, NJ; 5. Virginia Beach, VA; 6. Wilmington, NC; 7. Myrtle Beach, SC; 8. Charleston, SC; 9. Savannah, GA;
10. Jacksonville, FL; 11. Miami, FL; US Gulf coast: 12. Naples, FL; 13. Mobile, AL; 14. Biloxi, MS; 15. New Orleans, LA; 16. Slidell, LA; 17. Lake Charles, LA; 18. Port Arthur, TX;
19. Texas City, TX; 20. Galveston, TX; 21. Freeport, TX; 22. Corpus Christi, TX; US Pacific coast: 23. Richmond, CA; 24. Oakland, CA; 25. San Francisco, CA; 26. South San Francisco, CA;
27. Foster City, CA; 28. Santa Cruz, CA; 29. Long Beach, CA; 30. Huntington Beach, CA;
31. Newport Beach, CA; 32. San Diego, CA.

non paywall: https://archive.ph/e9qz1

[Rhiannon12866]

11. Well, I'm talking about the more rural Northern part of the state.

And we're quite near Vermont which had a flooding problem in Montpelier last year, too.

[ancianita]

12. I see. I saw & read about Vermont. I always thought upstate NY was Adirondacks and Catskills.

The main thing is to harden up electrical, sewage & drainage, gas and transportation infrastructure, so that people can be sheltered and/or mobile when needed.

I'm glad our people are the adults. It's bad enough we have deniers and mental cripples to drag around when we need progress in mitigating effects of cascading climate events.

[Brenda]

17. Thanks for the map. All the way to Maine and oh look California.

People blaming red states in the south are gonna hear a big fucking alarm clock one day.

[TeamProg]

14. I think we'll see clear, hard, obvious and unavoidable evidence worldwide by 2030. Non-believers will be as rare as

'flat-earthers'. Trillions of $ at the least. We're well past the 2.0 C turn around point. We're probably looking at 3.0 C affects before 2050.

I hate to say it, but yeah, it's going to be bad.

The Drowning South
Where seas are rising at alarming speed

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/interactive/2024/southern-us-sea-level-rise-risk-cities/

In December, Charleston, S.C., saw its fourth-highest water level since measurements began in 1899. It was the first time on record that seas had been that high without a hurricane. A winter storm that coincided with the elevated ocean left dozens of streets closed. One resident drowned in her car. Hundreds of vehicles were damaged or destroyed, including some that were inundated in a cruise terminal parking lot.

The average sea level at Charleston has risen by 7 inches since 2010, four times the rate of the previous 30 years.

Jacksonville, Fla., where seas rose 6 inches in the past 14 years, recently studied its vulnerability. It found that more than a quarter of major roads have the potential to become inaccessible to emergency response vehicles amid flooding, and the number of residents who face flood risks could more than triple in coming decades.

Galveston, Tex., has experienced an extraordinary rate of sea level rise — 8 inches in 14 years. Experts say it has been exacerbated by fast-sinking land. High-tide floods have struck at least 141 times since 2015, and scientists project their frequency will grow rapidly. Officials are planning to install several huge pump stations in coming years, largely funded through federal grants. The city manager expects each pump to cost more than $60 million — a figure that could eclipse the city’s annual tax revenue.

[Think. Again.]

15. The way I see it...

...clear, hard, obvious and unavoidable evidence worldwide is already right in front of our faces.

It's not that the evidence isn't obvious, it's that so many people are blinded to it by the hopelessness they feel about being able to do anything to stop it.

We've allowed the fossil fuel industry and rightwingers to give us the lies we needed to just look the away from the daunting task ahead of us.

And now, when it's almost too late, our denial is beginning to break down.