NYT: Editorial on Climate Change and Louisiana

Can't wait to see how many actual responses there are that don't contain the word melt in them

Melt.

IMO, at it's core, this is far more a sociopolitical and economic problem in Louisiana than an environmental one.

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It does make this reader wonder how the Netherlands has managed to construct 10,000-year flood protection when we don’t seem to have the political will to build effective 1,000-year protection that might buy us some time.

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See above, reader.

These editorials are counter-productive because they distract from the real causes of Louisiana’s coastal erosion issues: subsidence and starving of sediment deposition.

If climate change were the issue, Texas, Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida would all be seeing the same land loss issues, but they’re not. The problem is levees, locks, and dams, not fossil fuels, and focusing on climate change as the cause ensures solutions to the real causes go unaddressed and unfunded.

If sea level rise from global warming is true, there is no hope for the sinking land. There is only abandonment to the ocean.

It’s not true. The problem is subsidence. The solution is rebuilding deltas and marsh, the problem is money, the Jones Act (prevents foreign firms like the dutch from engaging in dredge or fill work), and the Army Corp of Engineers.

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Florida would all be seeing the same land loss issues,

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Miami is sinking as we speak.
Louisiana's situation is unique because the land is sinking AND the sea levels are rising.

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Cliffs

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Louisiana has an erosion problem, but has neither the funds or political will to adequately mitigate it. Climate change is making it worse. Still no money or will.

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These editorials are counter-productive because they distract from the real causes of Louisiana’s coastal erosion issues: subsidence and starving of sediment deposition.

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Correct. Every other dynamic is the proverbial drop in the bucket compared to this.

Miami is sinking because it is built on one of two types of subsoil environments common to Florida: karst or delta

Karst geography is when there is porous limestone with a high water table. As uplift forces or human activity lower the water table relative to the surface, the water errodes the limestone leaving void spaces. As more and more is built on top and the water level continues to decline, the sediment above collapses into the void and sinkholes form, often creating lakes. Florida is filled with these sinkhole lakes.

Where that karst linestone has been covered with shifting sand or silt deposits, those sinkholes are then filled in with the sand and silt above causing sinking.

If Miami is built on delta, then the following process similar to Louisiana is occuring: when delta sediment is deposited, it is very wet, but as more sediment is deposited on top, the water is squeezed out, resulting in compaction. Deltas are built when the volume of sediment added on top is greater than the volume lost from compaction. In areas where water is being pumped out for human purposes, compaction increases more rapidly (the inverse is also true. In New Orleans, it is believed that the water system leaks are so widespread that they are causing soil in some parts of the city to swell and rehydrate, slowing the rate of subsidence).

What can also increase subsidence and compaction is adding greater weight of buildings on top of the soil. More concrete means less surface area for sediment to build on. More buildings means more weight increasing compaction. More water wells means a faster declining water table. All of these factors speed up compaction resulting in widespread subsidence relative to a fairly static mean sea level.

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Miami is sinking because it is built on one of two types of subsoil environments common to Florida: karst or delta

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Please don't bring sense and actual provable science into a debate like this with Climate Change worshippers. The Miami area, geographically really should not have the type of population density that it does nor the level of development. It's better to just agree with their point about sea level rise to explain the fish swimming on Biscayne Blvd a high tide....which has only happened like......once.


Great post, very intelligent

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Climate change is a natural occurrence that can be exacerbated by human activity in specific situations e.g. Louisiana marshland

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Upvote + a bazillion more