Sunny-Day Flooding in Miami Beach: The Everyday Reality and the Political Denial

Miami Beach at Fifth and Alton Road.



Miami Finds Itself Ankle-Deep in Climate Change Debate. (The New York Times, 5/7/2014)

The everyday reality. The sunny-day flooding was happening again. During high tide one recent afternoon, Eliseo Toussaint looked out the window of his Alton Road laundromat and watched bottle-green saltwater seep from the gutters, fill the street and block the entrance to his front door.

“This never used to happen,” Mr. Toussaint said. “I’ve owned this place eight years, and now it’s all the time.”

Mouthing the words from the Republican playbook.   (Bold type added.)  But three prominent Florida Republicans — Senator Marco Rubio, former Gov. Jeb Bush and the current governor, Rick Scott — declined repeated requests to be interviewed on the subject. Mr. Rubio and Mr. Bush are viewed as potential presidential candidates. Political analysts say the reluctance of the three men to speak publicly on the issue reflects an increasingly difficult political reality for Republicans grappling with the issue of climate change, particularly for the party’s lawmakers from Florida. In acknowledging the problem, politicians must endorse a solution, but the only major policy solutions to climate change — taxing or regulating the oil, gas and coal industries — are anathema to the base of the Republican Party. Thus, many Republicans, especially in Florida, appear to be dealing with the issue by keeping silent.

In this CBS news video, we learn that Miami Beach, by spending more than $400,000,000, is hoping to pump its way to dryness.



Another solution:  Stronger codes to have buildings and homes built higher off the ground.

Other climate change posts:
The rising sea levels of Bangladesh.  (3/30/2014)
Cold enough for you?  (3/9/2014)
Meteors, glaciers, and climate change.  (1/14/2014)
Climate change spurs northward growth of mangroves.  (1/1/2014)
Dear Skeptics, Climate change is already driving informed business decisions.  (12/15/2013)
Florida's vulnerable coastline.  (11/12/2013)
Promoting the need for regionalism among nations along the Bay of Bengal coast.  (10/14/2013)
Climate change not taking a back seat everywhere in Wisconsin.  (9/27/2013)
Climate change deniers continue to jump on the Daily Mail crazy train (or Oops! they did it again).  (9/25/2013) 
Cal Thomas: This climate change bulletin just in from the Daily Mail.  (9/24/2013) 
Cal Thomas needs a research assistant.  (9/23/2013)
Climate change, as a matter of fact.  (8/31/2013)
Outagamie County residents will be better served with a more proactive approach.  (8/20/2013)
Here's what got Ron Johnson's undies in a bundle (NoRoJo in 2016, chapter 12).  (8/15/2013)
Georgia's anti-science climate denier caucus.  (7/31/2013)
Here's a comforting headline.  (3/8/2013)
Making Fox News-Inspired Jokes About Climate Change? Consider Australia.  (3/5/2013)
The New Normal: Living With Extreme Weather (Northeastern U.S. Edition).  (2/10/2013)
1975: "There's a new ice age coming, but I wouldn't want to predict when.".  (1/27/2013)
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Embargoes Use of Phrase "Climate Change"?  (12/31/2012)
Can you say 'climate change'?  (11/28/2012)
As you already know, Fox News is shameless.  (9/29/2012)
Dear George, It will take more than denial to get over climate change in Greenland.  (9/27/2012)
Climate change results in Coast Guard's "unprecedented" deployment to North Shore of Alaska.  (7/23/2013)
Weather history is made in the Northeast.  (10/30/2011)
Climate change in the American mind.  (6/8/2011)
Stuff you won't see on Fox News.  (1/8/2010)