Not that it matters in the long run, but I think inland fresh water scarcity will have a greater impact over the next 50 years than sea level rise (see other story here on TPM and that’s just the US situation).
We’re going to be looking at mass population displacements from low-lying coastal areas due to sea level rise, but people can move. They can’t make fresh water magically appear in the places they move to, and that will stress existing water supply in those areas.
Sea level rise also doesn’t have the same impact on the global food supply as droughts and shifting agricultural zones. It might even add some aquaculture opportunities if we don’t completely fuck up the oceans with pollutants and overfishing.
Bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) is a carbon removal technique that depends on two technologies. Biomass (organic material) is converted into heat, electric-ity, or liquid or gas fuels (the “bioenergy” step), and the carbon emissions from this bioen-ergy are captured and stored in geological formations or embedded in long-lasting products (the “carbon capture and storage” step). Because the biomass draws carbon from the at-mosphere as it grows, BECCS can be a negative emissions technology. That is, BECCS could serve to reduce the overall concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere. However, care must be taken to ensure that emissions from the growing, harvesting, trans-porting, and processing of the biomass do not outweigh the captured carbon, and that the storage of captured carbon is reliable over long timescales.
The farm is about 15 miles from Groton CT, so maybe with our current 315’ elevation, when my kids decide to sell the farm in a decade or so, we’ll be waterfront property.
Yes, BUT. Carbon is a very trace element in the air, even at 2022 levels - about 420 parts per million. In addition, the Earth has a LOT of air - literally trillions of metric tons. To take the carbon out, you have to process nearly ALL of it. This is very, very hard to do - maybe impossible.
At this point, just getting off of fossil fuel combustion for power is the most realistic goal we can attain…decarbonizing the entire atmosphere is a Freeman Dyson level job for our children’s children’s children…if they survive the mess we have created for them.
The Fermi Paradox comes to mind - if the Universe is teeming with intelligent life, why haven’t we heard from them ? Could it be that the easiest way to grow is to find cheap abundant energy…through combustion of embedded fuel in the crust of the planet ? It would seem that if all chemistry is the same everywhere, this is the natural order of things. The answer to Fermi’s Paradox may be that intelligent life is always doomed to self-extinction by the choices it makes to grow, through reckless use of nuclear energy, or by poisoning its atmosphere with carbon.
We may be quite typical, and as a result, quite alone - at least in our corner of the Galaxy.
Well, not all of it. Not really most of it. The Keys will be in trouble and all the really low lying stuff at the coasts. But some places like the last house we had in Miami are on a limestone ridge, something like 13 feet ASL.
What’s really going to hurt is losing most of the freshwater Everglades as salt water intrusion creeps up from the southern tip of the state. Eventually it will be saltwater tolerant mangrove trees from Miami to Naples instead of freshwater sawgrass and cypress stands. At least the saltwater crocs will finish off all the invasive pythons.
Yeah, it won’t be quite, “Hello, Port Orlando.” (The Villages should expect a massive influx of their fellow rw’ers from AZ.)
Palm Beach County west of 95 is about 19’ above sea level. Cities like Bradenton will have a real rough time with salt water intrusion. (13 miles inland and they already have alligators cruising along 14th St West during big storms.)
But the real estate market in Fl has been absolutely nuts for decades (with a break for the r/e crash in 2008-10). Big fish getting eaten by bigger fish. Wonder when it’ll stop.
I’d like to point out that the anti-immigrant folks are raging against foreigners coming over the borders, and I don’t just mean Republicans in the US of A.
[quote=“fiftygigs, post:25, topic:227839”]
According to Bill Nye, without water, there’s no soil. Without soil, there’s no food.
[/quote
We’re going to be in flux like we’ve never experienced it before, or before we had the ability to write about the changes in climate.
People will move away from the coasts, and people who rely on aquifers for fresh water will be on the move. People who rely on rivers will now try and protect their sources.
And now we’ve got China and the US trying to ramp up population growth. It’s a funny old farces we’re living in now.
No kidding. I left Miami 20 years ago and can’t believe what our old house recently sold for. The real estate market may slow when the temps rise enough over what people are used to. Everyone lives in air conditioning there, but it’s not going to be fun on the golf course with daytime temps in the 90’s and 100’s as climate change advances.
They may be used to that in Arizona where the humidity is much lower, but combine those temps with Florida’s humidity and it’s pretty miserable.
