Tag Archives: Climate Solutions

Art + Activism: Right Action, Wrong Reason

From Watts Up With That?

Guest Essay by Kip Hansen — 19 December 2023 — 1300 words/10 minutes

An article in another of America’s once-great-newspapers, The Washington Post, titled “These yard signs offer an inconvenient truth about sea level rise”, published on 13 December 2023 in the “Climate Solutions” section,  is a narrative journalism piece about the efforts  of a local artist and Miami-Dade County’s artist-in-residence Xavier Cortada to raise awareness of Miami residents about the elevation of their residential properties relative to local sea level. 

Why?  Miami has thousands of homes perilously close to local Mean Sea Level.  That link goes to my 7-year old piece that concluded, in part:  “Miami Beach is at such grave risk of sea water flooding today that it should preemptively be declared a disaster zone – not because of global-warming-driven sea level rise but due to a seeming total lack of sensible civil engineering standards and sensible building codes.”

That statement holds true for the thousands of homes built along sea water canals, just one or two feet above the local high tide line.  If building those homes sounds crazy to you, then you are thinking correctly.

It sounds crazy to Miami-Dade’s artist-in-residence Xavier Cortada too.  But, you see, Cortada has been an environmental and climate change activist his entire career.  And he is absolutely right to be worried about those homes and businesses built so very close to Mean Sea Level, some of them at or below the:

Max Tide5.81Highest Observed Tide
Max Tide Date & Time09/10/2017 17:00Highest Observed Tide Date & Time

[ source ]

The NOAA Tide Gauge for Miami is  NOAA ID 8723214, Virginia Key, Biscayne Bay FL:

It is obvious from the Tide Gauge data that unless there are substantial changes in natural Earth-processes, SLR in Miami will rise another 8-10 inches by 2100.  Much of that amount of that Local Relative Mean SLR will be due to local land subsidence, Vertical Land Movement (VLM).  Shimon Wdowinski, at Florida International University, found that VLM in the Miami Beach area runs 1-2 mm/yr and upwards to 2-3 mm/yr in localized pockets.  Along waterways, neighborhoods and islands built on the fill from canal digging and channel dredging have greater subsidence.

Shimon Wdowinski provides a pretty good illustration of the constituents of Local Relative Sea Level Rise:

Subsidence is downward Vertical Land Movement (VLM) and in Miami is a major component of Local Relative SLR (as reported by tide gauges).  Tide gauges are scarce in southern Florida – which is an oddity for a place so intimate with the sea – but there are six of them that report Sea Level Trends:

In the upper left corner above is the previously shown Virginia Key Tide Gauge record which is the tide gauge closest to Miami. The Lake Fort Worth Tide Gauge record (West Palm Beach, lower right) is useless, but agrees with the other five that SLR in Southern Florida is linear – not accelerating – not increasing, but just going up at the same rate across the entire length of each record.  The Linear Relative Sea Level Trends at each are different, due to differences in local Vertical Land Movement, which adds to Relative SLR if the land is moving downward – subsiding — (and subtracts if the land is itself rising) — but all are linear – they are all linear trends

If this is the case, and it is, then what has gotten into our campaigning artist, Xavier Cortada? 

He seems to believe  that “By 2100,[according to the Southeast Florida Regional Climate Compact project] … local sea levels will rise somewhere between two and eight feet.”   So, he has gone a bit overboard and established the Underwater Homeowners Association in expectation of that event.  His project is to have neighbors place signs in their yards showing how many feet above sea level the property is.  The home shown with an 8 on the sign is his home in Pinecrest, Florida.  (I have doubts, the yard seems to slope several feet up to the house, but at least he is playing his own game.)

And what is the possibility of mean sea level rising by two to eight feet in the next 77 years? 

Vanishing small – Miami has seen almost exactly 1 foot of SLR (including subsidence) in the last 100 years – a long a steady rise.  And what that means is that, if the past is any indicator, and it is, that Relative SLR in Southern Florida, including the Miami area, is not going to be suddenly doubling or tripling – thus:

Miami will not be seeing 2 to 8 feet of Relative Sea Level Rise in the next 77 years – but rather 8 to 10 inches, maybe as much as 12 inches. 

But wait!….does this mean Miami is off the hook?  That it is not in danger from rising seas?  Not in danger from hurricane storm surge?

Absolutely not – Miami is a disaster zone pre-made and just waiting to happen.  Billions of dollars of built infrastructure sits on Miami Beach which is built on a sand-based/ancient-reef barrier island.  Some of Miami Beach is built below Mean High High Water (highest high tides).  Much of the infrastructure is underground out of necessity and below Mean Sea Level (MSL), requiring pumps to move water up and out – sewage too.  And this means, when the storms come and knock out electrical power, the pumps stop working….

But not from the gently rising seas.  The real problem is how close to Mean Sea Level the built environment is already.  The tidal range in Biscayne Bay and Miami is only about 2 feet, low to high.  The highest tide ever at Virginia Key was just over 3 feet.  With many homes built on canals with only a foot or two of freeboard above high tides:

The high tide mark is easily seen on the sea walls as the dark water mark shifts to grey concrete.  That’s not much freeboard: a foot, maybe 18 inches.  If you somehow think that just a few Southern Florida homes are built on canals like this one, use Google Earth and get a good close look. 

If Miami was to experience a Major Hurricane [a hurricane that is classified as Category 3 or higher] arriving from just the right (or wrong) direction at the same time as high tide – with the wind relentlessly pushing water up into Biscayne Bay – those lovely homes in the photo above are going to be flooded and all those boats in the canals will end up on people’s lawns or inside their houses.   The effects of a Cat 5 hurricane on the City of Miami Beach would be horrific. 

Bottom Line:

Cortada is right to be worried, but as with the majority of climate activists, he has been misinformed and blindly accepted exaggerated claims of disaster created out of over-heated climate models. 

Miami and its surrounds are at risk from the sea – because they have built too close to the sea and too close to the local Mean Sea Level, with intentionally dug canals letting the sea reach far into the interior.  Storm surge is the enemy.  Almost any unusually high tides flood roads and infrastructure – a major storm with surge combining with high tides would be a flooding disaster.

# # # # #

Author’s Comment:

Cortada is clever and talented – but pushing misinformation to “inform the public” is not a good idea.  The reality is worrisome enough – it needs no exaggeration.

Re-writing building codes in Miami-Dade County would go a long way to improving the situation (and create a building trades boom). 

Not one more building should be allowed to be built with less than 8 feet of freeboard above existing Mean Higher High Water. 

Thanks for reading.

The Guardian Rightly Recognizes That “Eating Local” Is No Climate Solution

From ClimateRealism

By Linnea Lueken

A recent article in The Guardian, titled “Is eating local produce actually better for the planet?” correctly concludes that the “eating local” trend actually doesn’t necessarily decrease food related carbon dioxide emissions. In some cases, choosing local produce may increase emissions.

The article’s author, Cecilia Nowell, briefly describes the history of the “locavore” movement – people who advocate for eating food produced within a hundred miles of where you live. She then points out that while most Americans believe that eating local is more environmentally conscious, recently “a series of studies have shown that eating locally might not be as environmentally impactful – in and of itself – as advocates once hoped.”

Nowell explains that the amount of CO2 emissions involved in the transportation of food actually is the smallest share, that production itself makes up the bulk of emissions.

“In a 2018 paper, a team of researchers from the UK and Switzerland found that only 1% to 9% of food’s emissions come from packaging, transport, and retail,” wrote Nowell. “The vast majority of greenhouse gas emissions – 61% – come during production, while food is still on the farm.”

Climate Realism writer H. Sterling Burnett previously made this point in, “Thanks, WBUR, For Explaining “Eating Local” Has No Impact on Climate Change.”

In that post, Burnett explains that while there may be other benefits to eating local produce, stopping climate change is not one of them, writing “the distance food travels to get to peoples’ plates, from the perspective of having a climate impact, matters less than how the food is produced and how it was transported.”

Nowell points out that it is just not feasible for all people to eat only locally sourced food, but puzzlingly does go on to discourage the use of “fossil fuel-rich” pesticides and fertilizers—two innovations that have produced a more abundant, less expensive food supply, while reducing land devoted to agriculture.

Organic farms require more land to produce the same yields as conventional farms. Research from the Alliance for Science showed that if all agriculture were to be done using organic practices, it would lead to an increase of 8-15 percent in deforestation around the world. To banish nitrogen fertilizers would mean half the world’s population would starve.

Swedish researchers found that organic produce grown in the country actually has up to a 70 percent larger “climate impact” than conventional farming methods.

There is nothing wrong with eating locally or home-grown produce, and no reason to stop doing it. To claim it as some kind of climate victory is factually incorrect, as The Guardian accurately notes despite being sponsored by the “11th Hour Project,” which gives grants to groups that share the goals of “challenging the development of fossil fuels and accelerating transformation towards a clean and equitable energy system” and “equitable” agriculture programs, along with other progressive causes.

Linnea Lueken

Linnea Lueken is a Research Fellow with the Arthur B. Robinson Center on Climate and Environmental Policy.

While she was an intern with The Heartland Institute in 2018, she co-authored a Heartland Institute Policy Brief “Debunking Four Persistent Myths About Hydraulic Fracturing.”

Linnea Lueken

Sorry, Fortune, Threats to Bat Populations Include Climate Solutions, Not Climate Change

ClimateRealism

ByH. Sterling Burnett

Fortune, among other mainstream media outlets, published a story claiming climate change poses a serious threat to bat populations in North America. Bat populations do face a number of threats, but the evidence indicates climate change is not prominent among them. By contrast, green energy projects undertaken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and thus the threat of climate change, are directly harming bat populations.

The Fortune story, “Scientists light the bat signal on climate change as study finds 81 of North America’s 154 bats face ‘severe population decline’ over 15 years,” cites a report published by Bat Conservation International (BCI) which estimates that 52 percent of bat species in North America are at risk of populations declining severely in the next 15 years. According to the report and the reporting on it, the decline is due to a variety of factors, most prominent among them when you read the report are habitat loss and roost disturbance, white-nose disease, forest management practices, wind energy development, and climate change.

Not surprisingly, because it provides the mainstream media’s daily dose of climate change alarm, the press focused on climate change as the main factor in bat species’ declines. Yet, BCI’s report provides no evidence climate change is having any direct effect on bats, as opposed to the deaths directly caused by the other factors discussed.

The report vaguely refers to the dangers from extreme temperatures and droughts, but such extreme weather events are natural and have been common throughout history. Bats have evolved and flourished alongside them. There has been no time in history when heat waves, cold spells, and droughts were non-existent in North America. Based solely on flawed computer model projections, the study claims 82 percent of bat species are threatened by climate change. As discussed numerous times at Climate Realism, here and here, for example, climate models are admittedly flawed. By contrast, real world evidence, discussed in Climate at a Glance, indicates that heat waves, droughts, and instances of extreme cold have declined during recent period of modest warming. Data certainly does not support claims that such weather events have been increasing, and, as such, they can’t be causing bat decline.

Concerning the top factor causing bat deaths Fortune writes:

Millions [of bats] have died since 2006 from a fungal disease called white-nose syndrome, which attacks bats when hibernating and creates fuzzy spots on their muzzles and wings. It causes them to wake early from hibernation and sometimes fly outside. They can burn up winter fat stores and eventually starve.

In addition, BCI reports that logging, urban sprawl, and cave exploring have also significantly contributed to the decline of bat species as they destroy or disturb their habitat, and that of the plant and animal species that make up their diet.

In contrast to climate change, there is clear evidence that efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to fight climate change, in the form of the rapid development of industrial wind facilities, is directly causing the deaths of hundreds of thousands, likely soon to be millions, of bats annually. As Fortune describes the situation:

Ironically, wind turbines — a leading source of renewable energy that can help slow climate change — pose another problem for bats. An estimated 500,000, representing 45 species, die each year in collisions with the structures, the report said.

But those figures were based on 2021 calculations, said Frick, an associate research professor in ecology at the University of California at Santa Cruz in addition to her position with Bat Conservation International. So many turbines have been constructed since then that the latest estimate is 880,000 deaths. (link mine)

Industrial wind facilities are constructed where prevailing winds are favorable to relatively constant operation. These are often migration routes for bats and birds, which also typically contain abundant food sources for the bats, be they flowering plants or insects (depending upon the bat species). Species which navigate by sonar flying and feeding among huge arrays of giant, fast-spinning wind turbines is a recipe for death.

This threat that wind power poses to bats is likely to only get worse in the future according to the United States Geological Survey, as increasing numbers of government incentivized turbines are erected. BCI also recognizes the growing problem wind energy development poses to bats, warning:

To help meet electricity demands with renewable sources, wind energy capacity is predicted to increase by more than 500 percent by 2050. In North America, roughly half a million bats die each year from colliding with wind turbines and are most vulnerable during autumnal migration. Experts predict that four bat species will lose more than half of their populations due to collisions with wind turbines in the next 15 years if effective conservation actions are not taken soon.

To sum up, BCI and the mainstream media are correct when they point to disease, habitat loss and disruption, and industrial wind development as significant causes of bat species’ declines. They go off the rail, however, when they try and blame climate change for bat deaths. There are no weather data trends which suggest climate change is making extreme weather events, which can harm bats, more frequent or intense. Accordingly, there is no evidence climate change has or will threaten bat survival in the future.

Blaming climate change for bat decline may make for compelling news and generate more bat conservation funding, but it is not supported by the evidence.

H. Sterling Burnett

H. Sterling Burnett, Ph.D., is the Director of the Arthur B. Robinson Center on Climate and Environmental Policy and the managing editor of Environment & Climate News. In addition to directing The Heartland Institute’s Arthur B. Robinson Center on Climate and Environmental Policy, Burett puts Environment & Climate News together, is the editor of Heartland’s Climate Change Weekly email, and the host of the Environment & Climate News Podcast.