On June 21, county commissioners in Monroe County, Florida held a public meeting on sea-level rise, approving a plan to elevate roads in the Keys at risk of constant flooding, while also admitting it lacks the funds to meet all needs.
The Florida Keys sit at the frontline of the climate crisis. Its residents are a mix of wealthy, older white people, but also one quarter Hispanic and Latin American-descent, living at the edges of poverty. While changes loom for them all, for those with means of insurance, wealth and assistance to mitigate the worst effects of climate change, it can mean all the difference.
A National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) scientist told county commissioners that global heating is accelerating rising seas with ice sheets melting in Greenland and Antarctica, and an extra 17 inches in sea level rise expected by 2040.
Another problem is the islands’ porous limestone that allows seawater to bubble up from below. Rising temperatures are also increasing the frequency and intensity of hurricanes.
The county’s budget will not cover all the roads, nor mass buyout of all the vulnerable homes. State lawmakers have denied a country tax request as a means to raise revenue. Municipal costs surrounding future infrastructure improvements will mount as well, with questions remaining just who will pay?
Monroe county’s Mayor Michelle Coldiron says “the water is coming and we can’t stop it,” knowing some will have to surrender their homes to the rising seas.
Tragedy Strikes
Three days later and about 115 miles north, a 13-story building collapsed in Surfside, Florida where 9 people tragically died and more than 150 people are still unaccounted for. Some have already begun to speculate whether climate change played a role in the building’s collapse?
The Washington Post pointed out the building was constructed on reclaimed wetlands and positioned on a barrier island surrounded by an ocean that has risen one foot in the past century due to climate change.
The ground beneath the Champlain Towers South condominiums and that in the Florida Keys share a common foundation: porous limestone. The limestone in Surfside was brought in from the bay after mangroves were deforested.
Although the cause of the building’s collapse is yet unknown, satellite imagery in the 1990s showed the Champlain Towers South sinking. Shimon Wdowinski, a professor at Florida International University’s department of earth and environment, published a paper last April, showing a condominium building had sunk about two millimeters per year from 1993 to 1999.
Coastal structures built on sand have to rely on pumps to keep out groundwater, and land subsidence - which, among other factors results from erosion and the disappearance of groundwater - is a theme in Miami and the Keys.
Back in the Keys, Monroe county plans are to deploy a mix of new pump stations, drains and vegetation to raise 150 miles of roads at the cost of $1.8 billion over the next 25 years. But it won’t be enough for the needs of everyone.
The Florida Keys have been long known as one of America’s most climate vulnerable places. Kristina Hill, an environmental planner at the University of California, Berkeley says “without a change in strategy, parts of the Keys will become accessible only by boat.”
Geographer Harold Wanless of the University of Miami says “people don’t have a concept of what sea level rise will do to them. They just can’t conceive it.” He knows what some still deny: in due time mortgages and insurance will be denied to previously flooded and flood-prone homes, rendering the place unlivable, but also leaving many unprotected.
Enter ‘Climate Gentrification’
In recent years, gentrification has also changed the Keys landscape. “While the islands still include pockets of poverty, an influx of affluent second-home owners has caused new properties to sprout up.”
One retiree who moved to the Keys a decade ago worries the county will pass on the costs it can’t absorb to the poor. Instead, George Smyth thinks they should levy the tourists who flock to the Keys. “I feel sorrow for what is coming and the loss of what is a wonderful community.”
One journalist not speculating about the role of climate change is Susan Matthews at Slate. Matthews states “waiting to trace the exact lines of climate change misses the point.” Of course it’s right to not speculate without all the information and raise fears but Matthews is right that “we know enough right now to say that there is a material and physical crisis facing buildings in Miami. We know that we should feel more urgency to do something about the problem facing the people who live there.”
Of course some are doing something about the problem, while possibly creating different problems in the process. We wrote about the problem of ‘climate gentrification’ arising from the billion dollar real estate project Magic City in Miami’s Little Haiti neighborhood, as Miami’s wealthy head inland to escape rising seas.
Little Haiti, known for the haven it is for Haitian immigrants and refugees fleeing political turmoil who arrived more than 40 years ago, now potentially face further displacement in their newly established homes in exile.
Pursuing Climate Justice Must Also Curb Climate Gentrification
Given cities’ roles at the forefront of climate policy and increasingly host to climate migrants, it is paramount that cities safeguard against climate gentrification and inequity. Some key strategies in this regard are to gather excellent data. So to better inform policies, alongside elevating roads in Monroe county, commissioners must study what effects climate gentrification has had on neighborhoods, particularly low-income, marginalized neighborhoods. In terms of investment in housing and other social and public services, it is key that such investment not burden low-income communities that would be unduly harmed or displaced by gentrification. For example, as with the previous example in the Keys, use tourism revenue to fund investment instead of taxing poor communities to fund public investments.
Hand-in-hand with policies that counter inequity, climate and environmental justice must also accompany robust municipal policy. Last year, we also wrote about a Providence, Rhode Island city council anti-racism resolution that recognized the disproportionate impacts of climate change on marginalized communities.
We see these realities on display today in the Florida Keys, where George Smyth says he’s taken to deliveries of crushed rocks around the perimeter of his house as a buffer against the encroaching tides. He’s keenly aware that such luxuries are not ones his fellow residents can afford, many of whom live in the Keys islands in mobile homes, fully exposed to the rising elements. (Guardian, Washington Post, NY Times, Slate)
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