With climate change, this problem with freshwater-dependent native species is only going to increase, he said. The reintroduction in this case involved state land, but with other species, it will inevitably involve county land, he said.
Sea level rises as budget sinks
The action plan provides a framework for these kind of climate refuges, stating that the Monroe County Land Authority should place "a high priority on purchasing natural areas for conservation purposes."
How much any of these ideas will be implemented is an open question. Monroe County, like many counties around the country, is strapped for cash. The 2012 county budget was $319 million.
As a reference point, the county Public Works & Engineering Division's Wilson said it could cost hundreds of millions of dollars to outfit the entire Florida Keys with stormwater pumps that force water down drains during storms, one option for predicted heavier rainfalls with climate change.
Simultaneously, the county is getting less revenue from state and local gas taxes, said George Neugent, one of the five county commissioners.
It is currently funding many of its projects, including the wastewater revamp, with a 1-cent infrastructure sales tax that may expire, depending on whether Monroe County voters approve its extension in November elections. After that, the next priority for use of the sales tax money is roads and bridges in need of repair, Comissioner Murphy said at the advisory committee meeting.
"Don't even think of trying to do anything else with that money," she told the committee members.
Real estate community prefers 'quiet'
But it is those already planned projects that provide a golden -- and often inexpensive -- opportunity for the action plan, Bergh said. As the county resurfaces roads in coming years with money already allocated, he said, it should think about adding culverts so threatened wildlife can more easily move around.
There are also inexpensive ways to restore wetlands through activities such as plugging ditches, he said.
Additionally, he said, research is going to be extremely important. The county has a basic understanding of the most flood-prone areas, based on land elevation data. But it has not done a thorough analysis of natural infrastructure, such as offshore coral reefs and sand barriers, that could play a major role in holding back water from storm surges and rising seas.
"We need to do that analysis and overlay it with our current zoning," Bergh said.
The fate of the action plan may depend on the public's reaction in hearings and time constraints of the county governing schedule. Murphy and others have urged the advisory committee to narrow things down to six or so main points, to not overwhelm the Board of Commissioners. That raises a lot of questions in coming months about what will be emphasized and what will be taken out.
There is no guarantee, either, that the plan will be implemented if it is adopted.
Neugent said public opinion and a "lack of passion" among some members of the board are still obstacles.
The islands are not yet experiencing constant flooding problems, making it difficult to force climate change to the top of the agenda on a day-to-day basis, he said.
The real estate community, for one, is not thinking extensively about climate change and does not want the board to alarm people, he said.
"They want me to keep quiet," Neugent said.
Reprinted from Climatewire with permission from Environment & Energy Publishing, LLC. www.eenews.net, 202-628-6500
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19 Comments
Add CommentI don't see the problem. Just get Republican Governor Rick Scott to say global warming is a lie.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhen the sea hears that, it'll just go away.
What a ridiculous article. This wasn't about mitigating the effects of global warming, it was all about ridiculous politicians and how they are in their own way in the politicians never ending quest for power and money. Controlled burning to make trees more resilient to salt water? Yeah that makes sense, lets try to reduce global warming by burning trees and releasing not only all kinds of pollution into the air but heat as well. And we have all seen what can happen with "controlled" burning if the Los Alamos area is any kind of example. Yet another example as to why politicians and the scientists they pay should not be making any sort of recommendations.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAll this article proves is the reason politicians and some scientists want to claim humans are the one and only cause of global warming is because they want yet another excuse to pillage money from everyone else.
The planet appears to be warming and it is natural. The fact that it is natural is still no excuse for humans to just pollute. However, the mistake that will be made is attempting to save everything, even when it cant be. If the islands do go underwater, that is about it and attempting to save freshwater forests will be a total waste of money and time better spent on mitigation efforts that will have an effect. That said, spending massive amounts of money and time based on warmist rigged computer models spelling out certain doom for all when in fact all of the so called calamities prophesied by these models may not occur or be as drastic as they have rigged the models to predict. That is the problem with theories proven entirely by statistical models where nearly every bit of data is an average of an average of an average. They really have no idea what will happen and the same exact data could statistically prove nothing at all will happen in the keys or anywhere else.
People, billions of us, help speed change. Unfortunately, the end result is often lethal.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSince you are accusing climate scientists of "rigging" computer models (a very serious accusation), do you have any evidence of said rigging?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thispriddseren,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt was a herculean task, but I think you were able to introduce a factual error in every single sentence of your rant (a 2 in some!). Quite entertaining.
This would be a great topic for discussion by the Presidential candidates when they visit "swing-state" Florida. Let's hope that the Florida media and the residents are concerned enough to ask about the potential disaster.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWell said lampora.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIsn't he the one recently saying how Fla wasn't losing land to GW? Even if not when towns have to deal with the effects that have already happened and from that knowledge plan for the future, he just rants lies because his cult of deniers is being proved wrong every day.
Can Priddseren spell Troll? Can't handle the facts so just insults.
Stepping outside and arguing with a fencepost is a more productive use of time than arguing with a global warming denier. While the foremost liar, Richard Muller, has finally admitted the primary facts of global warming and its human cause, the strategy has shifted to stalling action.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf you want to stall necessary action on any problem in the world there is no more effective strategy than normalizing stupidity.
All global warming deniers are shills that spew illogical nonsense. The purpose of a shill is make a crackpot idea seem plausible by agreeing with it. You see this in television ads where some worthless piece of garbage or complete waste of time is sold by a huckster with a shill acting as a happy customer that is jumping with joy.
It's no different in the case of global warming denial to protect the profits of old energy systems at the expense of new energy systems and those who live on coastal plains and islands that will be inundated when the glaciers melt.
From the beginning, more thoughtful persons have seen themselves as too dignified to be involved with politics or to actively oppose the destruction of their world. Our punishment for our failure to step up and fight is to be ruled by the stupid and to witness the consequences of our dereliction of duty.
Look we need to face reality. IT IS TOO LATE. Nothing we can do will slow or reverse the warming that will happen over the next 100 years.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEven if we adopted every single measure designed to mitigate what we've done, and did so perfectly, we would NOT see any impact until next century.
If you don't believe that, then google it. I know I did many times, and the story is always the same from climatologists.
What we should do is try to prepare as best as we can for the changes we have caused.
<b>To that end, the state of Florida is going to make a fine and dandy Atlantic Ocean version of the Great Barrier Reef, and I don't see anything wrong with that.
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Instead of trying to protect the Keys, we should be trying to find ways to make them disappear sooner!
[b]the state of Florida is going to make a fine and dandy Atlantic Ocean version of the Great Barrier Reef, and I don't see anything wrong with that.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat's stupid. It's a prime example of what I'm talking about. Being a defeatist because you're too lazy to get up, go out, meet with people, and do something is stupid.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this20 million people live where a few thousand used to and folks claim to care about the environment?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFlorida from north to south is an environmnental disaster zone
Jonathanseer says that since we can't immediately undo what we have done, we should just continue to do it. We should in fact make it worse, almost inconceivably worse, while devoting all our time to fighting the mess we have made. Until the mess is so big it destroys our civilization. Good plan.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisan aside:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"The county is the southernmost in the United States'
I'm not an American but wasn't that U.S. Customs I went through when I went to Maui in March?
The county is the southernmost in the United States, with acreage that is 73 percent water over its 3,737 square miles.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisZZZZZZT...Guess again. Try about 7,000 miles away in the middle of the Pacific. Southpoint USA is on the Big Island of Hawaii. In fact it's the only county in the country that is below the 20th parallel and actually in the tropics.
At any rate, if the rich snobs down in the Keys want to spend their money on greening up the place I'm all for it, but why stop there? They need to clean up the rest of that dump they call a paradise state.
Thanks singing flea...i had to get a permit for one of the campgrounds in Maui and I was pretty sure it was at the 'county' building. Not quite as far south as the Big Island but right next door.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt's what they did in North Carolina...passed a law making it illegal to talk about climate change along the coast.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMartin
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo exactly what is a denier? Do you prejudicially group people by race when you are not doing so on climate change?
Most who have studied the issue agree that more CO2 will lead to some warming in all other things remain the same. In the actual earth system things do not remain the same and are considered additional forcings. Some are positive and some are negative.
The bottom line is that there continues to be a large uncertainty regarding the rate of warming associated with more CO2. It could be anywhere from 1C to over 3C for a doubling of CO2. No scientist will tell you today that they know what the number is plus or minus .5C.
There is the 2nd huge issue of what will happen to the lives of people around the world if it does get warmer. Will it rain more or less where people live? Again, nobody can answer this question reliably today. There are simply no reliable models that can predict future conditions with sufficient accuracy to be relied upon for making policy decisions.
Please try to keep learning and try to stop being prejudiced with those who may disagree with your preconceived ideas.
This is just the latest flavor of denialism. Aka lying about science due to commercial interests.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisClimate sensitivity has been calculated as about 3.5C for a doubling of CO2 in the 70s and that number has not changed since.