INDReporter

But whatever, here's the La. coast in 2200

by Walter Pierce

There is no Cameron Parish! And Abbeville, Thibodaux, Houma, New Orleans? Fuhgidaboudit!

A projection of what the Louisiana coast will look like after a sea-level rise of 4 feet (in about 200 years)

The water gonna rise - not to mention but we will the intensity of hurricanes and wildfires, droughts and tornados - all in a couple centuries' work for us fossil fuel-loving homo sapiens.

Close on the heels of the release of the National Climate Assessment came news suggesting that climate change, specifically a warming of Earth's atmosphere caused by humans and their pesky greenhouse gases, has triggered an unstoppable melting of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet and an attendant rise in sea levels, which threatens coastal and low-lying cities around the world, notably one dear to the hearts of many here in Acadiana: New Orleans. Projections based on recent climate science suggest sea levels could rise up to 10 feet, swamping much of the coastal United States.

Baton Rouge will become a capital city on a bay. We propose calling said body of water Diaper Bay, in honor of Sen. David Vitter who has characterized climate research that supports anthropogenic global warming as "ridiculous pseudo-science garbage." A la the folks at Climate Central, an independent group of leading climate scientists who track this sort of thing:

Global warming has raised global sea level about 8 inches since 1880, and the rate of rise is accelerating. Rising seas dramatically increase the odds of damaging floods from storm surges. A Climate Central analysis finds the odds of "century" or worse floods occurring by 2030 are on track to double or more, over widespread areas of the U.S. These increases threaten an enormous amount of damage. Across the country, nearly 5 million people live in 2.6 million homes at less than 4 feet above high tide - a level lower than the century flood line for most locations analyzed. And compounding this risk, scientists expect roughly 2 to 7 more feet of sea level rise this century - a lot depending upon how much more heat-trapping pollution humanity puts into the sky.

Read more here.