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NPR: Louisiana Governor declares state of emergency over disappearing coastline

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X

XiaNaphryz

LATIN, MATRIPEDICABUS, DO YOU SPEAK IT
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-...tate-of-emergency-over-disappearing-coastline

Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards has declared a state of emergency over the state's rapidly eroding coastline.

It's an effort to bring nationwide attention to the issue and speed up the federal permitting process for coastal restoration projects.

"Decades of saltwater intrusion, subsidence and rising sea levels have made the Louisiana coast the nation's most rapidly deteriorating shoreline," WWNO's Travis Lux tells our Newscast unit. "It loses the equivalent of one football field of land every hour."

More than half of the state's population lives on the coast, the declaration states. It adds that the pace of erosion is getting faster: "more than 1,800 square miles of land between 1932 and 2010, including 300 square miles of marshland between 2004 and 2008 alone."

The governor estimates that if no further action is taken, "2,250 square miles of coastal Louisiana is expected to be lost" in the next 50 years. He emphasized the importance of the land to industries such as energy, maritime transportation and trade.
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Now Edwards is asking President Trump to declare the erosion of Louisiana's coast a national emergency and "provide appropriate federal attention and cooperation" to assist the state. The emergency declaration also asks for Congress to "consider legislation to provide for means by which to expedite all federal permitting and environmental review."

The New Orleans Advocate newspaper points out that Wednesday's emergency declaration and master plan are designed to work hand in hand:

"The juxtaposition of urgency and long-term planning is necessary when it comes to the coast, state officials have said. Projects to help stave off land loss will take years to design and build, but an emergency declaration could cut years off the permitting process for those projects."
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D

Disheveled_Zen

Member
cec78fc510ba16e5f3a175fe4471509ee3212963.gif


But lets keep arguing that global warming is a hoax right
 
A

Angry Grimace

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
I'm assuming he has to be John Bel Edwards to avoid confusion with either of the douchey people with similar names.
 
C

Cosmo Clock 21

Banned
Is there something that makes Louisiana's coastline more prone to erosion (if I had to guess, the Mississippi delta is to blame) or is LA just more keenly aware of the situation?

Roches said:
The reason Republicans don't care about climate change is because they're mainly in the middle of the country and don't have to worry about it.
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Bullshit, climate change affects like all the great plains for things like agriculture.
 
D

Dierce

Member
The assholes who denounce the so called PC culture don't like it when you call them liars, they just tell alternate facts....

Sadly nothing will come of this and the media will push some fake doubt when it comes to global warming in order to appease both sides, one which wants all humans to die.
 
T

theechrisfox

Member
I got excited for a second before I saw that Edwards is not a Republican. Comrade cheeto will dismiss this as expensive troublemaking, a federal judge will then send aid?
 
F

Fenderputty

Banned
Roches said:
The reason Republicans don't care about climate change is because they're mainly in the middle of the country and don't have to worry about it.
Click to expand...

The gulf coast and south east coasts? I think NY is the first liberal coast that would get hit badly. California has a lot of cliffs. The west coast will be effected less

Edit: I suppose VA is, but that leaves TX, AL, MS, GA, FL, SC and NC before you really get to an effected liberal state
 
E

Ecotic

Member
I read in detail about this a few years ago. If I recall correctly most of the problem stems from levees not allowing the river delta to flood and nourish the land with new sediment. Rising sea levels don't help, but it's mostly a problem of levees protecting New Orleans.

Edit: Yeah

Before the human-made levees, the river would flow over the natural levees and spread out and deposit millions of tons of new soil in coastal Louisiana each spring. It deposited so much, in fact, that the coastal wetlands of the Mississippi River Delta grew and expanded.
Today, the levees prevent the sediment-laden water from reaching the wetlands, and subsidence continues, and the wetlands disappear as land becomes open water. We saved ourselves from floods, but we also directed the valuable sediments away from the coast. We didn't know that our valued levee protection would cause the loss of our coastal wetlands. We traded periodic river flooding for permanent coastal flooding.
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E

elrechazado

Banned
Ecotic said:
I read in detail about this a few years ago. If I recall correctly most of the problem stems from levees not allowing the river delta to flood and nourish the land with new sediment. Rising sea levels don't help, but it's mostly a problem of levees protecting New Orleans.
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Yeah, New Orleans was a mistake to build where they did
 
G

Geist-

Member
It's so fucking weird that the coast most likely to experience the worst effects of global warming have the largest population of people who don't believe it exists.
 
X

Xe4

Banned
Ecotic said:
I read in detail about this a few years ago. If I recall correctly most of the problem stems from levees not allowing the river delta to flood and nourish the land with new sediment. Rising sea levels don't help, but it's mostly a problem of levees protecting New Orleans.
Click to expand...

Yep. Sea levels are rising, but only at about 3 mm a year right now, certainly not enough to cause this. This is due to negligence on keeping their coastlines maintained, and destroying much of the bayou.

Though rising sea levels certainly aren't helping anything.
 
Goro Majima

Goro Majima

Kitty Genovese Member
Fenderputty said:
The gulf coast and south east coasts? I think NY is the first liberal coast that would get hit badly. California has a lot of cliffs. The west coast will be effected less

Edit: I suppose VA is, but that leaves TX, AL, MS, GA, FL, SC and NC before you really get to an effected liberal state
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Isn't Boston sinking? Can't imagine much of New England would do well.
 
L

LegendofJoe

Member
Geist- said:
It's so fucking weird that the coast most likely to experience the worst effects of global warming have the largest population of people who don't believe it exists.
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New Orleans
Miami, and
Norfolk, VA

Are the 3 cities in the most danger. They may reside in red/purple states but I'd be willing to bet the majority of the people in all 3 cities aren't in denial.

And unfortunately for all 3 they have large minority populations, so with the exception of Virginia they aren't going to get much help from their state governments.

Edit: Norfolk will get the help it needs due to the fact that our Atlantic naval fleet is based there, but Miami and NO are in big trouble.
 
S

Syriel

Member
Roches said:
The reason Republicans don't care about climate change is because they're mainly in the middle of the country and don't have to worry about it.
Click to expand...

Florida says hi.

Louisiana (the state in question) is also a red state.

They voted for Trump and the GOP because they wanted leaders who wouldn't waste $$$ on "silly things" like "climate change."

It always amazes me that the states that complain the loudest about how tax dollars are spent by the Feds are usually red states that get back more than they put in.
 
V

Version 3.0

Member
JohnsonUT said:
Just watched this on CNN: As the seas around them rise, fishermen deny climate change
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Literally too stupid to survive. And I don't mean these individuals. I mean humans as a species.

Ooh, I found the new GOP platform's official stance on climate change in there:

"The climate is exactly the same as when I was a kid. Summers hot, winters cold."
Click to expand...

Another gem:

What is science? Science is an educated guess. ... There's just as much chance as them to be wrong as there is for them to be right.
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Science is just a coin flip, guys.
 
N

NH Apache

Banned
elrechazado said:
Yeah, New Orleans was a mistake to build where they did
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Socially, what you did there is a real big sore spot with people in South Louisiana.

After every major event, people ask why rebuild? Why live there? And yet, it isn't discussed when dealing with other locations.

New Orleans is important historically and economically. The port is vastly underestimated and being the mouth of the Mississippi, it is especially important to provide and maintain the extensive trade system up and down the river. The cultural impact is incredible considering how small the city actually is.

Don't casually say that it was a mistake because it's pretty damn wrong.

Edit:

Local NPR and Dr. Bob from Loyola New Orleans (http://www.loyno.edu/lucec/meet-director) have a good series on the coastline here for more info: http://wwno.org/programs/louisiana-coast-last-call
 
L

Liu Kang Baking A Pie

Member
Leondexter said:
Literally too stupid to survive. And I don't mean these individuals. I mean humans as a species.

Ooh, I found the new GOP platform's official stance on climate change in there:



Another gem:



Science is just a coin flip, guys.
Click to expand...

rjinaz said:
Anything to deny what liberals believe, even when they see it with their own eyes daily. It's amazing.
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It kills me that right in that very article (and all over the world) are the facts that climate change is about reaching a ~2 degree Celsius rise that imperils our ecosystem. This is supposed to be common knowledge, but we're still fucking dealing with "summer's hot, winter's cold, the weather hasn't changed!"
 
C

clav

Member
Fenderputty said:
I mean 5' sea level rises and tsunamis aren't really comparable.

http://sealevel.climatecentral.org

Go here. You can see what areas of the coast will he hit the hardest
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Think the interactive map with sea levels really highlights the problem.

http://ss2.climatecentral.org

Every coast is screwed.

Geist- said:
It's so fucking weird that the coast most likely to experience the worst effects of global warming have the largest population of people who don't believe it exists.
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"What's the ROI on this problem in 3 months? What? Nothing? Humanity? People? That's not money!!! Just tell people to move. I'm out."
 
M

mackattk

Member
Well what is trump supposed to do to fix the issues exactly? Just bring a bunch of sand down to raise the coastline?

Sure he can enact better environmental regulations but why? According to him global warming is a hoax and so are rising sea levels.
 
E

elrechazado

Banned
NH Apache said:
Socially, what you did there is a real big sore spot with people in South Louisiana.

After every major event, people ask why rebuild? Why live there? And yet, it isn't discussed when dealing with other locations.

New Orleans is important historically and economically. The port is vastly underestimated and being the mouth of the Mississippi, it is especially important to provide and maintain the extensive trade system up and down the river. The cultural impact is incredible considering how small the city actually is.

Don't casually say that it was a mistake because it's pretty damn wrong.

Edit:

Local NPR and Dr. Bob from Loyola New Orleans (http://www.loyno.edu/lucec/meet-director) have a good series on the coastline here for more info: http://wwno.org/programs/louisiana-coast-last-call
Click to expand...
No, it's correct from a geographic perspective and from a civil engineering perspective. That is true, and doesn't make the history of the city any different. Building not in a bowl near the ocean would be wise. All about the topography baby.
 
N

NH Apache

Banned
mackattk said:
Well what is trump supposed to do to fix the issues exactly? Just bring a bunch of sand down to raise the coastline?

Sure he can enact better environmental regulations but why? According to him global warming is a hoax and so are rising sea levels.
Click to expand...

Money. There are various plans out there that could help:

https://www.edf.org/blog/2015/08/27/how-fix-louisianas-eroding-coast-these-designers-have-plan
http://grist.org/climate-energy/lousiana-has-a-crazy-plan-to-save-its-sinking-coastline/

Everyone puts their Christmas tree out here where it's collected and placed down on the coast to slow erosion. There are a ton of things that can be done.

elrechazado said:
No, it's correct from a geographic perspective and from a civil engineering perspective. That is true, and doesn't make the history of the city any different. Building not in a bowl near the ocean would be wise. All about the topography baby.
Click to expand...

The bowl effect has been caused by weight on soil and keeping water out. We now know that keeping the water out was a mistake, as they have seen in cities around the world, specifically Dutch cities. There is a plan to "live with water" that the city plans to invest into. Here is the research document:
http://livingwithwater.com/

Geographically, it is an important city because of the trade requirements as previously stated.

From the civil side, it's a wet dream, pun intended. There are opportunities to build a sustaining environment in a location with no bedrock. We now know things that we didn't 50 years ago, in the civil game. Pilings, vertical motion on dolphins, and others are all parts of the civil game that are being implemented in places in south Louisiana, ninth ward, etc.

Edit: Tulane article on bowl effect, hurricane susceptibility, etc: http://www.tulane.edu/~sanelson/New_Orleans_and_Hurricanes/New_Orleans_Vulnerability.htm
 
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