UN warns of more severe weather in Gulf of Mexico
3 Min Read
As a result of melting polar ice caps, collapsing fisheries, and hazardous tides, the United Nations has issued an official warning regarding the rise in the water around the Gulf Coast of the United States.
-
UN Report warns of more severe weather in the Gulf of Mexico as Climate Change intensifies
The United Nations has released their Climate Change Report for 2022, which is almost 3,000 pages long and contains 18 chapters describing the human-caused climate disaster and its devastating consequences on the environment, as well as human health and wellbeing.
The Gulf generates nearly all of the nation's offshore oil and gas, accounting for over 97 percent of all oil and gas produced on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS). Since 2017, the Gulf of Mexico has been able to put more than $1 trillion into the coffers of oil and gas tycoons.
The Gulf's economic development in the oil and gas industry, along with the conservative political majority in its neighboring states, has done nothing to alleviate the region's severe environmental burden.
Political leaders in the area have typically sought to fix problems with short-term remedies rather than confronting the matter head-on, building higher roadways and seawalls to prevent ocean water from drowning their constituents' houses and businesses.
Climate crisis in Florida
The Republican-controlled Florida House of Representatives refused on Tuesday to include clean energy as an option in a bill aimed at addressing the state's increasing sea levels and flooding. Representative Demi Busatta Cabrera (R-FL), the bill's sponsor, stated that her goal was to focus on "what we can solve now."
As of Saturday, wildfires were burning in Florida's northwest, and the nonprofit First Street Foundation's Flood Factor rated Miami's risk of flooding as "severe," with at least 38 percent of the city's properties at risk of flooding over the next 30 years.
Read more: World must brace for 30% more wildfires by 2050: UN
The findings might put Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner's $31 million houses on Miami's "ultra-exclusive" Indian Creek Island at risk of flooding.
During Trump's presidency, the former US leader mainly relaxed regulations set by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) (EPA).
The Trump White House rolled back over 100 environmental protections that safeguarded our planet's clean air, water, and wildlife, according to a New York Times investigation.
Currently, more than a dozen more environmental protection policies are being repealed.
“This is a very aggressive attempt to rewrite our laws and reinterpret the meaning of environmental protections. This [Trump] administration is leaving a truly unprecedented legacy,” said Hana V. Vizcarra, staff attorney at Harvard’s Environmental and Energy Law Program.
Miami Beach
The city of Miami Beach has spent over $100 million to date to install pumps to flush water off the island, creating inequality in those areas’ housing markets by raising property values.
Between 2005 and 2016, flooding cost Miami real estate almost $500 million, and the state of Florida faces much more losses in coral reef-related tourism when warming ocean waters breached the world's third-largest coral barrier reef system.
On the coasts of this region, outbreaks of red tide, a naturally harmful organism, have become increasingly common, resulting in a fall in fish populations and other aquatic species.
The stench of dead fish on local beaches is destroying Florida's tourism sector and endangering the health of individuals who eat fish. Due to red tide, Florida lost $184 million in tourism earnings during two years.
