By Chris Hildreth, Notes from the Third Rock
In her monthly appearance on WJCT’s First Coast Connect on Sept. 10, Jacksonville Mayor Donna Deegan discussed the flooding that has plagued Northeast Florida recently.
In response to comments that this event was historic, the mayor provided some perspective both from her experiences as a native of Jacksonville and that of her meteorologist husband. To paraphrase, it typically rains more during the months of August through October, but the recent conditions weren’t historic.
She offered a different reason for the flooding: “The rivers aren’t going down, they’re going up. And that’s what we have got to remain focused on as we look forward.”
She noted that area rivers have risen 3-6 inches since 2000 and show no indication that it won’t continue. And that older neighborhoods suffering from chronic flooding are more affected than newer subdivisions possessing modern flood mitigation applications (e.g. retention ponds – my words, not hers). Finally, she said that the city is spending millions each year on infrastructure applications to further remediate the rising waters.
Underlying that discussion is the fact that carbon dioxide and methane is being pumped into the atmosphere at alarming rates. Those rates have yet to be accurately quantified. This is also true with the rate of ice melt at the poles and in planetary glaciers.
Albert C. Hine, emeritus professor of geological oceanography at the University of South Florida, writes about global cooling trends developing due to climatic cycles that stretch across tens of thousands of years, discovered in ice core samples that provide accurate historical climate change data stretching back as far as 800,000 years.
But as Hine wrote in chapter one of the 2016 book “Sea Level Rise in Florida,” “Currently, the incoming solar radiation, which is driven by orbital parameters, is on a downward trend and cannot explain today’s observed warming. The only plausible explanation is the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide and methane, which are currently 45% and 200% greater, respectively, than any other time in the last 600,000 years.”
Professor Harold R. Wanless, a contemporary of Dr. Hine’s at the University of Miami, believes sea levels will rise more than 20 feet by the end of the century. Both agree that drastically reducing the use of fossil fuels is critical to preventing an existential disaster on a planetary scale – and they are not alone in this assessment. In a list of the top 25 cities at risk for catastrophic flooding, 14 are in Florida.
Effective ways to accomplish this locally include pursuing an aggressive program installing solar arrays on top of municipal, state and federal buildings and parking lots – much like the Naval Air Station on Roosevelt Boulevard has. Partner with businesses to install more arrays on the roofs of production facilities, distribution centers, sports and entertainment venues, and their attending parking lots. Incentivizing rooftop solar systems on residential homes must happen as well.
These steps will reduce the need for more fossil fuel power generation, which will still be available for shortfalls until the infrastructure is scaled up to feed power into both the grid and battery storage.
Halt future development on the riverfront and the seashore. Instead, create natural greenways that can be utilized as park space during normal times but provide buffers during times of storms and advancing sea levels.
Aggressive expansion of buyback programs through Federal Emergency Management Agency or through various county and municipal programs like Monroe County or locally in the South Shores neighborhood, Wills Branch and the St. Nicolas area mentioned by the mayor need to continue apace to remove structures and people out of harm’s way.
In addition to these steps, building codes and permitting must plan for worst-case scenarios. Anything less is inviting catastrophic long-term outcomes.
In the words of a Kenyan proverb, “Treat the Earth well: It was not given to you by your parents, it was loaned to you by your children.”
Chris Hildreth lives in Jacksonville and writes a Substack newsletter called Notes from the Third Rock (childreth.substack.com), where this piece first appeared. Banner photo: The Florida National Guard responds to flooding in the Jacksonville area following Hurricane Irma in 2017. (Florida National Guard photo).
If you are interested in submitting an opinion piece to The Invading Sea, email Editor Nathan Crabbe at ncrabbe@fau.edu. Sign up for The Invading Sea newsletter by visiting here. To learn more and sea level rise, watch the video below.
