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Louisiana’s Governor Declares State Of Emergency Over Disappearing Coastline

• erentz 10y ago
  I have real issues with states like this where it's leaders deny climate change and prevent action on it, yet cry when issues like this occur. Similar when the BP oil spill occurred and they cried about the affect on their coast and fishing industries. They seemingly are fine with destroying their environment so long as it occurs over 50 years rather than 5 months.
  • dnautics 10y ago
    Isn't most of the coastline damage a result of creating shipping canals and pushing brackish water further inland?
    • erentz 10y ago
      Today. My issue is with the ongoing support for actions that will lead to the eventual destruction over decades anyway, while complaining about current or historical destruction. If the coastline is important to them today, why don't they care about it in the future?
      • philipov 10y ago
        'I'll be gone; you'll be gone.'
        • bkkssnn 10y ago
          The thing i still don't get is that most of these people have kids right? How can it not be a relevant issue for them ?
          • philipov 10y ago
            I suspect there is a lot of "If I don't do it first, someone else will, and they'll be the ones to make all the profits" going on. In that kind of environment, the best thing you can do for your kids is make as much money as possible so at least they will be rich enough to enjoy whatever's left.
            • self_assembly 10y ago
              Isn't that the definition of a race to the bottom. I have no idea how far away the bottom is, but it seems like once we get there that money might not be all that useful.
  • ryanmarsh 10y ago
    You think the governor knew the name of the deep water horizon before it caught fire? It was 41 miles off the coast.
    • erentz 10y ago
      I don't get the relevance?
      • deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
  • kevin_thibedeau 10y ago
    I'm still waiting for the red states to prove their fiscal conservatism by not taking a disproportionate share of federal money.
  • neverartful 10y ago
    It's not as simple as you may think. There have been problems with coastal erosion in south LA long before anyone even brought up the idea of global warming. As another poster mentioned, creating canals through the marshes lets salt/brackish water come further inland than it would have (especially with hurricanes). The salt water kills some of the vegetation that holds the marsh together. Another big factor is dredging years ago. Dredging was done as part of creating canals, but also to gather shells that were used for decades to make 'gravel' roads and such. Probably most significant of all (as pointed out by others) was putting in river control structures (primarily levees) long ago by Army Corps of Engineers. The prevents the natural build-up of silt, sediment, and alluvial soil that built up the river plains and deltas. All of these things occurred long before there was any discussion of global warming. The state can be blamed for excessive dredging and cutting canals, but hindsight is 20/20. Putting in river control structures was considered the right thing to do back then (Mississippi River levees were built in 1800s), and certainly was not only done by those in LA. Now comes global warming/climate change and it complicates the picture even more. The solutions to all of these problems are not mutually exclusive. Coastal erosion exacerbates the problem of rising seas for coastal areas. Another tricky factor is where people should and should not live. It's easy (and logical) to say people shouldn't live in areas prone to heavy flooding, and if they do they should accept the possibility of flooding as a consequence of their decision. For example, the lower 9th ward in New Orleans that was completely flooded in Hurricane Katrina was known to be susceptible to major flooding (it had happened at least once before in the 1920's or thereabouts). The majority of the people that live there are poor, their families have been there all their lives, and most probably don't have the means to pick up and go someplace else. Of course LA residents are responsible for many of these things that have occurred over very long periods of time. But when you consider the full story and where they are today, it's not like the problems in the coastal areas are only the result of global warming.
    • erentz 10y ago
      (I think people are somehow totally misunderstanding what I'm saying but I'm not sure how to say it much clearer.) To suddenly be concerned and have a change of heart about one historical cause of damage to your coast (dredging, etc), but completely ignore for ideological reasons another major ongoing cause that will make any fixes you do to the prior destruction pointless, is, well, bad, dumb, stupid? What should we call it?
• spodek 10y ago
  I've been asking people to name the most effective leaders in the area of global warming. When I say my answer, they look surprised, but then agree: the Koch Brothers and Donald Trump. They are leading people not to change their behavior and this is the result. No one is leading in the direction of reducing consumption with nearly the effectiveness as them. Instead of leading ourselves, the overwhelming majority of Americans are waiting for others to change first. In the meantime, most Americans, which I suspect includes most people reading these words, contribute more to global warming than nearly every human who has ever lived -- needlessly so, and not making them any happier.
  • djanogo 10y ago
    "They are leading people not to change their behavior and this is the result." Rising sea level is the _result_ of Mr.Trump swearing in 3 months back?, I understand this forum is echo chamber for anti trump discussions, but you are reaching so far here. Most peoples behavior is mainly due to capitalism, all of them, multiple generations, were raised watching ads which gets them to buy new "stuff" all the time, so "stuff" gets made/sold to keep the cycle going. Internet and TV ads are storefront's of this "stuff". Instead of using your personal dislike of few people and spreading the message to blame them for climate change, you could get politics/personal feelings out of it, and tell people not to buy so much "stuff".
    • bkkssnn 10y ago
      Didn't see annyone saying it's a result of Trump mabey you are just looking for somethign that's not there? But one things for sure. When POTUS flat out says climate change is a hox and dsn't get called out, we are in trouble.
      • Arizhel 10y ago
        Not only that, but the state of Louisiana voted for Trump in the election. For them to be complaining about rising sea levels is the height of hypocrisy. They don't believe in climate change, so how can they complain about rising sea levels?
• delinka 10y ago
  "The state has a plan to implement more than 100 restoration and protection projects — like rebuilding marshes and barrier islands..." Sounds like a terrible plan to me. Treating symptoms instead of the disease won't solve the problem. Just because we humans are "determined" doesn't mean fighting nature like this will be successful. I'm sure the locals will feel better about their politicians for a few years and probably just long enough to 'forget' until the next time this exact problem needs to be solved. The true options in this case are: 1) prevent rising sea levels, 2) move away from the coast. Wasting money "rebuilding" barrier islands is just folly.
  • frankquist 10y ago
    Why not both? Half of my country (NL) exists due to smart protection against water and we're doing pretty good. Doesn't mean global warming isn't an important consideration. If someone has a broken bone, you want to fix that, but you'll also want to give them some painkillers if they're in a lot of pain.
  • criley2 10y ago
    Actually when you consider the global implications of climate and the local effects of shore, a local area using local money to protect local shore in the face of global inaction they are powerless to change makes perfect sense. It is actually your position which makes no sense. "Hey 4.6 million Louisianans, sure you're only 0.00063% of world population, but protecting yourself and your land from what the other 99.9994% do is futile, you must instead convince the other ~7.1 billion humans to change so your land will be safe!"
    • throwaway55523 10y ago
      You need to move the decimal a couple places on your perecentages.
    • delinka 10y ago
      And what about moving industry and residences away from the current coastline over the next 50 years? Make a plan to prevent new real estate development within a certain distance of the current coast; plan the obsolescence of currently developed areas and over time reclaim them for the environment.
• tajen 10y ago
  Not to diminish the terrible situation of the victims, but looking at maps and pictures [1], it seems to me like a very unstable land: It dried over time, diving under the average sea level, and it's been kept free of water only by humans' constant work. Didn't we do a mistake here by considering it habitable in the first place? Imagining humans as a single entity, should we have settled there, climate change or not? [1] http://www.nola.com/katrina/index.ssf/2015/09/hurricane_katrinas_wetlands_de.html http://www.nola.com/katrina/index.ssf/2015/09/hurricane_katr...
  • splawn 10y ago
    Profits have a way of making what would normally be considered an uninhabitable place, habitable. Look at a map, pick a place that seems crazy to live and look it up on wikipedia.. there is usually a natural resource being the reason there are people there and it is usually oil.
• ryanmarsh 10y ago
  At issue is deteriorating coastline due to projects by the army corps of engineers. Don't confuse this with global climate change (although I'm sure it doesn't help).
  • lbhnact 10y ago
    While the ACOE has a complicated role in all this, they must serve many competing interests. The State of Louisiana, the needs of the maritime industry, oil and gas interests, and the federal government that allows the situation to continue, because of the temporary economic benefits we all reap from inaction. An incredible overview of the problem was written 20 years ago by John McPhee[1], as part of his book "The Control of Nature". Unfortunately, solving the problem in the long term means essentially undermining the entire economy of South Louisiana, and leaving the City of New Orleans destitute. I served in Baton Rouge for 3 years and spent a lot of time on the Mississippi River. It's an extraordinary resource that much of America silently takes for granted. I with there were better solutions to save it and protect the people of Louisiana, but I don't feel like I have better answers to these questions that anyone else. It's a tough situation. [1]: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1987/02/23/atchafalaya http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1987/02/23/atchafalaya
    • scythe 10y ago
      I think you've got this backwards. Sometime in the 15th century, the Mississippi's course drifted westward and crossed with the Red River (now called the Atchafalaya River) at Turnbull's Bend. From that point forward, according to the laws of hydrology, the Old Mississippi was inevitably doomed. The ACoE's ORCS acts to prevent the Mississippi from being completely diverted along the Atchafalaya. It's the parts of the delta which are fed by the Old Mississippi which are disappearing, and this is a totally natural process. The same river is what serves the port of New Orleans. The natural course of the river can only be temporarily stayed; it will find a way around the ORCS eventually. If the river is allowed to flow naturally, the majority of Southeast Louisiana, including New Orleans and Lake Ponchartrain, will disappear under the ocean.
  • hackuser 10y ago
• adolph 10y ago
  The first two comments seem to associate anthropogenic climate change with the changes in Louisiana's coastline. A more likely culprit is hydrologic mismanagement. The coastline was formed by waterways that periodically changed channels and dumped sediment in different areas. In relatively recent times cities on the existing waterways became politically influential enough for the federal government to build a series of controls to prevent waterway changes that would otherwise distribute silt more evenly along the coastline. Given the long-running chronic nature of the coastline change, I'm surprised this is being raised as an "emergency." Given that the principal cities of government and commerce in Louisiana would likely be extremely negatively affected by an honest root cause analysis (without the Mississippian waters, they won't work so well as ports), I'd bet the powers that be will play up climate change and ask for lots of money to be pointlessly dumped in the gulf.
  • maxerickson 10y ago
    Declaring an emergency likely grants some powers or access to funding.
    • maxlybbert 10y ago
      That's my reaction: sure it makes a fine headline, but actually declaring a state of emergency has consequences that may not be appropriate. Yes, it is a common first step to receive emergency funding (I doubt that will work here, because it would require Congress to approve that funding). State laws may give the declaration more effect: does it waive regulations, give the state National Guard additional authority, etc.?
  • OliverJones 10y ago
    Thirty years ago, John McPhee wrote about this very issue. At that time a ship on the Mississippi river could go through a lock, drop FIFTY FEET, and take a shortcut to the ocean via the Atachfalaya river. http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1987/02/23/atchafalaya http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1987/02/23/atchafalaya Just because it's not a new situation doesn't mean it's not an emergency.
• AnOscelot 10y ago
  Here's an extensive article on the subject of the Louisiana coast, and how the usually seen map silhouette of the state needs to be fixed. https://medium.com/matter/louisiana-loses-its-boot-b55b3bd52d1e https://medium.com/matter/louisiana-loses-its-boot-b55b3bd52...
  • aaron-lebo 10y ago
    ...as a lover of maps I thank you for this link. Really fascinating.
• mythrwy 10y ago
  So Louisiana's governor requests a bunch of money from Washington. I often cynically wonder if the true aim of some of these "emergencies" is boosting the local economy and adding jobs which presumably allows the governor to claim economic growth.
• arbuge 10y ago
  Meanwhile, on CNN's front page today: http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/20/us/louisiana-climate-change-skeptics/index.html http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/20/us/louisiana-climate-change-sk...
  • riffraff2 10y ago
    The fisherman denier, ""It doesn't concern me. What is science? Science is an educated guess," Dotson says defiantly. "What if they guess wrong? There's just as much chance as them to be wrong as there is for them to be right." lol
    • NotSammyHagar 10y ago
      That was an illuminating article. The people who convince people like this that there is no global climate change, that they should hate gays, the whole republican conservative bullshit all together plus tax cuts for billionaires are in your interest, they are evil, bad people. Like the people who argued against cigarette warnings, or the people that used the bible to argue that blacks were destined to be slaves from the bible. We bear responsibility for our actions, me too.
  • bkkssnn 10y ago
    >Dotson gets red in the face, repeating that scientific studies showing climate change as affecting weather patterns or warming the Earth are simply wrong. This godly redneck can tell yearly temprature average fluctuations by 0.1 degrees, and using it as anecdotal proof that climate change is a fraud. >"The climate is exactly the same as when I was a kid. Summers hot, winters cold."
    • gavinpc 10y ago
      In his mind, he's still a kid.
    • MisterBastahrd 10y ago
      My dad is 70. Growing up, he'd show me all the places he used to fish with his dad where they could fill their ice chests in a couple of hours. These were canals on the side of the road, mind you. Now, you're lucky to get a bite at any of them, and unless the wind is blowing just right and the tides are perfect, you aren't filling your limit, much less your ice chest, at any of the prime fishing spots in the area. And if you ask him, he'd say "I guess we caught too many fish," completely ignoring the ecological and climate impact we've had on the area.
• vinchuco 10y ago
  Here's an example of the change: https://earthengine.google.com/timelapse/#v=29.7616,-89.7909,10.02,latLng&t=0.08 https://earthengine.google.com/timelapse/#v=29.7616,-89.7909...
• intrasight 10y ago
  The article doesn't specify who, if anyone, is adversely affected by the disappearing coastline.
• tda 10y ago
  You can nicely see where land turned to see and vice versa with the aqua-monitor: http://aqua-monitor.appspot.com/ http://aqua-monitor.appspot.com/ A lot of the Louisiana marshes have disappeared
  • pdelbarba 10y ago
    How does this work? I don't see any explanation of the colors.
    • grok2 10y ago
      It was on the main page: Green and blue colors represent areas where surface water changes occured during the last 30 years. Green pixels show where surface water has been turned into land (accretion, land reclamation, droughts). Blue pixels show where land has been changed into surface water (erosion, reservoir construction).
      • pdelbarba 10y ago
        Very cool, thank you.
• edibleEnergy 10y ago
  Related ProPublica data visualization: http://projects.propublica.org/louisiana/ http://projects.propublica.org/louisiana/
• zentiggr 10y ago
  I have looked at this situation for more than 12 seconds and although I see that it is a horrendously complicated mess, given all the competing interests and opinions and careers involved, it really does come down to "trying to harness the river was a fool's game, and you're going to have to back off and rethink this completely. Nature is taking the pieces away."
• gumby 10y ago
  Good for the governor. Compare that to North Carolina where the legislature passed a law sticking their fingers in everybody's ears: http://blogs.cuit.columbia.edu/culr/2016/03/21/north-carolina-denies-and-defies-science-in-house-bill-819/ http://blogs.cuit.columbia.edu/culr/2016/03/21/north-carolin...
• Skylled 10y ago
  (Louisiana resident) I remember being taught about this issue in 2nd Grade, 15 years ago. So I agree with everyone's confusion to suddenly calling it an emergency.
• fra 10y ago
  I cannot help but feel some schadenfreude as we watch the majority of the US's oil refineries get threatened by rising sea level.
• jakelarkin 10y ago
  privatize the profits (oil), socialize the losses (coastline)