Climate-Change Journalists Absolutely Giddy About Miami's Destruction. (and just about everyone else)

Please pick me up a cafecito while you're there....

Rolling Stone Magazine's recent article, Goodbye Miami by Jeff Godell was positively gleeful about Miami's inundation due to global warming.  "an American Atlantis", "a great future dive spot" were some of the kinder words he used in the article. He also quoted a "local politician" who told him that "God promised no more floods, read the story of Noah." http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/why-the-city-of-miami-is-doomed-to-drown-20130620 I doubt seriously that a City of Miami or Miami-Dade County commissioner would quote scripture so I guess he spoke to someone in Medley or Homestead. His article, albeit science fiction presents Miami's inundation as a fait acompli.

 

Clearly, Miami has no shortage of haters. Interesting timing of the article being released just after our NBA Championship win, I would not be surprised if the author was from Cleveland or San Antonio. I wouldn't be surprised if Cleveland was pumping extra carbon emissions into the atmosphere specifically to inundate Miami. As usual the comments section was filled with unrequited hate from people who once lived here. Consistently Miami is held up as an example of a "future Atlantis" because of rising seas.

 

What I don't understand, if for example, the seas rise 10, 15, or 100 feet, they never use any other city "at risk" for inundation. I mean San Diego, Long Beach, New York, Washington DC, London, Nagoya, Sydney, Dubai, Wellington, Athens to a greater or lesser degree will be affected. However, I never feel the schadenfreude in global warming articles unless they include Miami. One article suggested Mumbai would have a similar fate, but felt really bad for the poor people there. No such compassion was shared for one of the poorest, albeit fabulous, cities in the U.S.

Yeah, and we're still here, better than ever!

 

As a native Miamian I have experienced my share of disasters both natural and man-made, including Andrew and the Overtown riots. I have watched time and time again when the rest of America and world have written off the Magic City. A, gleeful hope that a city dominated and built by a successful prosperous Hispanic middle class will somehow go away. Miami is glamorous, Miami is beautiful, warm and sexy. It is a global center of trade, fashion, culture and finance. Miami is the stick in the eye to all those people who think anything touched by the Latino community is second-rate, ugly, and not worthy of attention.

 

Whether we are an underwater Atlantis or the great regional capital that Atlantis was prior to its disappearance, you can look around. Our city is absolutely gorgeous. Brickell, Biscayne, Venetian Causeway. Our new Museums, opera houses, concert halls show that our city is finally realizing its fantastic potential in a way that's unapologetic and grand.  We are not a town that nods to New York or LA for it's identity. We are not going to just sit by and let this wonderful town, this Magic City, wash away like some sand castle. If we do, we'll be in the company of most of the great coastal cities of the world.