According to Peter Ticktin, founder of The Global Warming Foundation, it’s not going to be the wind so much as the water that’s going to do the most damage from exponentially rising temperatures we casually refer to as climate change.
But there’s nothing casual about it, says Ticktin. Planet is getting hotter at a rate unparalleled in two millennia, and atmospheric CO2 levels are at their highest in 3 million years.
We may only be just over halfway through it, but 2019 has already seen temperature records smashed from Europe to the Arctic circle and could prove to be one of the hottest years ever recorded.
The Global Warming Foundation’s mission is to educate the world about the environmental and economic threats posed by climate change.
So is Florida, our flattest state, a preview of our climate change future?
All signs are pointing to yes, Florida most likely will be the climate change flag post.
And yes Florida is the flattest state.
Most people will guess Kansas is the flattest state among the 50, but it’s not. The flattest is Florida, and Kansas isn’t even among the five flattest. In order of flatness: Florida, Illinois, North Dakota, Louisiana, Minnesota, Delaware, Kansas.
Behold the signs of Florida as the predictor of climate change effects . . . the struggling crops, salty aquifers, invading wildlife, the piles of dead fish.
The Sunshine State feels the squeeze of environmental change on its beaches, farms, wetlands and cities.
And what afflicts the peninsula predicts the perils that will strike north and west of Apalachicola, and so perhaps it warrants our attention.
But don’t worry Floridians. If Florida is in trouble, then so are we all.
TM