This is the Tuesday, October 8 analysis from Tropical Tidbits. Next update will be tomorrow pre-impact.
For those unfamiliar with the topography of Florida, here are some screencaps I took from the 3D view on Google maps, first showing the general impact area of the previous hurricane (Helena) in the "Big Bend" area of northern Florida -
Anna Maria is a barrier island at the entrance to the harbor, covered by homes and condominiums. One of my high school classmates rode out Helene there in a home 13 feet above sea level. He and his wife will evacuate before the arrival of Milton. On the north side of the harbor are more barrier islands -
- plus housing developments that were presumably created by dredging and filling. I would assume that a 10-15' storm surge will bring water into the second floor of those homes, while on the surface the hurricane winds will create battering waves laden with debris. The destruction of property will be catastrophic.
For those tempted to enjoy the schadenfreude of seeing rich people get what they deserve, remember that many of those afflicted will be middle-class elderly people whose life savings have been put into a retirement home or condo unit. You can modify a Zillow search of these areas to get a sense of the situation.
Some of those people will have been managers, and they are part of the first wave of people who /could/ have started to do things to mitigate climate change, and didn't. Or they blocked the efforts of junior employees, suppressed the reports, smeared the researchers, lied and lobbied, and pooh-poohed or even sabotaged the first attempts to address the problem.
ReplyDeleteThese probably are some of the first people to actually really be reaping what they sowed. Because during their careers, it was becoming clear that climate change was a problem, and they tended to be the senior staff resisting the reforms. While I presume there's a majority of blameless people around them, this is a case of consequences finally arriving on the doorsteps of a few of the right people. What fraction deserves it? Who knows? 5%? 2%? 0.1%? I have no idea. And I don't know whether to hope the number is low or high, frankly. But as a lot of truly blameless people ain't getting any sympathy either, it seems particularly odd to carve out sympathy for some of the people who might have been able to make a difference, but instead threw their weight /against/ reforms.
For the record, if someone spent their career working at a cigarette company, for example, or spent 20 years in marketing smearing the researchers who were working to uncover what was really going on, then the schadenfreude is entirely deserved, and there certainly will be some people who fit that profile mixed in with this crowd.
Anonymous person, there's a lot to unpack from your angry rant, but I'm particularly curious about your choice in the third paragraph to condemn people who "spent their career working at a cigarette company" as being somehow deserving of having their lives ruined by a hurricane. Are you conflating lung cancer with climate change?
DeleteAnd I'll add that your screed reminds me of comments I've heard from my most liberal/progressive friends who were absolutely delighted to learn that the COVID epidemic was killing more Republicans than Democrats and who would be pleased to see Florida scrubbed down to the pavement because the state favored Trump and DeSantis. It's an aggressively vengeful stance that I think in the long run is not helpful.
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