A big part of Miami as we know is in danger of being underwater sometime in the near future. The science is indisputable at this point, but right-wingers are struggling to deal with how to handle this. Well, Marlo Lewis, a Fox News contributor and senior fellow of the fossil-fuel-funded Competitive Enterprise Institute, was on NPR's On Point with host Tom Ashbrook yesterday and had a novel idea. He thinks we'll just end up moving Miami anyway.
See also: Rolling Stone Predicts Miami Will Be Underwater by 2030
"We shouldn't get into a panic and think that we have to do something drastic right now or we're all going to be underwater right now," he said.
Lewis did admit that climate change is happening and that he believes industrial emissions might be the leading cause over the past 50 years (so, hey, he seems to understand all of this better than Sen. Marco Rubio). He just doesn't think it's that big of a deal.
Lewis thinks that if sea level rises four feet over a thousand years, we'll have plenty of time to adapt and possibly relocate major metro areas. Ashbrook reminded him it could be more like ten feet in 200 years and asked, "So you're saying move New York, move Miami, move Southern Florida, move Boston?"
"Yeah," Lewis replied. "Most building stock turns over in about 50 years, and so the market adapts to this sort of phenomenon anyway."
So Lewis believes that as coastal lands dip underwater, we'll simply rebuild major areas on higher land. Wouldn't it be beautiful one day to visit Doral Beach and look out at the ruins of downtown Miami?
Here's what South Florida would look like if sea level rose one meter (in red) and six meters (in orange).
Not a lot of hospitable non-swampland there.
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