The biggest convergence of environmental problems we have ever seen in the United States
Due to climate change, Florida had become the epicenter of converging environmental problems that is unprecedented to other states’ environmental issues in the U.S. Florida is not only facing ocean level rising, but also hurricanes, contaminated drinking water, loss of biodiversity, coastal erosions, flooding, warmer temperatures, and coral bleaching. The solution to all of their problems is to reverse global warming, but in the meantime Florida’s government is spending billions of dollars to try to dig out of the hole they have found themselves in.
As global temperatures have been rising over the past century, due to the increase in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the ice caps in the arctic that hold a vast amount of water have been melting, causing our overall sea levels to rise. Florida topography is uniformly flat, with very few mountains and elevation which means they will be hit hardest by sea level rising. Scientists predict that the lower third of the state will be flooded by the end of the century. In the past 31 years, the sea level around Florida’s coast has increased 6 inches, and is predicted to rise another 6 inches in 15 years. The problem with increasing sea levels, is that sea water salinity contaminates the groundwater and coastal ecosystems like the everglades. As sea levels rise parts of the everglade ecosystem will be completely submerged under water, decreasing the habitat for many wildlife species and killing the plants that filter sea water for the cities largest aquifer located underneath the everglades. Solutions that the government has proposed is to build higher seawalls which will cost billions of dollars and will not stop sea levels from rising, but hopefully protect homeowners and precious ecosystems.
Another key problem with global warming is that as the ocean absorbs the heat in the atmosphere, the sea temperature rises, causing coral bleaching (bleaching is when coral’s symbiotic partner zooxanthellae leaves the coral which causes the coral to be without nutrients and turn white and die). The only living coral reef in the continental U.S. is Florida’s Great Coral Reef which is in danger of coral bleaching, which means we are at risk to lose the entire coral reef habitat. The government has started to take some of the corals to protect them from coral bleaching and diseases so that they may be reintroduced into the environment once the coral bleaching threat has passed. Another problem that Florida faces is in their water is algae blooms which are due to nutrient run-off from agriculture and cities into the water system and ocean and increased temperatures causing the perfect environment for toxic blue-green algae to grow.
As global temperatures increase it causes the earth to be more unstable causing an increase in natural disasters. Florida has faced unprecedented hurricanes with Hurricane Harvey, Irma, Maria, and Michael in 2017 and 2018. These hurricanes’ damages cost more than 265 billion dollars and more hurricanes will continue to roll through Florida as it is located in the Atlantic Ocean Hurricane Valley. There is little that the Florida state government can do to prevent these hurricanes, but new buildings are being made to withstand the hurricanes powerful impact.
Florida faces many challenges and with global warming on the rise, their problems will continually rise as well. The environmental disasters will affect low income families the most in Florida, because of the cost of house insurance, the loss of property from hurricanes, contaminated drinking water, and exposure to hotter days due to global warming. The only way to fully protect this diverse state with it’s unique ecosystems and beautiful people is to reverse the effects of climate change. There are many ways in which this can be done, but the most important is for the United States government to switch from fossil fuels to renewable energy so that we can decrease the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and stop the increase in global warming!
Sources:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/apr/21/florida-climate-crisis-sea-level-habitat-loss
https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2016-08/documents/climate-change-fl.pdf
