Focus On Florida - Under WaterEarth Change Report - Issue 002 -
July 22 2007 - This is a sample of the Earth Change Report Newsletter. A subscriber from Florida asked what might happen to that state during these changes. There is no soft answer to this. Florida is so close to sea level that it is inevitable that it will largely disappear – perhaps in only a few short years – as the ice caps continue to melt and the sea continues to rise. This is not a scaremongering observation. It’s just the way it is, according to any way you look at the global warming scenario. However, that comment – that Florida and it’s multi-million dollar apartments are all heading for the bottom of the sea - is hardly an in-depth report, is it? Nor is that statement likely to bring any peace of mind to those who live in Florida at present. Well, the subject of Earth Changes does not lend itself to “peace of mind” – unless one is prepared for a variety of upcoming scenarios. In the case of Florida, where tropical fish will eventually be swimming through City Hall, the solution is actually very simple once you accept that such changes are indeed already on the radar. Move. But where to – and why? Well, let’s see exactly why Florida should be left to the tropical fish and alligators.
The most obvious reason is that from coastline to coastline hardly any of it is more than 100ft above sea level. So even if the rising sea scenario takes a decade or more to really make itself felt, there’s no way you can move everyone from their on-the-beach high rise apartment to inland skyscrapers safely above the encroaching ocean. Florida will never replace Venice as a tourist attraction because of its quaint flooded streets and gondolas and romantic evenings boating from one nightspot to another. Florida is a land of sinkholes and swamps where they literally build multi-million dollar schools knowing that they will disappear within 30 years – and that’s without them knowing that the disappearing act is going to happen a lot faster than that. There simply is not enough room to rebuild inland, let alone relocate millions of rich retired people or poverty-stricken refugees or beach bunnies and surfing bums. Not that Florida is a surfers paradise by any means. Hawaii is the place for that – as long as it doesn’t get blown apart because after all, it is really a volcanic environment. Nor should we think of Florida in isolation from its neighboring states. Georgia and the Carolinas on the east coast and Alabama Mississippi and Louisiana on the Gulf side. They too are vulnerable, so there would be little gained if one were simply to move from the Panhandle into the frying pan (Ooops…strike that). Whether you live in Florida or not, the whole business of earth changes brings up some basic questions that need to be asked and answered. They tend to go like this: Is where I live safe? Answers can vary according to one’s location
• Are you on a fault line • near the ocean • in the mountains • near a volcano • in the city • in a flood plain • above or below sea level (if so, how much either way?) • in the country • beside a river (are there dams on that river? is the river in a gorge that is a wind tunnel – like the lower Colombia that borders Oregon and Washington?)) • near a nuclear power plant • close to a toxic waste disposal area • on an island • on a hillside with a great view • below a hillside because it was cheaper to buy there. • What is the substrate like – sand? dirt? mud? rocks? granite? swamp? sinkhole-prone? None of these questions are irrelevant or frivolous. They are precisely what we need to know in order to make some wise decisions.
Disney World in Florida is only 92ft above sea level
The worst case scenario would be to live in a Florida city near sea level with next to nothing in your fridge, just enough gas in the car to get you to the next service station, a job that you’re too afraid to quit, and a group of staunch friends who keep telling you you’re just a paranoid freak and no matter what you’ve been listening to, everything will be okay.
Everything will NOT. As seen on TV, Floridians are accustomed to hurricanes and storms that often force tens of thousands of them to board up their homes and either stay inside and hope for the best, or leave until the storm has passed then return, repair, get back to ‘normal’ – and wait for the next one. Now THAT is freaky behavior! As freaky as the behavior of some of the animals I once tried to rescue from a major flood that inundated a 400-acre farm I was working on. We toiled non stop for three days and nights as the waters rose and eventually had thousands of sheep and lambs on higher ground.But for some reason, some horses and cattle kept going back to the pastures they were familiar with even though the water was up to their shoulders. It’s like the old story about boiling frogs. Pop a frog into boiling water and he’ll pop right out. But put him in cold water and gradually bring it to the boil, and he’ll never notice what’s up until it’s too late. Considering that the point of view taken by this newsletter is that we are in for abrupt climate change, would it not make a lot more sense to leave the area entirely and start fresh elsewhere? Of course it would. But where to go? Where is a “safe” place if the world is going to be tipped on its ear, if droughts and floods and storms are going to increase, if earthquakes are also on the rise and volcanoes are going to be triggered here there and everywhere. Not to mention tsunamis that could come out of the Atlantic like an express train and take Disney World into the Gulf in a heartbeat. And the ride would be free… The temptation is to go into a state of indecision, mental dysfunction, attention deficit syndrome without the Ritalin and throw up your hands and say “stuffit” (or something a little stronger). But that sort of procrastination is never going to bring about a solution to any sense of panic or mild trepidation that one might be experiencing.
Put An End To Wishy Washy ThinkingWhat happens, and this is based on experience, is that once you have evaluated the situation and looked at all your possible choices, making a decision puts an end to wishy washy thinking. Somehow the body straightens up, the back stands to attention, and you’re willing to move ahead with whatever plan seems the best among the many options you’ve been considering. There is a deeper level to this as well, and that is that each of us IS in control of our personal destiny. What we think creates our future. If we think all this is a crock, those thoughts will determine how we evade and avoid anything that contradicts our perspective. And we’ll just go on with wishy washy thinking and a wishy washy life – until it hits the fan. On the other hand, the mind is equally powerful when one’s thoughts are focused on creating a safer future. In that regard, strange things seem to happen.
Wellington, capital of New Zealand, is built on fault lines For example, 20 years ago when my partner of the time and I lived in the capital of New Zealand (Wellington) and first heard about Earth Changes, we were slow to take it seriously. But investigation showed we lived on seven (yes seven) fault lines, and the hillside on which we lived could find itself in the valley below very easily and very quickly. The harbor on which Wellington is built is a beautiful place, but the railway that runs on the shoreline is actually built on land that rose as much as 10ft during an earthquake about a hundred years previously. If it can rise 10ft in a few minutes, it can sink 20 feet just as quickly. Even though New Zealanders are accustomed to earthquakes, they are scary suckers when they happen, and even though we had built a house that would supposedly survive a moderately serious quake, the time came when we decided we should move way out of the city and become self-sufficient in every way possible. But that story and the magic that happened once we’d made that decision can wait for another time. For now, I’d suggest that you spend time taking a serious look at the questions that face anyone who is learning about earth changes for the first time.
Looking down on your home town from a great height has the benefit of giving you an objective perspective. And that’s the best way to expand the mind beyond the small world in which we tend to immerse ourselves. The first fun thing to do is zoom in from space on to your home address (and wonder how much better the military versions of this satellite imagery must be). Then use these high tech aids to look for tectonic plates, fault lines, volcanoes and more. Google Earth even has an altitude ‘clock’ that will tell you exactly how far above sea level you are. Google Earth is free. They’re currently marketing a 2008 version with a lot of peripheral add-ons, but the above link will take you directly to a download page for Version 4 – without all the fancy extras. It runs on Windows XP and Vista and there’s also a Mac version.
In future newsletters, we’ll look at other places and address questions from other readers (Alberta for example), and for readers in Europe, the question of how soon the Atlantic current will stall, stop and result in a Siberian climate down to the Pyrenees. Newsletter003 will have some extraordinary information about the coming Solar Maximum Michael Knight Editor Earth Change Report Note: This newsletter is for educational and informational purposes only. Any decisions made on the basis of information included herein are entirely the reader’s responsibility.
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