The Gulf Stream is slowing down — faster than predicted.
New research provides strong evidence that one of the long-predicted worst-case impacts of climate change — a severe slow-down of the Gulf Stream system — has already started.
The system, also known as the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), brings warmer water northward while pumping cooler water southward.
…The impacts of such a slowdown include much faster sea level rise — and much warmer sea surface temperatures — for much of the U.S. East Coast. Both of those effects are already being observed and together they make devastating storm surges of the kind we saw with Superstorm Sandy far more likely.
All of which really makes one wish that we didn’t have to beg our political leaders to do the reasonable thing, which is to a.) prepare for significant sea-level rise and weather extremes; and b.) get off fossil fuels with the greatest of haste.
Instead, our Speaker has sat on climate readiness legislation not once; not twice; but five times. And our Speaker insists on slow-rolling climate and energy legislation, even as the Senate has handed him (S.2302) a “hero opportunity” on a silver platter. Our Governor keeps trying to reach into our pocketbooks to provide the natural gas industry with somewhere from $3.3B to $6.6B so that we can afford “affordable, reliable” (and very polluting) gas.
In Massachusetts we need to counteract the malevolence of the Trump administration on climate issues at every possible turn. And our political establishment — with the exception of our exceptional Attorney General — is still failing.
SomervilleTom says
Boston is currently the mainstream of the regional and state economy. When rising seas destroy Boston, the entire region and state will die if we retain this critical vulnerability. This study provides more evidence that we have at most a few decades in which to accomplish this radical reshaping of our entire state and region.
There are no viable ways to protect Boston from being inundated by rising sea levels. Our choices boil down to:
1. Make the needed changes in a planned way over the next 2-3 decades, or
2. Attempt to make the needed changes in a span of days after the floods begin
I want to remind our younger participants that 1988 was not that long ago for some of us. The “anchor” buildings of the “new” Kendall Square, such as the Kendall Marriott, were built that year. The fact that our government is so aggressively building out the Seaport district, while equally aggressively suppressing any effective response to climate change, is a case study in government incompetence or worse, I use the phrase “our government” because the distinction between federal, state and local doesn’t matter AT ALL in this context. Our government has failed.
It is already too late to avoid these catastrophic consequences. We have already moved past several tipping points, and we are collectively moving in the wrong direction.
Our only rational choice now is to do anything and everything we can to prepare for the inevitable floods and storms. Sandy was just the beginning.
seascraper says
If you make MA more expensive for homeowners and utility rate payers they just move to TX. Houston has grown much faster than Boston. Check out that shiplap show to see how big the houses are there.
SomervilleTom says
This comment has nothing at all to do with climate change or this thread. Who said anything about making MA more expensive for homeowners and utility rate payers?
Rising sea levels will hurt Houston just as much as Boston.
Charley on the MTA says
Yeah, didn’t Houston have some major climate related event recently? Should we be doing things like them?
seascraper says
The Patrick-era climate bill specifically and intentionally made fossil fuels more expensive than renewables, by taking the difference from middle-class rate payers. That’s one reason Houston grew at a rate 4 times that of Boston, and an energy policy which seeks to hold down energy usage in Massachusetts will simply lead to those using energy to move to a cheaper state.
SomervilleTom says
Perhaps you can be more specific about which “Patrick-era climate bill” you claim does this. I ask because I see no such provision in any of The Global Warming Solutions Act of 2008, The Green Jobs Act of 2008, or the Climate Action Plan of 2014.
There are a host of reasons why major cities grow at different rates.
I strongly suspect that catastrophic flooding like that from Hurricane Harvey in 2017 will have far more effect on choices made by “middle-class rate payers” than any third-order impact of the climate legislation passed during the administration of Deval Patrick.
Oh, and by the way — one reason I ask you to be specific about which legislation you blame is to remind you that many of these provisions have never been implemented.
petr says
I’m staying. No matter what. I been to Texas and you could pay me to go back and it still wouldn’t be cheap enough to attract me. They only way you could induce me to move to Texas is to limit my choices between Texas and Florida.
I guess I could pay more and live the dream or I could drown in a nightmare of climate disaster. That’s the choice. Only people comfortable in their entitlement don’t see that…
seascraper says
If only you could convince everybody else to think and act the same way. Or failing that force them to do it.
SomervilleTom says
We know that the Seaport district, the subways, and the BIg Dig will be under water by something like 2050.
Just where does that reality fit into your world?
If you like the government of Texas so much, I encourage you to move there yourself. Or Florida. Just don’t come asking for help from me when your new home is destroyed — again — by the next “unpredictable” super-storm.
A report from Accuweather (not exactly a leader in addressing climate change) says that Harvey will cost ONE HUNDRED NINETY BILLION dollars of damage to the economy:
Is there ANY reality that will penetrate your shield of denial about the impact of the climate change that has already happened?
petr says
I don’t have to do that. I only have to ask them to think for themselves. If that happens, I’m confident in the outcome.
Christopher says
The line about the Speaker jumped out at me. I wonder how long he expects Winthrop to withstand rising sea levels.
iggyaa says
I have a similar naïve question to the one I posted on a different post. How do we change the system so the Speaker has much less power? And how do we install a new Speaker? Winthrop has a right to elect who they want, but that doesn’t mean he should control everything.
Christopher says
We have to elect Representatives willing to change the rules. I believe BMGer ProgressiveMax could tell you about his group Voters for Legislative Reform (or something like that).
mimolette says
And we need to elect a sufficient number of them that they can act without too great a risk that they’ll fail and be subject to the kind of retaliation that would limit their ability to be useful to their districts at all. We shouldn’t be in a situation where if you try to take down the Speaker, you’d better not miss, but that’s apparently the reality.
Charley on the MTA says
I have been intending a post on this very subject, or close to it. I have to get my thoughts clear on it. Briefly, there should be a reform plan. There have to be primary challenges, even for “progressive” House members; and then the progs have to get each others’ backs. Right now their loyalty is to the Speaker and not to each other.
On the other hand, look at the criminal justice reform *law* that just passed. I wouldn’t have expected DeLeo to let that go through, but there was very good organization behind the scenes, per Judy Meredith.
But you look at what the Senate is able to pass, and what comes of it in the House, and DeLeo is still your one-man bottleneck.