Goodnight Florida. If you vote for criminally idiotic leaders – you can hardly blame mother nature for taking out it’s wrath on you. It is not as if you have not had decades or warning, your man created nemesis has been signalling it’s intentions since way before you ate your first early bird special. You could have seen the pertinent movies, documentaries, using your senior citizen discounts. But no – you idly sat in your gas guzzling old Lincolns electing a series of Governors who would keep the dross out of your country clubs, suppressing their votes and allowing you to horde you easy wealth for a time when it can be of little use. So as you sit in your exclusively manicured homes, perhaps now you will have time to think about the legacy that you have left your grandchildren. Any one for a round of Golf?

Global warming is a fact. As ice packs melt, sea levels rise, which is a fact. As water heats up it expands. The State of Florida juts out into the Ocean. The average land elevation in Florida is six feet. NASA is already planning for when parts of its Kennedy space station are underwater. 20,000 years ago Miami was 15 miles away from the Ocean. In terms of exposed assets –Miami is the second most exposed city on the planet. Four of Florida’s cities are in the top eight most exposed US cities to tidal surge, with Miami at #1. In recent years the daily high water mark has been increasing by almost an inch a year— X 10 the international average.

These are all facts. Facts to stupidparty disciples are like the sunrise to vampires – they all go back and skulk in their caves or grumble in their country clubs and watch Fox news, a media outlet that is not allowed to acknowledge basic facts about the climate. Yes, Fox will report stories of beach erosion and the associated costs of salvaging such real estate, but they are not allowed to explain the underlying problem. South Florida has a bunch of additional problems such as being founded on limestone that will exacerbate its problems.

Now, when a region has such a massive crisis –this is when both local and federal Governments kick in. This is perhaps the primary purpose of government. Unlike private enterprise, venture capital etc.–that have to see a return within seven years or so–Governments are expected to plan for longer term contingencies, Military preparedness for a possible war, bridges, roads, airports and other infrastructure projects- decades long planning, for decades long lifespans. Who gets to decide whether a bridge is economically viable (an economist) structurally sound (an engineer), what the speed limit should be on a bridge (a statistician). Is your run of the mill politician equipped to override these experts? Would they sit in on a meeting to discuss the structural safety of a bridge and say “well I am no engineer, but I believe that this bridge design (which is 10% more expensive than an alternate design deemed not structurally sound) is less safe than the cheaper design. Now why would he say something so idiotic? Perhaps the company that designed the cheaper bridge gave him a massive political donation—yes that would explain it.