Miami’s Coastal Climate Calamity – in Super Slo-Mo

By ANDREW C. REVKIN, NYT
July 16, 2014 10:42 am

I’ve differed with Time Magazine’s fine correspondent Michael Grunwald on the importance of the Keystone pipeline (Grunwald, me), but cheered him on earlier this week on Twitter after climate campaigners attacked him (Grunwald a “denier” and “polyanna”?) for challenging an overheated Guardian account of the impacts of rising sea levels on Miami (Grunwald’s home turf). (The Guardian story was an echo of a May feature in The Times.)

Since I first covered global warming in depth in 1988, Miami has been a poster child for coastal vulnerability, given its porous limestone underpinnings and wraparound shores. But, the idea that the city is already under assault is fantasy given building and investment trends noted even in The Guardian piece.

Joe Romm, the climate blogger for the Center for American Progress, criticized Grunwald for being too focused on the British paper’s histrionic semantics and missing the big picture — that drowning usually doesn’t look like drowning, whether its a weakening swimmer or a coastal city facing steadily rising seas.

(More here.)