New Orleans, Louisiana
Recently, YouTube has tossed a few clips at me about how New Orleans, Louisiana is doomed to sink beneath the sea in the future.
Here's a short clip it tossed at me about that and in a shocking plot twist no one could predict, the guy they're interviewing has a book on the topic, so he's someone looking to line his pockets off of the supposedly unpreventable suffering of his fellow man that can only be mitigated according to him by moving everything north, including things like cemeteries.
Me in notes I made elsewhere about the clip talking to myself because I have no one else to talk to:
If we restored the 85 percent of lost wetlands, maybe this goes somewhat different.Maybe.
Approximately 75 square kilometers annuallyLoss of Wetlands LouisianaThe loss of wetlands in Louisiana is a significant environmental issue, with the state losing approximately 75 square kilometers annually. This loss is attributed to both natural processes and human activities such as dredging for canals, draining and filling for agriculture, grazing, or development. Louisiana's wetlands represent about 40 percent of the wetlands of the continental United States but account for about 80 percent of the nation's coastal wetland loss. The state's wetlands extend as much as 130 kilometers inland and along the coast for about 300 kilometers. Some wetlands are stable, while others are growing, but at the current rate of loss, Louisiana will have lost its crucial habitat in about 200 years. Efforts are ongoing to understand the processes that control wetlands evolution and to develop mitigation strategies.
Sources
I'm an environmental studies major and relatively recently in the grand scheme of my life was genuinely shocked to learn that:
1. Globally, we've lost a LOT more wetlands than forests.
2. The time frame of this loss coincides with the time frame of the Industrial Revolution, thus it coincides with the time frame of human caused climate change that we blame ENTIRELY on the Industrial Revolution.
3. Wetlands store substantially more carbon than forests.
4. No one is REALLY talking about this while we run screaming across the stage like Kermit the frog flapping our arms in a panic and saying we are helpless.
My recollection is that my previous research said the US has lost 70 percent of its wetlands and the world has lost 85 percent of its wetlands. Today, the Internet claims the US has only lost half of its wetlands and the globe has only lost 21 percent.
I'm suspicious of those latest figures. Trump and his good buddy Elon Musk have intentionally gutted the federal government and dictated that various agencies report whatever nonsense supports Trump's political agenda and truth be damned.
"Filling in swamp land" and turning it into farmland or similar is a long-standing known practice.
I have read that Alaska, which is relatively undeveloped and has a lot of national forests and the like, contains a substantial portion of our remaining wetlands. The above snippet says Louisiana has 40 percent of the wetlands of the continental US and 80 percent of its coastal wetlands. I suspect they mean the contiguous lower 48 states not inclusive of Alaska.
A lot of wetlands loss is human caused and if Louisiana genuinely contains the lion's share of coastal wetlands for the US, then Louisiana likely has substantial power to mitigate what they are predicting will happen to New Orleans.
Will they? Probably not. That doesn't mean this is actually inevitable and cannot be stopped.
It means we can potentially choose between "business as usual" and "naturally, that means our largest city will sink under the sea" or "given the fact that we expect business as usual to cost our state its largest city, it's time to see some changes around here."