Louisiana Flooding

This weeks text focused very heavily on flooding of Louisiana states. The article “Louisiana Faces Chronic Inundation” they show some statistics of how specifically Louisiana will be effected by this flooding. In the article the authors state, “In the intermediate scenario of sea level rise, most southern Louisiana communities (95 in total) will face chronic inundation by 2035; in total 131 communities would face such flooding bh 2100.” To some this may not seem so bad; many people act only when they feel that they are in immediate danger. However, this situation is actually quite dire. 2035 is not even 20 years away. When we think about this fact it becomes immediate danger. 95 communities where people live, work, attend school will be gone. However, this article also gives us some ways to fix this situation. The article points out that containing the raise of global temperature to 1.8 degrees Celsius (Paris climate agreement set at 2 degrees Celsius) could help save as much as 8 in 2050 to 34 communities at the end of the century. However this won’t magically work just by hopeful wishes. Therefore, we still need to prepare by having good response time. A way we can do this is by creating new policies and measures for costal risks. This will allow us to get people out and relocated away from these areas at risk.

These articles really hit home with me. I was born and pretty much raised out in New Orleans do I can relate personally. My family was forced with the choice of staying out here during hurricane Katrina and we lost a lot. We was relocated to Ohio and branded as Katrina refugees. I wouldn’t want anybody to have to go through this and have to be permanently relocated. However, at the rate the world is going it’s very hard to avoid these outcomes. This is another reason why I enjoyed these articles. Not only did they try to keep a hopeful stance and try to put in suggestions to help alleviate these disasters, but they also put in ways to help and plans to put into action if these disasters hit. This is something really important that I feel many people don’t think about. It’s always what can we do to stop it, do this differently, and do this more; however, I feel there aren’t enough people saying, ok if this happens this is how we will handle it.

Vocab:
Chronic - “A problem, long lasting or difficult to eradicate.”
Inundation - “flooding”
Paris Climate Agreement - The Paris Agreement is an agreement within the the in dealing with climate change, greenhouse gas emissions, mitigation, adaptation, and finances.