Louisiana Wakes Up, Looks Around and Cries, "We're Screwed."

One of the most backward, impoverished states of the entire UuuuNited States of 'Merica has figured out it's, well, it's screwed. The epiphany came in the form of a roadmap to sea level rise, storm surge, coastal and lowland inundation just released by the state government entitled "Our Land and Water" that's mainly about a lot more water and a lot less land.  The 1,500 page report warns that southern Louisiana is facing an existential crisis.

"There are ways for us to make coastal communities more livable, resilient and viable post-disaster, just by making the whole community more resilient ... so that businesses and government services can all get back to work more quickly after a disaster," said Pat Forbes, executive director of Louisiana's Office of Community Development, which produced the report along with the Foundation for Louisiana.

In other areas, people will have little choice but to leave as the water rises. The plan, in a departure from many adaptation reports, also focuses on how inland areas can prepare for an influx of new residents from the coasts.

"There's a sort of self-displacement that's occurring over the past 15 years or so," Forbes said. As large numbers of people move out of coastal communities, the shift is likely a sign that they are sick of flooding, worried about inability to get to schools or jobs or unable to pay rising flood insurance rates. "I'm sure it's a combination of all those things and more," he said.

Always Wanted to Visit "The Big Easy"?

Many of us have at one time or another wanted to visit New Orleans, The Big Easy.  If you still want to go, you might want to go sooner rather than later.

Louisiana, you see, is experiencing a major problem with sea-level rise, far more than state officials expected.

Stunning new data not yet publicly released shows Louisiana losing its battle with rising seas much more quickly than even the most pessimistic studies have predicted to date.

While state officials continue to argue over restoration projects to save the state’s sinking, crumbling coast, top researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have concluded that Louisiana is in line for the highest rate of sea-level rise “on the planet.”

Indeed, the water is rising so fast that some coastal restoration projects could be obsolete before they are completed, the officials said.

When new data on the rate of coastal subsidence is married with updated projections of sea-level rise, the southeast corner of Louisiana looks likely to be under at least 4.3 feet of Gulf water by the end of the century.

That rate could swamp projects in the state’s current coastal Master Plan, which incorporated worst-case scenarios for relative sea-level rise calculated two years ago — which the new figures now make out-of-date.

Even heavily populated areas, such as New Orleans, appear to be sinking faster than expected, in fact even faster than some areas along the coast.

Southeast Louisiana — with an average elevation just 3 feet above sea level — has long been considered one of the landscapes most threatened by global warming. That’s because the delta it’s built on — starved of river sediment and sliced by canals — is sinking at the same time that oceans are rising. The combination of those two forces is called relative sea-level rise, and its impact can be dramatic.

It's a Trifecta - subsidence, coupled with sea level rise and then hit with hurricanes and storm surge.   After Hurricane Katrina some experts recommended that New Orleans simply be abandoned, surrendered to the sea and storms.   It's starting to look like they were right.  This guy probably still won't agree.