So that’s what this website is for – to tell the tale of this city as it will struggle in the future, and as it already struggles today; to help people make sense of the complex science behind sea level rise predictions and figure out what the ocean’s rising means for them. It’s a place for people to come together to make sense of the difficult questions surrounding what to do with and how to prepare for the effects of rising sea levels on Miami, and it’s the digital home of a larger book project titled Disposable City, Miami’s Doom and How To Avoid It, forthcoming from The Nation Press in winter 2019.
Human-driven climate change poses a threat to every single coastal community, but the havoc that rising oceans will wreak will be visited first upon Miami. This destruction isn’t going to start is already happening, if you know where to look for it, and is set to grow more acute within the next fifteen years. If you’re a resident, you are at risk, and it’s incumbent on you to understand how.
I’m a climate change communicator and a lifelong Miami resident. I first became curious about the effects of human industrial activity on the earth’s climate while teaching english in Zhengzhou, China, for a summer. I remember a sultry mid-summer day that was so choked with soot and smog that you couldn’t see the high-rise buildings on the other side of the street. Since then, I’ve published over a dozen articles on the subject, taught classes about it, been on television to explain it, and am now writing a full length book.
