Running from Milton

Hard are the ways of truth, and rough to walk

Dear Death,

I evacuated my home in Tampa Bay yesterday and made it to relatives in Georgia. I’m safe, my family is safe and so are my two dogs. I’m grateful for that but I’m also afraid there is going to be nothing. My house, my neighborhood, even my city feels like something I might lose. I feel grief. And even if I don’t lose it this time, I’m starting to feel like it is only a matter of time before I lose everything I spent my entire life building. The storms just keep coming back stronger. I don’t know what to do. I love Florida. It’s my home. I don’t want to give it up. These are dark thoughts. I don’t usually think like this. I’m usually not afraid of Hurricanes.

Wish us well,

Running Scared

Dear Running Scared,

It is never dark to consider the truth soberly and with as little illusion as possible and I wish you well as I say what needs to be said.. The world was once so much hotter than it is today. Hundreds of millions of years ago the atmosphere was chock full of carbon dioxide and the poles weren’t covered with ice. The oceans, the swamps and the land teemed with life. The green living things had figured out how to use light from the sun and carbon in the air to make energy. And millions of years of algae blooms, kelp forests, swamp ferns and palms grew and thrived and died. Sediment covered them. Hundreds of millions of years passed under the crushing weight of stone and earth. The energy left in the husks of those dead plants distilled into  crude oil, black, liquidy, gooey and sometimes gassy– it became power locked in the earth. All of it is a miracle of life and time and change. Plus it can make a car go zoom. 

And as you drove your car from Florida to Georgia, the bonds of energy formed hundreds of millions of years ago burned and poof, released that ancient carbon back in the air. Multiply that by a humanity that has been running on fossil fuels for a century now and the atmosphere is becoming more like that hotter place it once was at the dawn of the age of dinosaurs.. You put the carbon that used to be in the air back back after hundreds of millions of years locked in the earth. From that one change the world is getting hotter. The pace of change is quickening. That’s true in Florida but also North Carolina and everywhere else on this earth.

Change is a matter of consequence for the living because life is always walking the knife edge. A few degrees of average temperature determines whether oak trees or palm trees win the race to fill the skies. A few degrees of surface water temperature is the difference between a storm growing into a category 2 hurricane or a category 5 hurricane over the Gulf of Mexico. Florida is built today for a cooler world where the storms are mostly smaller and less frequent. It isn’t yet built for the world of today or tomorrow where the storms from the Gulf of Mexico are bigger and more frequent. 

You say you love Florida so let me be clear. Florida is faced with the same dilemma all life must solve in times of great change, namely, adapt or die. If you love Florida, you may choose to find meaning in life by being part of the movement to help Florida adapt. Adaptation isn’t easy. Houses, businesses and hospitals in flood zones may have to be demolished and rebuilt on higher ground. All buildings likely need to be built to withstand flooding and wind risks from bigger storms. People won’t want to give up their beach front homes. But the truth or the waters will get them out eventually.  And perhaps it will be beautiful when the coastline is a gorgeous uninterrupted parkland of beaches and dunes for people to enjoy when the weather is good, which can flood when it needs to without major consequence because houses and hospitals are either not there or built for the surges Florida must expect. 

Through moves, through feats of engineering, through rebuilding infrastructure and cities, Florida can survive and be a beautiful place to live. All that is within your power to create. The job is made much harder by the denial of much of the state and its current leadership that the climate crisis is real. It’s hard to adapt when the power is invested in people who don’t want to hear about it. You are running from Hurricane Milton so I will give you a quote by the poet John Milton that fits the challenge facing Florida today.

Hard are the ways of truth, and rough to walk.

- John Milton

Adapting to change will require both feats of engineering and social and political movements to plan how cities and towns must change. It’s a worthwhile goal to be part of that movement if you love Florida and you want to keep your home state.. And it is work that is not unique to Florida. While the crisis is likely to be felt first and most strongly in Florida and other low lying regions of the world, the change is coming for every part of the planet. Every community will have to adapt to a changing world in the near future if it hopes to survive and thrive in the hotter world that is emerging. Perhaps Florida can be an example to show the way. But to do that, it needs people that love it enough to make it so. 

And when enough communities around the world are doing what they must to adapt, soberly and guided by facts, perhaps it will even be possible for the world to come together to slow the pace of this change by limiting fossil fuels. Slower change will be much easier on Florida and everywhere else. But first, you must adapt to the change that is already at your doorsteps. 

Good luck out there and stay safe. 

Sincerely,

Death

P.S. Please keep the questions coming! Death is helpful and friendly. It wishes you well and wants to hear from you. Send your questions to askdeath@wecroak.com