The Siege Of Miami Summary

Scientists have always made predictions about climate change causing major disasters around the world. Florida is one of the areas being affected by climate change at this exact moment. It is experiencing a huge amount of severe flooding throughout the whole the state, but especially near the coast. The climate change is affecting the sea level in Florida to rise higher than it was before. Even with the flooding and sea level rising being a major issues in Florida, state officials are not taking any type of action because they fear that if they do, they will show that they can’t control it or find a solution. In the article “The Siege of Miami,” by Elizabeth Kolbert, she talks about her trip down to Florida. While Kolbert is in Florida, she meets with the University of Miami’s chairman of the geological science department, Hal Walness to talk about climate change and how it may or may

not be possible to stop it. Kolbert also discusses how state officials are handling the problem and some personal encounters she has with some of the local residents.
The officials of Florida aren’t taking any action because they think that they will be wasting money trying to solve a problem that may not have a solution. The state officials would
rather use the money for urban expansion.

The city of Miami Beach has already tried once to solve the flooding issue. The mayor, Philip Levine took action by “installing enormous pumps underground that will suck water off the streets and dump it into Biscayne Bay.” Levine has already installed six of the fifty-four that he has planned to install around Miami Beach. These pumps are a complete waste of money because regardless of how many will be installed, the sea level rising will just cause the pumps to be ineffective. On her trip, Kolbert meets with scientist Hal Wanless. Wanless shares his opinion with Kolbert about the millions of dollars that Miami Beach has already spent on trying to stop the reoccurring flooding. Wanless states, “So much money down the drain. Sooner or later-and probably sooner-the city will have too much water to deal with.” The state officials must find a different way to solve the flooding if they want to save their state. But the officials have already made up their minds to not invest any further money because of the failure and money lost from the

pumps.
The state officials would rather use the money to build attractions in the already growing metropolis of South Florida. To insure the growth of South Florida, the officials are using the money to build attractions like new condominiums. In Miami, there has been “twenty-five thousand new condominium units either proposed or under construction.” The condominiums will be useless because the sea level rising will just end up completely submerging them underwater. The officials only care about the short term success of making money off the condominiums. They completely disregard the long term issue of people losing their homes. It is not right that the residents have to lose their homes just because the officials weren’t doing their jobs and were too greedy to do anything about the flooding. The state will end up losing more money than it made because they will be held financially accountable for the homes that were lost. The money that was invested in the condominiums will be completely lost and on top of that, the state will be in major debt.
The officials aren’t taking any action on climate change because they don’t want the residents to lose hope causing them to leave which will stunt the growth of Florida. Two important parts of Florida’s government, the state governor, Rick Scott and the Florida Center for Investigative Reporting went as far as to “ban talk of sea-level rise; state employees were supposed to speak, instead, of nuisance flooding.” They are completely belittling the problem to make it seem like no harm can be done. The state officials are being completely ignorant because not only putting their whole state in jeopardy, but also the well-being of their residents. The contaminated water coming from the sea level rising can eventually seep into the drinking water causing cities to shut off the water and deny residents access to drinkable water. Without drinkable water, residents will not only become furious at their state officials for not trying to avoid it this issue, but also be in extreme danger of dehydration and other diseases. The city of Hallandale has already closed its drinking water because of “too much salt in their drinking water.” The residents will have no choice but to abandon Florida because it is not in livable condition. The official’s plan to keep residents by not talking about the issue will completely backfire and maybe even cause more residents to leave than if they had.
To avoid telling residents that the flooding isn’t going to stop, the officials are making excuses instead of just telling the truth. Everyone from state workers to local news reporters have been order or told to use the moon as the scapegoat. One resident told Kolbert that when she called the city of Miami, she was told that “it’s the moon,” that is causing the reoccurring flooding. Another resident told Kolbert that he had “heard on the news it’s because the moon turned red.” The officials are using the moon as an excuse because they are aware that a lot of the residents know that the moon causes high tides which can lead to flooding. The state officials are exploiting the little knowledge that the residents know about the moon and tides. They would rather lie to the resident than tell them the truth. At some point, the residents will begin to catch on that the moon can’t be causing massive amount of reoccurring flooding but something else is. They would eventually figure out that its climate change that is causing everything. The residents will then confront the officials asking them why they haven’t told residents such important information. The residents will see that the state officials’ have been lying to them all this time making them lose trust in their state officials and causing them to impeach them out of office.
Right now the state of Florida is experiencing a lot of issues because of the climate change. The officials aren’t taking any actions to solve the problem. They don’t want to waste money on something that might not be able to fix any time soon. The state officials don’t want to tell the residents the problem out of fear that it will cause them to leave. The residents have begun to get annoyed that the problems keeps reoccurring and the officials show no concern. Every issue keeps building up on top of another to the point where the officials won’t be able to do anything. If the officials want to save their cherished state, they have to begin solving each issue one at a time. But if they don’t, then they have to make a plan for evacuation because Florida will be completely underwater.