Thank You, Thank You, Thank, Pope Francis for the Encyclical on the Environment

Pope  Francis'  call  for  change  respecting  environmental   issues  will  largely  fall  on  deaf  ears  in  the  west,  because  we  are  a  fat,  stupid,  spoiled  people.  ["Belch!"]

Here's  an  example  of  the  problem  facing  us.

As  the  global  atmospheric  inventory  of  carbon  compounds  goes  up,  up,  up,  up  due  to  human  activity,    the  currents  transfer  heat  generated  by  the  gas  increase  to  the  polar  regions,  where  all  of  the  ice  is,  so  that  every  1  degree  increase  in  ocean  temp  at  the  equator  yields  a  4  degree  degree  increase  at  the  poles.

Greenland,  and  Antarctica,   and  all  other  land-bound  ice  on  Earth,  are  melting  faster   and  faster  and  faster.

The  annual  increase  in  ocean  depth  is  becoming  measurable  with  an  ordinary  ruler.  No  joke.

Now,  the  average  modal  elevation  of  cities  like  Miami  above  sea  level  is  6  feet.

Skeptics  would  say,  "HO,  HO,  HO,  YOU  POOR  IDIOT,  IF  THE  OCEANS  ARE  INCREASING  IN  DEPTH   BY,  SAY,   1/32 OF  AN  INCH  PER  YEAR,   IT  WILL  TAKE  [72  INCHES  x  32]  YEARS,  OR  2,304  YEARS,  TO  DROWN  MIAMI !   HO,  HO,  HO !"

But  it  doesn't  work  like  that.

6  feet  in  elevation  is  a  numerical  average  running  from  0.00  feet  at  the  beach  to   a  peak  of  12  feet  at  the  highest  statistically-significant  point.

In  Miami's  case,  we  can  represent  the  slope  running  from  the  Atlantic  beaches  on  the  east   to  the  western  edges  of  the  metropolitan  area  10  miles  to  the  west  as  a  right  triangle  with  a  base  of  633,600  inches  and  a  height  of  144  inches  on  the  left  side  and  0.00  inches  on  the  right  side.

If  we  divide  the  base  by  the  height,  we  get  633,600  inches  /  144  inches  =  4,400.  See  illustration ...

What  that  actually  means  is,  For  every  additional  1  inch  in  ocean  depth  from  global  ice  melt,    the  beach  where  the  waves  are  crashing  every  minute  in  good  weather  moves  inland  by  about  4,400  inches,  or  about  400  feet.

Now  that  400  feet  assumes  a  perfectly  flat  up-slope  from  the  beach.

But  it  doesn't  work  like  that.     What's  really  going  to  happen  is  that  at  some  points,  the  water  is  going  to  be  coming  inland  a  full  mile  with  the  first  1  inch  increase  in  ocean  depth.

And  what  that  means  is  that  within  20  years,  there  are  going  to  be  calls  to  evacuate  southern  Florida,  and  all  of  this ...

... will  have  a  value  of  $ 000,000,000,000.01.

That's  what  we're  facing,  on  all  3  coasts  of  the  continental  united  States.