According to scientists familiar with the UN climate science report, climate change is a serious threat to south Louisiana over the next 50 years. It promises to bring about human suffering, northward migration, and disruption to the state’s economy.
These dire consequences are possible even if the world can reduce greenhouse gas emissions enough for global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius by 2050 according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate ChangeReport released Feb. 28.
Louisiana’s threats seem like a series of plot lines in a dystopian movie about disaster.
- More powerful hurricanes are more slow to landfall and can cause the same damage as Hurricanes Rita, Rita Laura, Delta, and Ida.
- Increased saltwater intrusion and ocean heat waves will pose a threat to the state’s existing commercial fisheries.
- Rapider sea level rise is the main reason for Louisiana wetlands losses. It could overwhelm communities that aren’t protected by modern hurricane levees.
- Storm surge, increased rainfall and winds frequently wreak havoc on homes and businesses, roads and electric power plants, as well as their transmission systems.
- The increase in humidity and temperatures can pose a danger to outdoor workers, children, the elderly, and the poor.
- Other health threats to residents, including the spread of diseases that are currently limited to tropical areas.
- An increase in mental illness issues, including suicides and posttraumatic stress disorders.
- A decrease in the ability of state, local, and individual governments to finance the rising costs of climate-related events.
These threats require that states and cities have long-term, comprehensive plans to address them, according to Sarah Cooley (director of climate science at the Ocean Conservancy) and one of the report’s lead authors.
Cooley stated that humans are resourceful. However, instead of adapting quickly and making quick decisions, our decision-making must be more broad-based and better coordinated than ever before. This will allow for more people to benefit. If we ignore the warnings of science and put our fingers in our ears, it will lead to poorer outcomes for many people. I don’t think anyone wants that.
Chip Kline (chairman of the states Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority) agreed that the new report presents tough choices for the state. However, he said that Louisiana has been preparing to face those challenges for many years.
Kline stated that Louisianans are not immune to many of the dire warnings in the report. However, the silver lining is that we are more prepared than ever to face these compounding challenges.
Kline mentioned the $50 billion/50-year state coastal master plan, Governors new Climate Action Plan, billions of dollar in levee and storm wave protection projects slated to be completed over the next years.
Kline stated that Edwards has also adopted an Adaptive Governance Initiative. This requires state agencies to understand their roles in addressing coastal problems, to develop strategies, tools, and to assist in integrating the masterplan in their own planning process. It also requires them to find ways to partner with private and non-profit organizations and other state agencies in order to maximize their efforts.
Relocations possible
According to Virginia Burkett (chief scientist for climate and land-use change at the U.S. Geological Survey), the report clearly shows that climate change effects are already being felt and will continue to grow. Burkett, who is based in Many and is also a non-voting member to Gov. John Bel Edwards Climate Initiatives Task Force.
Some clear examples, she said, are the impacts from the loss of coastal habitat and ecosystems on indigenous groups in Louisiana, including the Isle de Jean Charles Band of the Biloxi-Chitamacha-Choctaw tribe in Terrebonne Parish.
Because of subsidence and sea-level rise, the group has moved north from their traditional tribal lands. The community was also excluded from a major levee system, which was being built to protect Houma from hurricane surges.
Burkett stated that sea level rise and hurricane intensity have led to the loss of most of this tribe’s homeland in a single generation.
In Terrebonne Parish, Hurricane Ida 2021 decimated all remaining homes in the Isle de Jean Charles Community and 68 of the 80 homes belonging to the Pointe-Au-Chien Indian Tribe. According to state officials about 15,000 members from the United Houma Nation also lost there homes.
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The UN has set temperature targets of 1.5 and 2 degrees Celsius in the past, but this report suggests that more relocations are needed. It estimates that the average cost for such relocations in coastal Louisiana will be $100,000 per person.
The report stated that organized relocations are politically and emotionally charged and should not be undertaken by the exposed population. They are best approached proactively and strategically to avoid increasing socio-economic vulnerability.
Other parishes in New Orleans may lose their communities
Louisiana must deal with the financial risks that Louisiana faces as it transitions from an oil-and gas-based economy to a low-carbon economy. This is in addition to the physical risks. Jesse Keenan, a Tulane University professor, said that the UN’s next climate change report will be released in April. It will focus on mitigation.
Keenan stated that the state leaders will have to manage the transition plan to decarbonization in a manner that creates and sustains an economy that can adapt to changing circumstances. Keenan stated that the state will not be able to sustain itself without a transition.
Localities will have to deal with the same cost issues and make risk reduction decisions, which might include moving people away from harms way.
There are some difficult decisions to be made, especially in southeast Louisiana. They won’t have enough public resources nor will they have any federal resources that will allow them protect all that they have.
New Orleans, the state’s most populous city, faces both fiscal and physical threats at the end of 21st century. The continued loss of wetlands is making it a virtual island, despite the potential success of the billion-dollar coastal restoration projects, Keenan stated.
Keenan stated that city leaders will have to choose zones and areas that are both politically and engineering-friendly and then concentrate the intensity of housing and commercial activities in these zones. They will have to choose to withdraw from other areas and disinvest.
Physical, mental health challenges expected
The climate report also contains troubling information about adverse health outcomes caused by climate change, according to Dr. Kristie Emi, a professor of global medicine at the University of Wisconsin, and one of the report’s authors.
According to the report, there is a clear correlation between rising temperatures and adverse pregnancy outcomes. As temperatures rise, so do increases in Lyme disease spread by ticks and West Nile virus spread by mosquitoes.
Ebi stated that more investments in federal, state, and local health systems are needed to combat these problems. She said that Edwards’ climate action plans will also help to reduce carbon emissions.
The report also identifies increased mental health issues as a major concern, especially in coastal areas such as Louisiana that are facing repeated rounds of catastrophic storms and heat issues. Edward Peters, who took over the chair of the department of epidemiology in the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha in Sept. after leaving the same position in the School of Public Health in New Orleans.
He said that the combination of mental and other health problems will likely decrease the major healthcare gains of the 20th century.
I would not be surprised if people looked back hundreds of years and saw that while the 20th century saw the greatest increase in life expectancy, we will be seeing a decline in it during the 21st or 22nd centuries.
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