Having grown up in Florida, it's strange for me to think that many of the neighborhoods I remember as a child will no longer exist. That contemplative, inward looking revelation is in stark contrast to the knock-on effects of a forced migration for the majority of the human population, which frighten me much more.

I guess the thing I wonder about is how quick will it happen? They say that already we're seeing some effects of slight/gradual sea-level rise, but most people don't seem to put two and two together. If it's denial, or ignorance, I'm not sure, however if the predictions for abrupt climate change are true, it seems like there will be a crisis or event that forces people to confront these realities. Even once the majority do come to that realization, considering we don't know for certain what will be the speed or extent of the changes, how will those migrating react? If over the course of a decade, an entire city like Miami becomes uninhabitable, will people just gradually move with the coastline or will there be an event where everyone moves at once? Where will they move to? Sure, individuals can move gradually, but the infrastructure coastal cities require can't do that.

It's interesting that they're publishing in a discussion journal, rather than a peer-review journal. I would assume it will still be peer reviewed later? I watched an interview with a scientist named Guy McPherson (link, relevant portion begins at around 8:00) where he talked about how the IPCC's predictions are consistently conservative, using old data. Since they require everything to be peer reviewed, and the lead-in time from when a scientist has an idea or sees something, to the time that theory is researched, published and peer-reviewed can easily take seven to ten years. Generally, I'd say that's not a problem, but if they're studying something like a methane feedback loop that can have dramatic social and climate consequences on a ten or twenty year timescale, policy makers and leaders must be much closer to the cutting-edge research than they currently are.

When I was in high school, there was a ski resort near my house (in Tennessee). Mention this today to 20 somethings and they think I'm a crazy old man. I remember a crazy old man, showing me pictures of him driving a model-T across the frozen river, and he said global warming is real--I got the proof. The idea that the Clinch could freeze over in the next decade, is so far fetched as to be laughable. I once stayed in the cabins on Hunting Island. Google Earth shows them in the ocean now. The ranger told me, that due to rising sea levels in my lifetime the cabins would be in the sea.

Now today, the doom sayers of 20 years ago are proving to be true. The models were too conservative. But, as a species, the cognitive dissonance continues to grow as science is downplayed due to special interests, denial and ignorance. It won't be long and it will become obvious to many in Florida and Louisiana. I'd love for all the global warming predictions to be false, however, the personal evidence in my lifetime points to the opposite--when are we as a species going to wake up and take collective action?