Fred Frederikse: Bad tidings loom for Miami

Fred Frederikse

millisphere, n. a discrete region populated by roughly one-thousandth of the total world population; a bit over seven million people (but anywhere between 3.5 and 14 million will do); a lens through which to study human geography.

THIS COLUMN is on the millisphere of Pahayokee (Seminole Indian for "grassy water"). Pahayokee (population 6.9 million) covers the southern third of the US state of Florida, is only a few metres above sea level and covered by the Everglades swamp -- actually a shallow and wide river slowly flowing from north to south.

For a century and a half, "developers" have attempted simultaneously to drain the Everglades for agriculture and to build dykes to protect the metropolitan area from flooding. Today, the Everglades are significantly degraded; subject to periodic droughts, fires and floods, salt-water contamination of freshwater aquifers, phosphorus and mercury contamination from agriculture and urbanisation, and the invasion of exotic flora and fauna like the paper-bark (Melaleuca quinquenerria) from Australia, and the Burmese python, which grows over 6m long.

Realising the magnitude of the environmental damage, both the Bush and Obama administrations have approved expensive Everglades environmental repair programmes (US$10 billion to date) and voted to buy out US Sugar's manufacturing and production businesses, but there have been delays in implementation and urbanisation continues creeping in.

Meanwhile, on the coast, the urbanised strip is experiencing "sunny day flooding", where higher-than-normal tides are bubbling up from the stormwater drains, flooding roads, gardens and apartments.

Miami is raising roads, installing pumps and valves.

Barack Obama has said that if sea level rise, caused by global warming, is a reality: "South Florida is ground zero". After Guangzhou in China, South Florida has the highest value of assets subject to flooding with less than half a metre of sea level rise.

Despite these threats, the metropolitan area is one of the fastest-growing in the United States with, at present, 25,000 new condominiums proposed and under construction.

Florida's governor Rick Scott has warned state workers not to discuss climate change or sea-level-rise and, instead, to refer to "nuisance flooding", while Florida's senator, the Cuban-American Marco Rubio, confidently says: "Humans are not responsible for climate change." Florida has about 1.5 million Cuban-Americans, many living in Miami's "Little Havana". America's first Jewish senator, David Levy Yulle, represented Florida in the 19th century. Described as "more Jewish than Tel Aviv", Miami Beach has been a favoured retirement destination for Jews from New York, and Jewish immigrants from Israel and Russia.

Palm Beach is a favoured retirement destination for the super wealthy. Before being locked away for the biggest fraud in American history, Bernie Madoff had a home there and was a member of the Palm Beach Country Club, and US president-elect Donald Trump last year sold a mansion to Russian oligarch Dmitry Rybolovev for US$95 million.

Trump has his beachfront "winter White House", Mar-a-lago, at Palm Beach West and has taken a "King Canute" position on sea-level-rise, claiming: "Global warming is a hoax", that he is "not a big believer in climate change" and "nobody really knows". Right in the middle of "ground zero", Mar-a-lago is one of the best places in the US to find out.

Since taking over Mar-a-lago, Trump has engaged in court actions relating to his property. The first involved a 6m x 9m American flag he put up a 24m pole. Palm Beach regulations limited flagpoles to 13m and the county charged him with violating their code. Trump, naturally, counter-sued, gained a number of concessions, accepted a 21m flagpole and then dropped his suit.

The second case involved repeated actions by Trump against the Palm Beach County to stop noisy aircraft from the Palm Beach International Airport from flying over Mar-a-lago. Trump went so far as to charge the US Federal Aviation Administration with maliciously directing aircraft over his property.

In 2015, the judge ruled against Trump's arguments but, since winning the American presidency in 2016, Trump can now make Mar-a-lago a no-fly zone for reasons of national security -- and, because he is now the president, he can fly a flag as big as he likes.

Donald Trump may be ideally suited to lead the American empire hell-bent on consumption at the expense of the environment, but can he hold back the tide at Pahayokee?

�When Fred Frederikse is not building, he is a self-directed student of geography and traveller. In his spare time he is co-chairman of the Whanganui Musicians' Club