They say that age begets wisdom, but really some times it just makes you weird and smelly, as seems to be the case with Dave Lindorff, a Philadelphia “award winning” journalist and former New York Times contributor, who thinks the answer to the Red State problem is Global Warming.
The area that will by completely inundated by the rising ocean—and not in a century but in the lifetime of my two cats—are the American southeast, including the most populated area of Texas, almost all of Florida, most of Louisiana, and half of Alabama and Mississippi, as well as goodly portions of eastern Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina. While the northeast will also see some coastal flooding, its geography is such that that aside from a few projecting sandbars like Long Island and Cape Cod, the land rises fairly quickly to well above sea level. Sure, Boston, New York and Philadelphia will be threatened, but these are geographically confined areas that could lend themselves to protection by Dutch-style dikes. The West Coast too tends to rise rapidly to well above sea level in most places. Only down in Southern California towards the San Diego area is the ground closer to sea level. So what we see is that huge swaths of conservative America are set to face a biblical deluge in a few more presidential cycles.
Then there’s the matter of the Midwest, which climate experts say is likely to face a permanent condition of unprecedented drought, making the place largely unlivable, and certainly unfarmable. The agribusinesses and conservative farmers that have been growing corn and wheat may be able to stretch out this doomsday scenario by deep well drilling, but west of the Mississippi, the vast Ogallala Aquifer that has allowed for such irrigation is already being tapped out. It will not be replaced.
So again, we will see the decline and depopulation of the nation’s vast midsection—noted for its consistent conservatism. Only in the northernmost area, around the Great Lakes (which will be not so great anymore), and along the Canadian border, will there still be enough rain for farming and continued large population concentrations, but those regions, like Minnesota, Wisconsin and Illinois, are also more liberal in their politics.
Finally, in the Southwest, already parched and stiflingly hot, the rise in energy costs and the soaring temperatures will put an end to right-wing retirement communities like Phoenix, Tucson and Palm Springs. Already the Salton Sea is fading away and putting Palm Springs on notice that the good times are coming to an end. Another right-wing haven soon to be gone.
So the future political map of America is likely to look as different as the much shrunken geographical map, with much of the so-called “red” state region either gone or depopulated.
There is a poetic justice to this of course. It is conservatives who are giving us the candidates who steadfastly refuse to have the nation take steps that could slow the pace of climate change, so it is appropriate that they should bear the brunt of its impact.
The important thing is that we, on the higher ground both actually and figuratively, need to remember that, when they begin their historic migration from their doomed regions, we not give them the keys to the city. They certainly should be offered assistance in their time of need, but we need to keep a firm grip on our political systems, making sure that these guilty throngs who allowed the world to go to hell are gerrymandered into political impotence in their new homes.
There will be much work to be done to help the earth and its residents—human and non-human—survive this man-made catastrophe, and we can’t have these future refugee troglodytes, should their personal disasters still fail to make them recognize reality, mucking things up again.
It should be considered acceptable, in this stifling new world, to say, “Shut up. We told you this would happen.”
Okay, I don’t know if he really smells, but he doesn’t look much different from that homeless guy I see walking down the road pushing that shopping cart every morning on my way to work (he probably owns cats, too) so I suspect that he might.
Regardless, I’ve got news for him. If rising waters and higher temps did indeed force us Red Staters into the Blue States you can bet your ass we would move in and own those wussy elitist-non-gun-owning-left-wingers faster than Conan can slice a broadsword through Michael Moore’s fat neck. Hell, we’ve got more personal firepower than some nations and you think we wouldn’t bring it with us?
Of course, all the sensible Blue Staters - same conservatives and sane liberals - would be welcome to join us in a new society while Mr. Lindorff grabs a shopping cart and roams the alleys looking for food and what’s left of his rational mind.
Footnote:
I am not even addressing the fact that rising sea levels would force all those Blue Staters (California, Washington, Oregon, New York and the rest of the northeast, etc.) into our territory and not the other way around. For a guy who is so worried about global warming he has a very poor understanding of the issue, doesn’t he?
UPDATE:
It was pointed out to me in comments by a very wicked, but also very beautiful, brunette that I had used “lamenations” instead of “lamentations” in the title. I am slightly embarrassed by this, but not horribly embarassed because all I did was cut and paste the damn thing from a quote on the internets. (And I do mean internets not internet - it’s a net/political joke). Anyway, what amazes me most is it took so long for anyone to point it out.
