Louisiana has been sinking for ages: We have Tesla & EV's!

[Ulmo]

#1:

I knew Louisiana was mostly water where it said it was land near the beach. The teacher and I argued about this in elementary school. I saw the water in the maps and she said no, it's land! I continued arguing this for many years. I just gave up: they were wrong, and I knew it. All you had to do was look at a damn map, and today, satellite images.

Oddly, the lie persists (see below link). Use Google Earth. Zoom out, you see the lie. Zoom in, you see the attempt at lies but the actual truth in imagery. It's right there! Then, zoom in to some "forestlands": no longer forestlands, but forestseas.

#2:

Let it sink. We don’t need Louisiana. And we don’t need oil or gas. We have Tesla.

Every map of Louisiana is a lie — what it really looks like should scare you

My only exception to #2 will be to say that we shouldn't just abandon our environment. In 2 or 3 decades when we've ended gas and oil use, we can stop the oil pumps sucking down the land, and the wetlands can be allowed to recover.

But let's not pretend this is a tragedy that the awful state of Louisiana is disappearing due to oil and gas being sucked out of it, whether due to some sort of loss of oil fields if we stop pumping, or to the awful flatlands subsuming. We have solutions coming, and we don't need some mosquito infested alligator infested hurricane infested swampland civilization people. We can do humans just fine in more sensible areas. Yes, we should restore the swamplands, but not for the sake of humans, but for the sake of the environment.

The 5 million people that live there now can attrition out as the oceans swallow their cities whole, and they can stop developing that land. Unfortunately, we've already seen some of the displacement problems this causes: Louisianian emigrants have caused a great deal of the problems of the last decades in places they've immigrated to. Hopefully most of them start off in Florida and grow up there before heading North and West.

And we don't need the oil. We can build solar panels instead.

 

[timpierc]

While I have a feeling rising oceans will play a role in how Louisiana's coast line will change, I have to disagree this is all due to oil and gas wells.

The fact of the matter is southern Louisiana is very dynamic, and has been changing constantly due to the Mississippi and Archafalaya rivers. Humans basically put a stop to that dynamic between the Louisiana coasts and the rivers contributions to it about 100 years ago. If humans allowed the Mississippi to run its course, it would have jumped to the Archafalaya by now (a whole other discussion can be discussed if it would have done so had Henry Shreve not broken the log jam separating the two). And Louisiana would have a much greater coastal build up at the mouth of the Archafalaya than is already taking place.

Of course the coast would begin disappearing at a much greater rate at it's current mouth into the gulf, but that's the dynamic of southern Louisiana. It's supposed to build up in one area, and disappear in another. It's never supposed to be static. I have a feeling oil and gas canals are contributing a little to these changes, but there are much greater forces at play that I don't think can be blamed strictly because of oil and gas.