Chris Hayes: ‘Because of Carbon Pollution,’ Hurricane Irma Creating Bigger Storm Surges

‘I will note, however, for an issue that has been very partisan for a very long time, largely because the Republican Party has a different view on this than consensus of scientists’

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RUSH EXCERPT:

VELSHI: "That's where they want to build their buildings."
HAYES: "That's exactly right. So right now four miles west of where I am where that storm surge is spiking up, the last readings have it two miles above ground. That's going to get a lot more feet of water. And when Naples is rebuilt, that's something that everyone's going to have to be thinking about. We saw what happened to building codes in Florida after Andrew in '92. Basically the strongest building codes if country. A new round of revised building codes even after that, some after Katrina. But you are already seeing architectures and engineers start to struggle on the reality of the front end of climate change of maintaining a society and civilization in a place that's under constant assault from water and water whose levels we are every day, because of carbon pollution, raising the level."
VELSHI: "You'll get a lot of angry tweets about that. But whether or not you believe the argument you just made -- I happen to -- but whether or not you do, it is not really even the point in Florida because the water levels are rising. You can doubt why it is happening. But it is happening, and that concrete having replaced those marshes and swamps means that when extra water and extra wind comes in there, it cannot be absorbed."
HAYES: "Yeah. You don't really even need to talk to scientists. Just talk to the engineers that work in Miami-Dade. They're not ones who are taking the measurements in noaa and measuring the parts per million of carbon in the air. What they're doing is designing buildings and designing structures and designing sewage treatment that can withstand a rising sea level. It is not some sort of fiction or distant abstraction in their minds. It is very real. We're going to see that up and down both coasts in Florida where all that coastal real estate is, where all that value is. You're going to see some very brilliant minds come together to try to figure out how to engineer their way out of the immediate threat. The problem though is that if the waters keep coming up, you reach a point where engineering your way out of it becomes very difficult."

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