Immigration, Human Trafficking and Population Issues

CLICK HERE - STUDY - Union of Concerned Scientists - Underwater - Rising Seas, Chronic Floods, and the Implications for US Coastal Real Estate (28 page .PDF document)

ucsusa.org - June 2018

Sea levels are rising. Tides are inching higher. High-tide floods are becoming more frequent and reaching farther inland. And hundreds of US coastal communities will soon face chronic, disruptive flooding that directly affects people's homes, lives, and properties.

Yet property values in most coastal real estate markets do not currently reflect this risk. And most homeowners, communities, and investors are not aware of the financial losses they may soon face.

This analysis looks at what's at risk for US coastal real estate from sea level rise—and the challenges and choices we face now and in the decades to come.

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A three-year UN-backed study from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform On Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services has grim implications for the future of humanity.

CLICK HERE - IPBES - IPBES Global Assessment Preview

huffpost.com - by John Vidal - March 15, 2019

Nature is in freefall and the planet’s support systems are so stretched that we face widespread species extinctions and mass human migration unless urgent action is taken. That’s the warning hundreds of scientists are preparing to give, and it’s stark . . .

. . . The study from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform On Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), expected to run to over 8,000 pages, is being compiled by more than 500 experts in 50 countries. It is the greatest attempt yet to assess the state of life on Earth and will show how tens of thousands of species are at high risk of extinction, how countries are using nature at a rate that far exceeds its ability to renew itself, and how nature’s ability to contribute food and fresh water to a growing human population is being compromised in every region on earth.

Congressman Darren Soto and staff reach out to Puerto Rican evacuees in a lobby in a Florida Super 8 motel in Kissimmee, Florida, earlier this month. Photograph: Staff/Reuters

For the more than 300,000 people who fled after Hurricane Maria the Sunshine State proved to be no Disney World but they are poised to have an electoral impact in the midterms

theguardian.com - by Richard Luscombe - August 9, 2018

 . . . As of the end of June, more than 600 Puerto Rican families were still living in cramped, single-room accommodation in Florida hotels, two-thirds of them in central Florida’s Orange and Osceola counties and relying on the temporary shelter assistance program paid for by the federal emergency management agency (Fema).

And with the Orlando/Kissimmee/Sanford area third in the US for its dearth of affordable housing options, low-cost rentals are especially hard to come by, forcing even more to remain in $60-a-night hotel rooms in rundown areas, especially along the US 192 highway in Kissimmee . . . 

Stack of school papers on a desk in an empty classroom in Puerto Rico.

cnn.com - by Nicole Chavez - April 6, 2018

Puerto Rico is closing 283 schools this summer following a sharp drop in enrollment in the past year, officials said.

Since May, schools have lost 38,762 students as the US territory works to rebuild following a devastating hurricane last year, the education department said in a statement.

"Half of the existing schools are at 60% of their capacity," it said. The department said only 828 schools will reopen in August.

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