'Point of no return': New Orleans relocation must start now due to sea level, study finds

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/may/04/new-orleans-sea-levels-relocation-climate-crisis

Quote"Even if you stopped climate change today, New Orleans's days are still numbered," he added. "It will be surrounded by open water, and you can't keep an island situated below sea level afloat. There's no amount of money that can do that."

That's a sobering read.

>> stopped climate change today

Which won't happen, since if we stopped all greenhouse gas emissions today (which also won't happen), we still have decades of warming built in. I think most people don't understand the latency problem.

>> 3-7m

I guess this includes subsidence and erosion? Projections for sea-level rise by 2100 vary a fair bit by region. Glacial rebound means that Alaska is actually expected to see sea level drop in places. But the worst place in the US is the Western Gulf coast.

But even then, those numbers are way above any estimates I've seen for 2100. Of course...

>> most likely decades rather than centuries

I have to keep reminding myself that 2100 is decades rather than centuries away. A kid born today will be about my brother's age.

Still, I wonder how much population you lose before NOLA collapses. We were seeing that in Detroit where infrastructure in some neighborhoods was being run to 100 houses, but only 45 (or  whatever) were still inhabited and paying bills.

^{Recycling the Maxwell Hunter II quote:}

'no one of consequence is going to take this rubbish seriously unless it happens. At that point, our policy will be determined in the traditional manner of grand panic.'

That was back when 2 + 2 = 5 was only believed in fiction.

Now we have the ability to delay panic until the event is basically over through the traditional manner of grand denial.

>relocation

My take: even if we do everything proactively to relocate New Orleans in time it won't be "New Orleans". It will be a bunch of fast food crap, prefabs and double wides and brutalist slabs all with negative -11 charm that no tourist or resident will want to see.  All the things that made NOLA a destination will be gone.

Although, I guess we could put up a Disney version with fake facades with no soul somewhere.