By Peter Burrows 7/28/19 elburropete@gmail.com - silvercityburro.com

For over thirty years we’ve been hearing dire warnings about how Global Warming (always capitalize a religion) is going to wreak havoc with humanity and cause exponential increases in droughts, floods, wildfires, tornadoes, hurricanes, crop failures, snow storms, starvation, swarms of locusts, and climate refugees --- who will number in the tens of millions. (OK, I made up that bit about locusts.)

A key part of the Global Warming apocalypse is that the melting poles are causing sea levels to rapidly rise. New York City, Washington, D.C., Florida and many other coastal areas around the world will soon disappear beneath the waves.

That part about Florida caught my attention a few years ago. It was right after I had had a medical procedure that mostly old guys experience and it was an epiphany of sorts: Soon, I will be no more.

Coming to grips with this existential fact, I realized that I wanted to spend my last days somewhere warm, both because I think Silver City is too damn cold and also to get a little acclimated to my probable hereafter. Hence, my thoughts turned to Florida.

Why not, I thought, move to Florida, find a spot that still has a little beach left, then just lie down and float away, another casualty of Global Warming, albeit a willing casualty. As an added bonus, I wouldn’t need to spend much on a place to live, maybe nothing at all. Lots of abandoned beach homes down there, right?

With that in mind, I eagerly googled up the number one online realtor, Zillow, and looked for properties in Key Largo. Bogie and Bacall, don’t cha’ know.

Well, was I in for a shock! Those damn fools down there apparently hadn’t heard of Global Warming because not only were they not abandoning their homes. they were asking MORE for their properties than they had paid for them! A LOT more!

A place I really liked, right on the ocean with a sea-wall, was listed for $5.6 million. The owner had paid $2.4 million back in 1996, fully eight years after NASA’s James Hansen famously warned Congress about Global Warming.

Some people just don’t get it!

I mentioned this to my favorite Liberal, and she said anybody buying those Florida properties would be damned sorry, or something to that effect. I could tell by the look on her face that she had no sympathy for such fools.

This all happened back in 2015 and I wrote about it my article, “Global Warming, where is thy sting?” You can find it at silvercityburro.com, 4/18/15.

Well, here it is over four years later and I’m still cold and Global Warming has proceeded apace. It must be hurting oceanfront properties by now, so back to Zillow I went. Sigh. More of the same.

A place I really liked at 9 E2nd Street, Key Largo, has an ocean view; 4B and 4Ba; asking $1,489,000, purchased for $625,000 in 2016. Much of that increase is following extensive remodeling, and I note that the house is TWO stories, so a buyer can expect to move up as the water moves in.

I couldn’t find anything in the Keys selling on the cheap, much less being abandoned, so I looked on the other coast in the Tampa Bay area. Same story.

A sweet number just listed at W Bay Way Dr. In Tampa is asking $2,650,000 and was purchased on 7/41/06 for $1,785,000. Nice place: 4bd, 6ba, and 4,485 spare feet. What a shame all that will soon be under water.

I thought maybe the rest of the world had more sense so I looked at oceanfront properties in Monaco, Hawaii, and Tahiti. Nope, nope, and nope.

I won’t bore you with the gory details, other than to note there is a really nice place on 4505 Kahulu Ave. In Honolulu that you can steal for only $30 million, and there’s an APARTMENT in Monaco with “a lovely view of the Mediterranean” that is only $24 million.

I guess I’ll have to come to grips with the unpleasant reality that I will not live long enough to benefit from the inevitable price collapse in Florida beach properties. And I know who is to blame: Barrack Hussein Obama. Some of you are thinking, “Are you off your meds again, Burro?”

Not at all. I very clearly remember what Obama said in his victory speech in November of 2008, and I should have believed him. He said his election “was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow.” He could have added, “And, yea, the Florida realtors will continue to prosper and old climate deniers will wait in vain.”

It’s only Cosmic Justice, folks. After all, I didn’t vote for him.