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Pulse

South Florida

IN 1890, JUST OVER SIX THOUSAND PEOPLE LIVED IN THE damp lowlands of south Florida. Since then the wetlands that covered half the state have been largely drained, strip malls have replaced Seminole camps, and the population has increased a thousandfold. Over roughly the same amount of time the number of black college degree holders in the United States also increased a thousandfold, as did the difference between the average salaries of CEOs and the workers they employ, the speed at which we fly, and the combined carbon emissions of the Middle East.

About sixty of the region’s more than six million residents have gathered in the Cox Science Building at the University of Miami on a sunny Saturday morning in 2016 to hear Harold Wanless, or Hal, chair of the geology department, speak about sea level rise. “Only seven percent of the heat being trapped by greenhouse gases is stored in the atmosphere,” Hal begins. “Do you know where the other ninety-three percent lives?”