I beg to differ, it's the first sentence of the title of the article: “Miami Will Be Underwater Soon. […]”
Then there's, “Barring a stupendous reversal in greenhouse gas emissions, the rising Atlantic will cover much of Miami by the end of this century. The economic effects will be devastating: Zillow Inc. estimates that six feet of sea-level rise would put a quarter of Miami’s homes underwater, rendering $200 billion of real estate worthless.”
I don't know what you're arguing against the GP for. The question is, how are we to figure out how _concerned_ we should be? Clearly one day the good citizens of Miami are not going to be waking up to water lapping at their bedsheets. What timescale are we talking about? Who are Zillow? What options does the city of Miami have? Comparatively speaking is Miami an outlier or a typical case? I think journalists and news outlets do a major disservice to an important topic when they make alarmist headlines and skirt around the practical matters at the heart of articles such as this. The crux of the story, that Miami's freshwater is in peril before Miami's real estate is a valuable story to tell us.
But please spare us the melodramatic, “What nobody knows is when that will happen, or what happens next.”
You mean to say that the people in charge of managing these water systems are standing by dumbfounded and helpless? Maybe we should replace them by people who are able to problem solve in the face of adversity.
Considering that almost all projections have undershot global warming and sea level rise, and recent empirical observations have supported accelerating increases, we should be looking at worse that RCP8.5 scenarios which is already a full meter by 2080-2100.
Sea level rises by 2100 that are only 1"/.3m all rely on huge decreases in CO2 emission and global policy responses, which is unlikely based on existing evidence.
edit: https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/70189089 (saline intrusion in Biscayne aquifer, access via referrer https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2018/07/06/global-warmin... and free access)
edit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representative_Concentration_P... (nomenclature for future climate scenarios)
edit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPCC_Fifth_Assessment_Report (assessments and risks under future climate scenarios)
edit: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-018-0146-0 (evidence that projections are below current observed rates and overly conservative, even in some worst cases)
One of our political parties has been paid to ensure that doesn't happen.
As for whether they're helpless or not... that depends largely on whether the rising sea level infiltrates the aquifer to the point where it becomes brackish rather than fresh water. And even then, the problem can be dealt with, by turning to desalination (probably of straight seawater).
For "Who is Zillow?", they're the #1 real estate website. Property values are their business, and they have lots of data (and a corporate perspective, rather than a scientific one, for better or worse). What options does Miami have? Spend more money on protecting the aquifer from mining and contamination, and maybe invest in desalination. Is Miami an outlier? Kinda. Most coastal cities are also on river mouths, and thus have better fresh water resources. But overstretching the fresh water supply is often a problem, even if that fresh water isn't itself endangered - see Los Angeles, for example.
Moreover, six feet of sea level rise isn't going to happen instantaneously. It will take decades. Property will slowly be lost, but people will just move inland (or move away). And a key question is, whose property goes underwater? If it's wealthy people on the beachfront, they can afford the loss. If it's poor people, that's something else. We saw that in New Orleans, where the worst Katrina flooding happened in the poorest neighborhoods.
This also excludes the idea of simply building seawalls to protect low-lying areas. I mean, that's half of Holland, so it works. Making major social decisions on a distaste for the concept of global warming is foolish, though. Governments should operate pessimistically when it comes to threats to the land and people they govern. It should be assuming it will happen, on the worst-case side, not denying the threat because we don't like to think about it. Think that way, you might as well disband the fire department too. It's expensive and your house probably won't burn down.