Morris Massre is a Realtor with All Luxury Miami.

I am worried about climate change, especially here in South Florida. And you should be too if you live here.

Experts have been painting a very ugly picture of Florida’s future if we don’t start to change now. The evidence is pretty damning – we helped fuel climate change. But we have the power to make things right, and it will certainly take more than just a village.

We now know that like New Orleans, South Florida is sinking at an alarming rate. And the problem is soft soil and erosion, not pollution. Miami continues to build gigantic condos, like New York, in an effort to keep up with the international Jones’. This effort has led to, dare I say it, more weight and less water drainage. Therefore, when it rains here, the city and most of the county floods. Miami Beach gets it the worst.

Now, officials thought about this problem long ago, which is why South Florida has a series of canals that channel water away from the city and into the Everglades. But I don’t think these guys way back at the beginning of the 20th century could have ever imagined the rate of growth here. Couple all of this with rising sea levels and Florida will be under water before I am dead (hopefully?). That is scary.

Nobody seems to be concerned here though. Not the politicians, not the developers, and certainly not all of the buyers. Should we as Realtors be worried? Or are we just concerned with making a buck and let everyone else worry about the future? I wonder. Realtors would be crazy to try and sell someone a house or condo and then tell them before closing that it will probably be under water in about 20 years. They would go out of business. But it is in my power to warn everyone now, and if they choose not to heed my advice then so be it. At least I gave ample warning.

So the ultimate question then is: How can we help?

My first inclination is to simply take the issue straight to our politicians, and if they don’t do anything then vote them out of office and install someone who does. In other words, find someone who cares and make it our platform. I am not naive enough to believe that all of my board dues go to schooling and use of the MLS system. Most of it actuality goes to our lobbyists in Washington. Did you know that? What if we told these lobbyists that we wanted someone in power that would do something about climate change? Imagine how powerful a message that would be.

The second thing we have to do is encourage and force these same city officials to install more and efficient means of public transportation. With that there would be less cars on the road emitting all of that carbon monoxide. Right now we have a Tri Rail that not too many people use and a Metro Rail that goes nowhere. Can we fix that please? Both or at least one of these has to go to downtown Fort Lauderdale, the beaches, and Miami Beach. I have met people who ride the Tri Rail from a city up north, like Deerfield, for instance, then take the Metro Rail to Miami, and then an Uber to Miami Beach. How ridiculous is that?! And as Realtors, we contribute to the problem by driving all of these buyers around day in and day out when it would be so much easier to simply look at a virtual tour and pick from there. Bottom line, if you can buy a house online then you should be able to look at it online too.

And finally, we simply just do not have enough green space. Developers build on any bare scrap of land they can find. I am seeing lots being built on now that have sat vacant for 20 years because there is nothing left. And these lots are turning into houses and town homes that nobody in their right mind would live in because they border shopping centers, major highways, and cow pastures. Yes, we have parks, but let’s be real, Miami and Miami Beach are urban jungles with a lot of tree lined streets. That is not enough. Take a look at the Everglades from above. It is being squeezed from every direction like Custer during his last stand. And we all know how that turned out.

You can add all of the drainage ditches and pipes in the world if you want to, but in the end that will only prolong the inevitable. Be proactive and do things the easier and cheaper way by adopting my call to arms instead.