Climate and Natural Disaster Resilience for St. Pete

 

Follow on Instagram: @resilientstpete

Sign Petition Here: https://www.change.org/p/voters-demand-the-city-of-st-petersburg-implement-sustainable-disaster-resistant-solutions

This final project was meant to advocate for social change in regards to the implementation of sustainable disaster-resistant solutions to issues of flooding, sea-level rise, and storm surge via an advocacy campaign. An advocacy campaign is a strategic course of action, involving communication, which is undertaken for a specific purpose. (Pezzullo and Cox, 2018, p. 206) Advocacy campaigns must have a mode of advocacy and objective that would fall under public education to influence social attitudes and behaviors as well as community organizing to mobilize citizens or residents to act. (Pezzullo and Cox, 2018, p. 205) We Demand a Resilient St. Pete, the message of my campaign, explicitly identifies St. Petersburg with the lack of existing mitigation efforts to disaster and emergency management that appeals to the irreparable. Messages are a particularly important element of a campaign's strategic communication because it clearly, concisely, and compellingly expresses a campaign's objective. (Pezzullo and Cox, 2018, p. 213) It is relatively transparent that St. Pete is something of value that will be lost that cannot be recovered, therefore my target was to have St. Petersburg City Council (primary audience) and residents (secondary audience) to become aware of our vulnerability and inadequate risk assessment to implement necessary changes. Hence we are a risk society, defined by the intro to large-scale nature of risks and potential irreversible threats, which becomes cultivated by our event-driven news coverage that thrives on dramatic, gloomy events. (Pezzullo and Cox, 2018, p. 93, 151) In the technical approach, risk is presented in an equation where Risk = Severity x Likelihood. (Pezzullo and Cox, 2018, p. 153) Present-day technical risk assessments and cost-benefit analysis conducted by the City of St Petersburg and Pinellas County have failed to estimate the probability of harm, make an adequate judgment of acceptable risk, hazard identification, and so forth. I implemented Pinellas and St. Pete's failed assessment in the construction of framing various issues such as salt marsh vegetation in a relationship with the inadequate previous behaviors that make St. Pete the most vulnerable to flooding, sea-level rise, and storm surge in Instagram posts on the campaign's social media page. The social media page was to overcome growth in networked digital technology that has changed the condition of visibility in environmental communication and the public sphere, as well as to better alert and amplify my audience. More specifically, I chose Instagram as a strategy owning to the fact digital media is a more sustainable way to communicate than on paper, alongside the ability to use visual rhetoric, as well as clicktivism in the bio to my petition. Instagram also projects images onto the individual's screen to meet the communication goal of amplification, increasing those who come into contact with my message. (Pezzullo and Cox, 2018, p. 233) My petition was created as a tactic to foster engagement of St. Pete residents via the bottom-up site Change.org, which is self-initiating and instigates social change on issues that are the root of the problem to St. Pete's disaster management practices. (Pezzullo and Cox, 2018, p. 235)

Figure 1: Risk of Storm Surge and Sea Level Rise (Gantt, 2017)

The symbolic solutions presented in my posts use the idea of remediation, a process where older media are represented or refashioned into a new medium, which in this instance was environmental journalism in the newspapers articles and scientific studies into the communication medium of social media. (Pezzullo and Cox, 2018, p. 237) An example can be seen in my analysis of sea-level rise informing St. Pete has taken a "wait and see approach" instead of taking measures to protect its residents, because without doing so the city wouldn't have individuals who drive our economy and potentially become abandoned. That means many would have to uproot their lives and suffer extraordinary losses. A fairly recent online publication indicates that the Tampa Bay region is roughly 10 steps behind South Florida (Miami Dade, Broward counties) which warns of the irreparable destruction from sea level rise and extreme variations of weather constituted from our warming climate. (Gantt, 2017) Therefore, Resilient St Pete advocacy campaign works in correlation to the new antagonism of sustainability and grassroots movement of climate justice activism. This campaign communicates sustainability, the capacity to negotiate environmental, social, and economic needs and desires for current and future generations, via the petition that claims we innovate our existing infrastructure and policies to protect our livelihood and well as for future generations due to the existential threat of global warming. (Pezzullo and Cox, 2018, p. 43) Resilient St. Pete uses apocalyptic rhetoric and symbolic legitimacy in my campaign's logo of a family having to vacate their home warning of an impending and severe ecological crisis. In other words, if we don't fix unnoticed problems that could save our beloved region. For example, Tampa Bay has lost upwards of 56% of its salt marsh vegetation since the 19th century, which acts as a buffer zone that downplays storm surge damage. (Raabe et. al. 2012) Additionally, these wetlands are habitats for many native species as well as a natural mitigation effort to store carbon dioxide emissions that society puts into our atmosphere via fossil fuel dependent automobiles, power plants, and industrial zones. (UM Boston, 2013) Solutions to restore and nurture our salt marsh vegetation includes controlling phragmites, regulating fertilizer use, imposing restrictions on coastal development near or on wetlands, running technique, and secondary sea walls. (Graca and Goldstone, 2020) (Stormwater Report, 2020) Within these posts on the campaign's social media page consisted elements of narrative framing, which helps people create a storyline of an event in their minds. (Pezzullo and Cox, 2018, p. 106) An example can be seen in the first post, which describes an event of a major hurricane where the Bay Area could see storm surge worse than when Hurricane Katrina hit Mississippi and Louisiana in August 2005. Thus, this elevated storm surge threat is because of our inadequate risk assessment, which can be calculated correctly by conducting a technical approach that takes into consideration a cost-benefit analysis. (Pezzullo and Cox, 2018, p. 153) Clearly, the disadvantage of $175 Billion in losses that would decimate the locality vs various natural and infrastructure solutions has a lot lower cost than a "wait and see" approach. (Danielson, 2015) Alongside the issue of carbon emissions retaining its current footprint, we could face the irreparable effects of the seas rising a mere 8 feet by 2100. (Figueroa IV, 2021) Thinking about future generations being able to experience the unique lifeforms and ecosystems Florida has to offer to the world is what drives me to the issue of importance.

Figure 2: Devastation from Hurricane Katrina in Biloxi, MS

(Juhasz, 2018) (Similar in elevation as St. Pete)

Taking into account these key concepts, I was unable to successfully meet my petition goal and alert my whole audience due to social media and the internet's content flood. Thus, I began going out into Downtown St. Pete in order to get signatures, which wasn't very successful while only gathering a few signatures due to our region's increased tourism. Perhaps if I primarily focused on the output of more posts and following more people then it could have become more amplified. This campaign could have become an instant success if I had a member of the city council who was willing to work with me. It was difficult to communicate without a physical location to speak about this pressing issue. Reaching out to individuals such as Richie Floyd did not go as planned due to the fact he was experiencing a content flood of emails or did not have the agency of time on his side or what have you. I began following members of the city council towards the end of my campaign in hopes of getting visibility to meet part of the campaign's goal, to foster support and visibility by key decision makers such as St. Pete City Council members. Also following other groups with similar interests would allow amplification of this issue to garner support from my secondary audience (St. Pete residents) that would sign my petition. I ended up not finding many pages where I could alert and amplify my audience as not many groups used Instagram but more likely other bottom-up sites such as Facebook and Twitter. I think if I were to reside within the city limits of St. Petersburg and have outside connections to residents I could have become more successful in signing my petition that would persuade my key decision makers. Should I have taken this issue to my own community in which I reside, Hillsborough County, as well as working in a team setting then the petition could have been an instant success in molding my campaign making it more persuadable that can increase action on behalf of key decision makers.

Works Cited:

Danielson, R. (2015, October 9). Tampa Bay Area rated nation's most vulnerable to hurricane storm surge. Tampa Bay Times. Retrieved December 13, 2021, from https://www.tampabay.com/news/weather/hurricanes/tampa-bay-area-rated-nations-most-vulnerable-to-hurricane-storm-surge/2249075/.

Figueroa IV, D. (2021, January 13). Tampa study aims to prepare city for 8 feet of sea-level rise in 80 years. WMNF. Retrieved November 30, 2021, from https://www.wmnf.org/tampa-study-aims-to-prepare-city-for-8-feet-of-sea-level-rise-in-80-years/.

Gantt, K. (2017, August 8). South Florida and Tampa Bay are polar opposites when it comes to sea level rise. Medium. Retrieved November 30, 2021, from https://medium.com/@kganttwrites/south-florida-and-tampa-bay-are-polar-opposites-when-it-comes-to-sea-level-rise-c80d040f5019.

Graca, M., & Goldstone, H. (2020, November 17). Assessing new salt marsh restoration technique in Buzzards Bay. Woodwell Climate. Retrieved November 27, 2021, from https://www.woodwellclimate.org/assessing-new-salt-marsh-restoration-technique-in-buzzards-bay/.

Juhasz, A. (2018, March 28). On Mississippi's coast, Hurricane Katrina leaves scars, some find silver linings. Mississippi Semester. Retrieved December 13, 2021, from https://mssemester.wordpress.com/2018/03/28/on-mississippis-coast-hurricane-katrina-leaves-scars-some-find-silver-linings/.

Pezzullo, P. C., & Cox, J. R. (2018). Environmental Communication and the Public Sphere (5th ed.). SAGE Publications, Inc.

Raabe, E., Mcivor, C., & Roy, L. (2012, September). Tampa Bay Coastal Wetlands: Nineteenth to twentieth ... Retrieved November 27, 2021, from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/257776930_Tampa_Bay_Coastal_Wetlands_Nineteenth_to_Twentieth_Century_Tidal_Marsh-to-Mangrove_Conversion. 

NOAA Logo Sea Level Rise Viewer. View site. (n.d.). Retrieved November 30, 2021, from https://coast.noaa.gov/slr/#/layer/slr/8/-9213207.10223527/3219667.851588575/12/satellite/none/0.8/2050/interHigh/midAccretion. 

Salt marshes and seawalls work together to minimize flood damages. Stormwater Report. (2020, August 20). Retrieved November 27, 2021, from https://stormwater.wef.org/2020/08/salt-marshes-and-seawalls-work-together-to-minimize-flood-damages/.

University of Massachusetts Boston. (2013). Intro to Salt Marshes. YouTube. Retrieved November 27, 2021, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHXVSF71a4Y.