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gulf of mexico
Evacuation Must Start Now as Climate-Driven Rising Gulf Slowly Drowns New Orleans: Study
"Coastal Louisiana has evidently already crossed the point of no return," says new research.
May 04, 2026
A study published Monday warns that New Orleans must immediately begin planning and gradually implementing its permanent evacuation to avert a dangerously rushed exodus later, because it has passed a "point of no return" as climate-driven sea-level rise slowly swallows the storied city.
"With global temperatures poised to exceed the 1.5°C Paris Agreement threshold—a level that triggered substantial ice sheet collapse during the Last Interglacial—low-elevation coastal zones face sea-level commitments far beyond current planning horizons," says the study, which was published by the journal Nature Sustainability.
"With this geological frame of reference, we examine the impact of sea-level rise on what may be the most physically vulnerable coastal zone in the world using prehistoric and contemporary patterns of human mobility," the publication continues. "We highlight the positive aspects of the recently commenced out-migration in this region and argue that the fate of communities landwards of this coastal zone will be decided in the next few decades."
"While climate mitigation should remain the first step to prevent the worst outcomes, coastal Louisiana has evidently already crossed the point of no return,” the paper adds.
That's because rising waters are slowly eroding Louisiana's coast, including New Orleans, which “may well be surrounded by the Gulf of Mexico before the end of this century," according to the study's authors.
“Louisiana is a canary in the coal mine. It is one of the rare places where we’re already clearly seeing climate-motivated depopulation combined with other social and economic factors,” said Yale School of the Environment professor and study co-author Brianna Castro.
The authors argued that by acknowledging the inevitability of New Orleans' underwater future, government and residents can avert a fraught rushed retreat by planning and executing a managed multigenerational relocation and set an example for other threatened coastal communities.
According to one widely cited study published a decade ago, around 13 million Americans living in coastal areas could be forced to relocate to higher ground by the end of the century due climate-driven sea-level rise, with the Gulf Coast and Florida expected lose the most livable land. Globally, hundreds of millions of people are expected to be displaced by 2100 due to rising seas.
After Hurricane Katrina—which inundated the city and killed nearly 1,000 people in the New Orleans metro area—billions of dollars were spent fortifying the city's levee system, which failed catastrophically during the 2005 storm. However, experts warn that in the long term, levees won't be able to stop the rising waters any longer.
That's why the study's authors said officials must begin the city's orderly depopulation as soon as possible.
"What kind of retreat do you want?" asked Castro. "Do you want to incentivize it and then people go naturally for jobs, housing, and lifestyle amenities—or do you want people to wait and then have to leave abruptly in crisis?”
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Green Groups Sue Trump to Stop 'Exceptionally Risky' Deep-Water Drilling Project in Gulf of Mexico
"Ultra-deep-water drilling is ultradangerous, full stop," said an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity.
Apr 20, 2026
Determined to prevent a "sequel" to the worst oil spill in US history, BP's deadly Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, six environmental protection groups on Monday sued the Trump administration over what they said was its illegal approval of the British fossil fuel giant's $5 billion plan to drill in the body of water's lowest depths off the coast of Louisiana.
BP has boasted that its planned Kaskida oil field is a "world-class project that reflects decades of technological innovation," but environmental legal firm Earthjustice argued that the company has failed to prove its has the "experience, expertise, and certified equipment to conduct safe drilling under extreme conditions" in waters deeper than 5,600 feet, where opponents of the plan say extreme pressure and temperatures will make a blowout and oil spill more likely than they'd be in a typical drilling project.
A "loss of well control" was blamed for the Deepwater Horizon explosion and spill that killed 11 people, harmed and killed more than 100,000 birds and marine animals as well as untold numbers of fish, and devastated local economies—and that type of accident is 6-7 times more likely in an ultra-deep drilling project like Kaskida, according to Earthjustice.
The organization wrote in a regulatory filing last year when it was trying to block the project that "deep-water and ultra-deep-water oil spills and accidents are also much more difficult to respond to and contain.”
"BP did not show in its proposals that it will have the necessary containment capabilities in case the company needs to stop a blown-out well from spilling 4.5 million barrels of oil or more across the Gulf."
The group is representing Healthy Gulf, Turtle Island Restoration Network, Habitat Recovery Project, Sierra Club, and Center for Biological Diversity in the lawsuit, which argues that President Donald Trump's Interior Department adopted in its environmental analysis of Kaskida a severe underestimation—by about half a million barrels of oil—of what a worst-case scenario oil spill would look like.
"BP did not show in its proposals that it will have the necessary containment capabilities in case the company needs to stop a blown-out well from spilling 4.5 million barrels of oil or more across the Gulf," said Earthjustice.
Rachel Mathews, a senior attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity, said it was "appalling that the Trump administration has authorized this deep-water drilling project without having information critical to preventing harm to marine life."
“This will put Rice’s whales, sea turtles, and other Gulf wildlife at terrible risk," said Mathews. "Ultra-deep-water drilling is ultradangerous, full stop.”
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management's (BOEM) approval of the Kaskida project was preceded by several industry-friendly actions by the Trump administration, including a meeting last month of the federal Endangered Species Committee, which voted to exempt fossil fuel companies from following policies intended to protect endangered species in the Gulf. Advocates argued that the decision was made illegally because the panel is required to meet publicly.
The administration has also proposed weakening "well control" rules for offshore drilling operations, and the White House is consolidating the BOEM and the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement—two agencies that were intentionally separated following the Deepwater Horizon disaster after an investigative commission found that conflicts of interest were created when they acted as one regulatory agency.
“Kaskida is emblematic of a new era in offshore oil extraction: corporate hoarding of risky, ultra-deep water leases in an attempt to monopolize the future of oil production, with little to no oversight from the Trump administration. We, as citizens of the Gulf South, are not standing for it,” said Martha Collins, executive director of Healthy Gulf. “BP has shown how they handle oil spills on this anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon disaster—their risky drilling and inexperience at this great depth will ensure their continued legacy of the Gulf never being the same again.”
Despite the fact that the Trump administration has taken numerous actions to ramp up oil and gas production—as the US already produces record amounts of fossil fuels—those measures are doing little to reduce oil prices, noted Earthjustice.
“Offshore drilling is one of the riskiest kinds of oil extraction, but the Trump administration is ignoring the law to allow Big Oil CEOs to endanger coastal communities for the sake of corporate profit,” said Devorah Ancel, senior attorney at Sierra Club’s Environmental Law Program. “This permit would allow BP to develop multiple ultra-deep high-pressure wells, which is already exceptionally risky, and with BP’s track record in the Gulf, coastal ecosystems face extraordinary danger. We’re suing the Trump administration to ensure the coastal communities that would suffer the consequences of BP’s actions get their day in court.”
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Trump and Hegseth: Modern Ahabs Harming Whales for Oil
In the war for oil, they are obviously not interested in hearing about collateral damage, including the approximately 50 Rice's whales left in the Gulf of Mexico.
Apr 11, 2026
Nicknamed the “God Squad” for its power to rule whether economic or national security interests outweigh the possibility of wiping out an animal species, the Endangered Species Committee has granted two exemptions to the Endangered Species Act since it was created by Congress in 1978. It is composed of the secretaries of the Interior, Agriculture, and the Army, and the heads of the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the Council of Economic Advisers.
The last time the committee granted an exemption was in 1992 when it allowed logging in sensitive areas for the northern spotted owl. Public outcry and litigation ultimately led to that requested exemption being withdrawn.
Last month, the committee was convened at the request of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. As gasoline prices in the US have soared past $4 a gallon and diesel fuel past $5 during President Donald Trump’s reckless war on Iran, Hegseth told the committee it was “a critical matter of national security” that fossil fuel extraction in the Gulf of Mexico be prioritized over any species at risk of extinction.
Never mind that one of those species is the Rice’s whale, which NOAA itself acknowledges is one of the rarest in the world. The whale exists only in the Gulf, with perhaps 50 or so left.That obviously means nothing to Trump and Hegseth, who are both so maddened that they have become modern Ahabs chasing a Moby Dick. In his right-wing Christian crusade, Hegseth openly prays for every bullet and missile to “find its mark” in war. In the war for oil, he obviously is not interested in hearing about collateral damage, saying: “Disruptions to Gulf oil production doesn’t hurt just us, it benefits our adversaries. We cannot allow our own rules to weaken our standing and strengthen those who wish to harm us. When development in the Gulf is chilled, we are prevented from producing the energy we need as a country and as a department.”
Fifty whales by themselves don’t stand a chance against the rhetoric of keeping gas under $5 a gallon.
Rice’s whale is hardly the only creature that could be decimated with ramped-up oil production. According to NOAA, the gulf is also a habitat for the endangered sperm whale; the endangered hawksbill, leatherback, and Kemp’s ridley sea turtles; and the endangered pillar coral. There is also a host of other animals listed as “threatened,” such as loggerhead and green sea turtles, Nassau grouper, the giant manta ray, and queen conch.The committee, chaired by Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, unanimously granted the exemption, based on Hegseth’s “findings.” Typical of Trump’s government, there is no description of those so-called findings. Burgum did not explain why this country’s pursuit of petroleum justifies further endangering endangered species. All Burgum said in a statement was that oil production in the Gulf “must not be disrupted or held hostage by ongoing litigation.”
The truth is that there is no evidence that the Endangered Species Act has “chilled” oil production in the Gulf of Mexico, let alone held it hostage. During the same week that Burgum’s committee granted that exemption, the Interior Department that Burgum leads announced that 2025 was the best year ever for the production of offshore oil. It is likely we will see a record-breaking output from the Gulf this year.
In fact, any argument that we need to risk eradicating more wildlife for oil was blown away by Trump himself. During last week’s address to the nation regarding his attack on Iran, he told Americans not to fret because “under my leadership, we are the No. 1 producer of oil and gas on the planet.” He said, “We don’t need” oil from the Middle East. He boasted, “We’re now totally independent of the Middle East.”
Even under current protections, wildlife is constantly being sacrificed for oil and gas. The biggest recent single hit to the Rice’s whale’s population was likely the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill. NOAA estimated the population of Rice’s whales may have plummeted 22%, as nearly half its habitat in the eastern Gulf was exposed to oil. The spill, according to NOAA, also killed up to 200,000 adult, juvenile, and hatchling turtles, and the deaths of dolphins, on top of the whales, became the largest cetacean mortality event ever recorded in the Gulf.
Even though Rice’s whales dive during the day as deep as 400 feet to feed, studies cited by NOAA have found that they spend the night within 50 feet of the surface where the hard-to-see creatures can be struck by vessels. NOAA’s website reports that the top threats to the remaining population are vessel strikes and the noise from vessels and energy pollution and says, “For Rice’s whales to recover, we must address existing and emerging threats to the species and their habitat.”
Yet even NOAA yielded to Hegseth’s demand for an exemption.
NOAA Administrator Neil Jacobs promised that despite the exemption, oil and gas activities would still include “various protective measures for the Rice’s Whale.” Given Trump’s crippling of the Environmental Protection Agency and rollbacks of regulations under the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act, Jacobs’ statement is about as comforting as the statement from the American Petroleum Institute praising the exemption, claiming with a straight face that the oil and gas industry “has a long track record of protecting wildlife while developing offshore energy responsibly.”
There is reason to be optimistic that, like the ultimate withdrawal of the 1992 spotted owl exemption, this one for the Gulf of Mexico will eventually be blocked by litigation and public protest. The day before Burgum convened the Endangered Species Committee, a federal judge in California invalidated several Endangered Species Act rollbacks concocted during the first Trump administration that allowed agencies to increasingly ignore the harm of projects to wildlife.
The judge, Jon Tigar, said the administration made “serious” errors in an “arbitrary and capricious” effort to gut the Endangered Species Act. Let us hope that the courts continue to find yet more errors with the exemption for the Gulf of Mexico. Fifty whales by themselves don’t stand a chance against the rhetoric of keeping gas under $5 a gallon. The Trump administration is today’s Ahab lunging over its ship with a harpoon. This time, the whale really could be killed in the hunt for oil.
This piece was originally published by MS Now. It is shared here with permission of the author.
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