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A lot of the articles that focus on rising oceans, and how they might effect the USA, seem to confuse the general issue of global warming with the specific issu

A lot of the articles that focus on rising oceans, and how they might effect the USA, seem to confuse the general issue of global warming with the specific issue of Florida. The situation in Florida might be hopeless, but why should that effect how we talk about other USA urban centers? This article is an example. It talks about New York as if the situation in New York is as hopeless as the situation in Florida. It's important to remember that much of the USA coastline can be defended the same way that the Dutch defend their coastline: build a lot of dykes around any urban area that is of high value. This strategy would work just fine for much of the northern eastern coast of the USA. The big exception is Florida. Because much of southern Florida sits on porous limestone, it is useless to build dykes for Florida. The ocean would simply go under the dyke. Figuring out how we might save Florida is a very difficult issue, and it might be impossible. But figuring out how to save New York is straight forward. The techniques that the Dutch developed 500 years ago would work just fine for New York today. Yes, it would be very expensive, but the payments can be stretched out over 100 years -- the projects can be implemented gradually, as the oceans rise gradually. A staggering $1 trillion price tag is a trivial $10 billion a year, over 100 years. One could reasonably argue that we can't build a dyke for the whole east coast. That is probably true. Some farmland will be sacrificed, some fishing villages will be sacrificed. But can we build enough dykes to protect New York? Obviously. If the Dutch could do this in the 1500s, why can't we do it now?

Hondor 10y ago
Promoting ways to protect ourselves from global warming instead of preventing dilutes the popular rhetoric of "reduce emissions now or we're doomed!" If there's enough publicity given to your kind of idea, then people might relax and not worry enough. Without them worrying enough, they might not do anything to prevent it. That kind of makes you wonder why try to prevent it anyway. So to answer "why can't we do it now?" We can. We just don't want to talk about it yet because sheeples.

Hondor 10y ago

Promoting ways to protect ourselves from global warming instead of preventing dilutes the popular rhetoric of "reduce emissions now or we're doomed!" If there's enough publicity given to your kind of idea, then people might relax and not worry enough. Without them worrying enough, they might not do anything to prevent it. That kind of makes you wonder why try to prevent it anyway. So to answer "why can't we do it now?" We can. We just don't want to talk about it yet because sheeples.