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> A huge number of the world's greatest cities are on the coast since cities have a tendency to develop around ports. Sure. That effects the cost of rising se
by zeveb 10y ago
> A huge number of the world's greatest cities are on the coast since cities have a tendency to develop around ports.
Sure. That effects the cost of rising sea levels and the benefit of lowered sea levels. I'm not saying, 'let's do nothing!': I'm saying, 'let's perform a cost-benefit analysis' and 'I'm suspicious of anyone who has high confidence in his cost-benefit analysis'[1]. It's remarkable that so many folks find those to be distressing views.
[1] Particularly if his analysis supports giving him and people like him the sort of social power that great apes tend to crave like a drug. The Aztec priests had every incentive to believe that the human sacrifices they performed kept the Sun in his track — I won't say that the acted in bad faith (although their actual faith was appallingly bad: if one's religion requires ripping the hearts out of people and then engaging in cannibalism, maybe one should re-evaluate one's religious options), but they were still factually wrong.
- emodendroket 10y agoI mean, how much do you figure flooding New York permanently would cost? Hurricane Sandy cost billions of dollars.
- zeveb 10y ago> I mean, how much do you figure flooding New York permanently would cost? I honestly don't know the answer; I never said or implied that I did: I just noted the questions we have to answer to make a rational — rather than an emotional — decision. > Hurricane Sandy cost billions of dollars. True, but an awful lot of that was repair, wasn't it? If you abandon something, you don't need to spend money fixing it first. There would certainly be huge costs in losing New York City, but there would be some benefits too. And, again, taking the measures needed to not-lose-New-York isn't free: there are costs associated with that course of action. It truly boggles my mind that so many folks here think that, 'something must be done; this is something; this must be done!' is valid when applied to climate change, when we would all recognise it as invalid in a software-development context.
- emodendroket 10y agoYou'd have to build some replacement if you decided to abandon most of our major cities, unless your plan is just to forget about all the economic activity that happens in them.
- yongjik 10y ago> I'm suspicious of anyone who has high confidence in his cost-benefit analysis Maybe you could tell that to those who are convinced that reducing CO2 emission will destroy economy.