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'We're moving to higher ground': America's era of climate mass migration is here
- tobltobs 8y agoIt wont help that North Carolina Senate in 2012 voted to prohibit agencies and towns from using the latest scientific data on sea-level rise in coastal management decisions.
- technofiend 8y agoIt will as a cautionary tale if nothing else. If NC's groundwater is polluted from coal ash and their tourist industry devastated from their head-in-the-ground attitude while South Carolina thrives it'll eventually force change, despite (IMHO) lobbying by energy industry interests.
- kevin_b_er 8y agoIn another Republican Party controlled state, Florida, they've also forbidden agencies to talk about climate change, global warming. The truth will eventually come out by way of reality, but people will suffer for their greed.
- claydavisss 8y agoCalifornia hardly has a Republican party at all anymore but produces more greenhouse gas than any other state. And before you try to rationalize this with "per capita" arguments....you don't lose your home or get cancer "per capita"...the absolute numbers matter and California has higher absolute numbers than any other state.
- matchbok 8y agoWhat state has the most people and largest economy? Ok.
- claydavisss 8y agoSo since the USA has the largest global economy it should also get a pass? Good thing then we didn't sign the Paris Accord, being the largest economy and all. The Chinese will also be happy to find out that by virtue of having the largest population, they also get a ready-made excuse.
- rkallos 8y agoTexas produces nearly twice as much CO2 as California. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_carbon_... 2. https://www.eia.gov/environment/emissions/state/analysis/images/figure_1.jpg https://www.eia.gov/environment/emissions/state/analysis/ima...
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- gascan 8y agoAnd before you try to rationalize this with "per capita" arguments This is moronic. After all, the other 49 states combined produce more greenhouse gas than California. Don't try to rationalize that with "per capita" or "per land area" arguments, the absolute numbers matter.
- liveoneggs 8y agoyour points are true at an individual level but CA is the 3rd largest state and has, by far, the largest population. It is roughly the same size and population as all of Spain, for example.
- ryanmarsh 8y agoNot that I see this as totally implausible but I would love to see a source for this claim.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- WorldMaker 8y agoIn the mean time it only adds additional ammo to the Cities versus States "Civil Cold War" going on right now. Cities like Miami absolutely know and are tracking climate change, because they have to, and the complaints of City Mayors to State Legislatures with Blinders On show how painfully divorced most US States currently are from their tax bases, having willfully gerrymandered themselves to give a disproportionate vote to rural concerns over urban concerns.
- CptFribble 8y agoIt's not because they wanted to give rural votes more weight. The Republican Party ran a massive, coordinated operation to take over state legislatures, who control the redistricting process, to ensure GOP dominance in the House. In 2012, more votes total were cast for Democrats, but the Republicans retained 33-seat majority. The state laws ignoring climate change in favor of fossil fuel business is just a side-benefit. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/REDMAP https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/REDMAP
- WorldMaker 8y agoOh yes, they knew what they were doing. Rural votes typically vote more conservatively and urban votes typically more progressively/liberally. Giving rural votes more weight was definitely the strategy to get more weight to conservative votes. The cities versus rural counties "Cold Civil War" is absolutely the intentional consequence of the Republican strategy over the last many decades. The next question is how long this particular civil war stays cold, given how much increasing ammo (lit. and fig.) is being stockpiled by each side.
- toasterlovin 8y agoHonestly, everybody knows what the game is. The left should get their shit together and play the game that counts (winning elections), rather than the one that doesn't (% of popular vote).
- ryanmarsh 8y agoWait what? Do you have a source for this?
- Buldak 8y agoThe first result in my Google search: https://www.ucsusa.org/publications/ask/2012/NC-sea-level.html https://www.ucsusa.org/publications/ask/2012/NC-sea-level.ht...
- Theodores 8y agoMeanwhile Donald Trump builds his wall... I don't think the timescales here are realistic. The pace has picked up on global warming and the feedback loops are in place. Projections for '2065' are a bit silly. There is also this small problem in that the 'American empire' is on the decline. Currently the US (and UK) live off the rest of the world via tax havens, the petro-dollar and militarism. These instruments are not going to last forever and it is not possible to plot a linear graph of 'sea level rises' and 'insurance prices'. Everyone in affected areas will be caught out by 'negative equity' with nobody wanting to buy their property.
- jchanimal 8y agoSad that you are being downvoted when you are describing the relevant macro trend. Our goal as stewards of civilization has to be to manage through this transition as peacefully as possible.
- smileysteve 8y ago> Estimates range from $200,000 to $1m per person to undertake a relocation Meanwhile, Atlanta metro, predicted to take 320,000 people, has brand new townhomes 30 minutes from the airport for $100k (in Newnan).
- swarnie_ 8y agoJust out of interest i looked up the crime rate for Newnan, what on earth is going on over there? Maybe its cheap for a reason.
- bronco21016 8y agoAs someone who has spent a decent amount of time living in Atlanta, I’d guess the prices you’ve found reflect that it’s just not that desirable of an area. There are plenty of opportunities and all of the amenities of modern life but Atlanta, and the broader surrounding areas, still have cultural scars from decades of racism. Edited for clarity.
- friedman23 8y ago> Atlanta, and the broader surrounding areas, still have cultural scars from decades of racism. Edited for clarity. In Atlanta at least there is no such thing. If someone is choosing not to live in Atlanta due to perceived racism they would be making a mistake.
- smileysteve 8y agoThe parents is talking about the scars of racism; namely from the highway riots and continued white flight (unconscious). Newnan, Palmetto are about the same distance from the city center and Buckhead as South Forsyth, Canton, yet property sells for 1/3; most likely because south Atlanta is in some ways a desert. Are the schools as good as Alpharetta, nope.
- mlinksva 8y ago> Atlanta, and the broader surrounding areas, still have cultural scars from decades of racism Centuries. By the way, Newnan is named after a slaveholder. The area is also scarred by decades, close to a century, of car-centered development. It looks like the city that ought be renamed with $100k units is extremely car-dependent.
- spenrose 8y ago"the cost of doing this for all at-risk Americans would be eye-watering. Estimates range from $200,000 to $1m per person to undertake a relocation. If 13 million people do have to move, it seems fantastical to imagine $13tn, or even a significant fraction of this amount, being spent by governments to ease the way. “As a country we aren’t set up to deal with slow-moving disasters like this, so people around the country are on their own,” said Joel Clement, a former Department of the Interior official who worked on the relocation of Alaskan towns."
- nerdponx 8y agoI'm pretty sure the petroleum and coal industries could scrape together that kind of cash.
- tfha 8y ago13 trillion? Probably not. That's on the order of magnitude of a full year of US GDP
- nerdponx 8y agoExternalities are a bitch, eh?
- TheOtherHobbes 8y agoNot if someone else pays for them.
- dmoy 8y agoAlso energy companies don't keep that much cash on hand anyways. Even Exxon only has like $4B.
- rayiner 8y agoThere is quite a bit of competition in those industries, so changes in cost get passed along quite quickly to consumers. For example, the price of crude oil has varied between $40 and $150 since 2008, but Exxon's profit margin has stayed pretty consistently between 7-10%. When costs go down, Exxon doesn't keep the surplus, it has to pass the savings onto consumers. The implication of that is that consumers, not the oil and coal companies, were the primary beneficiaries of externalizing the costs of pollution over the past decades, in the form of having access to cheap fuel. Put another way: Exxon last year had revenues of $240 billion, and profits of about $20 billion. If allowing pollution to be externalized means that gasoline costs half of what it should, that means Exxon's customers saved $240 billion by pollution the environment. That's more than Exxon's profits in an entire decade.
- ThomPete 8y agoWhen reading articles like these I have a rule: Any article which has the word "could" in there gets put into the speculation not factual bin. So when the article starts with: "By the end of this century, sea level rises alone could displace 13m people." we are in the wild speculation category and I know it's not really worth reading. It might be true but so might many other contradictory claims. Non the less, articles like these are not written for information but to cater to a market of people who believe the world is going under tomorrow and love to dwell in it.
- SlowRobotAhead 8y agoSky is falling porn. Yes, there is a large market for it, unfortunately these are the people who yell about "believing in science". Noble goals, but I'm concerned they're useful idiots in a political game where the real players don't give a crap about the environment.
- travisoneill1 8y agoThe IPCC high estimate of sea level rise by 2100 is about 0.6m over 80 years. It's not good, but it's hardly a catastrophe. I take predictions like this about as seriously as the narrative that global warming is a hoax. https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/unfccc/cop19/3_gregory13sbsta.pdf https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/unfccc/cop19/3_gregory13sbsta.pdf
- SlowRobotAhead 8y ago> I take predictions like this about as seriously as the narrative that global warming is a hoax. Totally reasonable, and rare to see people not jumping up and down with literal "The sky is falling! Implement this tax plan now!".
- tobltobs 8y ago> It is virtually certain that global mean sea level rise will continue for many centuries beyond 2100, with the amount of rise dependent on future emission. There is a German saying for your kind of approach: "Nach mir die Sintflut", means "After me the deluge".
- anothergoogler 8y agoLouis XV if I recall (French).
- perilunar 8y ago"Après moi le déluge" (After me, the flood) is also the motto of 617 Squadron RAF, famous for Operation Chastise (the Dambusters raid) during WWII.
- glbrew 8y agoIPCC estimates are always highly conservative and often do not account for positive feedback mechanisms. I believe the most recent report accounted for 0 feedback. The sea level is not constant around the world. An average increase of .6m would likely be about 1m in the Northeast including Boston, NYC, and DC and only about .3m on the pacific coast. Edit: And the .6m (if that is correct) is just the baseline. Even if that is the level 364 days a year, one storm surge on one day with all that additional volume can put the entire city out of business.
- francisofascii 8y agoI feel bad for those who keep getting flooded. At the same time, we should be asking the question, should we as a society allow structures and private property so close to bodies of water. Flooding is one reason, but the 2nd more important reason, is people should have public access to our lakes, rivers, and oceans. There should be a public buffer of land between the water and private land. Private property should not be flush up against our water boundaries.
- jdhn 8y agoThe real question we should be asking instead is whether we should be backstopping these private properties with government funded insurance. Remove the backstop of government insurance and the market will quickly solve this problem.
- pitaj 8y agoExactly. Government subsidies [thing]. [thing] becomes more popular, resulting in unforeseen consequences. Government must now do [stuff] to fix what [thing] caused!
- deskamess 8y ago> Prodded to name refuges in the US, researchers will point to Washington and Oregon in the Pacific north-west, where temperatures will remain bearable and disasters unlikely to strike. Areas close to the Great Lakes and in New England are also expected to prove increasingly attractive to those looking to move. The NorthEast could have earthquake issues in the next 50 years. Parts of New England are much better than other parts. Great Lakes area seems good as do areas like Atlanta, Nashville, Charlotte, Chicago (technically Great Lake area), Denver, and Austin.
- WorldMaker 8y agoShould also be just in time for the New Madrid fault to start shaking up everything from Nashville to Chicago to the Great Lakes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Madrid_Seismic_Zone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Madrid_Seismic_Zone Geologists have also been predicting large earthquake issues in the New Madrid fault in the next ~20- 50 years.
- rabboRubble 8y ago> ...disasters unlikely to strike... Meanwhile, I'm preparing for the M9.0 earthquake that is overdue near the Portland metro area. Portland will burn like a roll of toilet paper when that quake strikes.
- Regardsyjc 8y agoSomeone I know recently bought a beautiful beach house in Florida near Cape Canaveral. I'm too anxious to ask if she is familiar with the climate change issues in the area since they are almost at sea level and even NASA is struggling with climate change there. On the other hand, I hope that where ever these American climate refugees go, that the cities they go to will have enough infrastructure especially for water, and if they don't, they can fix it.