7 ms·

Humans Can Survive Underwater

91 points by RickJWagner 7y ago

inanutshellus 7y ago
Non-clickbait title: > "Humans Can Survive Below Sealevel" Actual article's point: > An academic paper exaggerated and now we're focusing too much on avoiding greenhouse-emissions and should instead focus on protecting below-sealevel areas. ..... Weird article.
- beatgammit 7y ago
  I thought it was some awesome breakthrough in underwater engineering that makes long term underwater human life sustainable, but the article had nothing to do with that and was much more mundane. How about "Humans can survive rising sea levels"?
Lagogarda 7y ago
Hacker news likes wierd articles.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
Ididntdothis 7y ago
If I read this correctly he thinks that reducing emissions is too expensive but everything else like increased cost through extreme weather or building dams to protect areas below sea level is totally affordable. I am not sure I agree with that. But this is how things will probably work out. I don’t believe we will make any meaningful reduction in emissions over the next decades so we will deal with the consequences.
- rich_sasha 7y ago
  My reading is different: * Paper says, sea level will rise, with many areas vulnerable * Newspaper exaggerates to say, "OMG people will be at the bottom of the sea" * Article says, well this one bit of global warming we can deal with, as we always did. Dikes will be built, drainage added, and it's all kinda cheap I don't think they argue against combating climate change. Another way to put it: let's worry first about the climate change issues we cannot mitigate.
  - tgb 7y ago
    Which would have been a good article, but that's definitely not all the article was saying, since the author was clearly arguing against CO2-emission reduction strategies (see the very opening paragraph).
    - rich_sasha 7y ago
      Are you referring to this bit: "[...] push policymakers toward excessively expensive measures to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. The real solution is to lift the world’s poorest out of poverty and protect them with simple infrastructure. [...]"? I think there is a point to be made. I'm no climate change denier. But with mitigating the effects of climate change, we are trading an up-front cost today against a benefit in the future. Both the up-front cost and the future benefit must be fairly estimated, as much as we can. Claims like "We must cut carbon emissions to 0 or South Vietnam will be eradicated" justify a very different level, or at least destination of spending than saying "South Vietnam will need [international help] to build extensive anti-flood infrastructure". Potentially at least, I don't know the numbers.
      - AstralStorm 7y ago
        Anti-flood infrastructure, and water supply infrastructure including desalination plus cleaning, and rework their farming practices completely, likely reduce no longer available seafood intake, and expand power grid to supply additional power to air conditioning... And more. Mind you, poor will be hit first and hardest. It's the tip of the (soon no longer extant) iceberg. Flooding is the relatively easy part. Water, food and power are hard.
  - holstvoogd 7y ago
    > Dikes will be built * Venice entered the chat * For reference: Dikes are not cheap to build and maintain, securing the dutch coasts cost ran up to $13 billion in 2013. That cover about 700km of coast lines & river sides. Not sure how many kilometers of dikes will be needed, but based on http://world.bymap.org/Coastlines.html http://world.bymap.org/Coastlines.html even covering 10% of the coast lines will cost more about $1 trillion.
- krcz 7y ago
  Game Theory can bring some understanding here: the situation is similar to the Prisoner's dilemma [1]. If no one reduces emissions, everyone will suffer high costs. If everyone reduces emissions, no additional costs appear. But if everyone but you reduces emissions, your single decision doesn't change the outcome that much - so the optimal strategy is not to reduce emissions and hope others still do. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma
  - jmull 7y ago
    The prisoner’s dilemma isn’t a good fit here. The problem is, it assumes the prisoners can’t talk to each other and don’t have an ongoing relationship beyond the one transaction. In fact, in general, social issues — from the personal level in up to global level - rarely, if ever, restrict he flow of information like that.”
    - shkkmo 7y ago
      Yes, the correct game theory analogy would be the classic "tragedy of the commons" where each player's behavior places a small cost on everyone but produces a larger benefit for themselves. When every player chooses to over utilize the commons, overall rewards decrease significantly.
  - dleslie 7y ago
    Another option is to continue producing fossil fuels for the world markets, and using the revenue to protect yourself from the disaster you helped create. This model is fairly popular with Tories in Canada.
mavdi 7y ago
Hella mental gymnastics there. Instead of reducing greenhouse gases, apparently, we should be learning to turn every coastal city to Venice.
- newfangle 7y ago
  >we should be learning to turn every coastal city to Venice This sounds simpler than reducing greenhouse gasses
  - ceejayoz 7y ago
    Not really, considering Venice itself is being impacted by rising sea levels. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/nov/15/venice-council-flooded-moments-after-rejecting-climate-crisis-plan https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/nov/15/venice-council... > Veneto’s regional council rejected a plan to combat climate change minutes before its offices on the Grand Canal, in Venice, were flooded, it has emerged as the city continues to battle high water levels.
    - newfangle 7y ago
      Local bureaucracy is simpler to overcome than global bureaucracy which is needed to reduce global greenhouse emissions
- Silhouette 7y ago
  Given what's been happening to Venice recently, that might not be such a great idea.
skrap 7y ago
The author is a long time climate change denier. He's apparently just moved onto a different phase of the denial strategy now that AGW is largely undeniable.
- kuu 7y ago
  AGW may refer to: * Anthropogenic global warming, overall warming of Earth's climate caused or produced by humans
- newfangle 7y ago
  Do you have a source showing he is a climate change denier? I think you should provide one given that you posted this trying to attack his credibility.
  - ceejayoz 7y ago
    It doesn't take much Googling to prove. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bj%C3%B8rn_Lomborg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bj%C3%B8rn_Lomborg > In January 2003, the DCSD released a ruling that sent a mixed message, finding the book to be scientifically dishonest through misrepresentation of scientific facts, but Lomborg himself not guilty due to his lack of expertise in the fields in question.
    - shkkmo 7y ago
      From what I can tell, that book does NOT deny climate change, it denies the efficacy of proposed interventions. From the Wikipedia page you linked: > He became internationally known for his best-selling and controversial book, The Skeptical Environmentalist (2001), in which he argues that many of the costly measures and actions adopted by scientists and policy makers to meet the challenges of global warming will ultimately have minimal impact on the world's rising temperature. Misrepresenting climate science to dispute the efficacy of specific interventions is not the same as misrepresenting science to deny that climate change has human causes. It does however mean that you should take his opinion on these matters with a grain of salt.
omarhaneef 7y ago
From the piece: "Alarming media stories that twist the facts about rising sea levels are dangerous because they scare people unnecessarily and push policymakers toward excessively expensive measures to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. The real solution is to lift the world’s poorest out of poverty and protect them with simple infrastructure." Part of me is hopeful that this might be right. And another part of me is worried that this might be a overly optimistic view to make us feel better. I think I am leaning towards the latter when the proposed solution is simply "life the world's poorest out of poverty." Feels like "we" have wanted to do that for a long time for many reasons.
- dr_dshiv 7y ago
  And have been remarkably successful at it, tbh
gmuslera 7y ago
"Global seawater rise is ok because we could eventually get used to live in frequently flooded cities". That is the wrong way to see it. Crops (ok, maybe besides rice and a few more) may not adapt. The change doesn't stops there, nor would be the only thing that would change. And things will keep getting worse.
phreack 7y ago
So he's saying that instead of working on reducing pollution, we should rather enable people to survive it, even if it means making them live underwater, because that'll increase wealth? Considering how incredibly unequal that wealth is bound to be, this just reads like a Big Coal backed piece to try and justify the destruction of the planet in the pursuit of profit.
- reportgunner 7y ago
  No, he's saying that we should stop scaring people with likely future outcomes that are not likely.
mseidl 7y ago
The author largely seems to be a skeptic? https://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/economics/natural-resource-and-environmental-economics/skeptical-environmentalist-measuring-real-state-world https://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/economics/nat... We can't hope that some magical technology will come and save us from ourselves. We need to act now with what we have to avoid too much damage.
dzdt 7y ago
I am not sure how much in good faith this author is, but honest discussion about mitigation of climate change needs to take place. A huge amount of sea level rise is locked in already; the uncertainty is about the rate of change not the inevitability of it. But straw-man arguments that costal communities are doomed because they are built below the coming high tide levels are not much help. Yes, there is a big and demonstrated possibility to mitigate this. An honest discussion of the costs and risks and tradeoffs is merited.
jmull 7y ago
What a weird article. He admits climate change is real and we need to do something about it... but the main problem is the media, which is trying to claim climate change is real and we need to do something about it, but they are too scary about it. He thinks it's going to go pretty smoothly building dykes to keep our cities from flooding so the media should not be making big deal out of it. It's not a logical argument to me. Building dykes to product numerous coastal areas may well be a good answer, but in aggregate that is an absolutely massive capital project. Media reports will obviously need to be part of that since people will need to understand why their taxes are going up and why the government is taking their land. He also drops this doozy: "The real solution is to lift the world’s poorest out of poverty..." Oh, OK, so it's that's simple then. /s Frankly, I think this is just a somewhat subtler form of climate change denial. He acknowledges the problem, but then hand-waves the problem away and blames the media. He might as well be saying we'll use the magic crystals to solve our problems.
- davedx 7y ago
  Indeed. It's true that large parts of the Netherlands are below sea level. The reason we're safe here now is because a catastrophic storm in the 50's killed a lot of people and the government of this rich nation decided to invest in a gigantic public works project to protect the population. The Deltaworks project is pretty incredible (there's a great museum here all about it). But it certainly wasn't cheap or easy. "Though officially completed in 1997 at the cost of $7 billion, the Netherlands continues to add infrastructure to the Delta works as needed. It is estimated that it will continue to need construction to protect the area against the rising water levels caused by global warming." [1] The Dutch public infrastructure department, the Rijkswaterstaat, is called the "Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management". Water management is a huge continuing challenge. [1] http://www.unmuseum.org/7wonders/zunderzee.htm http://www.unmuseum.org/7wonders/zunderzee.htm [2] https://www.rijkswaterstaat.nl/english https://www.rijkswaterstaat.nl/english
  - holstvoogd 7y ago
    Since I just did the math: Spending was up to $13 billion in 2013. Based on that, securing all the coast lines of the world to that level will cost over $10 trillion. And I'm pretty sure by 2050 we will have spend a lot more on updating & maintaining the delta works.
rich_sasha 7y ago
A general problem with climate change discussions is that the people who are vocal are largely uninformed, and the people who are informed are rather reserved. Climate change charities, activists etc. do a very important role, and I am very grateful to them for it, but their impact on my personal level of informed-ness is actually negative.
FrozenVoid 7y ago
Living on below sea-level creates huge flooding risk, with severe weather or terrorism multiplying the effects. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floods_in_the_Netherlands https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floods_in_the_Netherlands Its like living in a city below a dam.
dr_dshiv 7y ago
I thought it was a great article. Just because we need to do something about it doesn't mean we should let the facts be distorted. Showing a map that has most of South Vietnam under water in 2050 suggests something totally different than what this article points out to be the truth. The answer is so often "people are bad and need to radically change." The reality is that people are good and we are only capable of incremental change. This article helps show why that is likely to turn out better than alarmists claim.
- hootbootscoot 7y ago
  This article is disinformation. A singular map and strawman-premise do not undermine millions of human hours of climate science, core samples, troves of data, etc. You believe this nonsense at our mutual peril. The climate crisis WILL utterly destroy human civilization through an ever reducing funnel, an ever tightening noose, and we are currently in the last phase of determining the height of that curves trajectory. There is nothing "too extreme" to attempt at this point in time. We should be prepared to spend up to 100% of our resources in fighting this existential threat. Certainly giving up fossil fuels is not "too extreme". They were due to exit-stage-left decades ago. We have the tech, let's make it happen. And for heavens sake, enough of this fake "moderate" fossil fuel drivel.
  - thomaskcr 7y ago
    > The climate crisis WILL utterly destroy human civilization through an ever reducing funnel, an ever tightening noose, and we are currently in the last phase of determining the height of that curves trajectory. > There is nothing "too extreme" to attempt at this point in time. We should be prepared to spend up to 100% of our resources in fighting this existential threat. Certainly giving up fossil fuels is not "too extreme". They were due to exit-stage-left decades ago. Ew. I did the sustainability minor with my chem e degree - so I understand the importance of action on climate change. People like you with the hysterics and dramatic statements make everyone else roll their eyes and remember all the doomsaying articles they've been reading forever. I think you should just leave this to the adults.
  - 7y ago
tempguy9999 7y ago
Years ago Lomborg and scientific american had a major clash. There was quite a lot to it, here's a summary (https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-response-to-lomborgs-re/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-response-to-lom...) "Selective citations of the literature allow Lomborg to make statements that are correct but unrepresentative of the best, full state of environmental scientific knowledge" "Yet his [lomborg's] critics are rarely attacking the facts in his citations per se; they fault what Lomborg does with them and, of course, his neglect of more relevant citations elsewhere." Anyway, that's SA's side. Follow the link to find more. Caveats: this was years ago, and the quotes above are my selection, which you may consider one-sided.
petermcneeley 7y ago
Can we update the link to better reflect the title. https://www.thevintagenews.com/2016/03/24/jacques-cousteaus-underwater-colonies-from-the-1960s-copy/ https://www.thevintagenews.com/2016/03/24/jacques-cousteaus-...
dogma1138 7y ago
The title should be rich humans can survive underwater. Yes we have the capacity to run engineering programs that would halt the rising sea levels, we can build huge dykes, perform land reclamation, pump water out and even use the rising sea levels for energy generation. And while we can save Manhattan and perhaps even venice this won't help Bangladesh and other poor regions which are at risk of being flooded by the rising seas destroying not only their homes but also their ecology putting their limited food supply at greater risk. And that is a problem a distbalized Bangladesh and other poor(er) countries in South East Asia would destabilize the more established nations like India, China and Pakistan all 3 of which are nuclear powers. A destabilized middle east and africa would spill out into Europe, a destabilized South America would spill into North America. You can't rely on local solutions for a global crisis if you want to maintain the same quality of life you enjoy today. Even in the current political climate which some loonies on the left would call a "fascist regime" in the US no one is going to open fire on millions of refugees that could come to the border once their homes get flooded. And the author also forgets that if we want to save New York we would likely need China to be stable and continuing providing it's manufacturing capacity to the world which means that if its neighbourhood turns into a warzone the capacity of the west to perform these amazing feats of engineering would be greatly diminished. If anything the media portrays the wrong message, I don't think we are screwed or we have already run out of time and reached some point of no return and I don't think that we will go extinct in the next 100 years due to climate change, I don't see climate change as something we solve but as something we adapt too and maybe eventually reverse but this also something that cannot be performed on a local scale because once it gets really bad and people get desperate they'll flood you and while a dyke can hold off water it won't hold up against 50 million people wanting to get in.
- hackeraccount 7y ago
  The title should be - We need all humans to get rich.
hootbootscoot 7y ago
"hey don't do TOO much about climate change or else how will the fossil fuel industry be able to sit on it's laurels properly" Because nothing says "a rising tide floats all boats" more than our currently massively diverging have/haven't disparity. A world in which 42 individuals own as much as 3.5 billion people, in which it was 65 individuals in the same position 2 years prior doesn't sound like a world in which the authors proposed "solutions" function at all. Maybe that's the point. Excuse me while I pillage and lay waste. Clearly we wouldn't want to risk doing TOO MUCH to salvage what's left of the age of mammals.
jacknews 7y ago
"stories that twist the facts" Like this one? Really, his message is, it's all going to shit, but we can survive?

91 points by RickJWagner 7y ago

Non-clickbait title: > "Humans Can Survive Below Sealevel" Actual article's point: > An academic paper exaggerated and now we're focusing too much on avoiding greenhouse-emissions and should instead focus on protecting below-sealevel areas. ..... Weird article.

beatgammit 7y ago
I thought it was some awesome breakthrough in underwater engineering that makes long term underwater human life sustainable, but the article had nothing to do with that and was much more mundane. How about "Humans can survive rising sea levels"?

Lagogarda 7y ago

Hacker news likes wierd articles.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

Ididntdothis 7y ago

If I read this correctly he thinks that reducing emissions is too expensive but everything else like increased cost through extreme weather or building dams to protect areas below sea level is totally affordable. I am not sure I agree with that. But this is how things will probably work out. I don’t believe we will make any meaningful reduction in emissions over the next decades so we will deal with the consequences.

rich_sasha 7y ago
My reading is different: * Paper says, sea level will rise, with many areas vulnerable * Newspaper exaggerates to say, "OMG people will be at the bottom of the sea" * Article says, well this one bit of global warming we can deal with, as we always did. Dikes will be built, drainage added, and it's all kinda cheap I don't think they argue against combating climate change. Another way to put it: let's worry first about the climate change issues we cannot mitigate.
- tgb 7y ago
  Which would have been a good article, but that's definitely not all the article was saying, since the author was clearly arguing against CO2-emission reduction strategies (see the very opening paragraph).
  - rich_sasha 7y ago
    Are you referring to this bit: "[...] push policymakers toward excessively expensive measures to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. The real solution is to lift the world’s poorest out of poverty and protect them with simple infrastructure. [...]"? I think there is a point to be made. I'm no climate change denier. But with mitigating the effects of climate change, we are trading an up-front cost today against a benefit in the future. Both the up-front cost and the future benefit must be fairly estimated, as much as we can. Claims like "We must cut carbon emissions to 0 or South Vietnam will be eradicated" justify a very different level, or at least destination of spending than saying "South Vietnam will need [international help] to build extensive anti-flood infrastructure". Potentially at least, I don't know the numbers.
    - AstralStorm 7y ago
      Anti-flood infrastructure, and water supply infrastructure including desalination plus cleaning, and rework their farming practices completely, likely reduce no longer available seafood intake, and expand power grid to supply additional power to air conditioning... And more. Mind you, poor will be hit first and hardest. It's the tip of the (soon no longer extant) iceberg. Flooding is the relatively easy part. Water, food and power are hard.
- holstvoogd 7y ago
  > Dikes will be built * Venice entered the chat * For reference: Dikes are not cheap to build and maintain, securing the dutch coasts cost ran up to $13 billion in 2013. That cover about 700km of coast lines & river sides. Not sure how many kilometers of dikes will be needed, but based on http://world.bymap.org/Coastlines.html http://world.bymap.org/Coastlines.html even covering 10% of the coast lines will cost more about $1 trillion.
krcz 7y ago
Game Theory can bring some understanding here: the situation is similar to the Prisoner's dilemma [1]. If no one reduces emissions, everyone will suffer high costs. If everyone reduces emissions, no additional costs appear. But if everyone but you reduces emissions, your single decision doesn't change the outcome that much - so the optimal strategy is not to reduce emissions and hope others still do. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma
- jmull 7y ago
  The prisoner’s dilemma isn’t a good fit here. The problem is, it assumes the prisoners can’t talk to each other and don’t have an ongoing relationship beyond the one transaction. In fact, in general, social issues — from the personal level in up to global level - rarely, if ever, restrict he flow of information like that.”
  - shkkmo 7y ago
    Yes, the correct game theory analogy would be the classic "tragedy of the commons" where each player's behavior places a small cost on everyone but produces a larger benefit for themselves. When every player chooses to over utilize the commons, overall rewards decrease significantly.
- dleslie 7y ago
  Another option is to continue producing fossil fuels for the world markets, and using the revenue to protect yourself from the disaster you helped create. This model is fairly popular with Tories in Canada.

mavdi 7y ago

Hella mental gymnastics there. Instead of reducing greenhouse gases, apparently, we should be learning to turn every coastal city to Venice.

newfangle 7y ago
>we should be learning to turn every coastal city to Venice This sounds simpler than reducing greenhouse gasses
- ceejayoz 7y ago
  Not really, considering Venice itself is being impacted by rising sea levels. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/nov/15/venice-council-flooded-moments-after-rejecting-climate-crisis-plan https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/nov/15/venice-council... > Veneto’s regional council rejected a plan to combat climate change minutes before its offices on the Grand Canal, in Venice, were flooded, it has emerged as the city continues to battle high water levels.
  - newfangle 7y ago
    Local bureaucracy is simpler to overcome than global bureaucracy which is needed to reduce global greenhouse emissions
Silhouette 7y ago
Given what's been happening to Venice recently, that might not be such a great idea.

skrap 7y ago

The author is a long time climate change denier. He's apparently just moved onto a different phase of the denial strategy now that AGW is largely undeniable.

kuu 7y ago
AGW may refer to: * Anthropogenic global warming, overall warming of Earth's climate caused or produced by humans
newfangle 7y ago
Do you have a source showing he is a climate change denier? I think you should provide one given that you posted this trying to attack his credibility.
- ceejayoz 7y ago
  It doesn't take much Googling to prove. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bj%C3%B8rn_Lomborg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bj%C3%B8rn_Lomborg > In January 2003, the DCSD released a ruling that sent a mixed message, finding the book to be scientifically dishonest through misrepresentation of scientific facts, but Lomborg himself not guilty due to his lack of expertise in the fields in question.
  - shkkmo 7y ago
    From what I can tell, that book does NOT deny climate change, it denies the efficacy of proposed interventions. From the Wikipedia page you linked: > He became internationally known for his best-selling and controversial book, The Skeptical Environmentalist (2001), in which he argues that many of the costly measures and actions adopted by scientists and policy makers to meet the challenges of global warming will ultimately have minimal impact on the world's rising temperature. Misrepresenting climate science to dispute the efficacy of specific interventions is not the same as misrepresenting science to deny that climate change has human causes. It does however mean that you should take his opinion on these matters with a grain of salt.

omarhaneef 7y ago

From the piece: "Alarming media stories that twist the facts about rising sea levels are dangerous because they scare people unnecessarily and push policymakers toward excessively expensive measures to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. The real solution is to lift the world’s poorest out of poverty and protect them with simple infrastructure." Part of me is hopeful that this might be right. And another part of me is worried that this might be a overly optimistic view to make us feel better. I think I am leaning towards the latter when the proposed solution is simply "life the world's poorest out of poverty." Feels like "we" have wanted to do that for a long time for many reasons.

dr_dshiv 7y ago
And have been remarkably successful at it, tbh

gmuslera 7y ago

"Global seawater rise is ok because we could eventually get used to live in frequently flooded cities". That is the wrong way to see it. Crops (ok, maybe besides rice and a few more) may not adapt. The change doesn't stops there, nor would be the only thing that would change. And things will keep getting worse.

phreack 7y ago

So he's saying that instead of working on reducing pollution, we should rather enable people to survive it, even if it means making them live underwater, because that'll increase wealth? Considering how incredibly unequal that wealth is bound to be, this just reads like a Big Coal backed piece to try and justify the destruction of the planet in the pursuit of profit.

reportgunner 7y ago
No, he's saying that we should stop scaring people with likely future outcomes that are not likely.

mseidl 7y ago

The author largely seems to be a skeptic? https://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/economics/natural-resource-and-environmental-economics/skeptical-environmentalist-measuring-real-state-world https://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/economics/nat... We can't hope that some magical technology will come and save us from ourselves. We need to act now with what we have to avoid too much damage.

dzdt 7y ago

I am not sure how much in good faith this author is, but honest discussion about mitigation of climate change needs to take place. A huge amount of sea level rise is locked in already; the uncertainty is about the rate of change not the inevitability of it. But straw-man arguments that costal communities are doomed because they are built below the coming high tide levels are not much help. Yes, there is a big and demonstrated possibility to mitigate this. An honest discussion of the costs and risks and tradeoffs is merited.

jmull 7y ago

What a weird article. He admits climate change is real and we need to do something about it... but the main problem is the media, which is trying to claim climate change is real and we need to do something about it, but they are too scary about it. He thinks it's going to go pretty smoothly building dykes to keep our cities from flooding so the media should not be making big deal out of it. It's not a logical argument to me. Building dykes to product numerous coastal areas may well be a good answer, but in aggregate that is an absolutely massive capital project. Media reports will obviously need to be part of that since people will need to understand why their taxes are going up and why the government is taking their land. He also drops this doozy: "The real solution is to lift the world’s poorest out of poverty..." Oh, OK, so it's that's simple then. /s Frankly, I think this is just a somewhat subtler form of climate change denial. He acknowledges the problem, but then hand-waves the problem away and blames the media. He might as well be saying we'll use the magic crystals to solve our problems.

davedx 7y ago
Indeed. It's true that large parts of the Netherlands are below sea level. The reason we're safe here now is because a catastrophic storm in the 50's killed a lot of people and the government of this rich nation decided to invest in a gigantic public works project to protect the population. The Deltaworks project is pretty incredible (there's a great museum here all about it). But it certainly wasn't cheap or easy. "Though officially completed in 1997 at the cost of $7 billion, the Netherlands continues to add infrastructure to the Delta works as needed. It is estimated that it will continue to need construction to protect the area against the rising water levels caused by global warming." [1] The Dutch public infrastructure department, the Rijkswaterstaat, is called the "Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management". Water management is a huge continuing challenge. [1] http://www.unmuseum.org/7wonders/zunderzee.htm http://www.unmuseum.org/7wonders/zunderzee.htm [2] https://www.rijkswaterstaat.nl/english https://www.rijkswaterstaat.nl/english
- holstvoogd 7y ago
  Since I just did the math: Spending was up to $13 billion in 2013. Based on that, securing all the coast lines of the world to that level will cost over $10 trillion. And I'm pretty sure by 2050 we will have spend a lot more on updating & maintaining the delta works.

rich_sasha 7y ago

A general problem with climate change discussions is that the people who are vocal are largely uninformed, and the people who are informed are rather reserved. Climate change charities, activists etc. do a very important role, and I am very grateful to them for it, but their impact on my personal level of informed-ness is actually negative.

FrozenVoid 7y ago

Living on below sea-level creates huge flooding risk, with severe weather or terrorism multiplying the effects. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floods_in_the_Netherlands https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floods_in_the_Netherlands Its like living in a city below a dam.

dr_dshiv 7y ago

I thought it was a great article. Just because we need to do something about it doesn't mean we should let the facts be distorted. Showing a map that has most of South Vietnam under water in 2050 suggests something totally different than what this article points out to be the truth. The answer is so often "people are bad and need to radically change." The reality is that people are good and we are only capable of incremental change. This article helps show why that is likely to turn out better than alarmists claim.

hootbootscoot 7y ago
This article is disinformation. A singular map and strawman-premise do not undermine millions of human hours of climate science, core samples, troves of data, etc. You believe this nonsense at our mutual peril. The climate crisis WILL utterly destroy human civilization through an ever reducing funnel, an ever tightening noose, and we are currently in the last phase of determining the height of that curves trajectory. There is nothing "too extreme" to attempt at this point in time. We should be prepared to spend up to 100% of our resources in fighting this existential threat. Certainly giving up fossil fuels is not "too extreme". They were due to exit-stage-left decades ago. We have the tech, let's make it happen. And for heavens sake, enough of this fake "moderate" fossil fuel drivel.
- thomaskcr 7y ago
  > The climate crisis WILL utterly destroy human civilization through an ever reducing funnel, an ever tightening noose, and we are currently in the last phase of determining the height of that curves trajectory. > There is nothing "too extreme" to attempt at this point in time. We should be prepared to spend up to 100% of our resources in fighting this existential threat. Certainly giving up fossil fuels is not "too extreme". They were due to exit-stage-left decades ago. Ew. I did the sustainability minor with my chem e degree - so I understand the importance of action on climate change. People like you with the hysterics and dramatic statements make everyone else roll their eyes and remember all the doomsaying articles they've been reading forever. I think you should just leave this to the adults.
- 7y ago

tempguy9999 7y ago

Years ago Lomborg and scientific american had a major clash. There was quite a lot to it, here's a summary (https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-response-to-lomborgs-re/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-response-to-lom...) "Selective citations of the literature allow Lomborg to make statements that are correct but unrepresentative of the best, full state of environmental scientific knowledge" "Yet his [lomborg's] critics are rarely attacking the facts in his citations per se; they fault what Lomborg does with them and, of course, his neglect of more relevant citations elsewhere." Anyway, that's SA's side. Follow the link to find more. Caveats: this was years ago, and the quotes above are my selection, which you may consider one-sided.

petermcneeley 7y ago

Can we update the link to better reflect the title. https://www.thevintagenews.com/2016/03/24/jacques-cousteaus-underwater-colonies-from-the-1960s-copy/ https://www.thevintagenews.com/2016/03/24/jacques-cousteaus-...

dogma1138 7y ago

The title should be rich humans can survive underwater. Yes we have the capacity to run engineering programs that would halt the rising sea levels, we can build huge dykes, perform land reclamation, pump water out and even use the rising sea levels for energy generation. And while we can save Manhattan and perhaps even venice this won't help Bangladesh and other poor regions which are at risk of being flooded by the rising seas destroying not only their homes but also their ecology putting their limited food supply at greater risk. And that is a problem a distbalized Bangladesh and other poor(er) countries in South East Asia would destabilize the more established nations like India, China and Pakistan all 3 of which are nuclear powers. A destabilized middle east and africa would spill out into Europe, a destabilized South America would spill into North America. You can't rely on local solutions for a global crisis if you want to maintain the same quality of life you enjoy today. Even in the current political climate which some loonies on the left would call a "fascist regime" in the US no one is going to open fire on millions of refugees that could come to the border once their homes get flooded. And the author also forgets that if we want to save New York we would likely need China to be stable and continuing providing it's manufacturing capacity to the world which means that if its neighbourhood turns into a warzone the capacity of the west to perform these amazing feats of engineering would be greatly diminished. If anything the media portrays the wrong message, I don't think we are screwed or we have already run out of time and reached some point of no return and I don't think that we will go extinct in the next 100 years due to climate change, I don't see climate change as something we solve but as something we adapt too and maybe eventually reverse but this also something that cannot be performed on a local scale because once it gets really bad and people get desperate they'll flood you and while a dyke can hold off water it won't hold up against 50 million people wanting to get in.

hackeraccount 7y ago
The title should be - We need all humans to get rich.

hootbootscoot 7y ago

"hey don't do TOO much about climate change or else how will the fossil fuel industry be able to sit on it's laurels properly" Because nothing says "a rising tide floats all boats" more than our currently massively diverging have/haven't disparity. A world in which 42 individuals own as much as 3.5 billion people, in which it was 65 individuals in the same position 2 years prior doesn't sound like a world in which the authors proposed "solutions" function at all. Maybe that's the point. Excuse me while I pillage and lay waste. Clearly we wouldn't want to risk doing TOO MUCH to salvage what's left of the age of mammals.

jacknews 7y ago

"stories that twist the facts" Like this one? Really, his message is, it's all going to shit, but we can survive?