5 ms·

In the free market of ideas, no one actually believes this will happen. Just look at coastal real estate. Buyers and lenders would have to be colossal fools t

In the free market of ideas, no one actually believes this will happen. Just look at coastal real estate. Buyers and lenders would have to be colossal fools to pay such premiums to be waterfront. Even Obama just plunked down 12M on a waterfront mansion on the low lying island of MV.

hfdh434535 7y ago
Buyers and Lenders are in fact, colossal fools. People build in floodplains all the time.
- IanDrake 7y ago
  Obama only ran the country for 8 years, but hfdh434535 knows better. Real estate is about the closest thing to putting your money where your mouth is as far as climate change goes and the people have spoken - the coasts are still the most valuable and desirable places to live.
  - baq 7y ago
    That is true, always has been and always will be true, regardless of where the coastline happens to be at the time :)
  - dkarras 7y ago
    >Real estate is about the closest thing to putting your money where your mouth is as far as climate change goes and the people have spoken I would definitely buy coast property today because this won't be a significant problem in my lifetime. I'd buy from coast again when it becomes a significant problem, just that the coast location would be different of course.
    - IanDrake 7y ago
      You're re missing the point. Look at the map, the blue region is the extent in 100 years. What do you think happens in that 100 years? I assume this would be a near linear progression. That means current waterfront has about 10-20 years, not 100.
      - dkarras 7y ago
        The blue region will not be totally underwater. The most pessimistic estimate is a 6 feet rise by 2100. A coast property, if you are inclined, can deal with that. The note under map says: Blue indicates counties where flooding will displace residents if sea levels rise by six feet by 2100. Counties in shades of pink and red will see higher-than-average migration, with the darker shades representing larger population increases. So it only means people will likely migrate to other areas, not that the blue places will be totally underwater by 2100. Got me wondering though, are you really a climate change skeptic? I mean climate change is something as obvious as gravity, we have all the data to support it, we can directly observe it etc. I find it hard for a sane people to question it, really. I mean I understand how someone can be skeptical about "man made climate change" which is something open to debate, but climate change itself isn't really open to debate.
        IanDrake 7y ago
        Does the climate change? Of course. Are we doing a good job predicting it and understanding how it works? No. Not even close. I have a background in financial modeling, using exponentially more observations, in a less chaotic system, with participants betting on the models with real dollars. It makes climate change models look like simplistic toys, which most are. There is NO consequence of being wrong with a climate model, no shame, and there's a high degree of survivorship bias. Climate models that have been right, have been right for the wrong reasons. Climate models that have been wrong (most) are long forgotten and never discussed. New models come out all the time to hype fears for events that prior models predicted would be happening now (and aren't). The question isn't does the climate change, the question is do we understand it at all.
lxcfan 7y ago
Real estate prices are priced by mostly by current demand, not future oncoming disasters. Much waterfront property is _already_ vulnerable (and expensive to insure) today, regardless of whether you believe in consensus climate science, due to storms and flooding in current climatic conditions. That house by the ocean is going to destroyed at some point, the only question is when and how.
- josinalvo 7y ago
  I have seen ample consensus amonsgt reputable scientists that the earth is getting warmer, and this fact is due to human activity (e.g https://climate.nasa.gov/faq/17/do-scientists-agree-on-climate-change/ https://climate.nasa.gov/faq/17/do-scientists-agree-on-clima...) I have not yet, however, seen any such research on consensus for the effects of climate change. Is there a large, documented consensus on any estimate of sea level raise?
  - lxcfan 7y ago
    Sorry, perhaps the emphasis in the way I wrote that comment made it unclear what I was saying. My point was that real estate market prices are much more heavily influenced by current conditions, and current demand, rather than hypothetical future conditions. The price elasticity of demand has little to do with whether the buyer believes that the property will flood in future decades due to climate change. Someone who wants a beachfront mansion is probably going to buy it for close to the same price whether or not s/he believe it will still be there in 50 years, just as s/he might buy an expensive car that will similarly degrade and need expensive maintenance exceeding the original purchase price over time.
- IanDrake 7y ago
  Well, I don't believe in "consensus" [insert field] science because that's an oxymoron. If you still believed what was once the consensus, you would believe in some crazy stuff. Science is skeptism of the consensus, not the other way around.
  - dkarras 7y ago
yongjik 7y ago
Next you will tell me it's impossible for a major earthquake to strike San Francisco (or Tokyo), because then nobody would want to live there.
kelnos 7y ago
Most people don't buy real estate considering an 80-year time horizon. Even 40 years is often a bit of a stretch. I would guess that a lot of people only look 15-20 years into the future. Perhaps not a majority, but enough to keep waterfront property attractive and expensive.
tzs 7y ago
That place of Obama's will probably be fine for his and his wife's remaining life, and the life of his children, and at least a good part of the lives of any grandchildren. He'll get his money's worth out of it.

hfdh434535 7y ago

Buyers and Lenders are in fact, colossal fools. People build in floodplains all the time.

IanDrake 7y ago
Obama only ran the country for 8 years, but hfdh434535 knows better. Real estate is about the closest thing to putting your money where your mouth is as far as climate change goes and the people have spoken - the coasts are still the most valuable and desirable places to live.
- baq 7y ago
  That is true, always has been and always will be true, regardless of where the coastline happens to be at the time :)
- dkarras 7y ago
  >Real estate is about the closest thing to putting your money where your mouth is as far as climate change goes and the people have spoken I would definitely buy coast property today because this won't be a significant problem in my lifetime. I'd buy from coast again when it becomes a significant problem, just that the coast location would be different of course.
  - IanDrake 7y ago
    You're re missing the point. Look at the map, the blue region is the extent in 100 years. What do you think happens in that 100 years? I assume this would be a near linear progression. That means current waterfront has about 10-20 years, not 100.
    - dkarras 7y ago
      The blue region will not be totally underwater. The most pessimistic estimate is a 6 feet rise by 2100. A coast property, if you are inclined, can deal with that. The note under map says: Blue indicates counties where flooding will displace residents if sea levels rise by six feet by 2100. Counties in shades of pink and red will see higher-than-average migration, with the darker shades representing larger population increases. So it only means people will likely migrate to other areas, not that the blue places will be totally underwater by 2100. Got me wondering though, are you really a climate change skeptic? I mean climate change is something as obvious as gravity, we have all the data to support it, we can directly observe it etc. I find it hard for a sane people to question it, really. I mean I understand how someone can be skeptical about "man made climate change" which is something open to debate, but climate change itself isn't really open to debate.
      - IanDrake 7y ago
        Does the climate change? Of course. Are we doing a good job predicting it and understanding how it works? No. Not even close. I have a background in financial modeling, using exponentially more observations, in a less chaotic system, with participants betting on the models with real dollars. It makes climate change models look like simplistic toys, which most are. There is NO consequence of being wrong with a climate model, no shame, and there's a high degree of survivorship bias. Climate models that have been right, have been right for the wrong reasons. Climate models that have been wrong (most) are long forgotten and never discussed. New models come out all the time to hype fears for events that prior models predicted would be happening now (and aren't). The question isn't does the climate change, the question is do we understand it at all.

lxcfan 7y ago

Real estate prices are priced by mostly by current demand, not future oncoming disasters. Much waterfront property is _already_ vulnerable (and expensive to insure) today, regardless of whether you believe in consensus climate science, due to storms and flooding in current climatic conditions. That house by the ocean is going to destroyed at some point, the only question is when and how.

josinalvo 7y ago
I have seen ample consensus amonsgt reputable scientists that the earth is getting warmer, and this fact is due to human activity (e.g https://climate.nasa.gov/faq/17/do-scientists-agree-on-climate-change/ https://climate.nasa.gov/faq/17/do-scientists-agree-on-clima...) I have not yet, however, seen any such research on consensus for the effects of climate change. Is there a large, documented consensus on any estimate of sea level raise?
- lxcfan 7y ago
  Sorry, perhaps the emphasis in the way I wrote that comment made it unclear what I was saying. My point was that real estate market prices are much more heavily influenced by current conditions, and current demand, rather than hypothetical future conditions. The price elasticity of demand has little to do with whether the buyer believes that the property will flood in future decades due to climate change. Someone who wants a beachfront mansion is probably going to buy it for close to the same price whether or not s/he believe it will still be there in 50 years, just as s/he might buy an expensive car that will similarly degrade and need expensive maintenance exceeding the original purchase price over time.
IanDrake 7y ago
Well, I don't believe in "consensus" [insert field] science because that's an oxymoron. If you still believed what was once the consensus, you would believe in some crazy stuff. Science is skeptism of the consensus, not the other way around.
- dkarras 7y ago

yongjik 7y ago

Next you will tell me it's impossible for a major earthquake to strike San Francisco (or Tokyo), because then nobody would want to live there.

kelnos 7y ago

Most people don't buy real estate considering an 80-year time horizon. Even 40 years is often a bit of a stretch. I would guess that a lot of people only look 15-20 years into the future. Perhaps not a majority, but enough to keep waterfront property attractive and expensive.

tzs 7y ago

That place of Obama's will probably be fine for his and his wife's remaining life, and the life of his children, and at least a good part of the lives of any grandchildren. He'll get his money's worth out of it.