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It took a huge flood to mobilize the political will to spend a fuckton of money on flood prevention.* I feel like the problem with climate change is that by th
by polytely 6y ago
It took a huge flood to mobilize the political will to spend a fuckton of money on flood prevention.*
I feel like the problem with climate change is that by the time the effects get so bad that everyone will be on board to actually put a significant amount of resources into prevention and mitigation, it will be too late to do anything, because there is a time lag between ceasing emissions and the climate stabilizing. Additionally, all the greenhouse gasses you have already emitted are still in the atmosphere so just stopping emissions will only stop the heating up (if we are lucky) and not automatically result in the climate returning to "normal".
*: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Sea_flood_of_1953 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Sea_flood_of_1953
- dodobirdlord 6y agoBuilding flood barriers is a lot cheaper and a lot easier to throw money at than reducing emissions. Barriers can also be constructed on a local or regional level, whereas emission reduction requires achieving an intractable global consensus. It doesn’t follow that the same dysfunctions that have prevented emission reduction will prevent the construction of flood barriers.
- peterashford 6y agoPutting up barriers won't stop the water rising. And the vast majority of small island nations won't be able to afford to wall off their entire landmass
- dodobirdlord 6y agoAs mentioned above, places with porous geology that have low elevation even well inland are not salvageable. And the vast majority of small island nations don’t contain very many people. It seems like the goalposts are being moved here from “sea level rise is an existential threat to human civilization” to “sea level rise will disrupt the way of life of some people”.