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Look carefully at these photos of the Martha's Vineyard vacation home of the Obamas, which cost a reported $11.75 million: https://www.homesandgardens.com/ne

Look carefully at these photos of the Martha's Vineyard vacation home of the Obamas, which cost a reported $11.75 million: https://www.homesandgardens.com/news/president-obama-new-house-marthas-vineyard https://www.homesandgardens.com/news/president-obama-new-hou... Try to estimate the elevation above sea level of this house. Why buy a house that will very likely be under water, I mean in the non-financial sense?

idiotsecant 4y ago
This might be a record for time from creation of thread until first random weird Obama implication.
- boppo1 4y ago
  But, beyond conspiracies, he has a simple point. If climate change is is going to be a civilization-ending force, why would someone who ought to be well-informed sink a large amount of wealth into an at-risk property?
  - bluGill 4y ago
    They are expecting a government bailout when sea levels raise. You could make a big difference just by getting a lot of people to demand the government make all houses within 10 feet (pick a number) of sea level not eligible for government flood insurance. This will make all private insurance change their risk models. Some conservatives (those with a libertarian bent at least) have long noted that government bailouts as flood insurance has been a moral hazard allowing people to live cheaply in places they couldn't afford to live in otherwise.
  - thehappypm 4y ago
    First of all, this property is elevated. It’s clearly not sitting at 5 feet of elevation. Second, $12m is peanuts for a former president.
    - gspetr 4y ago
      https://www.businessinsider.com/barack-obama-michelle-obama-net-worth-2018-7 https://www.businessinsider.com/barack-obama-michelle-obama-... Even if he's made more since then, 10-15% of your net worth definitely isn't peanuts. Not to mention being as high profile as he is, and talking "my legacy this and that", you'd think he would have paid more attention as to what kind of message he's sending by doing that.
      - thehappypm 4y ago
        By doing.. what? Buying a property that will not be impacted by climate change for 300 years?
        gspetr 4y ago
        See my reply to a sibling of your parent comment for the article about the impact.
  - dragonwriter 4y ago
    > If climate change is is going to be a civilization-ending force, why would someone who ought to be well-informed sink a large amount of wealth into an at-risk property? If it is going to be a civilization-ending force, wealth won't matter and all properties (and even the very concept of “property”) are at risk. Your question makes more sense if the conditional is changed to “if climate change is going to have little effect on society at large but severe, highly localized effects... ”
    - gspetr 4y ago
      Why would the concept be at risk though? Will the species go extinct or would communists take over?
      - dragonwriter 4y ago
        > Why would the concept be at risk though? Property—at least real, as opposed to personal—property seems to be unlikely to survive as a thing in the absence of civilization, even the species survives, and “civilization-ending” was the scenario being discussed. > Will the species go extinct or would communists take over? Well, species-ending would be compatible with civilization-ending, but not necessary to it. Ideological communism probably wouldn't survive the end of civilization, either; the problem it addresses would no longer exist nor would there be means to implement most forms of it, nor would any people that survived probably have much energy for theory.
        gspetr 4y ago
        This seems like too much of a stretch. "A civilization is any complex society characterized by the development of a political state, social stratification, urbanization, and symbolic systems of communication beyond natural spoken language (namely, a writing system)." Even in most post-apocalypse antiutopia science fiction, all of these attributes are present except perhaps urbanization. E.g. a roving gang with a warlord at its helm has a political state and social stratification, and they would still have access to pencils.
  - hackerlight 4y ago
    Why do you believe that it's an at-risk property? Because the person making the bad faith argument said so?
    - gspetr 4y ago
      https://mvmagazine.com/news/2007/08/01/changing-shape-island https://mvmagazine.com/news/2007/08/01/changing-shape-island "Parts of Martha's Vineyard are only feet above sea level today. Recent projections target Edgartown as the first town to submerge. In less than a hundred years, you might be strolling down South Water Street in a kayak. A hundred years - nothing in geologist years. In fact, it doesn't seem like a terribly long time in our years either."
thehappypm 4y ago
That house looks substantially above sea level to me, perhaps 30-50 feet.
- 83 4y ago
  That was my estimate just judging by the trees and slope from the beach, at least 30 or 40 feet. Seems pretty low risk to me.
colinmhayes 4y ago
Miami beach is a better place to look at. There's no chance it doesn't go below sea level at some point this century and there's no way we could build walls around it yet people are still paying millions for homes on the island.

idiotsecant 4y ago

This might be a record for time from creation of thread until first random weird Obama implication.

boppo1 4y ago
But, beyond conspiracies, he has a simple point. If climate change is is going to be a civilization-ending force, why would someone who ought to be well-informed sink a large amount of wealth into an at-risk property?
- bluGill 4y ago
  They are expecting a government bailout when sea levels raise. You could make a big difference just by getting a lot of people to demand the government make all houses within 10 feet (pick a number) of sea level not eligible for government flood insurance. This will make all private insurance change their risk models. Some conservatives (those with a libertarian bent at least) have long noted that government bailouts as flood insurance has been a moral hazard allowing people to live cheaply in places they couldn't afford to live in otherwise.
- thehappypm 4y ago
  First of all, this property is elevated. It’s clearly not sitting at 5 feet of elevation. Second, $12m is peanuts for a former president.
  - gspetr 4y ago
    https://www.businessinsider.com/barack-obama-michelle-obama-net-worth-2018-7 https://www.businessinsider.com/barack-obama-michelle-obama-... Even if he's made more since then, 10-15% of your net worth definitely isn't peanuts. Not to mention being as high profile as he is, and talking "my legacy this and that", you'd think he would have paid more attention as to what kind of message he's sending by doing that.
    - thehappypm 4y ago
      By doing.. what? Buying a property that will not be impacted by climate change for 300 years?
      - gspetr 4y ago
        See my reply to a sibling of your parent comment for the article about the impact.
- dragonwriter 4y ago
  > If climate change is is going to be a civilization-ending force, why would someone who ought to be well-informed sink a large amount of wealth into an at-risk property? If it is going to be a civilization-ending force, wealth won't matter and all properties (and even the very concept of “property”) are at risk. Your question makes more sense if the conditional is changed to “if climate change is going to have little effect on society at large but severe, highly localized effects... ”
  - gspetr 4y ago
    Why would the concept be at risk though? Will the species go extinct or would communists take over?
    - dragonwriter 4y ago
      > Why would the concept be at risk though? Property—at least real, as opposed to personal—property seems to be unlikely to survive as a thing in the absence of civilization, even the species survives, and “civilization-ending” was the scenario being discussed. > Will the species go extinct or would communists take over? Well, species-ending would be compatible with civilization-ending, but not necessary to it. Ideological communism probably wouldn't survive the end of civilization, either; the problem it addresses would no longer exist nor would there be means to implement most forms of it, nor would any people that survived probably have much energy for theory.
      - gspetr 4y ago
        This seems like too much of a stretch. "A civilization is any complex society characterized by the development of a political state, social stratification, urbanization, and symbolic systems of communication beyond natural spoken language (namely, a writing system)." Even in most post-apocalypse antiutopia science fiction, all of these attributes are present except perhaps urbanization. E.g. a roving gang with a warlord at its helm has a political state and social stratification, and they would still have access to pencils.
- hackerlight 4y ago
  Why do you believe that it's an at-risk property? Because the person making the bad faith argument said so?
  - gspetr 4y ago
    https://mvmagazine.com/news/2007/08/01/changing-shape-island https://mvmagazine.com/news/2007/08/01/changing-shape-island "Parts of Martha's Vineyard are only feet above sea level today. Recent projections target Edgartown as the first town to submerge. In less than a hundred years, you might be strolling down South Water Street in a kayak. A hundred years - nothing in geologist years. In fact, it doesn't seem like a terribly long time in our years either."

thehappypm 4y ago

That house looks substantially above sea level to me, perhaps 30-50 feet.

83 4y ago
That was my estimate just judging by the trees and slope from the beach, at least 30 or 40 feet. Seems pretty low risk to me.

colinmhayes 4y ago

Miami beach is a better place to look at. There's no chance it doesn't go below sea level at some point this century and there's no way we could build walls around it yet people are still paying millions for homes on the island.