5 ms·

The Economic Cost of Houston’s Heat

34 points by impish9208 3y ago

impish9208 3y ago
https://archive.is/wOQkF https://archive.is/wOQkF
1970-01-01 3y ago
I believe there will be a major city (p. > 1,000,000) lost within the next decade due to a 1-2 punch of extreme heat and extreme weather. The only question remaining is if the uppercut will arrive as fire or flooding. Katrina, Harvey, and Sandy were the warning signs to 'get out now'.
- nh23423fefe 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - 1970-01-01 3y ago
    No delusion is necessary. Insurance rate trends speak for themselves, and that is backed with hard data.
  - draw_down 3y ago
    [dead]
- gottorf 3y ago
  Let's define your major city as a metro area population (not just city limits, since that's often arbitrary) of over a million. How would you define "lost"? A population decline of over 20%?
- nonameiguess 3y ago
  I'm having trouble imagining what you think could cause that. Katrina itself was about as devastating as flooding can get without being permanent, and we didn't lose New Orleans (nor has it ever even had half a million people in population). A nuclear bomb didn't even cause us to lose Hiroshima. Seemingly, the only thing that could do this is permanent sea-level rise (not a storm surge) on the level of Katrina or Sandy, but if this was possible, it wouldn't be local and we wouldn't lose one coastal city. We'd lose many. Have we ever lost an entire city other than Pompeii? Krakatoa killed everyone on Sebesi, but I don't believe had any permanent settlements of its own.
  - gottorf 3y ago
    > we didn't lose New Orleans Not the GP, but on the topic of New Orleans, the metro area lost almost 30% of the population after Katrina, with it having recovered to pre-Katrina levels only in the last few years. So it was severely damaged, and the scars from it are still evident in the city. So this all depends on the GP's definition of "lost". I often laugh when people ask the question "why do people even live there? Why live somewhere below sea level?" without thinking about the fact that New Orleans is at the mouth of the biggest navigable river system in the world, home to some of the most productive farmland in the world, whose grains all get exported through that city. Until the Mississippi dries up, there will always be a sizable city there, in one shape or another.
    - toomuchtodo 3y ago
      You cannot own property with a mortgage without insurance (and if you don't carry it, your mortgage servicer will force place it, at a much higher rate). If updated risk pricing prevents people from obtaining insurance (either because of high cost or total inability to have a policy written), real estate transactions dry up and people will have to move elsewhere to buy. Some buyers can probably perform cash transactions, rent properties out without insurance/self insure, perhaps business owners provide corp housing where a geographic benefit makes the operating model palatable, etc. But wage earners who desire to own RE will need to migrate if they need a mortgage. I'm paying ~$4k/year in homeowner's insurance through Florida's high risk pool. I know people closer to the coast paying as high as $12k/year. This is unsustainable, but necessary to accurately price risk. Real estate markets will respond accordingly. https://riskfactor.com/ https://riskfactor.com/ https://www.npr.org/2023/07/22/1186540332/how-climate-change-could-cause-a-home-insurance-meltdown https://www.npr.org/2023/07/22/1186540332/how-climate-change... https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-07-28/treasury-s-yellen-says-extreme-weather-exposes-gaps-in-insurance-protection https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-07-28/treasury-... | https://archive.is/o2BiF https://archive.is/o2BiF https://wusfnews.wusf.usf.edu/local-state/2023-04-04/florida-homeowners-to-face-a-projected-40-percent-increase-in-property-insurance-rates https://wusfnews.wusf.usf.edu/local-state/2023-04-04/florida... https://www.cbsnews.com/texas/news/texas-home-insurance-prices-could-soon-become-the-highest-in-the-country/ https://www.cbsnews.com/texas/news/texas-home-insurance-pric... https://www.nbcnews.com/business/consumer/homeowners-go-without-insurance-in-states-where-its-too-expensive-rcna88578 https://www.nbcnews.com/business/consumer/homeowners-go-with...
- Hammershaft 3y ago
  You should make a prediction market on manifold.markets or metaculus & commit to the bet. I think it would be an interesting market. https://www.metaculus.com/home/ https://www.metaculus.com/home/ https://manifold.markets/home https://manifold.markets/home
- myshpa 3y ago
  Or sea rise. Or droughts.
- nocoiner 3y ago
  I think I would take the other side of this bet. I do think that there will be at least one major U.S. urban area that is rendered permanently uninhabitable at some point this century, and the first one will be somewhere in southern Florida, but I don’t have any confidence in timing or specific local geographies. My prediction is that large-scale abandonment will be due to persistent flooding and inundation that can’t be solved with sea walls/gates or levees, and not a hurricane-induced flood or storm surge. I don’t think that will happen in the next 10 years, though it certainly could.
AndrewKemendo 3y ago
Having grown up in Houston it’s really hard to overstate how oppressive it can be in the summer when it’s regularly over 100° and the heat island effect makes it such that any place you go, outside of an air-conditioned space, is absolutely unbearable. To the extent where when I left home as soon as I could and purposely went to some place that was cold half the year.
- gottorf 3y ago
  > the heat island effect I live in a Gulf Coast city as well, but it's much smaller than Houston, and I think this really makes a significant difference. Summers are unpleasant here too, but somehow it's not quite as bad as Houston.
  - HeyLaughingBoy 3y ago
    Definitely. There are a lot of dirt/gravel roads around here and in summer, when you turn off a paved asphalt road onto a dirt road there is an immediate air temperature drop.
SxC97 3y ago
I live in Houston currently and the heat is absolutely oppressive. Most days going outside feels like exploring Arrakis. It’s dangerous to go outside while the sun is out, lest you spontaneously combust. It’s steadily been getting worse, year after year, but this summer is the worst I’ve ever experienced. I’ve already decided this is the last summer I’ll spend here. If I don’t land an in person job here in the next few months, I’m packing up and going to Denver or Seattle.
- HeyLaughingBoy 3y ago
  I don't know how you guys live there and I grew up in tropical South America! I had a stopover in Houston coming from Anchorage to MSP. It was 90+ degrees and humid as hell in the airport at 6AM Never again!
  - gottorf 3y ago
    > in the airport How was it so unpleasant indoors?!
    - HeyLaughingBoy 3y ago
      Damned if I know! I just remember thinking that if it was this bad inside, how much worse it had to be outside.
    - nocoiner 3y ago
      Unrelated to climate, but speaking of unpleasantness indoors, the Houston airport authorities decided to let a barbecue restaurant open in the middle of the newest, nicest terminal at IAH, with smoke pits and all. It smells strongly of smoked meat 24 hours a day (or so I assume, as someone who has been in that terminal at both 2 am and at noon in the last few weeks). It’s completely intolerable and frankly kind of disgusting. And I say this as someone who loves BBQ! It’s just too much, too soon, as soon as you step off the plane. I can’t imagine spending a long layover there.
- gnulinux 3y ago
  This summer in Boston has been the coolest summer I ever experienced in my life (colder than last 4 summers in Boston) including 3 summers I spent in SF (which, as the famous joke goes, are colder than its winters). So, maybe Boston is a good option for our climate change future? NYC this summer was disgustingly hot though! So maybe this Boston thing is a random statistical anomaly.
pengaru 3y ago
Do Texans still largely live in denial of climate change?
- reaperman 3y ago
  No. Most Texans believe in "climate change" and consider regional warming effects to be axiomatic. The primary debate is: 1) Is it s/anthropomorphic/anthropogenic? (Caused by humans). 2) Is it really that bad for the Earth? (Does the heat help and/or can the ecosystem adapt). Most of the debate has moved from "is it happening" to these other questions.
  - pengaru 3y ago
    > 1) Is it anthropomorphic? (Caused by humans). nit: anthropic. anthropomorphic would be giving it human traits, like the climate has opposable thumbs and road rage.
    - gottorf 3y ago
      Anthropogenic seems like the best word.
    - t_luke 3y ago
      It’s actually ‘anthropogenic’ (as in caused ‘generated’ by humans) if we’re going to be pedantic
      - pengaru 3y ago
        I'm indifferent, it's just definitely not anthropomorphic. FWIW I did actually check before I commented, but just using my local dict install. Anthropogenic seems to be often used in the news WRT climate change, but the definitions left me with the impression anthropic seemed more correct (brevity bonus too): > From WordNet (r) 3.1 (2011) [wn]: > > anthropic > adj 1: relating to mankind or the period of mankind's existence > [syn: {anthropic}, {anthropical}] > > anthropogenic > adj 1: of or relating to the study of the origins and > development of human beings [syn: {anthropogenetic}, > {anthropogenic}] >
travisporter 3y ago
I miss Houston food a lot but do not miss the weather! I used to bike/walk a half mile to work and would sweat through my shirt June-aug
hombre_fatal 3y ago
Having grown up in Houston, it would be worse if Houston had a bunch of things worth being outside for, aside from its few parks, like pedestrian-only zones and market streets and bike lanes. Instead Houston is eight-lane roads and stroads with no Third Places to visit, so the heat isn't as oppressive since everyone never got out of their SUV to begin with—the city is already oppressive. It just makes the walk to and from your car less comfortable as that's the only reason to be outside. A little bit of hyperbole, but I blame the heat.
myshpa 3y ago
It's well known how to reduce the heat inside our cities - it's vegetation. Lots and lots of vegetation, both within and beyond the city boundaries. (a hint for texans: trees & shrubs, not grass or alfalfa)
- hoppery 3y ago
  Houston is literally a swamp, consider looking at a random street view image of any residential part of the city at some point. Vegetation doesn’t do anything for humidity, see: Southeast Asia, Subsaharan Africa. Texas has zero alfalfa production, you’re imagining the desert southwest 1000+ miles away from Houston in an entirely different climate.
  - myshpa 3y ago
    You're right, I haven't really read the article (paywall). I didn't know that Houston has average 75% humidity (as high as 90% in summer afternoons). That can't be good.
dctoedt 3y ago
Forty-year Houstonian here: About 13-14 years ago, one of my wife's nephews called to say that he and his wife were coming to Houston from their home in NYC — in July — to see the nephew's grandfather (my FIL), who lived near us, and show him their infant child. My wife's nephew said, "be sure to think of some things for us to do that Houstonians do in the summer." I responded, "OK, we'll take you to Colorado for a month." (Yes, I know, it's people of a certain income level who do that, and we don't do it.)
nocoiner 3y ago
I was thinking earlier this month that this was the first summer that the heat has really bothered me and generally kept me hiding indoors - normally I love it, and feel very comfortable in it, and usually look like a fool during our mild winters where I’m dressed like prepared for Minnesota in January. But then I was in Northern California last week, and the heat seemed just as unbearable. So, I guess the upshot is, I’m not really looking forward to the next several decades of summers I’ll hopefully be around for.
jononomo 3y ago
You can go further south than Houston and find much nicer weather. Heredia, which is a suburb of San Jose, Costa Rica, is much closer to the equator than Houston, but it is in a much rainier part of the world and it is at an elevation of about 3,000 feet. You can live there all year round without having either heat or air conditioning in your home.
ChumpGPT 3y ago
The article briefly talks about energy and HVAC issues. I think Texas needs to really revamp the building code to make sure dwellings are built to a higher standard. Insulation requirements (spray foam), solar shielding, better windows, reflective roofs, solar power incentives, etc. If you notice there is never an effort to become more efficient, they pick the easy way out and just build out more power. In Texas most HVAC units are placed in the hottest part of the house, the Attic. These systems last 5-10 years because of the insane temperatures they have to operate in. They need to be installed inside the home in a closet or environmentally controlled room, that alone would make them more efficient and last longer.

34 points by impish9208 3y ago

https://archive.is/wOQkF https://archive.is/wOQkF

1970-01-01 3y ago

I believe there will be a major city (p. > 1,000,000) lost within the next decade due to a 1-2 punch of extreme heat and extreme weather. The only question remaining is if the uppercut will arrive as fire or flooding. Katrina, Harvey, and Sandy were the warning signs to 'get out now'.

nh23423fefe 3y ago
[flagged]
- 1970-01-01 3y ago
  No delusion is necessary. Insurance rate trends speak for themselves, and that is backed with hard data.
- draw_down 3y ago
  [dead]
gottorf 3y ago
Let's define your major city as a metro area population (not just city limits, since that's often arbitrary) of over a million. How would you define "lost"? A population decline of over 20%?
nonameiguess 3y ago
I'm having trouble imagining what you think could cause that. Katrina itself was about as devastating as flooding can get without being permanent, and we didn't lose New Orleans (nor has it ever even had half a million people in population). A nuclear bomb didn't even cause us to lose Hiroshima. Seemingly, the only thing that could do this is permanent sea-level rise (not a storm surge) on the level of Katrina or Sandy, but if this was possible, it wouldn't be local and we wouldn't lose one coastal city. We'd lose many. Have we ever lost an entire city other than Pompeii? Krakatoa killed everyone on Sebesi, but I don't believe had any permanent settlements of its own.
- gottorf 3y ago
  > we didn't lose New Orleans Not the GP, but on the topic of New Orleans, the metro area lost almost 30% of the population after Katrina, with it having recovered to pre-Katrina levels only in the last few years. So it was severely damaged, and the scars from it are still evident in the city. So this all depends on the GP's definition of "lost". I often laugh when people ask the question "why do people even live there? Why live somewhere below sea level?" without thinking about the fact that New Orleans is at the mouth of the biggest navigable river system in the world, home to some of the most productive farmland in the world, whose grains all get exported through that city. Until the Mississippi dries up, there will always be a sizable city there, in one shape or another.
  - toomuchtodo 3y ago
    You cannot own property with a mortgage without insurance (and if you don't carry it, your mortgage servicer will force place it, at a much higher rate). If updated risk pricing prevents people from obtaining insurance (either because of high cost or total inability to have a policy written), real estate transactions dry up and people will have to move elsewhere to buy. Some buyers can probably perform cash transactions, rent properties out without insurance/self insure, perhaps business owners provide corp housing where a geographic benefit makes the operating model palatable, etc. But wage earners who desire to own RE will need to migrate if they need a mortgage. I'm paying ~$4k/year in homeowner's insurance through Florida's high risk pool. I know people closer to the coast paying as high as $12k/year. This is unsustainable, but necessary to accurately price risk. Real estate markets will respond accordingly. https://riskfactor.com/ https://riskfactor.com/ https://www.npr.org/2023/07/22/1186540332/how-climate-change-could-cause-a-home-insurance-meltdown https://www.npr.org/2023/07/22/1186540332/how-climate-change... https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-07-28/treasury-s-yellen-says-extreme-weather-exposes-gaps-in-insurance-protection https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-07-28/treasury-... | https://archive.is/o2BiF https://archive.is/o2BiF https://wusfnews.wusf.usf.edu/local-state/2023-04-04/florida-homeowners-to-face-a-projected-40-percent-increase-in-property-insurance-rates https://wusfnews.wusf.usf.edu/local-state/2023-04-04/florida... https://www.cbsnews.com/texas/news/texas-home-insurance-prices-could-soon-become-the-highest-in-the-country/ https://www.cbsnews.com/texas/news/texas-home-insurance-pric... https://www.nbcnews.com/business/consumer/homeowners-go-without-insurance-in-states-where-its-too-expensive-rcna88578 https://www.nbcnews.com/business/consumer/homeowners-go-with...
Hammershaft 3y ago
You should make a prediction market on manifold.markets or metaculus & commit to the bet. I think it would be an interesting market. https://www.metaculus.com/home/ https://www.metaculus.com/home/ https://manifold.markets/home https://manifold.markets/home
myshpa 3y ago
Or sea rise. Or droughts.
nocoiner 3y ago
I think I would take the other side of this bet. I do think that there will be at least one major U.S. urban area that is rendered permanently uninhabitable at some point this century, and the first one will be somewhere in southern Florida, but I don’t have any confidence in timing or specific local geographies. My prediction is that large-scale abandonment will be due to persistent flooding and inundation that can’t be solved with sea walls/gates or levees, and not a hurricane-induced flood or storm surge. I don’t think that will happen in the next 10 years, though it certainly could.

AndrewKemendo 3y ago

Having grown up in Houston it’s really hard to overstate how oppressive it can be in the summer when it’s regularly over 100° and the heat island effect makes it such that any place you go, outside of an air-conditioned space, is absolutely unbearable. To the extent where when I left home as soon as I could and purposely went to some place that was cold half the year.

gottorf 3y ago
> the heat island effect I live in a Gulf Coast city as well, but it's much smaller than Houston, and I think this really makes a significant difference. Summers are unpleasant here too, but somehow it's not quite as bad as Houston.
- HeyLaughingBoy 3y ago
  Definitely. There are a lot of dirt/gravel roads around here and in summer, when you turn off a paved asphalt road onto a dirt road there is an immediate air temperature drop.

SxC97 3y ago

I live in Houston currently and the heat is absolutely oppressive. Most days going outside feels like exploring Arrakis. It’s dangerous to go outside while the sun is out, lest you spontaneously combust. It’s steadily been getting worse, year after year, but this summer is the worst I’ve ever experienced. I’ve already decided this is the last summer I’ll spend here. If I don’t land an in person job here in the next few months, I’m packing up and going to Denver or Seattle.

HeyLaughingBoy 3y ago
I don't know how you guys live there and I grew up in tropical South America! I had a stopover in Houston coming from Anchorage to MSP. It was 90+ degrees and humid as hell in the airport at 6AM Never again!
- gottorf 3y ago
  > in the airport How was it so unpleasant indoors?!
  - HeyLaughingBoy 3y ago
    Damned if I know! I just remember thinking that if it was this bad inside, how much worse it had to be outside.
  - nocoiner 3y ago
    Unrelated to climate, but speaking of unpleasantness indoors, the Houston airport authorities decided to let a barbecue restaurant open in the middle of the newest, nicest terminal at IAH, with smoke pits and all. It smells strongly of smoked meat 24 hours a day (or so I assume, as someone who has been in that terminal at both 2 am and at noon in the last few weeks). It’s completely intolerable and frankly kind of disgusting. And I say this as someone who loves BBQ! It’s just too much, too soon, as soon as you step off the plane. I can’t imagine spending a long layover there.
gnulinux 3y ago
This summer in Boston has been the coolest summer I ever experienced in my life (colder than last 4 summers in Boston) including 3 summers I spent in SF (which, as the famous joke goes, are colder than its winters). So, maybe Boston is a good option for our climate change future? NYC this summer was disgustingly hot though! So maybe this Boston thing is a random statistical anomaly.

pengaru 3y ago

Do Texans still largely live in denial of climate change?

reaperman 3y ago
No. Most Texans believe in "climate change" and consider regional warming effects to be axiomatic. The primary debate is: 1) Is it s/anthropomorphic/anthropogenic? (Caused by humans). 2) Is it really that bad for the Earth? (Does the heat help and/or can the ecosystem adapt). Most of the debate has moved from "is it happening" to these other questions.
- pengaru 3y ago
  > 1) Is it anthropomorphic? (Caused by humans). nit: anthropic. anthropomorphic would be giving it human traits, like the climate has opposable thumbs and road rage.
  - gottorf 3y ago
    Anthropogenic seems like the best word.
  - t_luke 3y ago
    It’s actually ‘anthropogenic’ (as in caused ‘generated’ by humans) if we’re going to be pedantic
    - pengaru 3y ago
      I'm indifferent, it's just definitely not anthropomorphic. FWIW I did actually check before I commented, but just using my local dict install. Anthropogenic seems to be often used in the news WRT climate change, but the definitions left me with the impression anthropic seemed more correct (brevity bonus too): > From WordNet (r) 3.1 (2011) [wn]: > > anthropic > adj 1: relating to mankind or the period of mankind's existence > [syn: {anthropic}, {anthropical}] > > anthropogenic > adj 1: of or relating to the study of the origins and > development of human beings [syn: {anthropogenetic}, > {anthropogenic}] >

travisporter 3y ago

I miss Houston food a lot but do not miss the weather! I used to bike/walk a half mile to work and would sweat through my shirt June-aug

hombre_fatal 3y ago

Having grown up in Houston, it would be worse if Houston had a bunch of things worth being outside for, aside from its few parks, like pedestrian-only zones and market streets and bike lanes. Instead Houston is eight-lane roads and stroads with no Third Places to visit, so the heat isn't as oppressive since everyone never got out of their SUV to begin with—the city is already oppressive. It just makes the walk to and from your car less comfortable as that's the only reason to be outside. A little bit of hyperbole, but I blame the heat.

myshpa 3y ago

It's well known how to reduce the heat inside our cities - it's vegetation. Lots and lots of vegetation, both within and beyond the city boundaries. (a hint for texans: trees & shrubs, not grass or alfalfa)

hoppery 3y ago
Houston is literally a swamp, consider looking at a random street view image of any residential part of the city at some point. Vegetation doesn’t do anything for humidity, see: Southeast Asia, Subsaharan Africa. Texas has zero alfalfa production, you’re imagining the desert southwest 1000+ miles away from Houston in an entirely different climate.
- myshpa 3y ago
  You're right, I haven't really read the article (paywall). I didn't know that Houston has average 75% humidity (as high as 90% in summer afternoons). That can't be good.

dctoedt 3y ago

Forty-year Houstonian here: About 13-14 years ago, one of my wife's nephews called to say that he and his wife were coming to Houston from their home in NYC — in July — to see the nephew's grandfather (my FIL), who lived near us, and show him their infant child. My wife's nephew said, "be sure to think of some things for us to do that Houstonians do in the summer." I responded, "OK, we'll take you to Colorado for a month." (Yes, I know, it's people of a certain income level who do that, and we don't do it.)

nocoiner 3y ago

I was thinking earlier this month that this was the first summer that the heat has really bothered me and generally kept me hiding indoors - normally I love it, and feel very comfortable in it, and usually look like a fool during our mild winters where I’m dressed like prepared for Minnesota in January. But then I was in Northern California last week, and the heat seemed just as unbearable. So, I guess the upshot is, I’m not really looking forward to the next several decades of summers I’ll hopefully be around for.

jononomo 3y ago

You can go further south than Houston and find much nicer weather. Heredia, which is a suburb of San Jose, Costa Rica, is much closer to the equator than Houston, but it is in a much rainier part of the world and it is at an elevation of about 3,000 feet. You can live there all year round without having either heat or air conditioning in your home.

ChumpGPT 3y ago

The article briefly talks about energy and HVAC issues. I think Texas needs to really revamp the building code to make sure dwellings are built to a higher standard. Insulation requirements (spray foam), solar shielding, better windows, reflective roofs, solar power incentives, etc. If you notice there is never an effort to become more efficient, they pick the easy way out and just build out more power. In Texas most HVAC units are placed in the hottest part of the house, the Attic. These systems last 5-10 years because of the insane temperatures they have to operate in. They need to be installed inside the home in a closet or environmentally controlled room, that alone would make them more efficient and last longer.