3 ms·

The problem is that seawalls are very expensive and make the problem worse for your neighbors. If you build a sea wall, you break the natural process which repl

by acdha 3y ago

The problem is that seawalls are very expensive and make the problem worse for your neighbors. If you build a sea wall, you break the natural process which replenishes sand on the adjacent beaches and they’ll shrink and disappear. https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2023/09/26/lessons-from-california-on-how-to-adapt-to-sea-level-rise https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2023/09/26/lessons-from-califor... The real solution is to accept that anyone who bought in the last half century should have factored in the scientific evidence of climate change and not expect taxpayers to subsidize their failure to plan appropriately. At this point, the window for easily dealing with the problem is long closed and we should be prepared to write off high-risk areas: give the current residents support for moving somewhere safe and turn the land into a preserve where we can let the local ecosystem recover. A lot of beaches around the world have involved clearing things like mangroves which improve storm resilience, too, so restoration would help everyone further from the shore.

ratg13 3y ago
These homeowners cleaned the beaches free of any plants that would have helped prevent this in order to make their homes look nicer. These people just want sympathy and for someone to pay for their mistakes.
vmfunction 3y ago
>The real solution is to accept that anyone who bought in the last half century should have factored in the scientific evidence of climate change and not expect taxpayers to subsidize their failure to plan appropriately. Glad someone said this. If you got money to buy properties at Martha Vineyard, then how much do you really believe in climate change? People who build there should just accept the risk that their properties will be destroyed with little notice.
jmacd 3y ago
A sea wall performs much differently than a properly sloped structure. There are different engineering approaches to this problem and they function well when in place. That said, it's a waste of time, money and resources.
pixl97 3y ago
>The problem is that seawalls are very expensive That's only one problem... The bigger problem is something you hit at, which is mass ignorance of complex topics that end up getting turned in to political sound bites. At least 30 years ago, and probably longer you could pick up books on bathymetry and arenology that described the physics of the situation and really gave dire warnings. Without adding things like rising sea level, the moment you start building near the beach bad things start happening quickly. Tall building interrupt wind currents, these wind currents change the shape and angle of the beach. Changing the shape of the beach changes the how waves scour the sand off the beach and leads to rapid erosion. This leads to people building sea walls, which just moves the feedback loop out a bit. What typically happens without constant replenishment is the ocean will continue to get deeper directly up to the seawall (losing your prime tourist attraction) until the seawall falls over. A seawall is how you turn a million dollar problem in to a billion dollar one. At the end of the day human ambitions and the ocean are not really compatible. We like to think we can tame anything and exploit its resources safely and cheaply. To use a bad analogy, it's like seeing a beautiful unicorn and capturing it because you love the way it looks. But after you capture it, its bright white coat grows dull and grey. It's horn falls off. It gets tons of medical issues requiring more and more expensive treatment. Suddenly everyone is claiming it's a ripoff and you never had a unicorn in the first place.
ryandvm 3y ago
> The real solution is to accept that anyone who bought in the last half century should have factored in the scientific evidence of climate change and not expect taxpayers to subsidize their failure to plan appropriately. It's mostly not even climate change. The reality is that without a great deal of very expensive intervention from humans, sand coastlines are constantly shifting and changing. Building long term structures in these places has ALWAYS been folly. The worst part is it's not even irrational because the rest of the country will fund the billions of dollars for state and federal projects to shore up these properties indefinitely.
- acdha 3y ago
  > It's mostly not even climate change Let me amend that: it’s not just climate change but climate change is like a catalyst for the existing problem. Higher sea level, greater storm intensity and frequency, and other ecological impacts (e.g. native vegetation might not control erosion as well due to changing conditions or invasive pests) all mean we get the harder versions of the problem and have deal with more crises at a time.
  - snapplebobapple 3y ago
    Its more like this was inevitable regardless of climate change on the time period the average housing stock lasts, so building there and expecting this to stay as is was inevitably stupid regardless of climate change.
    - stickybit 3y ago
      The reality is that climate change is resulting in 100 year events becoming 10 year events. Yes, the barrier probably would have been washed away _eventually_ irrespective of our changing climate, but sea levels are rising (104mm since 1993) and the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events is increasing. Everything that is now happening occurs in the context of our destabilizing climate. Given this, I'm not sure how supportable it is to declare that climate change is not, at the very least, a contributory factor in events like these.
short_sells_poo 3y ago
There's definitely a significant amount of "leopards ate my face" going on here, but I think a fair few people simply don't know better. They see a beautiful beachfront property and when the weather is good, it's all hunky dory. But then a hurricane moves in and levels everything to the ground, and the real estate agents neglect to mention that this will happen on a regular basis.
- acdha 3y ago
  Another weird one I’ve heard are people saying it can’t be that bad if insurers cover it, followed by dismay when the premiums double multiple years running. I think the solution will end up involving some changes to federal disaster aid: FEMA will give you relocation assistance if you sell your house to BLM to become part of the coastal buffer reserve.

by acdha 3y ago

ratg13 3y ago

These homeowners cleaned the beaches free of any plants that would have helped prevent this in order to make their homes look nicer. These people just want sympathy and for someone to pay for their mistakes.

vmfunction 3y ago

>The real solution is to accept that anyone who bought in the last half century should have factored in the scientific evidence of climate change and not expect taxpayers to subsidize their failure to plan appropriately. Glad someone said this. If you got money to buy properties at Martha Vineyard, then how much do you really believe in climate change? People who build there should just accept the risk that their properties will be destroyed with little notice.

jmacd 3y ago

A sea wall performs much differently than a properly sloped structure. There are different engineering approaches to this problem and they function well when in place. That said, it's a waste of time, money and resources.

pixl97 3y ago

>The problem is that seawalls are very expensive That's only one problem... The bigger problem is something you hit at, which is mass ignorance of complex topics that end up getting turned in to political sound bites. At least 30 years ago, and probably longer you could pick up books on bathymetry and arenology that described the physics of the situation and really gave dire warnings. Without adding things like rising sea level, the moment you start building near the beach bad things start happening quickly. Tall building interrupt wind currents, these wind currents change the shape and angle of the beach. Changing the shape of the beach changes the how waves scour the sand off the beach and leads to rapid erosion. This leads to people building sea walls, which just moves the feedback loop out a bit. What typically happens without constant replenishment is the ocean will continue to get deeper directly up to the seawall (losing your prime tourist attraction) until the seawall falls over. A seawall is how you turn a million dollar problem in to a billion dollar one. At the end of the day human ambitions and the ocean are not really compatible. We like to think we can tame anything and exploit its resources safely and cheaply. To use a bad analogy, it's like seeing a beautiful unicorn and capturing it because you love the way it looks. But after you capture it, its bright white coat grows dull and grey. It's horn falls off. It gets tons of medical issues requiring more and more expensive treatment. Suddenly everyone is claiming it's a ripoff and you never had a unicorn in the first place.

ryandvm 3y ago

> The real solution is to accept that anyone who bought in the last half century should have factored in the scientific evidence of climate change and not expect taxpayers to subsidize their failure to plan appropriately. It's mostly not even climate change. The reality is that without a great deal of very expensive intervention from humans, sand coastlines are constantly shifting and changing. Building long term structures in these places has ALWAYS been folly. The worst part is it's not even irrational because the rest of the country will fund the billions of dollars for state and federal projects to shore up these properties indefinitely.

acdha 3y ago
> It's mostly not even climate change Let me amend that: it’s not just climate change but climate change is like a catalyst for the existing problem. Higher sea level, greater storm intensity and frequency, and other ecological impacts (e.g. native vegetation might not control erosion as well due to changing conditions or invasive pests) all mean we get the harder versions of the problem and have deal with more crises at a time.
- snapplebobapple 3y ago
  Its more like this was inevitable regardless of climate change on the time period the average housing stock lasts, so building there and expecting this to stay as is was inevitably stupid regardless of climate change.
  - stickybit 3y ago
    The reality is that climate change is resulting in 100 year events becoming 10 year events. Yes, the barrier probably would have been washed away _eventually_ irrespective of our changing climate, but sea levels are rising (104mm since 1993) and the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events is increasing. Everything that is now happening occurs in the context of our destabilizing climate. Given this, I'm not sure how supportable it is to declare that climate change is not, at the very least, a contributory factor in events like these.

short_sells_poo 3y ago

There's definitely a significant amount of "leopards ate my face" going on here, but I think a fair few people simply don't know better. They see a beautiful beachfront property and when the weather is good, it's all hunky dory. But then a hurricane moves in and levels everything to the ground, and the real estate agents neglect to mention that this will happen on a regular basis.

acdha 3y ago
Another weird one I’ve heard are people saying it can’t be that bad if insurers cover it, followed by dismay when the premiums double multiple years running. I think the solution will end up involving some changes to federal disaster aid: FEMA will give you relocation assistance if you sell your house to BLM to become part of the coastal buffer reserve.