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> 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 expec

> 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.
    - wakawaka28 3y ago
      Or you know, maybe people are too stupid to estimate probabilities like that. Our history is too short to really know what is normal and what is out of line. In geological terms, we are still very much coming out of an ice age and far from peak temperatures that we know have happened before.
      - defrost 3y ago
        > In geological terms, we are still very much coming out of an ice age In geological terms, AGW aside, the earth was still very much within the Late Cenozoic Ice Age and has been for 34 million years. In glaciation terms the earth was swinging out of an inter glaciation period and due to return to glaciation and decreasing global tempretures and increasing ice coverage. Thanks to human activity increasing the insulation attributes of the atmosphere mean tempretures are increasing and global mean tempretures will increase past what we (as a human species) have experienced in our brief time on the planet. > far from peak temperatures that we know have happened before. It's true - we're a long way from living on the surface of a near molten ball of rock with no breathable atmosphere, as the earth once was. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Cenozoic_Ice_Age https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Cenozoic_Ice_Age
        wakawaka28 3y ago
        Ok you got me. I meant in the last few hundred million years it has been way hotter than today. Life existed and thrived back then as well. We are coming out of an ice age and temperatures must necessarily increase as a result, regardless of any presumed impact humans have on that process. This may be interfering with estimations of the impact of CO2 on our atmosphere. I'm not claiming to be an expert on this but I am skeptical of people who claim to be experts on this, as alarmism inherently boosts their careers.
        defrost 3y ago
        > Life existed and thrived back then as well. Hate to break it to you, but humans are not stromatolites. Humans have been about for two million years and have evolved to live in recent climatic conditions and to thrive in the extremely relatively stable Holocene. > We are coming out of an ice age On what evidence? By the record we are in an ice age (do see and read my prior link) and not only were we expected to stay in that ice age but were expected to return to increased glaciation (ie decreasing tempretures). The only reason we are coming out of an ice age is due to human activity increasing the bulk insulation properties of the atmosphere. > I'm not claiming to be an expert on this I've spent four decades in geophysical exploration developing instruments and software for mapping earths energy and mineral resources for extraction. I'm also not claiming to be an expert but I have some exposure to continent and global scale modelling of gravity, radiometrics, magnetic fields, tidal movements, drift, etc.
  - acdha 3y ago
    Higher sea levels are a good counter example to your point. Nobody thinks of normal housing lasting the thousands of years that process takes when you are think in terms of ice ages and warming periods, but a relatively modest rise makes a big difference when you’re thinking about things like how much a given house is exposed to storm surge. Similarly, forest fires are always a risk but the fires are bigger, more frequent, and hotter when climate change had been drying out previously wet regions. That means society needs to plan for huge increases in response capacity in much larger regions than previously was the case, so again while it’s technically possible for there to be a fire anywhere those are very different situations from the prospective of everyone on defense. Think of it like the way armies had to change going from flintlocks to automatic weapons, only we’re doing it much faster and are going to have to make hard sacrifices.

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.
  - wakawaka28 3y ago
    Or you know, maybe people are too stupid to estimate probabilities like that. Our history is too short to really know what is normal and what is out of line. In geological terms, we are still very much coming out of an ice age and far from peak temperatures that we know have happened before.
    - defrost 3y ago
      > In geological terms, we are still very much coming out of an ice age In geological terms, AGW aside, the earth was still very much within the Late Cenozoic Ice Age and has been for 34 million years. In glaciation terms the earth was swinging out of an inter glaciation period and due to return to glaciation and decreasing global tempretures and increasing ice coverage. Thanks to human activity increasing the insulation attributes of the atmosphere mean tempretures are increasing and global mean tempretures will increase past what we (as a human species) have experienced in our brief time on the planet. > far from peak temperatures that we know have happened before. It's true - we're a long way from living on the surface of a near molten ball of rock with no breathable atmosphere, as the earth once was. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Cenozoic_Ice_Age https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Cenozoic_Ice_Age
      - wakawaka28 3y ago
        Ok you got me. I meant in the last few hundred million years it has been way hotter than today. Life existed and thrived back then as well. We are coming out of an ice age and temperatures must necessarily increase as a result, regardless of any presumed impact humans have on that process. This may be interfering with estimations of the impact of CO2 on our atmosphere. I'm not claiming to be an expert on this but I am skeptical of people who claim to be experts on this, as alarmism inherently boosts their careers.
        defrost 3y ago
        > Life existed and thrived back then as well. Hate to break it to you, but humans are not stromatolites. Humans have been about for two million years and have evolved to live in recent climatic conditions and to thrive in the extremely relatively stable Holocene. > We are coming out of an ice age On what evidence? By the record we are in an ice age (do see and read my prior link) and not only were we expected to stay in that ice age but were expected to return to increased glaciation (ie decreasing tempretures). The only reason we are coming out of an ice age is due to human activity increasing the bulk insulation properties of the atmosphere. > I'm not claiming to be an expert on this I've spent four decades in geophysical exploration developing instruments and software for mapping earths energy and mineral resources for extraction. I'm also not claiming to be an expert but I have some exposure to continent and global scale modelling of gravity, radiometrics, magnetic fields, tidal movements, drift, etc.
- acdha 3y ago
  Higher sea levels are a good counter example to your point. Nobody thinks of normal housing lasting the thousands of years that process takes when you are think in terms of ice ages and warming periods, but a relatively modest rise makes a big difference when you’re thinking about things like how much a given house is exposed to storm surge. Similarly, forest fires are always a risk but the fires are bigger, more frequent, and hotter when climate change had been drying out previously wet regions. That means society needs to plan for huge increases in response capacity in much larger regions than previously was the case, so again while it’s technically possible for there to be a fire anywhere those are very different situations from the prospective of everyone on defense. Think of it like the way armies had to change going from flintlocks to automatic weapons, only we’re doing it much faster and are going to have to make hard sacrifices.