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Luckily the communities most heavily impacted by this are typically very wealthy and capable of shouldering the cost burden - what is more concerning is the rip
by JohnMakin 2y ago
Luckily the communities most heavily impacted by this are typically very wealthy and capable of shouldering the cost burden - what is more concerning is the ripple effect this will have on house prices and rent on more inland areas.
This article mentions corona del mar being the subject of study - very nearby is a small but extremely densely populated community called balboa island [0] - it is one of a series of man made islands built in the early 1900’s out of what was a sandbar in a coastal marshland.
The problem is, balboa island has always barely been above sea level. Very early on, a sea wall was built to prevent high tides from flooding the island. A few years ago it had to be raised another few feet, and it is impossible not to notice that the island still experiences increasingly frequent flooding. The houses are worth millions of dollars each, and it’s so ironic that it’d be comedic that many of the residents (you can guess at its demographic without looking at voting maps) don’t even believe in global climate change or sea level rise, even as the evidence is literally on their doorsteps.
Communities like this won’t and cannot exist by the end of the century if not much earlier. I’m not really sure you can engineer your way out of this problem, mother nature can be a bitch.
0: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balboa_Island,_Newport_Beach https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balboa_Island,_Newport_Beach
- 0cf8612b2e1e 2y agoI wonder how effective those communities can be at making their problem everyone else’s. Will we be seeing more “public” projects to reinforce the coast?
- forgetfreeman 2y agoGiven the frequency with which local, state, and federal legislation is passed that objectively benefits a minority of ultra-wealthy individuals, I'd say the wealthy's collective effectiveness at farming out their problems to the public is not in question. See Also: the recent 1B USD subsidy to the shareholders and execs of PFAS producers in the form of EPA funding allocations for PFAS remediation projects around the country.
- jnsaff2 2y ago> the communities most heavily impacted by this are typically very wealthy and capable of shouldering the cost burden This is not how this works. The wealthy resources are used to lobby for use of public funds for restoration. Force multiplier, beaches are public etc.
- JohnMakin 2y agoThat sentence was tongue in cheek, but perhaps a little too subtle.
- markdown 2y ago> I’m not really sure you can engineer your way out of this problem Do Californians live on a different planet to the Dutch?
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- olivias5 2y ago[flagged]
- JohnMakin 2y agoI mean, I guess you'd have to read and know about the island and its surrounding geography to understand how this isn't really that feasible. For one, the island and the harbor is tiny. The dutch system is vast and includes stuff like sand dunes, jetties, dams, etc that simply would not fit in the space that the island occupies. The houses are worth millions of dollars precisely because of the access to pseudo-private beaches and boat moorings. Even if you could do it, I cannot fathom the cost of building something like a large levy system that would only crater the price of homes on the island. Additionally, it would render services that provide convenient access on/off the island untenable. I could go on for a while about this, but it really isn't practical or feasible for this particular case.
- goatlover 2y agoWouldn't enough walls, dykes and pumps be an engineering solution? The problem is cost. How much money are people willing to throw at keeping the land above water?
- actionfromafar 2y agoHow much of your money are they ready to throw? About all of it.
- euroderf 2y agoHalliburton for all your seawall needs !