My roots are in Louisiana, and this makes me incredibly sad. It is such a unique place that has no like, and drives all tourism in the state. Where will tourists celebrate Mardi Gras after it's gone? Baton Rouge?
Sadder, still, to know that nothing will be done. No one will be relocated. Just one day a weather event like a hurricane will happen to destroy the area and it will be labeled derelict with no funds to rebuild. People will be left to fend for themselves.
actually, i think you have it exactly backward. anybody who lives in the areas expected to be affected can move now, starting tomorrow. make a 6 month plan to move. a year. make a three year plan to move. but they won't. then when a disaster does strike, there will be funds made available to help them, but they will complain that it's not enough, that they deserve more, why, look at all the hopes and dreams they poured into the neighborhood as evidenced by the savings, investments, and preparations they have made...
you are preaching helplessness and they're eager to learn it.
Generally I agree, and we’ve known this for a long time but people stay in denial. It’s the same thing in Miami.
Unfortunately though, the solution isn’t that easy.
For one, if you own property there, you’re basically either caught holding a bag with life changing amounts of money lost, or trying to pass it off to another sucker which just feels unethical.
For two, families and communities make it hard for people. Many rely on their friends and family as support systems. Elderly for example, may only have their family taking care of them and their poker night friends are the only ones they have left - if they go somewhere, that system becomes fragmented and people get left behind. Maybe you are the main caretaker of an elderly relative, so you can’t leave them behind, but if they follow you then they lose the rest of their network.
I’m sure there are tons of other reasons but just knowing there’s an imminent threat at some vague point in the future is sometimes not enough for people to willingly go through all of the suffering that I mentioned above, and more that I’m not metioning
Systemically, the problem is that there needs to be a last person, and yet people leaving expect market value for their homes which normally happens by selling to the next person. The last person can currently only get the money if a disaster strikes and insurance pays out. To do it ahead of schedule, insurance would have to pay out sooner, which means there would have to be some kind of government intervention to make it happen.
> For one, if you own property there, you’re basically either caught holding a bag with life changing amounts of money lost, or trying to pass it off to another sucker which just feels unethical.
every day you wait this gets worse and I am not sure what is unethical about selling a home. many people have to move (e.g. for work) but if it would put you mind at ease (ethically speaking) you can put a disclaimer on the listing. of course you also have an entire political party followers who believe all this is a hoax so you can put that on the listing too /s (last sentence)
Yeah. There's a market. If there are enough buyers for the market to function normally, then there are enough people trying to get in that one more house won't make much difference.
I mean, yes, in your seller's disclosures you should tell the truth, including about the flood risk. If people want to take that, eyes wide open, I'm not sure what's unethical about selling to them.
Also why just flood risk? Is it unethical for me to sell my Condo which is in “up and coming area” which never upped and never came and has a very high crime rate (with/without disclaimer)? My friend lives in another area where schools are as bad as it gets, she is looking to move now, unethical to sell that too (with/without disclaimer)?
This is decent advice on an individual level. Despite the fact that you probably can't sell your doomed house for a lot due to the current situation, planning a move is probably a good idea for those who can afford it.
But it's not really a solution on a population level. For one, if everyone sold their house because it'll soon be underwater, who'd they sell their house to? Aquaman? For two, a lot of people just won't be able to afford an expense like that. A large portion of the US lives paycheck to paycheck, and it's not easy to "just save up" a few hundred thousand when that means giving up on basic necessities.
so, you're talking not about renters but about homeowners, and you're saying housing prices are up everywhere else except they are down in New Orleans? I'm not from NOLA so I'm not going to bone up on prices, but I do doubt what you are saying holds water.
And how exactly will someone do that. Many of the people living in the impacted area are below the poverty line and living paycheck to paycheck at best. How are they supposed to put together funds to relocate. Especially if their property is worth nothing. The minority of people privileged enough to be able to relocate will do that. The majority are stuck.
If you’re genuinely that poor, moving is cheap. Abandon the implied worthless property, catch a greyhound out of town. Total cost: bus ticket, a few days of living expenses on the road.
Someone below the poverty line would/should be renting. If they do happen to own dirt, an empty lot is an instant $7K or more in their pocket, perfect starting funds for a rental somewhere else. If they own a place, a minimum $40K covers a year’s expenses to get established elsewhere. Values via Zillow.
> If you’re genuinely that poor, moving is cheap. Abandon the implied worthless property, catch a greyhound out of town.
When you're genuinely poor, your local community is a critical survival tool that can't be discarded. You've spent your whole life building a set of relationships through mutual help. When your car dies and you can't afford to go to a mechanic, you have a friend of a friend who can fix cars who owes you one since you helped replace his fence a few years back. That kind of thing, but every day, in a hundred ways.
Throwing that out to move to a city where you have nothing is a great way to end up homeless.
A greyhound to Atlanta is $75. It’s not nothing to someone on a minimum wage/fixed income, but would be attainable within two months by saving about a dollar a day. Keep in mind, that’s the “extreme global poverty” standard for countries like South Sudan.
Sell to whomever - but again, what property do they have if they are so poor they can’t afford a $75 bus ticket with notice?
It’s always a Schrödinger’s poor person who simultaneously has a valuable property that’s also worthless, tied to a job but has 0 income, has a car but can’t travel, and is broke but can’t qualify for the plethora of government benefits they can receive anywhere.
The “majority” of people aren’t so poor they can’t move over the multi-decade timescale this article is talking about. This country has a huge level of internal migration. 17 million Americans move every year.
Why do people have these blinders where they can’t view any issue except from the perspective of the minority of people who don’t have any resources? Why are so many people moving to places like Florida that are threatened by climate change?
We should have a one-time buyout for flood zones: pay someone enough to buy a median home somewhere similar and turn the land into a nature preserve (let mangroves return to protect Florida coast, etc.). Put a cap on it so we’re not buying new mansions for a few rich people with beach houses but otherwise keep it simple so people aren’t impoverished into becoming a drain on society.
I have no expectation that we’ll be willing to invest in our neighbors, though.
I don’t understand this formulation of “no one will be relocated.” People have agency to move themselves. Maybe not everyone, but if the majority of folks started moving out due to the risk of flooding then that would create a strong impetus for the government to assist poor people in relocating.
> Where will tourists celebrate Mardi Gras after it's gone?
Mardi Gras is celebrated all along the Gulf Coast, from New Orleans to Pensacola. Go to a parade in Alabama, for example, and every third or fourth person will be from New Orleans - looking to escape the tourist nightmare their city becomes.
"""
“New Orleans is not going to disappear in 10 years or anything like that, but policymakers really should’ve thought about a relocation plan a century ago,” said Dixon
"""
People have seen this coming for a long time. Here's a classic article about the channelization of the Mississippi by John McPhee from 1987: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20636254
Well discussing it was de facto banned on HN for many years (still wouldn't be surprised if this post disappears soon).
Any climate change post that was anything other than "everything is fine because of electric vehicles/solar/wind/etc", especially if it dare suggest that the situation was dire, would quickly get 'flagged' by the vocal minority (but still surprisingly large group of people) on HN who don't want to believe in climate change. Years ago, on different accounts, I would complain about HN's status-quo enforcing censorship logic, only to be boo'd away. This community is, at it's heart, one that has been a part of the process of encouraging climate change.
I stopped complaining when I realized that nobody is seriously interested in tackling climate change (where you have to keep fossil fuels in the ground), so we're going to experience the full consequences of it (and yes, it does pose an existential risk). The annoying part is that people will continue to deny anything is happening no matter how aggressively visible real the impacts are.
At this point there really is no reason to discuss climate change any more, most people really can't deal with the reality of what it represents (even people who think they are 'green').
Discussing climate change has never been banned; this sort of claim is easily disproved by even the most cursory of searches in the box below. Try it.
Here, I’ll say it right now: climate change is real, it has deleterious effects on our world, and we should take collective action to mitigate or even reverse it.
Now, there’s an expectation that commenters conduct themselves appropriately and contribute to the overall well being of this site. If a person misbehaves when discussing this or any topic, that’s when they get spanked.
For me it's similar to having red tests in my build - it causes me a lot of anxiety to see all the breakage. Plus it shows down shipping. So now I just delete them, feel better already.
> “The laws of mathematics are very commendable, but the only law that applies in Australia is the law of Australia,” said Turnbull [the Prime Minster of Australia]
Was he wrong? That sounds like it was about some sort of mandatory-mitm scheme or ban on e2e encryption. Like, yes, you can pretty easily make it impossible for the government to decrypt your bits, but the government can just as easily arrest you for it.
There's a museum in New Orleans that has a Katrina display and it turns out that they did indeed call in Dutch experts to advise them. The Dutch gave them sensible ideas like building low elevation parks that could flood without issue and hold lots of water, instead of concrete spillways and drainage that just moves water fast until it fails catastrophically when inundated. Louisiana being Louisiana, it was all ignored.
The museum convinced me that New Orleans is doomed in so many ways. Everything from the Atchafalaya ORCS to the paving over of wetlands to build the city to the destruction of the Plaquemines marsh lands to the southeast of the city all seem to be maximally unhelpful for preventing storm damage.
I would be surprised if the USA is even able to plan far enough ahead to put in a sea barrier/gates in time to protect New York City, similar to London. New Orleans? At least the old town is elevated.
Way too many Americans either don't know or disbelieve that a substantial chunk of the body politic, and now our elected and military leaders, actually literally believe this type of stuff.
IMO any eschatological beliefs whatsoever should be 100% universally disqualifying for any political or military position, no matter what book title or special ancient zombie character they're filed under.
“Even if you stopped climate change today, New Orleans’s days are still numbered,” he added. “It will be surrounded by open water, and you can’t keep an island situated below sea level afloat. There’s no amount of money that can do that.”
Type 1 is often an island situated below sea level.
For instance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flevopolder . Island. Surrounded by open water because that's actually a good idea. Below sea level. 400 000 inhabitants. 2 cities, major agriculture, minor airport.
Ever wanted to grab dinner on the sea floor? Visit Almere Center. Though lots of people find it to be a bit boring in person.
Want the same sort of thing in the US? Consider dropping the Jones act. Right now it's illegal to bring the equipment that builds these things into the US.
I am increasingly pessimistic about the long term future of the US. What are the chances that we will still be one country in a generation or two? Trump might have poured gasoline on the fire, but the federal government has been in decline for years. Congress is completely dysfunctional. The filibuster prevents the senate from doing anything. The president is at war with the civil servants and more interested in grift, punishing percieved enemies and erecting monuments to himself instead actually leading.
Addressing climate change requires massive changes and a lot of political courage. There is none.
There is no legal mechanism left that could correct course at this point. You would need to have a constitutional amendment to drastically reshape government and that's DOA. All that's left is snow decline and eventual dissolution
The absence of a legal mechanism does not imply the absence of a mechanism (or even the absence of a peaceful mechanism.)
While there is a legal process for amending the Constitution which, as you note, is likely intractable in the status quo conditions, Constitutional change—whether peaceful (even if there is the implicit consequence of force if compromise is not reached) or not—historically and globally is often an extralegal process that is retrospectively legalized, rather than a legal process under pre-existing rules.
Right, for Miami, you might want kwelschermen (or a variant thereof: deep impermeable cutoff walls, doesn't need to be concrete, can be made by clay injection too) , californian style water injection, locks that reject salt water. Different place, different geology, different tools. No place is exactly the same.
Thing is I figure you need some form of water board to manage it. A political entity that's all about "here we are and here we stay". Once they're set up they're pretty reliable (there's one that's still paying interest on a 370-year old bond https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfSIC8jwbQs )
Uhh... "those in the know" are the actuaries and if you were to take away the subsidies provided for homeowners and developers to deny basic mathematical facts, the entire area would be totally unbuildable already.
One of the authors warned me this paper was coming (I live in New Orleans) but he assured me he still has a house with a mortgage here. As the article says, none of us will be alive to see it.
almost like NOAA, had it not been savaged by this current anti-science admin, would be able to lend further credibility here. As it stands, several researchers that I know of, formerly of NOAA, were banging this drum loudly for decades.
[delayed]
My roots are in Louisiana, and this makes me incredibly sad. It is such a unique place that has no like, and drives all tourism in the state. Where will tourists celebrate Mardi Gras after it's gone? Baton Rouge?
Sadder, still, to know that nothing will be done. No one will be relocated. Just one day a weather event like a hurricane will happen to destroy the area and it will be labeled derelict with no funds to rebuild. People will be left to fend for themselves.
>People will be left to fend for themselves
actually, i think you have it exactly backward. anybody who lives in the areas expected to be affected can move now, starting tomorrow. make a 6 month plan to move. a year. make a three year plan to move. but they won't. then when a disaster does strike, there will be funds made available to help them, but they will complain that it's not enough, that they deserve more, why, look at all the hopes and dreams they poured into the neighborhood as evidenced by the savings, investments, and preparations they have made...
you are preaching helplessness and they're eager to learn it.
Generally I agree, and we’ve known this for a long time but people stay in denial. It’s the same thing in Miami.
Unfortunately though, the solution isn’t that easy.
For one, if you own property there, you’re basically either caught holding a bag with life changing amounts of money lost, or trying to pass it off to another sucker which just feels unethical.
For two, families and communities make it hard for people. Many rely on their friends and family as support systems. Elderly for example, may only have their family taking care of them and their poker night friends are the only ones they have left - if they go somewhere, that system becomes fragmented and people get left behind. Maybe you are the main caretaker of an elderly relative, so you can’t leave them behind, but if they follow you then they lose the rest of their network.
I’m sure there are tons of other reasons but just knowing there’s an imminent threat at some vague point in the future is sometimes not enough for people to willingly go through all of the suffering that I mentioned above, and more that I’m not metioning
Systemically, the problem is that there needs to be a last person, and yet people leaving expect market value for their homes which normally happens by selling to the next person. The last person can currently only get the money if a disaster strikes and insurance pays out. To do it ahead of schedule, insurance would have to pay out sooner, which means there would have to be some kind of government intervention to make it happen.
> For one, if you own property there, you’re basically either caught holding a bag with life changing amounts of money lost, or trying to pass it off to another sucker which just feels unethical.
every day you wait this gets worse and I am not sure what is unethical about selling a home. many people have to move (e.g. for work) but if it would put you mind at ease (ethically speaking) you can put a disclaimer on the listing. of course you also have an entire political party followers who believe all this is a hoax so you can put that on the listing too /s (last sentence)
Yeah. There's a market. If there are enough buyers for the market to function normally, then there are enough people trying to get in that one more house won't make much difference.
I mean, yes, in your seller's disclosures you should tell the truth, including about the flood risk. If people want to take that, eyes wide open, I'm not sure what's unethical about selling to them.
Also why just flood risk? Is it unethical for me to sell my Condo which is in “up and coming area” which never upped and never came and has a very high crime rate (with/without disclaimer)? My friend lives in another area where schools are as bad as it gets, she is looking to move now, unethical to sell that too (with/without disclaimer)?
This is decent advice on an individual level. Despite the fact that you probably can't sell your doomed house for a lot due to the current situation, planning a move is probably a good idea for those who can afford it.
But it's not really a solution on a population level. For one, if everyone sold their house because it'll soon be underwater, who'd they sell their house to? Aquaman? For two, a lot of people just won't be able to afford an expense like that. A large portion of the US lives paycheck to paycheck, and it's not easy to "just save up" a few hundred thousand when that means giving up on basic necessities.
Have you seen housing prices lately? It's insane for the average person especially if no one will be buying your home and you still have a mortagage
so, you're talking not about renters but about homeowners, and you're saying housing prices are up everywhere else except they are down in New Orleans? I'm not from NOLA so I'm not going to bone up on prices, but I do doubt what you are saying holds water.
why would someone buy buy a house if they think it's literally going to be underwater soon?
Thank you for spelling it out.
And how exactly will someone do that. Many of the people living in the impacted area are below the poverty line and living paycheck to paycheck at best. How are they supposed to put together funds to relocate. Especially if their property is worth nothing. The minority of people privileged enough to be able to relocate will do that. The majority are stuck.
If you’re genuinely that poor, moving is cheap. Abandon the implied worthless property, catch a greyhound out of town. Total cost: bus ticket, a few days of living expenses on the road.
Someone below the poverty line would/should be renting. If they do happen to own dirt, an empty lot is an instant $7K or more in their pocket, perfect starting funds for a rental somewhere else. If they own a place, a minimum $40K covers a year’s expenses to get established elsewhere. Values via Zillow.
> If you’re genuinely that poor, moving is cheap. Abandon the implied worthless property, catch a greyhound out of town.
When you're genuinely poor, your local community is a critical survival tool that can't be discarded. You've spent your whole life building a set of relationships through mutual help. When your car dies and you can't afford to go to a mechanic, you have a friend of a friend who can fix cars who owes you one since you helped replace his fence a few years back. That kind of thing, but every day, in a hundred ways.
Throwing that out to move to a city where you have nothing is a great way to end up homeless.
Move with what money? And go where? If they have property, sell to who, exactly? "Instant" lol.
Gently, you talk like someone who's never even been broke, let alone been poor.
A greyhound to Atlanta is $75. It’s not nothing to someone on a minimum wage/fixed income, but would be attainable within two months by saving about a dollar a day. Keep in mind, that’s the “extreme global poverty” standard for countries like South Sudan.
Sell to whomever - but again, what property do they have if they are so poor they can’t afford a $75 bus ticket with notice?
It’s always a Schrödinger’s poor person who simultaneously has a valuable property that’s also worthless, tied to a job but has 0 income, has a car but can’t travel, and is broke but can’t qualify for the plethora of government benefits they can receive anywhere.
The “majority” of people aren’t so poor they can’t move over the multi-decade timescale this article is talking about. This country has a huge level of internal migration. 17 million Americans move every year.
Why do people have these blinders where they can’t view any issue except from the perspective of the minority of people who don’t have any resources? Why are so many people moving to places like Florida that are threatened by climate change?
Aquaman is going to have to buy a lot of homes.
Sell it to who, Ben? Aquaman?
This is why the federal subsidies for flood insurance need to end
We should have a one-time buyout for flood zones: pay someone enough to buy a median home somewhere similar and turn the land into a nature preserve (let mangroves return to protect Florida coast, etc.). Put a cap on it so we’re not buying new mansions for a few rich people with beach houses but otherwise keep it simple so people aren’t impoverished into becoming a drain on society.
I have no expectation that we’ll be willing to invest in our neighbors, though.
I like it!
I don’t understand this formulation of “no one will be relocated.” People have agency to move themselves. Maybe not everyone, but if the majority of folks started moving out due to the risk of flooding then that would create a strong impetus for the government to assist poor people in relocating.
> a strong impetus for the government to assist poor people
Haha. I'm gonna guess you're not American.
> Where will tourists celebrate Mardi Gras after it's gone?
Mardi Gras is celebrated all along the Gulf Coast, from New Orleans to Pensacola. Go to a parade in Alabama, for example, and every third or fourth person will be from New Orleans - looking to escape the tourist nightmare their city becomes.
In other words, hopefully nowhere ;)
""" “New Orleans is not going to disappear in 10 years or anything like that, but policymakers really should’ve thought about a relocation plan a century ago,” said Dixon """
People have seen this coming for a long time. Here's a classic article about the channelization of the Mississippi by John McPhee from 1987: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20636254
Rather than relocate, we can make discussion of climate change illegal or just tax the blue states to build a sea wall around the entire city
> discussion of climate change illegal
Well discussing it was de facto banned on HN for many years (still wouldn't be surprised if this post disappears soon).
Any climate change post that was anything other than "everything is fine because of electric vehicles/solar/wind/etc", especially if it dare suggest that the situation was dire, would quickly get 'flagged' by the vocal minority (but still surprisingly large group of people) on HN who don't want to believe in climate change. Years ago, on different accounts, I would complain about HN's status-quo enforcing censorship logic, only to be boo'd away. This community is, at it's heart, one that has been a part of the process of encouraging climate change.
I stopped complaining when I realized that nobody is seriously interested in tackling climate change (where you have to keep fossil fuels in the ground), so we're going to experience the full consequences of it (and yes, it does pose an existential risk). The annoying part is that people will continue to deny anything is happening no matter how aggressively visible real the impacts are.
At this point there really is no reason to discuss climate change any more, most people really can't deal with the reality of what it represents (even people who think they are 'green').
Discussing climate change has never been banned; this sort of claim is easily disproved by even the most cursory of searches in the box below. Try it.
Here, I’ll say it right now: climate change is real, it has deleterious effects on our world, and we should take collective action to mitigate or even reverse it.
Now, there’s an expectation that commenters conduct themselves appropriately and contribute to the overall well being of this site. If a person misbehaves when discussing this or any topic, that’s when they get spanked.
For me it's similar to having red tests in my build - it causes me a lot of anxiety to see all the breakage. Plus it shows down shipping. So now I just delete them, feel better already.
There's precedent:
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2140747-laws-of-mathema...
> “The laws of mathematics are very commendable, but the only law that applies in Australia is the law of Australia,” said Turnbull [the Prime Minster of Australia]
Was he wrong? That sounds like it was about some sort of mandatory-mitm scheme or ban on e2e encryption. Like, yes, you can pretty easily make it impossible for the government to decrypt your bits, but the government can just as easily arrest you for it.
He was effectively saying this: https://xkcd.com/538/
> Rather than relocate, we can make discussion of climate change illegal or just tax the blue states to build a sea wall around the entire city
Like in The Netherlands?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta_Works
There's a museum in New Orleans that has a Katrina display and it turns out that they did indeed call in Dutch experts to advise them. The Dutch gave them sensible ideas like building low elevation parks that could flood without issue and hold lots of water, instead of concrete spillways and drainage that just moves water fast until it fails catastrophically when inundated. Louisiana being Louisiana, it was all ignored.
The museum convinced me that New Orleans is doomed in so many ways. Everything from the Atchafalaya ORCS to the paving over of wetlands to build the city to the destruction of the Plaquemines marsh lands to the southeast of the city all seem to be maximally unhelpful for preventing storm damage.
I would be surprised if the USA is even able to plan far enough ahead to put in a sea barrier/gates in time to protect New York City, similar to London. New Orleans? At least the old town is elevated.
New York City will be fine. New Orleans is fucked.
For local stuff like this, the US isn't a country, it's 50 countries in a trenchcoat, and Louisiana is very different from New York.
Be surprised, I guess - https://www.nyc.gov/site/lmcr/progress/battery-coastal-resil...
This project in NYC has been going on for a bit. The difference is LA has a GDP of about $340B+, while NY has a GDP of $2.3T+.
Our long term plan is for Jesus to come back and fix everything.
I wish I was joking...
AFAIK there's not fixing in the plan. They just expect Jesus to take them away and finish breaking everything down so everybody else suffers.
I don't normally interact with people that believe that. But from a distance it looks like the second half is about as important as the first.
Isnt he already running the country now?
That's the short term plan, baby! The long term plan is to be the elect who get raptured first.
And war in the middle east is going to make it happen faster!
Way too many Americans either don't know or disbelieve that a substantial chunk of the body politic, and now our elected and military leaders, actually literally believe this type of stuff.
IMO any eschatological beliefs whatsoever should be 100% universally disqualifying for any political or military position, no matter what book title or special ancient zombie character they're filed under.
Not even old town is safe.
“Even if you stopped climate change today, New Orleans’s days are still numbered,” he added. “It will be surrounded by open water, and you can’t keep an island situated below sea level afloat. There’s no amount of money that can do that.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polder
Type 1 is often an island situated below sea level.
For instance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flevopolder . Island. Surrounded by open water because that's actually a good idea. Below sea level. 400 000 inhabitants. 2 cities, major agriculture, minor airport.
Ever wanted to grab dinner on the sea floor? Visit Almere Center. Though lots of people find it to be a bit boring in person.
Want the same sort of thing in the US? Consider dropping the Jones act. Right now it's illegal to bring the equipment that builds these things into the US.
Exactly, we haven't even bothered or cared to rebuild much of Katrina's damage.
I am increasingly pessimistic about the long term future of the US. What are the chances that we will still be one country in a generation or two? Trump might have poured gasoline on the fire, but the federal government has been in decline for years. Congress is completely dysfunctional. The filibuster prevents the senate from doing anything. The president is at war with the civil servants and more interested in grift, punishing percieved enemies and erecting monuments to himself instead actually leading.
Addressing climate change requires massive changes and a lot of political courage. There is none.
There is no legal mechanism left that could correct course at this point. You would need to have a constitutional amendment to drastically reshape government and that's DOA. All that's left is snow decline and eventual dissolution
The absence of a legal mechanism does not imply the absence of a mechanism (or even the absence of a peaceful mechanism.)
While there is a legal process for amending the Constitution which, as you note, is likely intractable in the status quo conditions, Constitutional change—whether peaceful (even if there is the implicit consequence of force if compromise is not reached) or not—historically and globally is often an extralegal process that is retrospectively legalized, rather than a legal process under pre-existing rules.
Miami too. The city is build on porous limestone. No amount of levees, seawalls, or dams will save it.
Right, for Miami, you might want kwelschermen (or a variant thereof: deep impermeable cutoff walls, doesn't need to be concrete, can be made by clay injection too) , californian style water injection, locks that reject salt water. Different place, different geology, different tools. No place is exactly the same.
Thing is I figure you need some form of water board to manage it. A political entity that's all about "here we are and here we stay". Once they're set up they're pretty reliable (there's one that's still paying interest on a 370-year old bond https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfSIC8jwbQs )
Yet those in the know keep building there. Weird isn’t it?
They are betting they can sell the bag before the music stops.
Uhh... "those in the know" are the actuaries and if you were to take away the subsidies provided for homeowners and developers to deny basic mathematical facts, the entire area would be totally unbuildable already.
They can still get insurance for flooding?
Yes with the help of US taxpayers.
https://www.floodsmart.gov/
It’s already below sea level isn’t it?
One of the authors warned me this paper was coming (I live in New Orleans) but he assured me he still has a house with a mortgage here. As the article says, none of us will be alive to see it.
Finally, Ben Shapiro is going to buy that real estate for a bargain! /s
Weren't the Maldives supposed to be underwater like 15 years ago? Seems like the sea is rising much slower than models predicted?
No models predicted that.
Plenty of info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_in_the_Maldives
Of note, most of the country no longer has fresh groundwater, and 50% of the national budget goes to climate mitigation.
Seas are rising faster than climate models predicted:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-026-10196-1
almost like NOAA, had it not been savaged by this current anti-science admin, would be able to lend further credibility here. As it stands, several researchers that I know of, formerly of NOAA, were banging this drum loudly for decades.