New Republic: Climate Change Will Force Us to Abandon Coastal Cities. We'd Better Start Preparing
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The Dutch government has set aside one billion euros a year through 2100 to strengthen dunes and dams throughout the country. Due to its low-lying position, the Netherlands is one of the most at-risk countries and has already crafted a long-term strategy to ensure the country’s survival. But in the United States, where one of our two main political parties remains skeptical about man-made climate change, such planning is unlikely to happen.
“If you have a plan and vision to stay there it is more likely to occur,” Robert Nicholls, a professor of coastal engineering at the University of Southampton, wrote in an email. “But USA does not have a planning culture.”
Planning will not come cheap. The mitigation techniques needed to fortify a city like Miami will cost billions of dollars, if not more. State and local governments will undoubtedly turn to the federal government for help, but that will be a political nightmare. Americans from non-coastal regions will likely object to paying for the restoration and fortification of coastal cities that are no longer naturally fit for habitation.
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Global warming poses risks besides rising sea level. Severe storms may increase in frequency, although it’s difficult to predict how they will play out. Saltwater intrusion could imperil farm land up the Mississippi River. Droughts may become more common. Already now, scientists are wondering whether we’ve reached Peak Phosphorus—the point at which we reach the maximum global production rate of phosphorus, an essential fertilizer for crops.
Colin Green, a professor of water economics at Middlesex University, wrote in an email that he tells his students three things: “(1) they will not be able to retire until they are 75; (b) they will need to become vegetarians because we don't have enough water to support a high meat based diet; and (c) that when they go to the supermarket, they will need to take their urine with them which will be analysed and then they will be able to buy food with the same phosphorus content as the urine they bought in.”
The consequences of our inaction today will not be fixable down the road, no matter how much money the government spends. Instead, we will focus on containing the damage, whether through mitigation or abandonment.
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http://www.newrepublic.com/article/117799/climate-change-will-force-us-abandon-cities-if-we-dont-prepare-now?utm_source=digg&utm_medium=email
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Erich Bloodaxe BSN
(14,733 posts)Are we running out of known sources of apatite minerals? I know phosphorus is only something like 0.1 to 1% of the crust, but that's still a fair amount of of the stuff out there...
pscot
(21,024 posts)Politicalboi
(15,189 posts)Why not get that water now and spread it out throughout the world. Instead of working to destroy the world, we should all work together to help the world. I know we like to wait till it's too late, why not change that now.
The Stranger
(11,297 posts)Desalinization is expensive both financially and from an energy use standpoint.
Ironic, isn't it, that what is all around us cannot be feasibly used.
thesquanderer
(11,989 posts)Erich Bloodaxe BSN
(14,733 posts)Rather than going the standard 'reverse osmosis' path, they were simply using sunlight for evaporation, slashing costs by something more than 75%. Presumably the downside is the spatial footprint required. But low-tech solutions are often the most robust.
RobertEarl
(13,685 posts)What happens when the ports are flooded and ships can't dock? No exports and no imports?
villager
(26,001 posts)Alas.
RobertEarl
(13,685 posts)I think Russia is very happy with the idea of global warming. In due time their now ice-bound ports in the arctic will become year round ports. And since their ports there are barely developed they will lose little to the rising seas but rather be able to more easily adapt.
But your point is well taken, The globalists who are now importing goods into the US will pay a steep price for their global warming activities. Large countries like the US and Russia may be able to subsist on homegrown trading?
Cartoonist
(7,317 posts)I really don't think they're happy. There are a lot of bad gasses trapped in the permafrost.
RobertEarl
(13,685 posts)It remains to be seen just how much that screw is turned.
It could, some reasoning goes, be something that makes the air deadly.
pscot
(21,024 posts)There will be no place to hide from what's coming.
starroute
(12,977 posts)That will be the least of our problems
RobertEarl
(13,685 posts)Most ports are in sheltered bays or up rivers. The massive loading and unloading structures will become useless and some tanks will become inundated. The insurance costs for replacement will be incredible.
WillyT
(72,631 posts)
Bill USA
(6,436 posts)slow, or stop it...
When Oil INdustry shills and various twits say GW isn't anything we need to worry about, rational people should have some numbers to quote to give scale to the 'bet' that the idiots are proposing. IF they are wrong we would be looking at expenses in x-trillions of dollars to protect lower lieing areas/cities or to start moving such places (like NYC, Boston, Miami --Miami? more like Florida!). That is the 'bet' they are proposing. With estimates we could make the options quantified and more concrete.
Rising Seas, Imperiled Cities
http://environment.harvard.edu/node/3272
Getting ready for sea-level rise is every city’s problem. Without action, in fact, rising seas will sooner or later alter most of civilization’s urban footprint. Coastal floodplains worldwide are crowded with cities often built no more than 3 feet above sea level. More than 2 billion people—an estimated 37 percent of the world’s population—live within 60 miles of the coast and would be affected, directly or indirectly, by incursions of the sea.
In sheer economic terms, the stakes of sea-level rise in urban areas are particularly high. An added 0.5 meters (20 inches) of ocean water by the year 2050 would put $28 trillion in assets at risk in the world’s 136 port megacities, according to a 2009 report of scientists and insurance experts assembled by World Wide Fund/Allianz, a global investment and insurance company. On the Northeastern coast of the United States, the expected maximum rise in sea level of 26 inches by 2050 would threaten in five cities alone—Baltimore, Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Providence—assets worth about $7.4 trillion. In Boston, losses could reach $460 billion, or the equivalent of 20 Big Digs.
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There are quite a few nukes on rivers which, with sea level rise, would not have cool enough water for cooling the reactors - of course, that's if the nukes aren't shut down before then for safety reasons (no doubt after the fact - i.e. after the 'never could happen' accident).
Erich Bloodaxe BSN
(14,733 posts)In which Lex Luthor had a plot to cause the San Andreas Fault to split California off from the rest of the country, and turn all of the desert land he'd bought up into oceanfront property.
I can actually see hedge funds like Bain Capital doing just that. Rather than trying to work on ways to reverse the trends, playing vulture capitalism to the hilt, and buy up any land they can get on the cheap that will end up being new coastlines, while pushing legislation that allows them to foist off losses onto the public if they misjudge and pick up land that goes underwater too quickly for them to resell it.
swilton
(5,069 posts)The market will take care of everything!
