[dohboi]

This article touches on themes we have discussed here, but in very concrete, current terms:

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles ... gets-saved

The Toughest Question in Climate Change: Who Gets Saved?

Last fall, two towns at opposite ends of the country entered a new kind of contest run by the federal government. At stake was their survival: Each is being consumed by the rising ocean, and winning money from Washington would mean the chance to move to higher ground.

On the western edge of Alaska, the remote town of Newtok was losing 50 to 100 feet of coastline each year to sea-level rise and melting permafrost. It was about to lose its drinking water, its school and maybe even its airport. Its 350 or so residents had been trying to move to safety for 20 years; in 2003, they obtained new land, about 10 miles to the south.

Four thousand miles away on the Louisiana coast, another town, Isle de Jean Charles, was also starting to drown. It was home to just 25 families, some of whom remained ambivalent about relocating. It wasn’t losing land at the rate of Newtok. Its residents didn’t face the same risk of losing access to key facilities. And they had yet to select a new site, let alone secure the rights to it.

In January, the government announced its decision: Isle de Jean Charles would get full funding for a move.

Newtok would get nothing.

“Don’t get me wrong -- I don’t want nothing against Louisiana,” Romy Cadiente, Newtok’s relocation coordinator, told me by phone. And yet: “Surely you would have thought somebody as far along in the project as we are, we would have got some type of consideration.”

Sooo, what do people here think should be the criteria for who gets helped and when as the seas rise, which they inevitably now will do throughout our lifetimes and far, far beyond?

Somewhat related: http://e360.yale.edu/digest/thousands_o ... iana/4792/

Thousands of Homes Keep Flooding,
Yet They Keep Being Rebuilt Again

[GHung]

First of all, people who moved to low-lying areas in ,, say the last 20 years (since full awareness of sea-level rise has become mainstream), shouldn't get squat.

Here, in North Carolina, we have repeatedly seen funds needed elsewhere go to rebuild coastal roads and infrastructure that should have never been built; new developments. That new development continues, and, at one point, NC State General Assembly made it illegal for coastal communities to consider sea-level rise in their zoning decisions. These are generally high-end developments on the Outer Banks and barrier islands; wealthy gated communities that will scream for funding when the inevitable occurs.



http://www.villagerealtyobx.com/outer-b ... ituck-club

And another group of developments:

https://www.google.com/maps/@34.4012439 ... a=!3m1!1e3

[diemos]

I wouldn't give either of them a dime of government money.

They're perfectly capable of relocating under their own power.

[Newfie]

Good points, tough decisions.

Here in Newfoundland at one time they shut down a few hundred communities. They weren't dissapearing, just to difficult to service. The government paid something to each family to relocate. Some floated ther bomes to new "development centers." It's a model. I think the most recent one to shut down was Great Harbor Deep just a few years ago.

But to the. I get question. Who to save? I think the answer will be " Those who look most like me." That is, the ones we most identify with, and since we all hold ourselves in high esteem, mostly the rich.

Not advocating, reflecting human nature as I perceive it.

[SeaGypsy]

I doubt this is anything other than about maintaining remote outposts. Half of Florida could go under without any geopolitical impact, the other half would still be thoroughly part of the USA. Here in Australia we spend a lot of money to sustain remote communities in the far north which are basically economically completely unviable. The pretence is about aboriginal people in their traditional lands, the geopolitical reality is that if all these unviable communities were allowed to die naturally, we would have 2 small cities between Cairns & Perth, being Alice Springs in central Australia & Darwin at the top center, perhaps Port Headland & Broome, little villages really, across about 6,000 km of vulnerable coastline. These little outposts maintain a human presence where otherwise there is little or nothing to add legitimacy to the claim of their regions being part of our country.

Just as Australia must keep some occupied "dots on the map" at our frontier with Indonesia (population about 12 times ours) the US must do the same at it's frontier with Russia & China.

[dohboi]

Ghung wrote: "NC State General Assembly made it illegal for coastal communities to consider sea-level rise in their zoning decisions."

That's what I had heard. That's why I was surprised to see this:

http://wbtw.com/2016/08/27/myrtle-beach ... -concerns/

Myrtle Beach hosts meeting about climate change concerns

Sooo, maybe officials can talk about it as long as it's not part of any plan to actually do any real planning around it??

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

wrt the thread in general, I think we can discuss not just coastal properties, but folks living in gullies and inland floodplains that are almost sure to be inundated at some point in the not so distant future. Along with other folks living now in harms way.

I agree with those who have little sympathy with those who have recently moved there and especially the developers who have made mint convincing others to buy near the coast. Of course, by saying that, I am kinda throwing my in-laws, who fairly recently moved to a low-lying coastal area on the East Coast, under the bus.

But in my book, traditional peoples like the Inuit town mentioned above who have been living in these locations fro many, many generations, and who contributed very little to the problem, should be compensated first and most. But of course that is not likely to happen, given the nature of power politics and the rampant corruption in the system.

[Newfie]

One could open discussion to a larger discussion.....who gets saved when world grain production plumets? Do we ship food to the UK or Ethiopia? Israel or Libya? West Virginia or Vermont?

Nasty, nasty things to contemplate.

[dohboi]

Good points. These are the things coming down the pike. But really, we are already 'rationing' such goods the good ol' capitalist way--the rich get nearly everything; the rest of us, squat.

[PeakOiler]

Since Alaska has such a huge Permanent Trust Fund, it seems they could use some of that to relocate that small village.

[GHung]

Make Rockman pay for it, and all his cohorts in the fossile fuel biz

[KaiserJeep]

For the umteenth time, if you want to blame somebody (which is a useless exercise) then at least blame those responsible.

For all the oil that gets burned as fuel, blame everybody who owns a vehicle with a fuel tank, and those people that go to the grocery stores and buy food wrapped in plastic and grown with mechanized agriculture using pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers made from petroleum.

For all the coal burning, blame those that use the power grid, drink beer or soda (the electricity-intensive aluminum cans) and drive around on bicycles, cars, and trucks made from steel, aluminum alloys, and plastics.

YOU the consumer have all the choices. It has been true for at least a couple of decades that one can buy electricity made from renewables and nuclear power (i.e. minimal carbon emissions) and battery electric vehicles (fallen to 0.7% of the total vehicles purchased by consumers). You can also buy organic food and even grow your own, which is lots more healthy for you and doesn't consume any oil for growing or transport.

If you chose not to do these things, because it cost more, wasn't as cheap, or was less convenient, then YOU are the carbon-spewing flaming rectum who is killing the planet you inhabit. YOU made your lifestyle choices rather than more costly green alternatives.

Keep working on it, and you will eventually understand these completely obvious things.

[GHung]

Like I said, KJ, make the fossil fuel companies pay for it. They'll pay for it by raising prices for consumers of their products. There's precedent here; the tobacco companies had to pay tobacco farmers to grow something else (or nothing at all), and they raised their prices to make up for it. Trickle-down economics at its finest.

[ennui2]

Why stop there? Go with carbon taxes.

[KaiserJeep]

Like I said, KJ, make the fossil fuel companies pay for it. They'll pay for it by raising prices for consumers of their products. There's precedent here; the tobacco companies had to pay tobacco farmers to grow something else (or nothing at all), and they raised their prices to make up for it. Trickle-down economics at its finest.

You still don't get it. YOU the consumer make all the choices, THEY the suppliers are just satisfying the demand. If there was a demand for green energy, they would sell it. If there was a demand for a green grid, we would have one. Whatever the majority of consumers want, they sell.

As long as coal is cheaper than solar, wind, and other renewables, we will burn coal. As long as it is affordable for some person to get into a two ton fuel-burning vehicle for a trip of a mile or two, that's the consumer choice.

It's all of it YOU. As long as you choose not to be green, they will sell your carbon-intensive lifestyle choices to you.

My own green lifestyle choices are well known here. I'll match my choices against most members here and I'll be the greener one. What about YOU?

Seriously, unless YOU have made green choices in YOUR life, you need to STFU about energy suppliers. They simply sell what the majority of consumers want.

Why stop there? Go with carbon taxes.

As long as you are OK with consumers paying more. The energy marketplace is a business with single digit profits. The extra cost WILL get passed on to the consumers, whether applied at the generator or the point of consumption. Personally, I believe that the correct place is the point-of-sale, and each individual consumer must choose green fuel or green electricity, or the FF alternative with taxes.

If the majority wants carbon taxes, I'm OK with those. But apply them fairly and in exact proportion to carbon emissions, and do not exempt any energy consumer including the government. Lastly all carbon revenues must be earmarked forever for energy infrastructure renewals.

[Hawkcreek]

If the majority wants carbon taxes, I'm OK with those. But apply them fairly and in exact proportion to carbon emissions, and do not exempt any energy consumer including the government. Lastly all carbon revenues must be earmarked forever for energy infrastructure renewals.

Come on KJ. Since when has government and big business ever let taxes be apportioned "fairly" ?????
This is equivalent to saying that the little guy must change his ways to allow the big dogs to play as they want.

[KaiserJeep]

-snip-
Come on KJ. Since when has government and big business ever let taxes be apportioned "fairly" ?????
This is equivalent to saying that the little guy must change his ways to allow the big dogs to play as they want.

That is exactly what I am proposing. YOU still are missing the point. YOU the consumer choose all. THEY the suppliers choose only to profit by endeavoring to satisfy your desires.

YOU the consumer bear all the blame. THEY the government and Big Business bear none. THEY work for you (the government) or THEY (big business) are scrambling, investing, and advertizing to satisfy your fickle and capricious demands.

So wise up and change your life. Nobody else can do it for you. When you have satisfied yourself that your own lifestyle is the appropriate one for the planet, then you get to bitch about them. By the way, each one of "them" is a person who also making lifestyle choices. In fact, here in Silicon Valley we are awash in wealthy flaming rectums who are so sanctimonious about driving a Tesla and having a green lifestyle.

There's not enough of THEM to matter anyways. If you want to save the world, the starving billions in 3rd world (better known as Turd World) countries must also make green choices. They don't get any breaks for being poor, the human population is in overshoot and that is the very reason the world is dying.

If you can't accept the truth, quit your bitching about your delusions.

[GHung]

KJ asks;

"My own green lifestyle choices are well known here. I'll match my choices against most members here and I'll be the greener one. What about YOU?"

Me? I'm kicking your ass in the 'green' arena, KJ. Have been for over 20 years. That said, my suggestion was, and is, to make end-users pay via increased costs. I didn't ask anyone to pay for my green choices all of these years, but do think it's equitable for folks to pay for their trespasses, from the top down.

[KaiserJeep]

KJ asks;

"My own green lifestyle choices are well known here. I'll match my choices against most members here and I'll be the greener one. What about YOU?"

Me? I'm kicking your ass in the 'green' arena, KJ. Have been for over 20 years. That said, my suggestion was, and is, to make end-users pay via increased costs. I didn't ask anyone to pay for my green choices all of these years, but do think it's equitable for folks to pay for their trespasses, from the top down.

My own point was simply that there is a huge oversupply of gasoline and electric grid consumers here on PO.com, blaming energy suppliers rather than energy consumers. We can agree on that much, I believe.

[GHung]

Gosh, KJ, a systemic problem requires systemic solutions. Who's to blame doesn't help at this point. Slap a big carbon tax on everything:

Nobel prize winner tells Clinton: Tax fossil fuels

Nobel prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz has some advice for Hillary Clinton: Tax fossil fuels.

Stiglitz, who is an adviser to Clinton, says taxing carbon would be the best way to address climate change -- and boost the U.S. economy.

The move would immediately lead to higher prices for oil, gas and coal. It would also hike the cost of anything that uses those fuels such as electricity and transportation. The goal is to force Americans to find alternatives that are cheaper and better for the planet.

Taxes typically hinder the economy, but Stiglitz believes this one would help.

"I think a carbon tax would stimulate the economy," Stiglitz told CNNMoney. He says it would lead many firms to remodel their factories and redesign their supply chains, which would generate jobs and growth. ......

http://money.cnn.com/2016/08/30/investi ... -stack-dom

Those of us who already live low-consumption lifestyles won't be as affected as those who squander fossil fuel-derived products, and those squanderers will notice that. Some will adjust their behavior, some won't (as a result of a carbon tax), but we'll all be adjusting our behaviors soon enough. Best to try and get ahead of that.

[KaiserJeep]

You, I can tell, are a big believer in punitive taxes. That is why I was so careful to specify where such tax revenues get spent. Otherwise, you end up in a situation where carbon taxes would get spent by big political donors such as the Koch brothers or oil companies.

Carbon taxes could easily increase atmospheric carbon dioxide if you don't mandate otherwise before you enact such taxes. Even then, you have to watch over such revenues to make sure that corruption doesn't steal them away.

The government still is spending money on both anti-tobacco advertising and tobacco crop subsidies after more than five decades. They didn't do anything to switch tobacco farming to food crops.