I find this stuff to be horrifying:
About 3.7 million Americans live within a few feet of high tide and risk being hit by more frequent coastal flooding in coming decades because of the sea level rise caused by global warming, according to new research.
If the pace of the rise accelerates as much as expected, researchers found, coastal flooding at levels that were once exceedingly rare could become an every-few-years occurrence by the middle of this century.
By far the most vulnerable state is Florida, the new analysis found, with roughly half of the nation’s at-risk population living near the coast on the porous, low-lying limestone shelf that constitutes much of that state. But Louisiana, California, New York and New Jersey are also particularly vulnerable, researchers found, and virtually the entire American coastline is at some degree of risk.
“Sea level rise is like an invisible tsunami, building force while we do almost nothing,” said Benjamin H. Strauss, an author, with other scientists, of two new papers outlining the research. “We have a closing window of time to prevent the worst by preparing for higher seas.”
It might only be 3.7 million here, but globally, so much of Asia is clustered around low elevation areas that it is inevitable that there will be horrific disasters.
DougJarvus Green-Ellis
The free market will solve this.
kindness
Not only that but look at the coastal areas here in the US. Most the ones I have seen now have wealthy people living on or right next to them. Guess who is going to demand to be bailed out when they start realizing they should have built their house on pier pilings?
chopper
oh, we’re fucked all right.
Lee
As someone that lives in the northern part Texas….
Screw ‘um we’ve got plenty of room.
/sarcasm
schrodinger's cat
Bangladesh comes to mind. They are always getting hit by cyclones and such. Much of the country is below sea level.
chopper
stupid thread.
RP
this is great! I might have beachfront property in a few years. It’s just like Superman except I don’t have to set off a nuke in the San Andreas fault.
Chris
Florida and Louisiana at risk of flooding. Going to be interesting to watch all the good red state voters from these parts finding ways to rationalize their stupidity… oh, who am I kidding. They’ll find a way. And they’ll continue insisting to their final breath that global warming isn’t happening/isn’t man-made/isn’t supported by enough scientific proof right up until the moment the rising tide drowns them.
Tim F.
Monsoons will also go nuts, so inland south asia is not necessarily in better shape. Ask the Thai.
Bubblegum Tate
@DougJarvus Green-Ellis:
But only if we cut taxes!
Cassidy
There are many parts of Florida that wouldn’t be a loss.
Richard
Sadly, conservatives will still be denying global warming exists as their houses get washed out to sea.
rlrr
@Cassidy:
Florida: Where humans go to die.
rlrr
@Richard:
And they’ll be first in line to demand government money to bail them out.
goethean
Hmmmm…can you short-sell real estate prices in coastal regions?
trex
“Better to rule in Atlantis than serve in Liberaltopia.”
gbear
As if New Jersey didn’t have enough trouble just supporting Governor Christie…
PS: we’re supposed to be up in the 80’s this week. In Minnesota. In March. After the least wintery winter I’ve ever been through. We’ve done it.
Bubblegum Tate
@trex:
Game. Blouses.
trollhattan
Wonder if the research even takes this into account?
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/03/120312003232.htm
re. The NYT article, it’s always about the Benjamins with these fuckers, isn’t it?
Every last paid denialist who has children will be clubbed to death in their sleep by those very kids.
Litlebritdifrnt
I have spoken often here of my local RWNJ radio station. The host is the type of wingnut that never fails to say on freezing days “hows that global warming thing going for you” ha ha hardy har. You know the type. THEN he also regularly has on the show a guy who talks about “rising tides” and how we are in jeopardy. (We are a coastal area so that is important to us). YET NOT ONCE has the guy managed to connect the dots from Global Warming > Rising Tides. I just do not understand the disconnect.
Maude
@gbear:
We’re moving him to the shore.
His approval ratings are over 50%. I don’t get it.
SteveM
The only thing I find horrifying is that the fuckwits who got us into this mess, and are determined to keep us there, don’t live near the ocean. I’d like to bury Inhofe and the Koch brothers up to their necks on a coastline a la Creepshow and let them deal with this up close.
redshirt
Free market solves all: Start your House Boat companies now and PROFIT!
Xecky Gilchrist
I was wondering if the Bush compound in Kennebunkport is going to get swamped. That would at least have some feel of justice to it.
Rosalita
@Cassidy:
make that all of Florida, just saw it off already
Cluttered Mind
But James Inhofe says that God promised us that the world would always be bountiful and we’d never have to suffer a global catastrophe again! Clearly this is just a liberal scientifascist conspiracy!
gbear
@Litlebritdifrnt: Rising tides lift all yachts.
hitchhiker
I’ve been doing some contract writing for a local organization that offers workplace safety training. Yesterday the head of that organization told me that our environmental safety project could NOT include any discussion of climate change.
Too controversial.
And then he said that he was on the side of the skeptics . . . and I just sat there looking at him and wondering what I could possibly say.
Open to advice from you all. I’m ashamed to admit I just moved on.
kerFuFFler
I just hope that insurance companies start stipulating that rebuilds in areas likely to be repeatedly struck by flooding because of the rising sea levels will not be insurable. Seriously, the insurance industry has an important role to play in getting people to understand that climate change has economic consequences.
jl
This is off topic, except relevant to Murray cake competition excellence post previously.
I’ve been following research on international education systems.
Been some articles about Finland’s successful educational reform, so will repost link from Murray cake thread.
Why Are Finland’s Schools Successful?
The country’s achievements in education have other nations doing their homework
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/people-places/Why-Are-Finlands-Schools-Successful.html
So, the brutal winner take all contemporary American version of competition and prosperity, (as in, so what if your stupid little country gets flooded, why not let the winners win and losers lose for just once, huh?) does not work in all areas of life.
OK, so there, this comment is on topic after all. Maybe.
chopper
@trollhattan:
probably not. most of the models and research have been faulted for being too conservative.
Tony J
So the Heartland is ok, and all you’ll lose are Blue States, Purple States, and what’s left of Louisiana?
Wingnut 2030 – “It’s not Climate Change, it’s God’s righteous vengeance upon the unbelievers!”
AxelFoley
@Rosalita:
Can we leave South Florida? I was born in Miami and most of my family still lives there.
chopper
@Cluttered Mind:
and hey look, the rainbow is a sign of god’s promise that he’ll never flood the world again! clearly all the so-called ‘science’ about rising sea levels and flooding coastlines is a bunch of hooey.
Zifnab
Al Gore’s Revenge
David Koch
I do blame Gore.
He should have stayed out of it, only because the other side would instantly oppose it once he became involved, and it became easier for the Wurlitzer to personalize and demonize the underlying issue.
Seriously, if Al Gore personally discovered the cure for cancer, the usual suspects would demonize the treatment, causing low info sheeple to oppose it.
trollhattan
@hitchhiker:
If it’s a bidnez-type kneejerk Republican, I point out the insurance industry knows full well climate change is occurring and is operating on that assumption. That sometimes has an effect.
kindness
@Tony J: Who needs cylons to kill off the humans (and everything else)?
wenchacha
Well, at least we know the red-staters won’t be calling for FEMA.
Arm The Homeless
@Cassidy: Well, the first places to go in Florida would be the Democratic-aligned counties. Most of the retrograde rednecks and octogenarian holding pens are inland, compared to the younger, more urban coastal cities. Even Jacksonville would outlast the inundation of Miami-Ft. Lauderdale and Palm Beach. At best it would constitute a further reddening of the state as those who live in the urban areas move to more inland urban areas, which will probably be out of state.
rollSound
@Tony J:
… or, Wingnut 2030, the path to a permanent Republican majority.
scav
Oh, the Heartland will undoubtedly have its own problems, GSD has other fingers and it’s amazing how many of them can be middle ones. Must be like that whole trinity thing — a little mind-warping when considered too closely.
PeakVT
@gbear: The low snowfall is a big problem for much of the country because melting snow replenishes groundwater and soil moisture. The impact of a drought will be much higher this year wherever snowfall was low.
@hitchhiker: If you need the income don’t feel bad about letting it pass.
Schlemizel
I lived on the FLorida ‘mainland’, right next to the inter coastal waterway. Much of the East coast is similar. You have the Atlantic ocean, then a barrier strip that may only be 3 – 4 feet above sea level then a strip of salt water that has several inlet/outlet places to the ocean. where I was the natural topography put my lot 12 inches above sea level & law requires a 12 inch rise to the slab – so my front door was 24 inches above sea level.
By the time the barrier island is inundated the new coast will be well to the West & then the real hell will be unleashed as the rising tide & increased storm activity will scour land well away from what the morans think of as ocean front.
chopper
@David Koch:
clearly, gore should have instead gotten big into suicide prevention.
Violet
But those are brown people. Why do you care about them? They’re not Real People That Matter, like Murkins. And not those people who like to call themselves Murkins, you know, the ones that inconsiderate hurricane exposed down in Louisiana. Those folks have even darker skin and despite what they claim, aren’t the kinds of people we mean when we talk about Real Murkins.
/true wingnut sentiment
chopper
@PeakVT:
the mild winter here in NY is going to mean deer city. which means ticks all over the fuckin place.
Cluttered Mind
@chopper: Also it snows in the winter! Case closed.
ant
@trollhattan:
whats all under all that ice?
mayhaps some oil? just think how nice it would be to 99 cent gas for another decade.
and a whole nother continent to colonize, and industrialize.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@rlrr:
Fixed to reflect climate change.
scav
Not all individual changes will necessarily be “bad” but the uncertainty will be off-putting for a solid while if nothing else.
Face
Suddenly Kansas goes from fly-over to fly-to country.
Schlemizel
@Arm The Homeless:
Yeah but the huge loss of population would reduce its delegation & its EC votes – so it might be a win
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@chopper:
Ugh, I hear you. Here in Central Misery, the incredibly mild winter means anyone who lives along a waterway, we’re right on the Osage River half a mile up from where it hits the Missouri, will be swamped with mosquitoes starting…now at the rate we’re going.
The people who make those little burning coils will do gangbuster bidness just from us. It’s the only thing that keeps the bastards at bay. That and the spray stuff I put on the lawn. Yeah, that’s green. :(
Punchy
The ocean’s about to bring a wide-scale East infection.
jl
To be on topic, I am waiting for discussion of, I think I read, fourth warmest winter on record on Fox news and other right wing propaganda outfits.
But, then, it feels good right now, and now dramatic news, no photo op of Obama
bowing to a Muslin, huggingSaul AlinskyDFH, evil black man, so no reason to bring it up.Also too, in going over regional climate stats, I noticed that even last year, out west where we had a colder than average winter in terms of average temp and degree-days, the minimum temperatures were much higher than usual, and the minimum temps are on a rapid upward trend.
Not all global warming effects are dramatic. Some are hardly noticeable, but will have big economic effects. I wonder what will happen to CA fruit crops when minimum chilling requirements rarely met anymore.
That is not within an order of magnitude of your whole country or state getting flooded, but sad that the debate has been lost amid a one sided and very interested big money backed propaganda effort and miserable worthless US corporate media malfeasance.
Rosalita
@AxelFoley:
I lived in FL several years (Daytona Beach area; yeah I know, it wasn’t my choice) so my view has been tainted. I never got to see South Florida, I probably would have liked it better. Too damn many bugs no matter where you go though and the politics were always insane.
And PS – my mother lived on a barrier island and came back north after the year of four hurricanes
Cassidy
@hitchhiker: Keep your job. That’s what you do. I don’t discuss politics at work. I’ll cut them off and tell them I like them and let’s not ruin it by potentially disagreeing on something.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
OT: A man stabs four people in OH before being shot. Can we ban knives now?
jrg
I don’t trust the government. That’s why I get all my scientific information from right-wing politicians.
Besides, when bad stuff does happen, we know it’s just the wrath of the baby Jeebus punishing the godless elites on the coasts for gay marriage and income tax. That’s just good old fashioned common sense.
Violet
@hitchhiker:
You can always mention that everyone from the insurance industry to the shipping companies to the Department of Defense are preparing for the consequences of climate change. I wouldn’t mention it just like that, but insert it into a “preparedness” conversation. Something like, “I know you don’t want to bring up climate change specifically, but these various organizations are doing X in preparation for consequences of [higher sea levels, higher temps, whatever fits your writing]. It could be useful to mention those preparations in relation to [topic at hand].”
Don’t fight him on facts because you’ll lose since he’s not interested in the facts of the issue. Fight him on what other large, smart organizations are doing to prepare and make sure you let him know you don’t what his organization to get left behind.
jl
@jl: I see I cannot edit my own comment.
With regard to dimensions of climate change in western US, and minimum temps, I was talking about LAST winter, when I heard people making fun of global warming out here because the winter was colder than average. Not this winter, which has been obviously mild and dry (dry until now).
For some reason I decided to compare the two winters. From numbers I can get, rapid rise in minimum temps is a strong trend out here, regardless of variations in average and degree day measures.
danimal
The denialists, at heart, believe that global warming is a threat to their faith. They seem to think that scientists are worshipping Gaia or something along those lines. They have a strange theology.
I’m concerned about global warming/climate change because of its effect on people. People will drown, people will lose their homes, people will starve as global temperatures increase.
The damn earth will do just fine; the planet will find a new equilibrium over time. With or without us. I don’t know why this is so hard for the right-wing to understand (at least the ones not on Big Carbon’s payroll).
redshirt
@Xecky Gilchrist: I’ve been outside the Bush compound in Kennebunkport. It’s right on the ocean, but on a rocky promenade about 10-15 feet above the sea. So it might be OK for a awhile.
Cassidy
@Arm The Homeless: I live in Jax. It’s my hope that the Dems would move inland and upgrade my little redneck part of the world.
PeakVT
@scav: There may be some benefits from global warming, but they’re not going to manifest themselves in the same places as the damages. It’s not like Bangladesh will see a much longer growing season (it’s too far south) but it will lose thousands of square miles of farms to rising seawater.
dmbeaster
@trollhattan: Rising sea levels are all about the melting of Greenland and portions of Antarctica (particularly Greenland where the melting is already quite noticeable), so I imagine the models factor in that data.
There really is huge uncertainty about the details of the pace of melting and sea level rise, though not the fact of it. And if arctic sea ice melting is to be used as an example, the models have consistently been too conservative. 20 years ago, no one was predicting the current actual rate of arctic sea ice melting (which has no effect on sea level, but is a huge indicator of global warming). The degree of melt is without any historical precedent.
Pretty soon, Santa is going to be dogpaddling every summer. This would be a condition that has not existed for at least 700,000 years, and maybe longer.
Martin
What people don’t seem to get is that it’s not the rising sea level that gets you. It’s the tidal and storm surges on top of the rising sea level that gets you. That centimeter may not matter when all is calm and well, but the storms that crank through are a little bigger, and add centimeters more to that centimeter. They quickly erode barrier islands that used to work fine. Water now travels to places that were previously unprotected because water could never reach.
We have a kind of system myopia. We see a centimeter and think, oh, that’s not much, but a one centimeter rise in sea level means 1,000,000,000,000,000 (1000 trillion) gallons of new water to soak up heat where the ice would reflect it. It’s a 1000 trillion gallons to fuel hurricanes and el ninos. It’s a 1000 trillion gallons of water taking aim at your house that used to be just one centimeter farther away.
The Dangerman
It will be the bailout of all bailouts; all those rich fuckers in Malibu and the like will be made whole when their places are under water.
Arm The Homeless
@Schlemizel: True, but then you lose a swing state, and in exchange merely bolster the win % in other large southern cities which would vote Democrat pretty reliably anyways.
The only bright-side would be that as a nation we would lose very little manufacturing capacity or union jobs since it’s a RtW state.
Chris
@danimal:
Yes, I’ve never quite grasped why the religious right in the U.S. was so obsessed with the climate change issue: even the Vatican doesn’t deny it’s happening, and it’s not as though it has theological implications of the kind that, say, evolution does.
But I suppose 1%er theology has some weird intersections between big business and religious values.
redshirt
@Chris: Because liberal are a’for it, so they’re again it.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Litlebritdifrnt:
Perhaps the RWNJ is also a Juggalo.
nellcote
I worry more about methane release from thawing tundra. But that’s probably because of the 50ft cliffs that overlook the ocean around here.
schrodinger's cat
Meanwhile, a hurricane named kitteh
Arm The Homeless
@Cassidy: Howdy, neighbor!
Duval county would get hit with a double whammy because not only would the naval base be forced inland, and probably farther north because of salt-water intrusion of the aquifers, but the loss of the deep-water port would be the death-knell.
Florida is fiznuck’d one way or the other…
Sir Nose'D
I hesitate to use the phrase “unfunded liabilities” but the 21st century cost of federal flood insurance (assuming that it continues to exist in its current form) will dwarf Medicare.
Maus
@DougJarvus Green-Ellis:
“This is what Conservatives actually believe.”
Tonal Crow
@scav:
Everyone — everyone! — will be in deep GOP when the rains in grain-growing regions regularly fail.
muddy
@schrodinger’s cat: Oh, thank you for that! Perfection, the little bastards.
hitchhiker
@Violet:
Thanks. I can do my own research, but if you (or anyone) knows a simple path to sources for that, I’d be grateful.
It just seems criminally stupid to spend six months making a high-quality program about environmental protection that focuses on air, water, and toxic waste . . . and say nothing about climate change.
muddy
@chopper:
More doe permits!
Arm The Homeless
@Sir Nose’D: Florida basically self-insures the most vulnerable properties in the state. IOW, the rich fucks on the coast are subsidized by everyone else who isn’t living in a gated-community*
*Obviously there are a lot of family properties on the coast which are not foot-prints for McMansions, but those are few and far between in the grand scheme of things.
Martin
@redshirt: That’s some of it. I was talking to my mom about it last weekend, and she accepts climate change and global warming. She accepts that they’re man-made. She broadly accepts that facts and accepts that we need to make policy changes.
But she says that the left (specifically Al Gore) has lied to the public, by suggesting that sea levels would rise so quickly that cities would be destroyed in a matter of years – and that the left lied in order to push though policies specifically to entrench power and punish the right. It was an interesting conversation because she was agreeing with the general trajectory but only arguing over the slope, and defended the right’s position to do nothing, or even to push back, as the correct attitude against an alarmist and over-reaching left.
Now, Gore never said what she claims he said – nothing of the sort. Nor has anyone on the left. She accused the climate scientists of not being truthful – basically buying into the whole email scandal bullshit. As I unwrapped each of those things, ultimately we found ourselves back at Fox News. She thinks the left has failed the climate debate by not being sufficiently detailed, and then simultaneously complaining that nobody is going to take the time to read the details, so the left is also trying to snow the public under blizzard of facts and figures. It was pretty interesting peeling it all apart.
In her case, there is no conflict with man usurping power from God or any of that – which I understand is something the religious right struggles with in this debate. It was purely a case of her over time absorbing all of the Fox News propaganda and finding herself in a different reality. Pissing off the left was sorta part of it, but not really. She saw the position of the right to moderate the excesses of climate hysterics as the responsible thing to do, and that the moderation would ultimately lead to better policies for dealing with climate change. I wasn’t really expecting that. I think I nudged her at least into a neutral position on the topic.
toujoursdan
The coastlines are the least of our problems.
When drought and draining of ice age aquifers affects our breadbaskets (in the Central Valley/Imperial valley, western Great Plains, Argentina’s Pampa, eastern Australia, southern Africa, etc.) while the northern hemisphere’s farming belt migrates northward to parts of the world where the soil quality is far poorer and there is little existing infrastructure to transport food at the moment the planet’s population reaches 9 or 11 billion people, then we’re effed.
scav
@PeakVT: Exactly, and it’s also likely that the cost/benefits will be mixed in most locations. And all that will be after the planets warped to any new equilibrium that might be established. But, more immediately, we’ve got to deal with the transitional period first, with human expectations, infrastructure, economy, etc. set up for conditions that no longer hold. That bit’s almost trickier to manage.
Jeff
@Cassidy: I know that was snark, and I get it, but as someone who just came back from Florida and saw all the wild life that would be wiped out, I cant agree.
chopper
@ant:
unknown horrors from the deep? in their non-euclidean cyclopean palaces of insanity, all tentacles and death?
Southern Beale
It’s 85 fucking degrees in Nashville today and I REFUSE to put the air conditioning on in March, absolutely REFUSE. No I will sweat before I agree to summer starting in fucking MARCH Jeeeeezus our “last frost” date is April 5.
But global warming is a myth. Even though I’ve been bitching about this for years.
It’s so fucking hot right now I want to scream.
chopper
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage:
here in brooklyn i was standing by my car waiting for the traffic cop to walk past on car-moving day (NYC, you know exactly what i mean) and i saw a metric shit-ton of mosquitos flying around.
for those not from around here, NYC is like 95% concrete and blacktop, there aint a whole lot of mosquitos. especially in march.
i’m going to be liveblogging a bad case of west nile this summer, i just know it.
Martin
Oh, the trigger for my conversation with my mom: her sudden alarm that it was nice enough to play golf in the midwest in early March. Not only was it warm enough, but the grass wasn’t completely killed off by snow cover. There was no snow mold, the grass was greening up, and the local courses had already opened up at least 9 holes for regular play. She didn’t even recognize the course as the spring growth hadn’t come in yet so she could play through in areas that previously would have been completely overgrown. I think it freaked her out.
Democratic Nihilist, Keeper Of Party Purity
@trollhattan: Interestingly enough, so does the Department of Defense. It’s not even open for discussion with those guys, they consider it a proven fact and are taking what steps they can to prepare.
Cassidy
@Jeff: Oh no. Our wildlife is much smarter than the residents. They will be fine.
The Other Chuck
@Litlebritdifrnt:
Understanding is something libruls do. Throw out the whole notion that anything has to be connected to anything, because, well, God says so and, and America, and shut up that’s why. Now throw in a bottomless reservoir of spite for those who oppose your anti-intellectualism, and make everything you do predicated on that spite, even if it means making hell on earth. Now you see where they’re coming from.
danimal
@Martin: I’ve had similar conversations as the one you had with your mom. The tragedy is, while they are playing politics even though they know change is needed, the costs of addressing the problem are increasing exponentially. A small course correction 10 years ago equals a major policy change today equals a societal transformation in 20 years. What a costly waste, and it comes from the folks who really think they are fiscal conservatives.
gocart mozart
I am all for global warming if it will reduce my drive to the beach in the summer. Fuck y’all coastal elites.
The Other Chuck
@ant:
Shitloads of methane. You think we’re fucked now?
chopper
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage:
also, my dad grew up around lake of the ozarks. all snakes and mosquitos from what he told me, and he loved it.
Brachiator
There are already challenges that may be related to climate change.
Still, anyone who tries to talk with certainty about “inevitable disasters” is just making shit up, not much different from evangelical ministers prophesying doom and gloom because of sin.
The Other Chuck
@Chris:
Authoritarianism.
schrodinger's cat
@muddy: My fat orange tabby does that, knocks off everything on my nightstand to wake me up in the morning, at the crack of dawn. Have you seen this Simon’s cat? It was his first and in my opinion his best.
PIGL
@David Koch: and then they would all die horribly, I would piss on their graves singing Haleluja. I don’t see a problem with this.
I can’t believe you are blaming Al Gore for the obstructionism of the Southern Death Cult and its billionaire financiers.
chopper
@Martin:
the way i think about it is, a few CMs may not sound like much but instead of a 1/100 year chance of a hurricane bringing a 10ft surge, you’re dealing with a 1/20 year chance of a 15ft surge on top of a few CM higher sea level (so several CMs on top of that more in high tide) plus all the reefs and barrier islands that slow it down are long gone…
Bill Arnold
@AxelFoley:
Sadly, no. South Florida is the closest to sea level.
Here is a sea-level rise map that you can adjust for various levels of rise.
redshirt
@gocart mozart: I know you’re joking/half joking, but I must confess I have thought something similar. From MY perspective – a house in the mountains of Maine – GW sounds pretty great! Shorter winters with more snow, longer grower seasons, more diverse plants and animals…. what’s not to like?
But I understand that this is a selfish perspective and would gladly forgo warmer winters for a climate that is not spiraling towards disaster.
Tonal Crow
@Martin: Winger propaganda works — despite its intellectual bankruptcy — because it addresses viewers’ emotions. I hope Democrats are finally learning this vital lesson.
Violet
@hitchhiker:
The insurance industry has been preparing for it for at least a decade. I remember reading an article about it in the Wall St. Journal, Yes, the WSJ, about a decade ago.
Here’s some Department of Defense preparation links:
Global Warming a threat to US Security –NYT link
Pentagon, CIA eye Climate Change threat–NPR link
chopper
@redshirt:
thing is it aint that simple. hey, more diverse plants! really that means ‘the weeds take over and choke all the native shit out’. it’s like with the shore – ‘hey, warmer water, that’s great!’, aka ‘the jellyfish invade’.
Suffern ACE
@PIGL: It would have been odd for him to not be involved in this. You know, he wasn’t always hated by the mainstream media and the right and when he started running for President in 1988 he was already discussing these kinds of things. It would have been odd for him to run for president in 2000 and say “You know, all that stuff I wrote when I was a respected Senator is not that important after all. My central issue is going to be the social security lockbox and drilling for oil.”
muddy
@schrodinger’s cat: That’s delightful! The feigned innocence in particular. One of mine will slide his arm under the covers and slit me under the toe. I try to be sure to fill the dish before bed.
PIGL
@Brachiator: you’re an idiot.
People talking about “inevitable disaster” have the weight of climatoloy, paleoecology, and physics backing them up.
That is fucking lightyears away from being “not much different from evangelical ministers prophesying doom and gloom because of sin”.
Ronzoni Rigatoni
Jeebus H. Xmas. I have lived in Florida for the past 45 years and could never afford waterfront property even if the waterfront was a polluted drainage ditch. But nature to the rescue. Seems my being about 16′ above the waterline (about 3 blocks away) is gonna get me my most cherished dream. FK! The only prollem is I won’t live long enough. SHT!
RedKitten
Plus, let’s not forget that coastal salt marshes, which actually provide a pretty nifty adaptive buffer to rising sea levels, are being destroyed because hey…marshland is “worthless”.
daveNYC
@Ronzoni Rigatoni: Only problem is that a full melt of Greenland will give you a 20′ rise in the sea level.
cermet
@scav: The fracking trouble is none of you get it – THE issue is BILLIONS of third world farmers DEPEND TOTALY on the PREVIOUS STABLE weather patterns! AGW makes their way of life harder and leads to less food. These people suffer first, the most and NEVER did anything to cause this mess. We are already seeing some of it (food price increases) and lost of farm land to both rising water and larger deserts.
redshirt
@chopper: Oh, I know. But still, I’m sure Maine would be a-ok. Sure, some native plants lose out, but that has been happening for the entirety of the history of life on earth. Adaptation.
But I’m being selfish here. GW is bad, m’kay? I know it, you know it, most of the republicans know it, but! The 27% is enough to stop any efforts at mitigating the truly devastating global effects.
Tony J
@The Other Chuck:
You’re not wrong. Climate Change due to human activity is one thing, extreme and sudden and catastrophic Climate Chaos caused by the release of massive amounts of trapped methane into the atmosphere… is different.
Gus
You needn’t worry. I have it on good authority from leading climatologist Senator James Inhofe that AGW is a scam. So you can relax.
Democratic Nihilist, Keeper Of Party Purity
A 60 meter rise in ocean levels will put the beach about 300 yards from my front door.
I would say “bring it on”, but it also turns my city into an island. Inconvenient.
Ronzoni Rigatoni
DaveNYC: “Only problem is that a full melt of Greenland will give you a 20’ rise in the sea level.” Well GDFKKNDAM. I ain’t gonna win, dead or alive, am I? Stilt houses are no answer either, as most of them were wiped out during Hurricane Andrew in ’92. FK! DM! SHT! Maybe I should move to Galveston…
Tonal Crow
@cermet: It’s worse than that. Everyone depends upon a stable climate. If the rains in grain-producing regions regularly fail (as this strongly implies), very many people will not eat, and many others will go to war to seize a shrinking piece of a shrinking pie. It’s a recipe for civilization collapse.
S. cerevisiae
@Cassidy: Georgia better get ready for a fuckload of Burmese pythons. As climate changes rapidly the more generalist species will be able to out-compete the specia lists, who will not be able to adapt or move. The future belongs to the r-selected species – think rats and weeds.
Edit to add a space
S. cerevisiae
Caught in moderation-thought I fixed the trap word.
replicnt6
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
I note that none of them has died. So, while people bearing knives may kill people, it’s a whole lot harder to kill with a knife than with a gun.
But keep fucking that chicken.
quannlace
My family had a small summer cottage down at the Jersey Shore. Around the late ’80’s we decided to sell it due to the escalating property taxes. Off and on over the years, I’ve regretted it. But these days, not so much. It was on the barrier islands, right on Barnegat Bay and two blocks from the ocean. A sitting duck.
trex
@redshirt
I agree, given the abundant water and forest cover and relatively temperate climate Maine will likely less hard-hit and a more desirable place to live than many in a warmer world. The problem for the northern states are pests and fungus wiping out enormous swaths of forest. The Pine Borer Beetle, thriving as a result of warmer and longer summers, is wiping out millions of acres of forest in North America. The dead forests are an increased fire risk, experience diminished local air quality, and in Alaska the massive loss of forestation has even resulted in altered weather patterns in coastal areas. Pests like this one have the potential to turn vast stretches of Maine into wastelands with little viability for wildlife. Sure, it will eventually turn around, but maybe not for generations.
Brachiator
@PIGL:
Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit.
Note that I posted a link to a current problem of rising waters posing an immediate threat to an island, so I am hardly a climate change denier.
But there no reputable scientist anywhere saying with certainty that there will or must inevitably be global catastrophes related to climate change. Lay people take the cautions of scientists, throw them out the window, and make disaster a certainty.
The current issue of the New York Review of Books has an illuminating article, Why the Global Warming Skeptics Are Wrong
But instead of “we’re all going to die” doomsaying, the author William D. Nordhaus offers a sober assessment
The author of the article is also the author of A Question of Balance: Weighing the Options on Global Warming Policies
Some of the recent observations of acidification of oceans is recent and surprising, and scientists are only beginning to assess the significance of this.
Big problem? Absolutely. Scary? Oh, yes. Can anyone speak definitively about consequences? No.
So, yeah, if you want to jump from this to any notion of certain catastrophe, you are not much different from evangelical ministers prophesying doom and gloom because of sin.
Ruckus
@goethean:
Call GoldmanShits.
I’m sure they’d like to help you out. Dudes probably short their own house.
peggy
@quannlace:
Similarly, I inherited a house close to a canal in the wonderful Florida real estate market. I’m renting it out now and hoping it becomes sale-able before the next serious hurricane hits that island.
What astonishes me about this pending sea level rise is not the wingnut reaction, but that of Wall Street and Mayor Bloomberg. The financial district, the NJ riverfront where the traders live, the elegant playtime homes on Long Island and the NYC subway system are all at immediate risk.
Hurricane Irene shutdown the subways and got almost 4 million evacuated. Irene was not very bad, it was only a tropical storm. But no one has seemingly taken that lesson to heart and talked about designing defenses.
Rotterdam has a 10,000 year flood defense of sea gates. The Thames barrier of London was designed to protect against the 1000 year flood. NYC’s defense is to sandbag the subway entrances, an appropriate symbol for a declining world power.
Tonal Crow
@Brachiator:
The issue is not “certainty” of catastrophe, but unacceptably high probability of it. Once again, I recommend Hansen et al, “Climate Variability and Climate Change: The New Climate Dice”, which concludes that global warming was responsible for the Russia 2010 and Texas 2011 heat waves, that it is making such events far more common, and that further warming will greatly exacerbate the problem.
Large heat waves often mean drought, and drought usually means large crop losses. For example, the Russia 2010 heat wave caused a 33% drop in grain production, motivating Russia to ban grain exports from August 2010 to July 2011. http://www.oxfam.org/en/grow/policy/impact-russias-2010-grain-export-ban).
No, catastrophe is not “certain[]”, but just too probable for rational peoples’ comfort. If we must wait for certainty before taking drastic action, drastic action will no longer help.
Ruckus
@peggy:
There is no long term thinking here. The nutjobs are thinking they won’t be here that long, the rest of us are fighting off the stupidity just to keep the short term damage as low as possible.
Brachiator
@Tonal Crow:
.This conclusion has been disputed, and not just by climate change denier nutballs. “Unacceptably high probability” does not mean anything.
The citation from the New York Review of Books makes a similar assessment, but without any claims that the sky is falling.
trollhattan
@Tonal Crow:
Risk assessment always includes uncertainty analysis. Risk assessment is the furthest thing from prophecy, because it identifies and quantifies uncertainty. Preachers tend not to quantify the odds they’re wrong about the existence of hell, nor analyze the “no-action alternative.”
But one aspect of climate change is water resource management. Here are links to California, EPA Region 9 and USACE’s CC handbook for regional water planning.
http://www.water.ca.gov/climatechange/CCHandbook.cfm
Appendix C is entitled, “Quantifying Uncertainty in Climate Change Analyses”
Ruckus
@Brachiator:
So what do you suggest?
chopper
@Brachiator:
actually, ‘unacceptablly high probability’ means a fucking lot. if you disagree with hansen that’s fine and all, but stop soft-selling what he’s been saying for some time.
and sorry dogg, but the new york review of books is hardly a scientific authority. who fucking cares what their opinion is?
chopper
@Ruckus:
apparently, nobody is allowed to have an opinion that sounds like something for real is going on. let’s not start acting like things are real here, boyos. it might offend some delicate fee-fees. i just talked to my friend bobo the other day and he thinks we need to calm down.
Tonal Crow
@Brachiator:
That conclusion is rapidly gaining expert backing. See, e.g., Rahmstorf & Coumou 2011 (~80% probability that global warming caused Russian 2010 heat wave), Otto et al (AGW tripled the *probability* of Russia 2010, though the heat wave’s *magnitude* may still be within the “natural” range); but see Dole et al (concluding that Russia 2010 was mostly caused by “natural…variability”).
No? When was the last time you drove your car by putting a cinderblock on the accelerator, climbing up on the roof, and steering with your feet?
peggy
@Brachiator:
Bluntly, you are grasping at straws. Nordhaus is an economist not a scientist, so he is merely retailing his take on the scientific consensus.
The argument is between the IPCC moderates who are predicting sea rise and increasing agricultural failure, and the radicals. Those are the scientists who are studying whether the Greenland Ice Shelf may be melting very fast and observing methane bubbling up in open fields in Siberia. Methane is a profoundly more potent greenhouse gas frozen in overwhelmingly vast quantities in the Arctic. If it goes, all bets are off and the IPCC predictions are painfully obsolete.
A chilling video talk from an oilman,the petroleum engineer President of the Geological Society of London tells about the etched in stone record of previous extinction events caused by CO2. Brachiator- will you accept this dismal analysis from an oil geologist?
Ozymandias, King of Ants
@jl:
The public universities here in CA have literally been working on this problem for 20 years, especially UC Davis, CSU Fresno, and Cal Poly SLO. I live in the Central Valley and you constantly see old orchards and vineyards being ripped out and replanted with varieties that have much lower chilling requirements and are much hardier. The growers of these products are taking this very seriously indeed–for instance, our county extension office, the UC Master Gardeners, and the county FFA sponsored a recent seminar on this very topic.
The really urgent around here right now is Colony Collapse: expect almonds (especially) to get outrageously expensive.
Uncle Cosmo
@Rosalita:
And then rename the remainder Bobbitt.
peggy
@Brachiator:
Brachiator- can I ask if you have any science background? I am not trying to be snarky, but because the scale of the human influence on the Earth is only understandable with the aid of a touch of science.
For instance- recently a big ice shelf fell off Antarctica into the sea, raising the world’s sea level by 1mm. Now a cm is about half an inch and a mm is a tenth of that so it seems like a very small quantity. Unless one considers the endless size of the world’s oceans.
Carbon dioxide dissolving in ocean water has made it more acidic, lowering the pH from 8.2 to 8.1. If one has done such an proceedure in a lab, as I have, it just takes a bunch of acid. Besides the biological issue that this will kill coral reefs, the sheer scale is breath taking.
We are now in the Anthropocene. In other words, in the hypothetical Grand Canyon of the future, the educational signs would point out how the rock layers change visibly at a certain place, because the oceans became more acidic.
Ruckus
@chopper:
Thing is Bachiator is not denying and if I’m not mistaken he has been pretty solid on the subject for some time. And even in some of his posts here he is agreeing with climate change. It sounds like he is saying panic is not the answer, but neither is nothing.
My question still stands.
Bachiator, what do you suggest? What is your comment other than don’t panic. Are you saying there is nothing we can do? Are you saying we should wait for better, more qualified and compelling info?
Strangepork
When Florida sinks beneath the murky depths, R’lyeh will be our hottest vacation destination. R’lyeh – it’s fhtagn-tastic!
Scamp Dog
@Ruckus: Well, agreeing with liberals is just off the table for some people, so that they have to put some kind of caveat on their opinion. It’s a well known & respected characteristic of Very Serious People, because if you fail it, you won’t be allowed to keep commenting on the national stage.
terraformer
@gbear:
Indeed. As a former Floridian, I am glad to be here in MN. As average temperatures in the South get hotter and hotter, and the (already close to empty) aquifers dry up, I expect a tremendous migration of humanity to here and points North, if but for the abundant fresh water.
I also expect violence and wars over that water, in the not-too-distant future.