Thanks, Jimmy Kimmel, for this:
In January, the Department of Housing and Urban Development announced grants totaling $1 billion in 13 states to help communities adapt to climate change, by building stronger levees, dams and drainage systems.
One of those grants, $48 million for Isle de Jean Charles, is something new: the first allocation of federal tax dollars to move an entire community struggling with the impacts of climate change. The divisions the effort has exposed and the logistical and moral dilemmas it has presented point up in microcosm the massive problems the world could face in the coming decades as it confronts a new category of displaced people who have become known as climate refugees.
“We’re going to lose all our heritage, all our culture,” lamented Chief Albert Naquin of the Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw, the tribe to which most Isle de Jean Charles residents belong. “It’s all going to be history.”
Around the globe, governments are confronting the reality that as human-caused climate change warms the planet, rising sea levels, stronger storms, increased flooding, harsher droughts and dwindling freshwater supplies could drive the world’s most vulnerable people from their homes. Between 50 million and 200 million people — mainly subsistence farmers and fishermen — could be displaced by 2050 because of climate change, according to estimates by the United Nations University Institute for Environment and Human Security and the International Organization for Migration.
“The changes are underway and they are very rapid,” Interior Secretary Sally Jewell warned last week in Ottawa. “We will have climate refugees.”
But the problem is complex, said Walter Kaelin, the head of the Nansen Initiative, a research organization working with the United Nations to address extreme-weather displacement.
“You don’t want to wait until people have lost their homes, until they flee and become refugees,” he said. “The idea is to plan ahead and provide people with some measure of choice.”
The Isle de Jean Charles resettlement plan is one of the first programs of its kind in the world, a test of how to respond to climate change in the most dramatic circumstances without tearing communities apart. Under the terms of the federal grant, the island’s residents are to be resettled to drier land and a community that as of now does not exist. All funds have to be spent by 2022.
“We see this as setting a precedent for the rest of the country, the rest of the world,” said Marion McFadden, who is running the program at the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Climate change is real, it is happening, and it is going to be very disruptive and expensive, both in terms of human lives and cold hard cash. Fer fuck’s sake, Tim F. has been talking about this for ten years on this blog. It’s terrifying that some are still denying this.
Major Major Major Major
HUD? This is obviously more of Obama fluffing Julian Castro and buying off the crucial Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw vote for Hillary.
In all seriousness, this is good, but still too little :( I hope we’re not as screwed as I think we are, but… we’re so screwed.
joel hanes
Climate change is real, it is happening
We may have procrastinated too long.
Look at the shape of this graph :
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/weekly.html
Unless it soon reverts to the previous already-horrific trend, we are well and truly fucked.
redshirt
Don’t worry. When the seas swamp major cities, droughts cook others, others wash away in monsoons, you can count on the Republicans blaming the Democrats for the disasters, the media going right along, and voters handing the Rethugs the House and White House.
Cermet
And as hundreds of millions (yes, that is the correct number) are forced to move JUST due to ocean level changes – not talking about desert increases or rainfall failures/monsoon change by 2050, the world will be changed in a manner unseen throughout human history. It gets ugly really fast.
oklahomo
There are other effects that will be hard to measure in the short term. After the big droughts and hay was being shipped in from all points of the compass, I have noticed very weird weeds that I had never seen before in my life. What will be the impact of these invasive species?
Trollhattan
@joel hanes:
The geopolitical responses will probably overwhelm us even before the effects are fully realized. Consider the impacts of the Middle East-North Africa diaspora due to war and extend the region being fled tenfold or more. Coincidentally, most of the projected growth in the world’s population is in Africa. Of course, South Asia will be in play, too. Will this even be discussed in the upcoming presidential campaign, or will it be all-ISIS+wall building all the time?
Mike J
Kimmel claims climate change is good for Aquaman. Is he a big fan of bleached coral?
Trollhattan
@oklahomo:
Great question. IIUC cold-intolerant pests (plant and insect) are extending northward (and south in that hemisphere), everywhere, including vectors for tropical diseases.
cmorenc
We own a beach house on a barrier island in NC. I love it there, we are not immediately threatened by sea rise, but at the same time I find myself wondering whether the optimal time to sell out to a greater fool is before the oncoming change gets obvious enough to make it difficult to sell for that reason. How soon will that be? 10 years or more like 50 years?
Kropadope
@redshirt:
I think a huge part of the reason climate denial has gained so much traction amid the Republican establishment is that it gives the leaders of their religious wing plausible deniability to claim that when the flooding and disease and outrageous storms come, that it is in fact (G)od’s judgment. Were this to come to pass, I could actually argue that side, but if I did I would be sure to point out god’s judgment came via decidedly anthropogenic climate change.
Mnemosyne
Humans assumed we were the best because we were able to outsmart Mother Nature in so many ways, but Mother Nature works on a much longer timeline than any puny human.
This is the kind of news that makes me glad we never had kids.
rikyrah
Latinos and Democrats hide in safe houses as right-wing sheriff uses mob rule to take over Texas town
03 MAY 2016 AT 12:50 ET
A so-called “constitutional” sheriff is accused of intimidating Democrats and Latinos in her Texas county — which has been thrown into political turmoil since her 2012 election.
Sheriff Pamela Elliott has created an atmosphere of paranoia in Edwards County that causes her opponents to gather fearfully in “safe houses” to air their complaints, reported Alex Hannaford for the Texas Observer.
Elliott is a member of the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association (CSPOA), a right-wing coalition that encourages members to disobey laws they don’t think are constitutional.
She put out a “standby order for volunteers” during the 2014 standoff at Bundy ranch, which was supported by CSPOA co-founder Richard Mack — a former Arizona sheriff who suggested the anti-government militants use women and children as human shields during the armed confrontation with federal agents over unpaid grazing fees.
Elliott appears on the cover of Mack’s 2014 book, Are You A David?, which promotes his right-wing, anti-government agenda.
Hannaford found few Edwards County residents who were willing to be quoted by name out of fear the sheriff would retaliate.
“I’ve been told to install a camera in my vehicle just in case something happens,” said one man, who would not allow his name to be used in print. “People here, officials included, are very wary of the sheriff.”
? Martin
Jesus has been saving us for longer. Q.E.D.
Face
Read somewhere that many government peeps downplaying/denying this are doing it to save property value. Miami comes to mind; if politicians really rang the alarm on the likely flooded conditions on Calle Ocho in 20 years, those neighborhood mega-expensive condos’ values would plummet. That affects tax collections. It affects family and relatives who own businesses. It affects re-election chances.
Basically, it’s in every politician’s short-term interest (esp. in coastal cities) to downplay this as much as possible. They dont necessarily hate science, they hate the outcomes that science is predicting.
slag
@Mike J: I had that same reaction. Ocean acidification is good for no man — aqua or other.
Cermet
@cmorenc: 50 years?! LOL. You will see far worse storms from now on as well as increasing beach erosion over the next ten years. As for when to sell, please. Like saying what stock will take off. It is all delusional human emotion not fact that drives such things – some fool will just love having the waves break on their doorstep … . I guess after a few really bad hurricanes (of course, all just flukes) you will begin to realize it is getting pass due.
I believe after the El Nino, Hurricanes get more intense – not AGW but that will just add to the effect. Look out.
Kropadope
@Mike J:
He said himself that he isn’t a scientist.
Paul in KY
@Trollhattan: Yeah. Google Chagas disease & it will scare the shit out of you. Those fuckin bugs are coming North.
HinTN
@cmorenc: Didn’t your lege decree that sea level rise due to climate change could not be discussed. You can safely wait.
Mike J
@Kropadope: He could have called up the kids with the rings, or at a minimum, their monkey, to get to the bottom of this.
Paul in KY
@cmorenc: Obviously you have to sell before the idjits can see the problem. Why not now & then just rent when you want to go to beach?
Paul in KY
@Face: How does that help them when it really starts happening & they’ve been pooh-poohing it all that time?
Villago Delenda Est
Fortunately, there are adults in the Pentagon, and they know just how serious this is for their primary concern, National Security. These are the sort of events that drive people to desperate measures they would not ordinarily consider to be on the table.
Jared Diamond, in Collapse, was optimistic about humanity’s ability to learn from previous collapses and avert them by taking action to prevent the conditions that create them.
IMHO he’s overoptimisitic. People have been pointing out the signs for DECADES now, and a healthy portion of our elites have been ignoring them, due to their rapacious, insatiable greed.
Kropadope
@Mike J: Wait, I don’t remember them having a monkey.
? Martin
Gee, when white communities hit the same sort of economic conditions that are imposed on black communities, white people suffer from all the same social problems that black people are stereotyped for:
catclub
@Face:
But isn’t it in the interest of the (landholding) politician in the next town over, on high ground, to ring the alarm bell and panic people to move to that town?
jl
Nice bit by Kimmel. I think if people knew the history of the research, it might be more convincing than doing it just with statistics, which is the approach now. I am a stats guy, but like eonomics, stats is too soft a science, and too vulnerable to misleading manipulation to make a good case.
One of the people said that man-made climate change has been studied by thousands of scientists over the last 40 years. I think that is wrong. The idea has been around for almost 200 years. As soon as Fourier developed some of the math needed to study heat flow, he started doodling with some crude models. The capacity of greehnouse gases to store heat and disperse heat was measured in the mid 1800s. The first workable models that included detailed mechanisms and included things like feedbacks, and role of endogenous greenhouse gases (like water vapor) were developed by a conservative cranky old Swede, and chemistry Nobel Prize winner named Arrhenius around 1900, and his work spawned a little cottage research industry in developing global warming models forced by fossil fuel burning. They didn’t get the details of the heat absorption and storage mechanisms quite right, but not their fault, since their work predated the development of the needed quantum mechanics tools. But their models hold up pretty well; they predicted dangerous warming over many many centuries, but that was because they used bad forecasts for the increase in fossil fuel emissions. They assumed a slow increase in growth of carbon, and mostly from burning coal. If you plug the historical emissions into their models, they hold up pretty well.
Then, there is the changing carbon isotope signature of the atmosphere. The mix of isotopes are changing in a way that points to increase in carbon dioxide coming from plants and animals that eat plants (mainly little critters in the ocean where most of the oil comes from) that have been dead a long long time. It is something very different from the isotope signature of the natural carbon cycle that has been flowing for ages.
I like stats, that is my gig. But I wish the stats would be de-emphasized and the basic, relatively simple and easy to explain physics, and the history of the research be given more emphasis. When i hear just stats and forecasts over and over, I want to yell, ‘enough with the stats crap’, explain the physics and the history more, please..
Cermet
@Paul in KY: They retire in their gated community, far from the ocean, with the piles of cash they had collected over the years from the real-estate developers … .
cmorenc
@Cermet:
Actually, the eye (and) right-front eyewall of the strongest hurricane ever to make landfall on the NC coast (other than the Cape Hatteras area) passed directly over our small island (Sunset Beach) – Cat-4 Hazel in 1954, with 140mph winds which pushed an 18-foot storm surge that came on top of astronomical high-tide. Of course, at that time the island was completely undeveloped. Our house is raised on pilings which put the first living floor 10 feet above ground level, but had our house existed back when Hazel hit, the water would have flooded the living room several feet deep (before sweeping the house away off its pilings). Hazel was long enough ago that anyone not in their mid-60s native to eastern NC are not aware of this bit of history. Fortunately, our house is not oceanfront, and was built in 1995 to sturdier post-Andrew construction standards – which will protect it better than most, but only up to a point. From time to time I look at the front of the house and can visualize how high the water would have come relative to the house, and similarly out on the beach visualize how high the water level was above calm ocean level at high tide. It’s only a matter of time before the island again experiences landfall from a Cat-3 or greater hurricane, especially with the summer ocean conditions becoming even more favorable to hurricanes (ocean temp is in the 80s at our beach from mid-June through mid-October, and that’s before even warmer ocean temps really get going in a few years).
oklahomo
@Trollhattan: And we are helping them move in some cases, which will, I assume, be faster that birds carrying seeds. Oh well, maybe the feral pigs can eat some of it as they spread.
Grumpy Code Monkey
@cmorenc: I’d sell it now. This year. The longer you wait, the bigger the loss on it you will take. 10 years from now will definitely be too late.
catclub
@Major Major Major Major: They have now been discussing a wetlands recovery project for Louisiana
that will cost $50B over 50 years (which seems eminently affordable to me) – and have gotten nowhere in funding it. meanwhile they spent $10-15B rebuilding the levees around New Orleans. and highway bridges.
That recovery project will never happen.
Mike J
@Kropadope: Gleek.
And here, without Gleek, the Wonder twins return us to the topic of the health of the oceans.
MomSense
@slag:
Are you familiar with Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Science? The news lately about phytoplankton changes in the Gulf of Maine are distressing especially if you think breathing is important.
UGH!
@Mnemosyne:
I never imagined that we would have gone backwards in terms of acknowledgement of climate change and concern with addressing it back when I had my first child. In 89 President George H W Bush gave speeches on global warming and proposed cap and trade as the business friendly alternative to the other proposals for curbing carbon emissions. I remember being pissed at him for undermining the movement toward more stringent regulation.
In 2009 we couldn’t even get cap and trade past the fillibuster in Senate. It makes me so angry. That our media have completely bungled the coverage of this issue is infuriating.
Anoniminous
Robert Scribbler is the Go-To guy for this. He manages to take the Climate Science and turns it into understandable English.
For me and my work, Global Warming and the resulting weather modification from climate modification is an exciting source of Real World data along a couple of different axis. For one, the demonstrated inability of Decision Makers to cognize and get to grips with reality is a very useful correction to the standard, over-inflated, notions of our species’ cognitive ability. And the general population is, as usual, living on the Banks of De Nile. In the four stages of Cognitive Denial:
1. The experts don’t know what they are talking about
2. OK, they know what they are talking about but it won’t happen here
3. OK, it will happen here but it won’t be as bad as they predict
4. WHY DO BAD THINGS ALWAYS HAPPEN TO ME!?!
The US is still in Stage One. Although research is still underway it appears the three primary factors are the Polluting Industries: coal, oil, cars, etc., who fund the anti-GW propaganda campaign, the deep ignorance of the average American about Science, and the religious based anti-intellectualism of 66% of US citizens — using acceptance of Evolution as the standard measure. As our system of governing depends on consensus this strongly implies the God-Bothering knuckle-dragging wackos in the GOP control too many Senate seats from the South, Midwest, and inter-mountain West for effective national action or preparation.
All of this is difficult for Democrats to understand since 68% (Pew Research) of Dems think Global Warming is a serious problem and action needs to be taken.
Cermet
@jl: Point out that AGW is not unlike sitting in a broken down car in the middle of a parking lot during a sunny day in the summer with the windows sealed closed and the doors locked from the outside. There is no escape and no way to cool down.
cmorenc
@Paul in KY:
Because it’s literally a second home, which we don’t rent out – and we can go whenever we want, whereas during summer months renting is: a) expensive; b) inconvenient since most houses are only available a week at a time Saturday to Saturday, and the comfort of the beds and furnishings is an iffy gamble. Owning, everything we need or want is already there, except for bringing a few sets of fresh clothes with us when we go, and we could even leave enough down there all the time to not even bother having to do that if we so wanted. I know what’s in the well-stocked kitchen before I go, and there’s always a few beers waiting for me in the fridge when I arrive.
Kropadope
@Mike J: Oh, I see. I do remember that. This is what I thought you meant by kids with rings.
BR
Obligatory climate scientist Kevin Anderson link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZF1zNpzf8RM
Things are worse than people know…
NorthLeft12
The damage to societies by climate change is analogous to changes that have been wrought by the destructive capitalism that our right wing friends are always lauding.
They are okay with it because, A) They make money off it, and B) They don’t think it will negatively impact them and those close to them in any meaningful way.
You can hear them talking about how there are winners and there are losers, and how the losers can become winners if only they adapt to the changes.
I hate those guys.
gindy51
@cmorenc: Sell now and rent when you want to visit.
Paul in KY
@catclub: Good point. You think it would be in the interests of the owners of the high ground to trumpet that fact.
cmorenc
@Grumpy Code Monkey:
Fortunately, we bought it back before the price of coastal property escalated, and it was long ago fully paid for – so our actual $$$ loss if a hurricane or GW took it out would be apx 3x less than the nominal market value of the property today. The emotional hurt from losing it would actually seem much greater than the economic hit, though the latter would hardly be insignificant. Nevertheless, from a hard-headed practical standpoint, I don’t want to lose sight of the fact that houses on barrier islands are not permanent fixtures in the grand scheme of things.
catclub
@Anoniminous:
you state that as though 68% is high. I bet when WWII was going on the % that agreed fighting the war was important was a bit higher than
68%. It takes that level of agreement (85+%) to actually get serious changes.
jl
@Cermet: That model is inaccurate, I think we could do better and describe more up-to-date and accurate models,, and people would still understand. But, that is where Fourier started, and then he got frustrated because he could not describe that intuitive idea with the math he invented to describe frequency and wavelength and spectra. But would be fun to start a historical documentary with Fourier in a French Revolution era suit fuming and sweating in a hot care on a sunny day.
Paul in KY
@Cermet: I knew they had a plan!
Cermet
@cmorenc: why sell? When a storm destroy’s it in some near/far future time, you enjoyed the ocean life. That is a very reasonable approach rather than worry when to sell. At some point, a hurricane will do sufficient damage that you will realize it isn’t worth the trouble but by then, you have had plenty of time enjoying everything. A trade off like all things in life. This isn’t a stock, after all. You own it for other purposes not to maximize your income.
Some areas will do better with AGW compared to others. Judging a winner/loser area isn’t easy. The mid-Atlantic is royally screwed. The outer banks less so. Its your goal for the rate of return, I guess.
Paul in KY
@cmorenc: I know renting, etc. is sure not as good as havin your own, but at some point you do have to sell it or go down with the house. You would get your most money from it by selling it sooner, rather than later.
Anoniminous
@catclub:
You are right, I should have made it clear:
That’s the 68% of the 29% of the population (Gallup) US population identifying as Democrat or ~20% of the total US population.
Cermet
@jl: The model I give is very accurate in the concepts – there is no escape possible for us (we are staying on the Earth), and the Earth is heating up; and frankly, all else is window dressing. AS for describing frequency and wavelength and spectra effects, or feedback or the difference between AGW and Greenhouse (a truly false idea)…lets just require quantum mechanics for all people so the real subject and its real complexities can be accurately discussed. Really, I know AGW is complex but while that is true (and heating of the Earth isn’t simple) the parallel between a sealed car and the Earth is rather to the point and the average Joe can grasp very well.
joel hanes
@MomSense:
I never imagined that we would have gone backwards in terms of acknowledgement of climate change
Some of the steps required to effectively address climate change would cost Koch Industries real money in the short term.
Therefore
Koch money + former tobacco industry litigators = Heartland Institute => Republican denial
The Kochs are, to an amazing degree, the reason we can’t have nice things.
Paul in KY
@MomSense: Isn’t Bigelow a rapper, or does he run a tea company? I get confused about that…
Mnemosyne
@MomSense:
Having kids didn’t work out for multiple reasons (including not getting married until I was 36), but I have to admit that there’s some relief in the back of my mind when I read stuff like this.
Anoniminous
@Cermet:
Agree. Trying to teach the average American atmospheric chemistry is pointless. We need to be using accurate metaphors to get the points across.
jl
@Cermet: @Anoniminous:
I admitted that t glass greenhouse model it would be a good start. I would like to see a documentary with a frustrated Fourier in a fancy suite sweating like a hog in a greenhouse, or better, a peogeot, furiously trying to figure out how to work that model with his math and getting frustrated. Then move to gradually more accurate metaphors and models..
I don;t think the conceptual basics of the current understanding is hopeless to explain if you work up to it gradually. Sure as hell fewer openings bogus for attack with the physics and history than with the statistics. Conceptually, the physics is not hard, and the historical record of the models going back over 100 years now is pretty impressive.
I don’t see all the statistics about thrown around as confirmation, and more evidence needed to fill in remaining questions about details. Stats not sufficient to describe even conceptually the basic science, or even adequate evidence about how unusual current climate is, or that it is man-made, or warming continuing to occur
catclub
@Anoniminous: I did not even mean to pound the number down to 20%. I just meant that even if 68% of the entire population agreed it was happening, that would not be sufficiently overwhelming to get something big done – like WWII level response.
catclub
@Cermet: You could add realism by saying that some asshole inside the car took down the reflective shades from the windows. That asshole is us.
I was looking for what in the analogy matched up to the change due to AGW. We have always been in the car, and the windows have always been up,
and the sun has always been shining on it.
jl
@jl:
Meant to type:
I see all the statistics thrown around more as confirmation, and more evidence needed to fill in remaining questions about details. Stats not sufficient to describe even conceptually the basic science, or even adequate evidence about how unusual current climate is, or that it is man-made, or warming continuing to occur.
And to add: statistics can be misused in so many horribly misleading was, I don’t like to see it used to drive main part of explanation for anything much. There has been a lot of very misleading attacks and pointless confusion about man-made global warming based on exploiting peoples’ ignorance of how stats works and what methods are appropriate in different situations. And seems to me that trying to explain how skeptics are either very ignorantly or very maliciously misusing statistics is harder without some conceptual physics and history of the science.
jl
@catclub: You will run into more and more problems if you stick with the damn car with the windows. I have no problem starting the explanation there, though.
Anoniminous
@catclub:
You may not have meant to but that’s what you did!
:-p
Seriously, you are right when you say we need a 85%+ Buy-In before something can be done. We need to Get A Grip on the actual state of things, realize the extent of the barrier(s), before we can move on to what
jl is talking about.
catclub
@jl: I agree. I did not like it to start, but was trying to fix it.
Now someone farting in the car… that could help a lot.
Citizen_X
@cmorenc:
Neither are the barrier islands themselves. They’re mobile features that move inland or seaward as sea level rises or falls.
Matt McIrvin
@Anoniminous: Long ago I had an argument on Usenet with a guy who insisted that stratospheric ozone could not possibly protect the Earth from ultraviolet radiation, because he said the ozone was only 2% of the atmosphere up there (it’s actually much, much less than 2%, more like 0.001%, but never mind), and if you write a computer program that lights up 2% of the pixels on your screen, there’s a whole lot of space between them! That couldn’t protect anything from anything!
I struggled to turn his metaphor into something that would actually work (it isn’t as if the ozone layer is two-dimensional), but of course he wasn’t hearing any of it. That image of the screen with only 2% of the pixels lit up and all that space in between was unshakeable.
jl
@Matt McIrvin: Poor analogy fail on the part of your friend.
I see the same thing with people arguing that main-made global warming theories imply that the average global temperature is insanely and unreasonably sensitive to the concentration of carbon dioxide. They don’t know how to calculate a sensible sensitivity invariant to measurement scale, or even what measurement scale to use. Actually, man-made global warming theory is consistent with the earth’s average temp being very mercifully insensitive and robust to carbon dioxide concentrations. Though then you have to explain why humans are dangerously testing the limits of that merciful insensitivity.
Villago Delenda Est
@jl: This would resemble Dumbledore telling Tom Riddle that “look, messing with horcruxes is just asking for trouble” but Tom of course goes ahead and does it anyway and sets in motion the events that will result in his doom.
bystander
@? Martin: Barry Commoner was proto-Bernie but with a PhD from Harvard. He made this all clear to freshmen at WU in 1968.
Mnemosyne
Also, too, I don’t have a link, but Neil deGrasse Tyson explained global warming really well on “Cosmos.”
Anoniminous
@Matt McIrvin:
I’m so old I remember when Usenet was (1) innovative high tech wonderful and (2) useful.
And then the dweebs moved in and it turned into alt.psychotic all the alt.dot time.
Butch
I guess the distinction is that it isn’t HUD money, but I thought the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was already relocating Inuit communities in Alaska?
PurpleGirl
As I’ve told certain “libertarian” leaning friends, what climate change and global warming mean is that the extremes become more extreme and that climate is not the same thing as weather. They still want to argue with me that they can’t believe in global warming because to them it doesn’t seem that it’s warmer, although they agree that the extremes seem to be more extreme. And these are intelligent, educated people. I stopped discussing it with them some time ago.
Arclite
Upton Sinclair.
Paul in KY
@Villago Delenda Est: In hindsignt, Dumbledore should have said that creating a horocrux involves murdering someone & that will get you a one way trip to Azkaban.
Probably wouldn’t have stopped him anyway.