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Tokyo Is Preparing for Floods ‘Beyond Anything We’ve Seen’

nytimes.com

11–20 of 223 posts

Re: Tokyo Is Preparing for Floods ‘Beyond Anything We’ve Seen’

#11

I may not understand the scope of this project, but when I read the $2 billion, my thought was "wow that's cheap!" Consider the Big Dig or the current Seattle tunnel, at $14B+ and $3B+ respectively.

To be fair, nobody would have undertaken the Big Dig if the true cost were known up-front. And a debt that's 200% GDP is a unique circumstance.

Re: Tokyo Is Preparing for Floods ‘Beyond Anything We’ve Seen’

#12
post #7
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it? How much have the recent floods experienced in the Americas cost?

What is honestly going on in this comment section? First guy is confused by a perfectly good caption saying that the facility cost $2 billion to build and was completed in 2006. And second guy said he somehow thought that meant that taking a tour costs $2 billion (which would be obviously expensive just for a tour). And you have somehow misinterpreted the comment about the tour to be saying that the facility is expen…

I assume the second person was joking. I have no idea what the first person was concerned about, unfortunately.

Re: Tokyo Is Preparing for Floods ‘Beyond Anything We’ve Seen’

#13
post #2

The caption of the last image says: "Visitors can tour the system, which cost $2 billion and was completed in 2006." I hope that's just a typo.

Tokyo has a GDP of $1.6 trillion per year. And they have a lot of expensive property they want to protect from flooding.

Re: Tokyo Is Preparing for Floods ‘Beyond Anything We’ve Seen’

#14
post #10

It's so crazy to me that everyone in vulnerable places--Tokyo and Houston in the article for example--are happy to spend hundreds of millions, even billions, to put a bandaid on their local climate change problems. It seems like they all acknowledge the reality and danger of climate change and are willing to spend money on it. In TFA Houston wants $400 million to build a reservoir. They seem to acknowledge that thing…

Tragedy of the commons - it's a ubiquitous and powerful economic principle.

Re: Tokyo Is Preparing for Floods ‘Beyond Anything We’ve Seen’

#15
post #10

It's so crazy to me that everyone in vulnerable places--Tokyo and Houston in the article for example--are happy to spend hundreds of millions, even billions, to put a bandaid on their local climate change problems. It seems like they all acknowledge the reality and danger of climate change and are willing to spend money on it. In TFA Houston wants $400 million to build a reservoir. They seem to acknowledge that thing…

It's clear that our contemporary social structures are not well equipped to deal with climate change. This is unlikely to change in the next 10-50 years. So local governments that are able to act must do so.

"Solutions to global problems start at home." --> If everyone in Houston switched up their SUVs for Prius', nothing globally would change at all, except that the people of Houston would have smaller cars. Why does this make sense for them?

Re: Tokyo Is Preparing for Floods ‘Beyond Anything We’ve Seen’

#16
post #14
post #10

It's so crazy to me that everyone in vulnerable places--Tokyo and Houston in the article for example--are happy to spend hundreds of millions, even billions, to put a bandaid on their local climate change problems. It seems like they all acknowledge the reality and danger of climate change and are willing to spend money on it. In TFA Houston wants $400 million to build a reservoir. They seem to acknowledge that thing…

Tragedy of the commons - it's a ubiquitous and powerful economic principle.

The tragedy of the commons is another name for the failure of private property and markets to account for externalities. For a real theory of the commons without leaving mainstream economics cf. Mary Ostrom's Governing the Commons. Otherwise, all of anthropology.

Re: Tokyo Is Preparing for Floods ‘Beyond Anything We’ve Seen’

#17
post #10

It's so crazy to me that everyone in vulnerable places--Tokyo and Houston in the article for example--are happy to spend hundreds of millions, even billions, to put a bandaid on their local climate change problems. It seems like they all acknowledge the reality and danger of climate change and are willing to spend money on it. In TFA Houston wants $400 million to build a reservoir. They seem to acknowledge that thing…

It's very likely that local band-aids are the most effective way to deal with this.

Your train example is a pretty good one, but you've mixed up the metaphor. Here, "stepping out of the way" = mass migrations out of coastal cities. "A mechanized winch that temporarily lifts us over the train" = flood control projects like in Tokyo, Houston, Venice, or the Netherlands. "Calling the train company and asking them to stop running trains" = stopping global warming by addressing carbon emissions.

If you had a train barreling down on you, which one would you choose? I'd bet it wouldn't be calling the train company and asking them to stop running trains, because a.) they are unlikely to anyway and b.) even if they were willing, by the time you got through to someone with the power to stop the trains you'll probably be dead anyway.

I'd argue that the actual solution to global warming will be more akin to "stepping out of the way": people will evacuate from major cities, major cities will be destroyed, and people will pick up the pieces of their lives elsewhere. If they're proactive, they might evacuate before the city is actually destroyed, and we'll see mass migrations of people (as have been happening for the last several hundred years anyway) away from areas that will face greater climate risks and toward areas that benefit from global warming.

That's what humans do: we adapt to our environment. Only in particularly hubristic times (like now) have we expected to adapt our environment to us.

Re: Tokyo Is Preparing for Floods ‘Beyond Anything We’ve Seen’

#18
post #10

It's so crazy to me that everyone in vulnerable places--Tokyo and Houston in the article for example--are happy to spend hundreds of millions, even billions, to put a bandaid on their local climate change problems. It seems like they all acknowledge the reality and danger of climate change and are willing to spend money on it. In TFA Houston wants $400 million to build a reservoir. They seem to acknowledge that thing…

Even billions is cheap for Japan given that their strongest export sector these days is automobiles.

Re: Tokyo Is Preparing for Floods ‘Beyond Anything We’ve Seen’

#19

I may not understand the scope of this project, but when I read the $2 billion, my thought was "wow that's cheap!" Consider the Big Dig or the current Seattle tunnel, at $14B+ and $3B+ respectively.

Chicago metro Deep Tunnel : $3B

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunnel_and_Reservoir_Plan

Re: Tokyo Is Preparing for Floods ‘Beyond Anything We’ve Seen’

#20
post #7
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it? How much have the recent floods experienced in the Americas cost?

What is honestly going on in this comment section? First guy is confused by a perfectly good caption saying that the facility cost $2 billion to build and was completed in 2006. And second guy said he somehow thought that meant that taking a tour costs $2 billion (which would be obviously expensive just for a tour). And you have somehow misinterpreted the comment about the tour to be saying that the facility is expen…

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