Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 223 posts

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

#51

Post by SapphireSun »

bdamm wrote: post #15
acabal wrote: 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 doe…

You're right that we require a policy attack on Climate Change, but nonetheless, it feels a bit odd to keep doing the thing that'll kill you.

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

#52

Post by gfdgsdgdfgsdfg »

acabal wrote: 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…

Well, mitigation without adaptation would be a terrible idea. That's how you get screwed over by industrial countries with little regulation.

Obviously the answer is a bit of both, so it's not entirely clear what you're arguing for....

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

#53

Post by KVFinn »

nostrademons wrote: post #17
acabal wrote: 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 sto…

>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.

Changing emissions profiles IS adapting. We've already done it with smog and lead, etc.

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

#54

Post by notyourday »

ctdonath wrote: post #29
acabal wrote: 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…

yet everyone there still drives everywhere spewing carbon into their own air with every trip This. Every single person who claims they believe global climate change is a very serious, and man-made, problem absolutely should be taking personal steps now to address it. Telecommuting is a thing. Home-solar is a thing. Electric cars are a thing. Quit telling _others_ to solve the problems, and start doing it personally,…

> Every single person who claims they believe global climate change is a very serious, and man-made, problem absolutely should be taking personal steps now to address it. Telecommuting is a thing. Home-solar is a thing. Electric cars are a thing. Quit telling _others_ to solve the problems, and start doing it personally, now.

Let me get it straight, you mean Leonardo Di Caprio, George Clooney and Al Gore should live like the peasants? Please, hold my beer.

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

#55

Post by [deleted] »

bdamm wrote: post #15
acabal wrote: 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 doe…

[deleted]

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

#56

Post by ced »

nostrademons wrote: post #17
acabal wrote: 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 sto…

> 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 the people too poor to evacuate will stick it out in the city hoping for the best, and die in the aftermath of the next catastrophe.

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

#57

Post by jacobolus »

ctdonath wrote: post #29
acabal wrote: 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…

yet everyone there still drives everywhere spewing carbon into their own air with every trip This. Every single person who claims they believe global climate change is a very serious, and man-made, problem absolutely should be taking personal steps now to address it. Telecommuting is a thing. Home-solar is a thing. Electric cars are a thing. Quit telling _others_ to solve the problems, and start doing it personally,…

There’s nothing inherently wrong with taking personal steps, but by themselves they are largely worthless. It’s like optimizing an I/O bound program by speeding up some of the arithmetic operations not on any critical path.

Telling people who continue to commute by car or use grid electricity or travel internationally that they don’t really care about climate change is idiotic – not just useless but actively counterproductive because it makes people dismiss you as an arrogant jerk.

What’s needed are large-scale policy changes (international agreements, public investment in research and alternative infrastructure, changes to zoning laws, carbon taxes, regulations of agricultural runoff, crackdown on tax evasion and money laundering and international bribery, ...), which takes significant amounts of political organizing effort, money, and political capital (including flying various leaders around on jets).

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

#58

Post by neuronexmachina »

acabal wrote: 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 basically the Tragedy of the Commons on a global scale. The atmosphere is a huge public good, and climate change is a huge negative externality. It's relatively beneficial to the individual person, and even the individual country, to ignore the problem, even if it ultimately harms the population as a whole in the long run. That's why so many people prefer to ignore the problem or pretend it doesn't exist, rather than actually confront the issue.

http://tragedy.sdsu.edu/

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

#59

Post by ctdonath »

notyourday wrote: post #54
ctdonath wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yet everyone there still drives everywhere spewing carbon into their own air with every trip This. Every single person who claims they believe global climate change is a very serious, and man-made, problem absolutely should be taking personal steps now to address it. Telecommuting is a thing. Home-solar is a thing. Electric cars are a thing. Quit telling _others_ to solve the problems, and start doing it personally,…

> Every single person who claims they believe global climate change is a very serious, and man-made, problem absolutely should be taking personal steps now to address it. Telecommuting is a thing. Home-solar is a thing. Electric cars are a thing. Quit telling _others_ to solve the problems, and start doing it personally, now. Let me get it straight, you mean Leonardo Di Caprio, George Clooney and Al Gore should live…

Cognitive dissonance is unbecoming.

Spewing tons of CO2 en route to a CO2 control conference, when the same ends could be met via teleconference, is hypocrisy.

You can live well while reducing your impact on the environment. They certainly have the money to.

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

#60

Post by robocat »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #32
r00fus wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? When you can use disaster capitalism and profit on the "volatility" provided by such events?

I've heard it said that in the UK a fatal car crash increases GDP by about £1 million.

Reference?

A quick skim only showed studies showing cost of each fatality e.g. USD 1.6e6 in US listed here https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/...

Post reply on HN