> One morning in June, Douglas Yoder climbed into a white government SUV...
This again. I won't stop complaining about this tedious journalistic style until it finally dies.
I don't want to hear a personal story of a random person that's related to the issue in some way. I certainly don't want to read anything about how he spends his day - I value my own day too much for that. I just want to read about the issue itself.
Part of the problem here is exacerbated by all the flood insurance that effectively subsidizes building in flood plains. In addition to long term measures to mitigate climate change, we should have a tax on areas that are threatened by flooding and water levels rising so that we can reduce the immediate issues by incentivizing people to move away from them.
FWIW, I can’t speak for Miami but I do know that the costs for flood insurance are high enough in coastal areas that some people skip it entirely.
The other side of this is to adopt coastal retreat policies as well though. Its not enough to drive insurance up, you need to prevent people moving in anyway because it's cheap land because of that.
Part of the problem here is exacerbated by all the flood insurance that effectively subsidizes building in flood plains. In addition to long term measures to mitigate climate change, we should have a tax on areas that are threatened by flooding and water levels rising so that we can reduce the immediate issues by incentivizing people to move away from them.
Should we also tax people living in earthquake-prone and tornado-prone areas? How about blizzard-prone areas? Keep going with this and we will run out of places (in the USA) where it’s ok to live. Also, as someone who lived in south Florida, flood insurance is a joke and unavailable near the coast anyway. Nobody expects it to pay out enough in a major catastrophe, including hurricanes and flooding.
Part of the problem here is exacerbated by all the flood insurance that effectively subsidizes building in flood plains. In addition to long term measures to mitigate climate change, we should have a tax on areas that are threatened by flooding and water levels rising so that we can reduce the immediate issues by incentivizing people to move away from them.
I'm not sure how insurance is a subsidy. Doesn't the cost get spread between insurees and the insurance company takes the foam off the top for itself?
I’ve never understood how the parts of the country most affected by sea level rise have been so vociferously against it being real. When the BP spill happened and they had all the local mayors and politicians crying about the damage to their coast, I couldn’t understand why no one had the cajones to ask them why they cared so much about their coast being damaged now, when they were completely fine with it being gone…
Here is what creates cognitive dissonance and drives inaction. The BP spill came with apocalyptic rhetoric about the destruction of the gulf and gulf coast. Yet, within a few years, things are near normal. Please, I’m not saying it wasn’t a tragic, disruptive, damaging event. Just that the reality has diverged wildly from the story told at the time. This creates distrust and inaction for every new apocalyptic prediction. No doubt, at some point, an apocalyptic prediction will come true, and we’ll be caught with our pants down.
I’ve never understood how the parts of the country most affected by sea level rise have been so vociferously against it being real. When the BP spill happened and they had all the local mayors and politicians crying about the damage to their coast, I couldn’t understand why no one had the cajones to ask them why they cared so much about their coast being damaged now, when they were completely fine with it being gone…
Part of the problem here is exacerbated by all the flood insurance that effectively subsidizes building in flood plains. In addition to long term measures to mitigate climate change, we should have a tax on areas that are threatened by flooding and water levels rising so that we can reduce the immediate issues by incentivizing people to move away from them.
soooo... tax? The current tax system can't handle that, if anything once the water starts creeping, the tax system would do the opposite. Property values drop, taxes drop.
I think what you might have wanted to recommend was for insurance companies to have higher premiums / rates whatever. Not everything needs to be solved at the government level.
Part of the problem here is exacerbated by all the flood insurance that effectively subsidizes building in flood plains. In addition to long term measures to mitigate climate change, we should have a tax on areas that are threatened by flooding and water levels rising so that we can reduce the immediate issues by incentivizing people to move away from them.
I'm not sure how insurance is a subsidy. Doesn't the cost get spread between insurees and the insurance company takes the foam off the top for itself?
National Flood Insurance is run by the government, it's not the same as most property insurance.
Start worrying when the banks stop offering mortgages to people trying to buy property in south beach. I remember when Katrina flooded New Orleans, lots of people were asking why rebuild the city when it almost certainly will flood like that again. And the answer was a simple, do you know how much it would cost to relocate everyone? What does it do to the economy when almost everyones largest asset(their house) is wo…
> They would get some government assistence with the condition that this was the first and only time that the governmnet would help.
We'll see how well that holds up next time those people need assistance. Somehow I don't see any elected politician telling his voters "sorry, we already helped you".