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

Miami Will Be Underwater Soon. Its Drinking Water Could Go First

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 272 posts

Re: Miami Will Be Underwater Soon. Its Drinking Water Could Go First

#71

Post by drcode »

golergka wrote: post #11

> 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 itse…

I bought this book recently called "The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs" https://www.amazon.com/Rise-Fall-Dinosaurs-History-World/dp/...

You would think it would be a bad-ass book talking about dinosaurs, but no... it's mainly tedious descriptions about the look on the face of a particular paleontologist when the author met them at the train station, and how wild a particular paleontologist party was the day before they found an important new bone.... I couldn't imagine a more boring book, had to give up half way through.

Re: Miami Will Be Underwater Soon. Its Drinking Water Could Go First

#72

Post by [deleted] »

ryandrake wrote: post #5
ben509 wrote: post #2

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.

[deleted]

Re: Miami Will Be Underwater Soon. Its Drinking Water Could Go First

#73

Post by Analemma_ »

chollida1 wrote: post #66
legulere wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The banks will just ask for flood insurance.

And when your house floods every other year, that means flood insurance will cost you what it costs to rebuild your house.... each year. which is to say, you won't be able to get flood insurance.

Until the Federal government gets out of the guaranteed flood insurance business-- which is unlikely to happen soon, as there would be fierce political blowback-- you will always be able to get flood insurance supported by taxpayers.

Re: Miami Will Be Underwater Soon. Its Drinking Water Could Go First

#74

Post by syshum »

chollida1 wrote: post #9

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…

You have just laid out the US National Flood Insurance Program, which is slightly more forgiving, I believe they will rebuild your home 1 time, then if you have a 2nd claim they pay to relocate you and the property is no longer buildable or rather no longer eligible for Flood Insurance.

Re: Miami Will Be Underwater Soon. Its Drinking Water Could Go First

#75

Post by ryandrake »

jdpedrie wrote: post #20
chollida1 wrote: post #9

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".

I know people who deliberately don’t save for retirement because they are betting that few people in their generation will have enough to retire on, and the government politically can’t let elderly people mass-die on the street.

Re: Miami Will Be Underwater Soon. Its Drinking Water Could Go First

#76

Post by scottlamb »

chollida1 wrote: post #9

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…

> Start worrying when the banks stop offering mortgages to people trying to buy property in south beach.

If the 2007 financial crisis taught me anything, it's that we can't rely on the banks to make sound financial decisions, particularly regarding mortgages. Even more so now that the government bailed them out at taxpayer expense. They know that will happen again when needed. They have a safety net so they can gamble as much as they want—they can win but not lose. They will continue to believe this until/unless the government breaks them into pieces that aren't "too big to fail".

Perhaps they already should have stopped offering those mortgages.

Re: Miami Will Be Underwater Soon. Its Drinking Water Could Go First

#77

Post by dsr_ »

ctlby wrote: post #29
erentz wrote: post #3

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…

Your premise is incorrect. The parts of the country most affected are the coasts--and they are blue.

The northeast and west, perhaps, but not the south and southeast.

Re: Miami Will Be Underwater Soon. Its Drinking Water Could Go First

#78

Post by codegeek »

kamaal wrote: post #58
chollida1 wrote: post #9

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…

One of the things I learned from Bangalore's real estate market is to stop using Banks as some kind of proxy validation for things. Its always common to hear people say 'If banks lend a loan against X, X must be ok to buy'. In reality although banks do a bit of verification here and there. Its mostly they are looking for a way to recover their money from you . In many cases you will see the banks will happily lend mo…

what happened with bangalore's real estate market ? Just curious.

Re: Miami Will Be Underwater Soon. Its Drinking Water Could Go First

#79

Post by klipt »

kamaal wrote: post #58
chollida1 wrote: post #9

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…

One of the things I learned from Bangalore's real estate market is to stop using Banks as some kind of proxy validation for things. Its always common to hear people say 'If banks lend a loan against X, X must be ok to buy'. In reality although banks do a bit of verification here and there. Its mostly they are looking for a way to recover their money from you . In many cases you will see the banks will happily lend mo…

In a "no recourse" state like California, the bank can go after the house they loaned on but can't go after any of your other assets.

Florida is not a "no recourse" state though.

Re: Miami Will Be Underwater Soon. Its Drinking Water Could Go First

#80

Post by fabricexpert »

This article is kind of infuriating. Just bring the facts up and talk about them, instead of describing people. I think this is one of the more critical parts (along with the stuff about water supply getting contaminated):

> Barring a stupendous reversal in greenhouse gas emissions, the rising Atlantic will cover much of Miami by the end of this century. The economic effects will be devastating: Zillow Inc. estimates that six feet of sea-level rise would put a quarter of Miami’s homes underwater.

However, nowhere in the article does it say a six feet rise will happen at the end of the century. So is that actually going to happen? How many models project this and how many don't? What is the "stupendous reversal" required in real terms? What are the options to combat this? Would a giant sea wall work?

If you come at this from the angle of "climate change is a myth" the entire article reads as fluff. This makes it basically impossible to convince people that this is a real issue that needs to be dealt with. The sensationalist title distances people from the issue even further (it is sensational because the article doesn't present any evidence that Miami will be underwater soon).

Post reply on HN