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

Rising groundwater caused by climate change could devastate coastal communities

thinknewsmedia.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 101 posts

Re: Rising groundwater caused by climate change could devastate coastal communities

#51

Post by seltzered_ »

pelasaco wrote: post #26
_Microft wrote: post #5

Someone submitted this a few posts earlier: "The Amazon is turning into savannah – we have 5 years to save it", https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29540946 Two sides of the same coin but the groundwater problem seems easier to solve. Not because it is technically easier but because the incentives for (rich countries) seem to be a lot stronger. Preventing the own area from flooding is way less abstract than indirect…

Population control. There is no way that we can fit 9-10 billion people on earth and are still able to be sustainable.

You need to be careful with this framing and also think about 'Population Pressure' in regards to most developed countries - https://goodlife.leeds.ac.uk/

Re: Rising groundwater caused by climate change could devastate coastal communities

#52

Post by iskander »

q1w2 wrote: post #40
iskander wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't read the article yet but one thing that makes more complicated in the US is the widespread use of septic tanks. The leach field will flood before the actual surface.

Most septic tanks are not in coastal properties. The water table isn't going to change for a property unless you're right on the water or living on wide low lying march/delta type areas.

In Florida and much of the Gulf Coast though...

Check out this map of population density: https://vividmaps.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/metropolita...

All those dense spots in Florida and along the Gulf are also more likely than most US urban areas to use septic tanks. That's a lot of brackish poop, clogged toilets, and environmental contamination coming in the next few decades.

Re: Rising groundwater caused by climate change could devastate coastal communities

#53

Post by deltree7 »

NationalPark wrote: post #39
deltree7 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Capitalism and Free Market. On an individual basis, apart from zero-cost sustainable habits, if you are capable, become a master of science, attempting to solve energy, material, carbon and climate issue at a physics level. If you are a craftsman, observe all the day-to-day activities of humans, tinker/hack and attempt to solve the same workflows more sustainably. If you have a solution either through hacks or scienc…

How does this solve the problem of externalities that exists today? And what do you do if no genius ever comes along with such a "silver bullet" solution to invite venture funding? Keep waiting and hope they are born before the externalities catch up and it's too late?

Your sustainable solution, by definition, will reduce input costs for all business.

Every business on planet earth will hand you money for reducing input costs.

Once again think long-term. Short-term the externalities does get pushed around

Re: Rising groundwater caused by climate change could devastate coastal communities

#54

Post by deltree7 »

long_time_gone wrote: post #28
deltree7 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Capitalism and Free Market. On an individual basis, apart from zero-cost sustainable habits, if you are capable, become a master of science, attempting to solve energy, material, carbon and climate issue at a physics level. If you are a craftsman, observe all the day-to-day activities of humans, tinker/hack and attempt to solve the same workflows more sustainably. If you have a solution either through hacks or scienc…

==Here's what will 100% not work -- Activism or Trying to 'Policy' out of your way of Climate Change problems.== Capitalism and Free Market are solutions today exactly because we have aligned our "policy" to make clean energy more attractive to capitalists. People quickly forget policies like the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 [1] which invested $80 billion in clean energy. Tesla might not exist today…

It's delusional to think Tesla wouldn't have existed without government help.

Tesla took a cheap government loan when it was available.

Do you really think, Musk wouldn't have raised the piddly $500 Million from on his multiple silicon valley buddies? (including Thiel, Page)?

Re: Rising groundwater caused by climate change could devastate coastal communities

#55

Post by dgfitz »

nawgz wrote: post #41
dgfitz wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're not overpopulating it anymore. That "solution" presents its own problems. https://www.bbc.com/news/health-53409521

If by "we" you mean "the first world as it devolves into wealth inequality", sure, but it's clear there's nearly 8 billion people, so a 2.4 fertility rate not projected to turn til the end of the century probably still leaves us with 9 billion people by 2070 don't you think? And indeed, it is a massive problem that we face, but do you truly think proposing regulation-free unhampered-by-policy capital-c Capitalism - i…

Imposing population limits in the developed world won’t change anything other than make population decrease problems occur faster. If this rate of birth decline continues, we’ll have a super healthy green planet, and no humans to inhabit it.

This isn’t an argument against solar technologies et. al. It’s just the next problem that we don’t have an Al Gore for trumpeting it as an issue before it was widely known.

Re: Rising groundwater caused by climate change could devastate coastal communities

#56

Post by HappyDreamer »

pelasaco wrote: post #43
trhway wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose you can just schedule a cron to submit in 10 years the same post with updated number to say 12B :) Even with population control (suppose we found a way to do it and managed to avoid the large negative consequences of it which would be plenty) the uncontested growing consumption by the current population would do the planet anyway. Speaking about solutions - until significant part of Sahara desert and the li…

> Speaking about solutions - until significant part of Sahara desert and the likes aren't covered by solar panels, i wouldn't believe that anybody (who matters) is taking the climate change seriously I think it is harder than we think, at least for the goals that Europe wants: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OpM_zKGE4o The caveat about population control, is different than how we, humans, do with all other wild-life…

> We have to come up with a ethic solution

If you try, won't some people somewhere on the Internet, get angry at the ideas you have, and start writing angry things to and about you?

Re: Rising groundwater caused by climate change could devastate coastal communities

#57

Post by bch »

British Columbia has just experienced substantial flooding that wasn’t related to being coastal[0][1][2]. I think it exemplifies how we need to mind our relationship with the world - everywhere.

[0] https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/bc-floods-su...

[1] https://youtu.be/c-zANcnwY34

[2] https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/merritt-resi...

Re: Rising groundwater caused by climate change could devastate coastal communities

#58

Post by DoingIsLearning »

phicoh wrote: post #19

There is one thing I don't understand about the article. The rise in groundwater level should follow the average increase in sea level. It is not like a big wave would suddenly affect the groundwater level. Assuming houses last for 50 years and during the next 50 years the sealevel can increase by around 50cm, it should be easy to check if buildings near the coast are high enough that they can accept this change in s…

> Of course, damage done by flooding does depend on how big waves are. So you need levees and seawalls long before you get a groundwater problem.

Actually Germany and Netherlands experienced massive floods this year with increased river volumes in the Maas due to excess rain and ice melt in the Alps. At least 200 people died, 10s of thousands relocated.

My point is not all your flood threats are downstream from you.

> Finally, plenty of Dutch houses are built in swamps below sealevel. The technology exists.

The dutch have centuries of know how and an entirely separate body to oversee all water management the Rijkswaterstaat. To assume that their model can be easily copied is a massive underestimation of the problem/solutions.

Re: Rising groundwater caused by climate change could devastate coastal communities

#59

Post by selimthegrim »

deltree7 wrote: post #53
NationalPark wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does this solve the problem of externalities that exists today? And what do you do if no genius ever comes along with such a "silver bullet" solution to invite venture funding? Keep waiting and hope they are born before the externalities catch up and it's too late?

Your sustainable solution, by definition, will reduce input costs for all business. Every business on planet earth will hand you money for reducing input costs. Once again think long-term. Short-term the externalities does get pushed around

>Once again think long-term. Short-term the externalities does get pushed around

Congratulations on the most bloodless hot take I’ve read on HN by a country mile

Re: Rising groundwater caused by climate change could devastate coastal communities

#60

Post by deltree7 »

davidw wrote: post #27
deltree7 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Capitalism and Free Market. On an individual basis, apart from zero-cost sustainable habits, if you are capable, become a master of science, attempting to solve energy, material, carbon and climate issue at a physics level. If you are a craftsman, observe all the day-to-day activities of humans, tinker/hack and attempt to solve the same workflows more sustainably. If you have a solution either through hacks or scienc…

Markets and capitalism are part of the solution, of course, but you absolutely do need policies to direct all that energy, at a high level. Absent "policies" and enforcement, the cheapest way for a factory to dispose of waste is to dump it in the river. Same thing applies to CO2: dumping it in the atmosphere is cheap right now because the policies to deal with that externality aren't quite there. An obvious example o…

Property rights, one of the bedrock principles of capitalism, easily handles externalities.

Dumping waste/co2 is a violation of someone else's property rights. Try dumping waste into your neighbor's property and see what happens.

The reason why externalities happen is because government is not enforcing property rights

Post reply on HN