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Rising groundwater caused by climate change could devastate coastal communities

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

#71

Post by phicoh »

DoingIsLearning wrote: post #58
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.…

There is an interesting thing related to the recent floods that happened in Begium, Germany and The Netherlands. The Netherlands spends quite a bit of effort estimating flood risks, and for more important water defenses tries to get the chance of disaster down to about one in 10000 years.

However, it seems that this calculation is only done for the lower parts of the country. The Meuse was only taken seriously after a couple of floods in the 1990s (and works were just far enough in The Netherlands that places along the Meuse were mostly fine).

However, for smaller rivers, nobody seems to care.

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

#73

Post by deltree7 »

pjmorris wrote: post #47
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. Two questions: 1. Are you familiar with the concept of the tragedy of the commons? [0] 2. How comfortable are you with the idea that capitalism and free markets are policies? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons

I very well know about Tragedy of Commons.

Property Rights, the bedrock of capitalism, if properly enforced, by penalizing individuals/corps that pollutes/destroys someone else's (including public) property, takes care of most governmental action that is needed.

"Enforce property and individual rights and get out of the way".

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

#74

Post by phicoh »

IntrepidWorm wrote: post #36
davidw wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Carbon tax gets proposed often, but it does not work on its own as a singular policy. Existing implementations of this see the money raised by the carbon tax diverted to equally environmentally costly ventures. There really is no easy way to incentivize a society driven by capital to be environmentally responsible because capitalism necessitates a near-sighted and self-centered approach to these things. Take the focu…

Carbon tax works fine if politians are willing to stick to it.

First set some goals and make sure that those goals need to be met. For example, 0 net CO2 emissions in 2050, 50% less than 1990 emissions in 2030.

Then announce that each year, CO2 tax will be set to have effect. I.e., plot how to go from today to 2050, how much CO2 emission is allowed for each year and an estimate what to CO2 tax will be.

The CO2 can just be a general tax, and income tax can be reduced to compensate. No need for the government to spend all of it on new technology. Of course, some programs to develop markets may help.

When CO2 costs are more or less predictable, companies will quickly figure out ways to avoid CO2 emissions.

There is one big if, if the government cannot find a way to grand permits for green energy, transmission of green energy, etc. then the standard of living may quickly go down.

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

#75

Post by twoquestions »

What I'm really worried about is the people who think this kind of damage is good per se, either out of general misanthropy or some sort of tribal hatred. Meeting these kind of challenges are well within our technical capability, but I fear not within our moral/financial/political capability.

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

#76

Post by greeneggs »

ericd wrote: post #70
IntrepidWorm wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Carbon tax gets proposed often, but it does not work on its own as a singular policy. Existing implementations of this see the money raised by the carbon tax diverted to equally environmentally costly ventures. There really is no easy way to incentivize a society driven by capital to be environmentally responsible because capitalism necessitates a near-sighted and self-centered approach to these things. Take the focu…

https://clcouncil.org/economists-statement/ Carbon tax is not being proposed on its own, it's meant to be combined with: - Paying out ~100% of the take equally per-person to make it so it helps rather than hurts the poorest, a "carbon dividend". Poor people use less carbon on average (directly+indirectly) than wealthy people, so they will usually be net beneficiaries. - Applying an equivalent tax on imports from coun…

> Paying out ~100% of the take equally per-person to make it so it helps rather than hurts the poorest, a "carbon dividend". Poor people use less carbon on average (directly+indirectly) than wealthy people, so they will usually be net beneficiaries.

I think there's an argument that this is impossible to sustain, politically. Once there is a huge new tax, it will be too tempting to redirect growing portions of that funding to other projects. California, for example, has an energy rebate, but the money has also been diverted to bail out the high-speed rail project, for example, and if the state faced a fiscal crisis who knows where the money would go?

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

#77

Post by d--b »

deltree7 wrote: post #20
_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…

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…

I fail to see how capitalism and free markets, which optimize for profit above all else can have any incentive in reigning in climate change.

There is zero money in preventing deforestation. There is zero money in carbon capture. There is zero money in keeping ocean’s level low.

But there is money in building levees and relocating sea-side communities.

So technically capitalism will favor burning fossil fuels over not doing it. And later when problems like these start to arise, capitalists will create companies to cope with the broken climate and make money off it.

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

#78

Post by deltree7 »

d--b wrote: post #77
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…

I fail to see how capitalism and free markets, which optimize for profit above all else can have any incentive in reigning in climate change. There is zero money in preventing deforestation. There is zero money in carbon capture. There is zero money in keeping ocean’s level low. But there is money in building levees and relocating sea-side communities. So technically capitalism will favor burning fossil fuels over no…

If you apply property rights, the bedrock principle of capitalism. You'll solve all of these externalities.

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

#79

Post by ancode »

hihihihi1234 wrote: post #66
tmnstr85 wrote: post #32

Either side of the coin, it's still pretty wild to watch it happen. We live on a point in Baltimore harbor and had the perfect storm of both water being pushed up the harbor, big tides and sheets of rain. By the time the tide came in the second time, we started seeing water pushing up through the sump pumps in our basements. The pressure from the water table underneath our home was so great that water was pushing it'…

Sounds like you should move before it's too late.

That doesn't make the problem go away it just pushes it onto some other unsuspecting person

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

#80

Post by long_time_gone »

deltree7 wrote: post #54
long_time_gone wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

==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)?

The $465 million loan was given in April 2010. Tesla IPO'd in in June 2010 at a $1.7 billion valuation [1]. Maybe someone else would have given them the low-interest loan, we'll never know. We do know that this loan and the government subsidized EV tax credits helped them weather some very rough cashflow years.

[1] https://www.barrons.com/articles/tesla-10-anniversary-ipo-el...

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