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'Point of no return': New Orleans relocation must start now due to sea level

theguardian.com

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Re: 'Point of no return': New Orleans relocation must start now due to sea level

#141

Post by tzs »

egypturnash wrote: post #111
tzs wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe the state could make it so the last person is someone who has no plans to ever leave, such as an elderly retiree. It could work like this. • The state identifies neighborhoods that will need to be abandoned in a few decades and puts them in a program to turn them into retirement communities. A person who owns a home in such an area can sell it normally if they want to anyone who will buy. • If an elderly retire…

The state in this case is Louisiana .

Louisiana is just the state with a major city closest to the point of it having to be abandoned. There will be more that follow in other states, such as Florida.

Re: 'Point of no return': New Orleans relocation must start now due to sea level

#142

Post by yread »

TitaRusell wrote: post #83
madrox wrote: post #10

My roots are in Louisiana, and this makes me incredibly sad. It is such a unique place that has no like, and drives all tourism in the state. Where will tourists celebrate Mardi Gras after it's gone? Baton Rouge? Sadder, still, to know that nothing will be done. No one will be relocated. Just one day a weather event like a hurricane will happen to destroy the area and it will be labeled derelict with no funds to rebu…

That's the story of the Netherlands. Entire cities and even islands have disappeared under the sea. Humans always rebuild.

I would argue lost cities are a story in the margins of the story of the Netherlands. The main story would be a move from building towns on little hills that don't get flooded most of the times to building systems to actively manage water (wind- and steam-powered pumps) and flood defenses (Afsluitdijk, Deltaworks). Netherlands never had as much land as it has now so the balance is definitely on reclaiming rather than losing.

Re: 'Point of no return': New Orleans relocation must start now due to sea level

#143

Post by SkiFire13 »

shrubble wrote: post #138
madrox wrote: post #10

My roots are in Louisiana, and this makes me incredibly sad. It is such a unique place that has no like, and drives all tourism in the state. Where will tourists celebrate Mardi Gras after it's gone? Baton Rouge? Sadder, still, to know that nothing will be done. No one will be relocated. Just one day a weather event like a hurricane will happen to destroy the area and it will be labeled derelict with no funds to rebu…

Mardi Gras actually originated in Mobile, Alabama; and it is celebrated with big parades and "krewes" all along the Gulf Coast, at least as far as Pensacola, Florida.

Mardi Gras actually existed (and still exists) in Europe before the USA were even founded.

Re: 'Point of no return': New Orleans relocation must start now due to sea level

#144

Post by lioeters »

hackable_sand wrote: post #119
alex43578 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

You are wildly out of touch

"Catch a greyhound out of town" is the "Let them eat cake" for the poor and homeless (sorry "unhoused") of New Orleans. Empathy is for the weak, said the oppressor.

Re: 'Point of no return': New Orleans relocation must start now due to sea level

#145

Post by ryan_lane »

lovich wrote: post #126
ryan_lane wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

New Orleans is extremely blue. They're the ones having their rights stripped away by the rest of the state. You're part of the problem here.

No, Louisiana is. If New Orleans is extremely blue, but can contribute nothing but political power to authoritarian assholes, then they need to leave or figure out someway to fight. Sucks to suck, but the liberal Louisianians arent helping atm.

How can you fight when your power has been taken away from you? The reason I'm saying you're part of the problem is because you're blaming victims for the situation they're in without realizing that you're up next, and others like you are going to scream "why aren't you doing MORE TO HELP?" while you're screaming "Why isn't anyone helping ME?".

Southern states have been stripping people's rights away for decades.

Re: 'Point of no return': New Orleans relocation must start now due to sea level

#146

Post by danaris »

fsckboy wrote: post #24
madrox wrote: post #10

My roots are in Louisiana, and this makes me incredibly sad. It is such a unique place that has no like, and drives all tourism in the state. Where will tourists celebrate Mardi Gras after it's gone? Baton Rouge? Sadder, still, to know that nothing will be done. No one will be relocated. Just one day a weather event like a hurricane will happen to destroy the area and it will be labeled derelict with no funds to rebu…

[flagged]

No, you are condescendingly proposing individual solutions to a systemic problem.

Re: 'Point of no return': New Orleans relocation must start now due to sea level

#148

Post by Leonard_of_Q »

ortusdux wrote: post #7

Miami too. The city is build on porous limestone. No amount of levees, seawalls, or dams will save it.

Put dikes around it, make channels to collect the seepage, pump water out of channels over the dikes into the sea. Problem solved in the same way the Netherlands has been solving this problem for many centuries. The pumps can run on solar power with some diesel backups for when the sun doesn't co-operate. As long as the system is kept in good shape and the channels are kept open Miami can lie several meters under sea level without the need for further action. The house I lived in in the Netherlands was at -4.5 m below sea level, it is still standing and will remain doing so if history can be a guide.

Re: 'Point of no return': New Orleans relocation must start now due to sea level

#149

Post by danaris »

rayiner wrote: post #124
wat10000 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not about being unable to view the issue except from that one perspective. It’s about having an aversion to mass suffering, and recognizing that this group will be subject to it. You’re basically saying, why are you so worried about all of these people who will have their lives destroyed when there are a bunch of other people who will be totally fine? I hope that when it’s put that way, you can see how ridiculou…

No, it's an emotional obsession with small percentages of the population that makes it impossible to discuss realistic solutions to problems that affect everyone. New Orleans is going to be underwater. That problem won't just affect poor people, it will affect everyone. So the first order of business is to encourage anyone who can do so to leave New Orleans to go somewhere that isn't underwater. That's the policy tha…

> it's an emotional obsession with small percentages of the population

Ah, right: it's a small percentage of the population, so we should just let them die, "and decrease the surplus population", right?

This kind of callousness is one of the biggest problem with the tech industry today. We learned to think in numbers, and some of us never learned to think about the people behind those numbers.

Yes, there are some kinds of problem where you really have to think about the numbers, and not the people, because if you try to save everyone you will end up saving no one.

This is not one of those.

The people who can move now, without financial hardship, get to make their own choices about when and whether to get out. The people we, as a society, should be thinking about are the people who cannot get out—either without financial ruination, or at all—because they are the ones we as a society must help.

Tragically, given the state of America today, we aren't likely to help them. And many of them are likely to die, whether by drowning when the next Hurricane Katrina inundates New Orleans, or by slow starvation and disease when they and everyone else in their community and support network are left homeless.

Re: 'Point of no return': New Orleans relocation must start now due to sea level

#150

Post by danaris »

crystal_revenge wrote: post #30
bypdx wrote: post #2

Rather than relocate, we can make discussion of climate change illegal or just tax the blue states to build a sea wall around the entire city

> discussion of climate change illegal Well discussing it was de facto banned on HN for many years (still wouldn't be surprised if this post disappears soon). Any climate change post that was anything other than "everything is fine because of electric vehicles/solar/wind/etc", especially if it dare suggest that the situation was dire, would quickly get 'flagged' by the vocal minority (but still surprisingly large gro…

If this was true years ago, it is not anymore. There are plenty of stories, and posts, about climate change.

And over the...I dunno, something like 9 years? I've been here, I have observed a distinct but gradual shift to the left in the overall tenor of conversation. Things do change, even here.

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