Louisiana’s Governor Declares State Of Emergency Over Disappearing Coastline • Hacker News Board

Re: Louisiana’s Governor Declares State Of Emergency Over Disappearing Coastline

#141

Post by ZeroGravitas » Fri, Apr 21, 2017, 9:43 PM UTC

obstinate wrote: post #96

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But to extend the metaphor, fixing your own code is kind of pointless if all the other code running on the box runs unchanged. Fixes need to be made to shared libraries to have any impact. This means promoting politicians who aren't taking advantage of the situation to earn kickbacks from corporations who feel they will be negatively affected by fixing the problem, and implementing things like carbon taxes so that ev…

Fortunately, this is not an either-or situation. :) I advocate all of the above, but it's important not to be in ignorance about where the real issue lies.

In reality, it is an either-or situation.

A small number of concerned and informed individuals trying to reduce their own carbon footprint is pointless. There's no way it pencils out to anything even vaguely worthwhile, even if they went to extremes. Even if they committed suicide and left their entire inheritance to carbon reductions it simply doesn't add up.

On the other hand, a carbon tax that introduces virtually imperceptible changes across the entire economy of the world, would actually fix the problem.

So yes we can do both, but one makes effectively no difference, even if it feels like a big deal to the person doing it.

Re: Louisiana’s Governor Declares State Of Emergency Over Disappearing Coastline

#142

Post by obstinate » Sat, Apr 22, 2017, 2:08 AM UTC

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #141

obstinate wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fortunately, this is not an either-or situation. :) I advocate all of the above, but it's important not to be in ignorance about where the real issue lies.

In reality, it is an either-or situation. A small number of concerned and informed individuals trying to reduce their own carbon footprint is pointless. There's no way it pencils out to anything even vaguely worthwhile, even if they went to extremes. Even if they committed suicide and left their entire inheritance to carbon reductions it simply doesn't add up. On the other hand, a carbon tax that introduces virtually…

Oddly enough, eating less beef did not impact my ability to agitate for environmentalism. So, no, not either or. Demonstrations of giving a shit by making personal sacrifices are powerful accompaniments to donations, voting, protests, etc.

Re: Louisiana’s Governor Declares State Of Emergency Over Disappearing Coastline

#143

Post by specialist » Sat, Apr 22, 2017, 5:33 AM UTC

adolph wrote: post #29

The first two comments seem to associate anthropogenic climate change with the changes in Louisiana's coastline. A more likely culprit is hydrologic mismanagement. The coastline was formed by waterways that periodically changed channels and dumped sediment in different areas. In relatively recent times cities on the existing waterways became politically influential enough for the federal government to build a series…

Four factors. You forgot subsidence and compaction.

Re: Louisiana’s Governor Declares State Of Emergency Over Disappearing Coastline

#144

Post by selimthegrim » Sat, Apr 22, 2017, 11:54 AM UTC

egypturnash wrote: post #136

adolph wrote: post #29

The first two comments seem to associate anthropogenic climate change with the changes in Louisiana's coastline. A more likely culprit is hydrologic mismanagement. The coastline was formed by waterways that periodically changed channels and dumped sediment in different areas. In relatively recent times cities on the existing waterways became politically influential enough for the federal government to build a series…

Agreement on the mismanagement, I grew up in NOLA. High school taught me that pretty much 50% of Louisiana's land comes from the Mississippi jumping its banks and dumping silt into a new area for a while. Once you have cities lining a river's banks there's a strong economic pressure to try and keep the river where it is, despite the slow loss of land to erosion. I don't think it's an either-or, though. The delta's ge…

On Louisiana Public Broadcasting last night they played this documentary about traditional coastal restoration techniques:

https://vimeo.com/212104220

Re: Louisiana’s Governor Declares State Of Emergency Over Disappearing Coastline

#145

Post by nickik » Sat, Apr 22, 2017, 12:15 PM UTC

jellicle wrote: post #80

nickik wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Climate change takes quite a long time. In that time there is tons of time to react to changing coastline. Normal market and political effect will move people or build defences again nature. Its not like the people in the netherlands are poor because the land is below sea level. The argument about eratic weather is not very good. I have heard multible storm experts say that they can really not model the overall chang…

> Climate change takes quite a long time It really doesn't, when you have 7 billion people working hard to make the climate change as quickly as they can, and unfortunately we've already spent half a century knowing about the problem and doing nothing. The whole point is that we've changed major climatic change from a geological time frame to a human-scale time frame. You'll see major upheaval as a result of climate…

Its strange to say that we 'did nothing'. We did a hole lot, the replacement of coal in many places in favor of nuclear, gas, solar wind is decently something. It was mostly not done because of global warming, but it still happened.

One to two generations is a long time.

I have listen to interviews with storm experts and it seems that they are not quite so sure about is then you. That said, it seems that compared to the world economy and what some people suggest, the damage from storms seems quite low.