America’s Great Climate Exodus Is Starting in the Florida Keys • Hacker News Board

Re: America’s Great Climate Exodus Is Starting in the Florida Keys

#21

Post by H8crilA » Sat, Sep 21, 2019, 7:40 PM UTC

todd8 wrote: post #17

SLR (sea level rise) is a problem, but this article promotes a kind of alarmist version of SLR, in my admittedly inexpert opinion. SLR has been going on for 20,000 years, and it may be accelerating in the last few decades due to global warming; however, if your property is threatened by a 3mm SLR per year you probably didn’t make a wise purchase in the first place. 2+mm SLR per year has been going on for at least 150…

People, en masse, rarely react to a problem till it hits them in the face. Florida does get flooded already - Sunny Day Floods, what a beautiful name. Meanwhile real estate prices keep ignoring the issue:

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MIXRNSA

Re: America’s Great Climate Exodus Is Starting in the Florida Keys

#22

Post by fourthark » Sat, Sep 21, 2019, 7:42 PM UTC

olivermarks wrote: post #14

godzillabrennus wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The claims I’ve seen start at 8 million and rise from there. Doubt anyone knows till it’s over.

Claims and predictions are one thing but where are the facts?

What kind of evidence do you expect? Without time travel.

Re: America’s Great Climate Exodus Is Starting in the Florida Keys

#23

Post by erichurkman » Sat, Sep 21, 2019, 7:43 PM UTC

ForHackernews wrote: post #3

Where are the insurance companies on all this? Shouldn't it become increasingly more expensive to insure a low-lying property? Are they not including climate risks in their modelling?

One of the largest insurers in Florida is Citizens Property Insurance. It's run by the state.

On top of that, Florida has a state-run fund (Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund) for times when the private/commercial reinsurance market is insufficient.

Re: America’s Great Climate Exodus Is Starting in the Florida Keys

#24

Post by tempsy » Sat, Sep 21, 2019, 7:43 PM UTC

For some reason I just assumed that Miami Beach real estate was all luxury condos, so I was shocked to see how affordable some condos could actually be in 200-300k range. Not a luxury high rise, but a condo in the heart of Miami Beach nonetheless.

Re: America’s Great Climate Exodus Is Starting in the Florida Keys

#25

Post by Merrill » Sat, Sep 21, 2019, 7:44 PM UTC

olivermarks wrote: post #8

'By the end of the century, 13 million Americans will need to move just because of rising sea levels, at a cost of $1 million each, according to Florida State University demographer Mathew Haeur, who studies climate migration.' I couldn't find any concrete evidence to validate this, it seems more of a prediction? Mr Hauer is a sociologist so this seems a bold claim https://coss.fsu.edu/sociology/mhauer 'his research…

Major built up areas in Florida were swamps before they were raised by landfill from dredging.

Add more landfill.

Re: America’s Great Climate Exodus Is Starting in the Florida Keys

#26

Post by watertom » Sat, Sep 21, 2019, 7:54 PM UTC

Why is the government buying these people out?

The homeowners weren't forced to purchase these properties, so it's not the government's responsibility to remediate the situation.

Re: America’s Great Climate Exodus Is Starting in the Florida Keys

#27

Post by ozborn » Sat, Sep 21, 2019, 7:54 PM UTC

H8crilA wrote: post #21

todd8 wrote: post #17

SLR (sea level rise) is a problem, but this article promotes a kind of alarmist version of SLR, in my admittedly inexpert opinion. SLR has been going on for 20,000 years, and it may be accelerating in the last few decades due to global warming; however, if your property is threatened by a 3mm SLR per year you probably didn’t make a wise purchase in the first place. 2+mm SLR per year has been going on for at least 150…

People, en masse, rarely react to a problem till it hits them in the face. Florida does get flooded already - Sunny Day Floods, what a beautiful name. Meanwhile real estate prices keep ignoring the issue: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MIXRNSA

Yes, you are correct.

Of interest though is this study: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3073842 which indicates that prices are 7% than they would be otherwise.

Re: America’s Great Climate Exodus Is Starting in the Florida Keys

#28

Post by fromthestart » Sat, Sep 21, 2019, 7:55 PM UTC

electic wrote: post #18

Simulacra wrote: post #10

I don't think this article presents enough evidence that climate change, or climate in general, is affecting a person's desire to move to a new area. Florida has always had hurricanes, and it will continue to have hurricanes. Our response should not be to say the climate has changed so much its forcing us to leave, but rather what can we do to adapt to the new climate forces?

The issue isn't the hurricanes or the strength that is associated with them, it is the water content. In the past, hurricanes main threat was the wind. With wind, you can mitigate that with stronger building techniques and since the flooding was minimal, it was easy to recover from. The new issue with these hurricanes is that they are bringing significantly more water with them because of global warming. The net resu…

> The net result is you are seeing once in 1500 year floods happening every year.

This is the same kind of cherry picking that denialists have been using for decades. Locally rare events appear frequent if you gather trials from enough localities. The fact is that there has been no increase in storm intensity or frequency over the last 100 years which correlates with greenhouse emissions. There was an increase starting in the 1980s [1] but this is simply not enough data for climate prediction, which normally changes on scales of hundreds of years at the quickest - even if you assume that we are expecting catastrophic temperature increase over the span of a century.

Its worrisome that proponent hysteria is driven by the same kind of fallacious reasoning as that of denialist.

1. https://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/historical-atlantic-hurricane-and-...

Re: America’s Great Climate Exodus Is Starting in the Florida Keys

#29

Post by dghughes » Sat, Sep 21, 2019, 7:57 PM UTC

ForHackernews wrote: post #3

Where are the insurance companies on all this? Shouldn't it become increasingly more expensive to insure a low-lying property? Are they not including climate risks in their modelling?

A few weeks ago a 60 minutes segment compared flooding in The Netherlands vs the USA.

In The Netherlands if an area floods homes are not built there and measures are taken to control the water in those areas. In the US people get insurance and build in the same place using the same style.

New Jersey hired a man from The Netherlands to tell them how to break out of that process. This was due to the Sandy Hurricane that devastated the coast.

It boils down to if something keeps getting damaged stop doing the same thing over and over expecting different results.

edit: https://www.cbsnews.com/video/storm-water-management-dutch-s...

Re: America’s Great Climate Exodus Is Starting in the Florida Keys

#30

Post by hansthehorse » Sat, Sep 21, 2019, 8:01 PM UTC

all2 wrote: post #5

ForHackernews wrote: post #3

Where are the insurance companies on all this? Shouldn't it become increasingly more expensive to insure a low-lying property? Are they not including climate risks in their modelling?

From what I recall, high risk events are typically separated from policies and require the home owner to carry 'normal' insurance and they can optionally have the high-risk event policy.

You can buy a separate wind damage rider on your homeowners but if you want flood coverage it's a government run game.