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Rising Waters Are Drowning Amtrak's Northeast Corridor

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Re: Rising Waters Are Drowning Amtrak's Northeast Corridor

#91

Post by CodeSheikh »

caymanjim wrote: post #49
CodeSheikh wrote: post #24

Blessing in disguise here for Amtrack and a great opportunity to do an overhaul of a subset of the one of the oldest railroad infrastructure in the USA. Many lessons we can learn from European counterparts.

It's not easy to move a rail line. It's politically and economically infeasible. Amtrak hugs the coast in the northeast in part because that land is useless for anything else. Much like the subways, bridges, tunnels, roads, and every other piece of transit infrastructure in the northeast, the rail problems are systemic and it's a huge effort just to keep things moving at all. This isn't a blessing; it's a snapshot of…

"politically and economically" this is the problem right there. When people graciously justify (and subconsciously) roadblock to any advancement and progress economical and political issues.

If Amtrack pauses its service segment-by-segment so they get to focus on re-building infrastructure then I believe It will not have that much of a negative impact on travelers, at least. People can always resort to other traveling alternatives(buses, cars, planes). Heck, it is economical to travel from NYC to DC by bus vs train. Train gets you in 3 hours for $200 and bus gets you in 4 hours for $19. For me, $200 is worth paying if I get to DC in an hour!

Yes there will be job displacements while the overhaul is underway. But for numbers sake, more job will be created as part of the overhaul.

By politics I assume you meant unions. It is a rabbit-hole debate but I will say this that unions have done more damage to the infrastructure progress than any other political entity in northeast USA.

Re: Rising Waters Are Drowning Amtrak's Northeast Corridor

#92

Post by vonmoltke »

superjan wrote: post #78
throwaway7312 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I thought I followed climate change issues but somehow did not know that in most people's lifetimes sea levels will rise multiple feet. I would've thought folks would be more... concerned? According to Sir David King (head U.K. climate scientist) in 2004, all continents other than Antarctica will be uninhabitable by 2100 due to manmade global warming.[1] I wouldn't be worried about New York. I'd be on the next ship…

King is not stating that here. He just says that the earth was no fun place to be, the last time greenhouse gasses were as high as they’ll likely be in 2100.

> "No ice was left on Earth. Antarctica was the best place for mammals to live, and the rest of the world would not sustain human life, he said.

> Sir David warned that if the world did not curb its burning of fossil fuels "we will reach that level by 2100"."

[Emphasis mine]

He literally did say that, unless you think "would not sustain human life" is compatible with "habitable". That quote was an asinine statement to make and only serves to provide ammunition to those who want to convince people that climate change is not a real problem.

Re: Rising Waters Are Drowning Amtrak's Northeast Corridor

#93

Post by graeme »

superjan wrote: post #78
throwaway7312 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I thought I followed climate change issues but somehow did not know that in most people's lifetimes sea levels will rise multiple feet. I would've thought folks would be more... concerned? According to Sir David King (head U.K. climate scientist) in 2004, all continents other than Antarctica will be uninhabitable by 2100 due to manmade global warming.[1] I wouldn't be worried about New York. I'd be on the next ship…

King is not stating that here. He just says that the earth was no fun place to be, the last time greenhouse gasses were as high as they’ll likely be in 2100.

I read the article. King does seem to be stating that. At least, he says the last time co2 was as high as it will be in 2100, then only antarctica was suitable for human life.

Now, there's a lag to warming, so it might only reach the full temperatures by 2150 or so, but King did explicitly seem to be saying we're likely to make the world uninhabitable. Or at least that the last time co2 was that high, the world was uninhabitable.

I haven't figured out why people don't take this more seriously. A child born today can expect to live past 2100. People have children and grandchildren, and yet....

Re: Rising Waters Are Drowning Amtrak's Northeast Corridor

#94

Post by leetcrew »

lifeformed wrote: post #82
rfinney wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't "attacking the motive" a logical fallacy? https://study.com/academy/lesson/attacking-the-motive-fallac...

Saying something is biased might be a fallacy in a debate, but not in statistics. In a complex topic, where the data is fuzzy and misrepresentation is easy to do and harder to detect, you must consider biases in your sources. An alien can look at this "debate" and make a rational decision without even knowing what the debate is about. The world's scientists study X and overwhelmingly agree: X is going to wreak havoc…

I'm certainly convinced at this point that climate change is a real thing that we should be concerned about, but that's only because I have (to the best of my ability as a cs person) critically examined the position taken by the climate scientists.

no one is immune to bias and misaligned incentives, especially on contentious political issues, and especially in fields where your entire job depends on government funding. in general, I am quite skeptical of academics.

Re: Rising Waters Are Drowning Amtrak's Northeast Corridor

#95

Post by 8ytecoder »

Joeri wrote: post #83
mortivore wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it matters if you show businesses that climate will impact them financially. The people running the show may not be running it when the financial burden actually comes around. If there is no impact or very little for the person/people currently running the business, then there is no reason to make a move to prevent/mitigate the problem.

Not only that but I’m pretty sure that when the climate change bill comes due businesses will demand government help pay it, with the argument that the whole thing is the government’s fault anyway. And they’ll get what they want, because they always do.

When there's water under the bridge, it would literally be a decision between putting the past behind and fixing the issue vs trying to point fingers and pin the blame on who was wrong. We'll bite the bullet and pay for all the necessary upgrades necessary. Businesses know it. Govt knows it. People will forget and move on as well. Human memory is short.

Re: Rising Waters Are Drowning Amtrak's Northeast Corridor

#96

Post by a3n »

Rather than thinking like a train company, wondering how to protect or move the tracks, what if they thought like a transportation company, and figured out how to move the same and projected number of people?

Although if climate inaction generally prevails, eventually the area won't be viable for that many people to live, work and commute. Problem solved.

Re: Rising Waters Are Drowning Amtrak's Northeast Corridor

#97

Post by graeme »

sailfast wrote: post #30

> Water levels around Wilmington would rise 2 feet by 2050. That reflects the median of possible warming scenarios 2 feet is the median!? And things continue to accelerate? I thought I followed climate change issues but somehow did not know that in most people's lifetimes sea levels will rise multiple feet. I would've thought folks would be more... concerned? The maps of New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut look lik…

I have no idea why people aren't more concerned. I think the desire to avoid sounding "apocalyptic" has led to people not emphasizing the expected damage if we keep using CO2.

Anyone with a child born this year can expect that child to live past 2100. A future grandchild will live well past 2100. Even most people reading this can probably expect to live past 2050.

It's not an abstract issue that will affect future generations. It will affect us and our direct descendants.

Re: Rising Waters Are Drowning Amtrak's Northeast Corridor

#98

Post by moorhosj »

rayiner wrote: post #86
moorhosj wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you never taxied at an airport waiting for a gate to open or had a flight delayed/cancelled?

That's relatively rare on routine domestic flights compared to Amtrak outside the NEC. To pick a completely random data point: there were 5 trains between Seattle and Portland yesterday. 501 Cascades left 2 hours and 48 minutes late. 517 Cascades left 1 hour and 18 minutes late. Day before yesterday was better. The 501 was only 22 minutes late, but arrived 44 minutes late. The 517 left 10 minutes late and arrived 34…

==I can't remember the last time I had a routine flight between nearby cities delayed. ==

My brother-in-law had a flight from Chicago to Cincinnati (1h and 15min flight time) cancelled on Friday. Shorter flights don't gain as much altitude and tend to use smaller planes so they are more impacted by weather.

More broadly, through November, flights have been on-time 78.7% of the time in 2018 [1]. Keep in mind that on-time can still be as much as 15 minutes late.

[1] https://www.transportation.gov/sites/dot.gov/files/docs/reso...

Re: Rising Waters Are Drowning Amtrak's Northeast Corridor

#99

Post by pdonis »

koops wrote: post #27
cabaalis wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> based on the premise that water levels around Wilmington would rise 2 feet by 2050. I'm curious. I've been hearing about the expected effects of climate change for many years. At least since ~2005 or 2006. Are there any predictions of conditions in 2000, or 2020, which have panned out as predicted?

I don't know about sea level rise prediction accuracy, but temperature "hindcasts" hold up pretty well: https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-how-well-have-climate-m...

> I don't know about sea level rise prediction accuracy

We have no way of knowing because no predictions were made for periods of time prior to now, so we have nothing to compare with the data.

The dire predictions of rapid rise in the future are based on the future predictions of climate models being correct, but the models are already known to over-predict future warming.

https://judithcurry.com/2018/11/27/special-report-on-sea-lev...

> temperature "hindcasts" hold up pretty well

But temperature forecasts don't. Hindcasts aren't predictions.

https://judithcurry.com/2015/12/17/climate-models-versus-cli...

Re: Rising Waters Are Drowning Amtrak's Northeast Corridor

#100

Post by pdonis »

makerofspoons wrote: post #48
rfinney wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I keep seeing charts that say otherwise: https://cei.org/sites/default/files/Figure%201.JPG . This suggests the models are not accurate. Who is right?

Certainly not the CEI's (Competitive Enterprise Institute) who distributed your figure. They have a long history of spreading disinformation, going back to the fight over tobacco policy: https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Competitive_Enterprise...

> Certainly not the CEI's (Competitive Enterprise Institute) who distributed your figure.

The CEI is only one of many places that "distribute" this figure. As you can see from the lower left of the figure, it was actually made by John Christy, a climate scientists who showed it in testimony before the US House of Representatives in 2015. A good discussion of the chart and what it means is given in the Judith Curry article I linked to in another post upthread.

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