Bloomberg does How to Adapt to the End of the World

[Potemkin Villager]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... -the-world

"Diana Liverman, a professor at the University of Arizona School of Geography and Development and one of the authors of this summer’s paper, says adapting will mean “relocation or completely different infrastructure and crops.� She cites last year’s book New York 2140, in which the science fiction author Kim Stanley Robinson imagines the city surviving under 50 feet of water, as “the extreme end of adaptation.�

Relocating large numbers of homes away from the coast is perhaps the most expensive item on that list. The U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency has spent $2.8 billion since 1989 to buy 40,000 homes in areas particularly prone to flooding, giving their owners the chance to move somewhere safer. But if seas rose 3 feet, more than 4 million Americans would have to move, according to a 2016 study in the journal Nature: Climate Change."

and

" For Bendell, the question of when climate change might shake the Western social order is less important than beginning to talk about how to prepare for it. He acknowledges that his premise shares something with the survivalist movement, which is likewise built on the belief that some sort of social collapse is coming.

But he says deep adaptation is different: It looks for ways to mitigate the damage of that collapse. “The discussion I’m inviting is about collective responses to reduce harm,� he says, “rather than how a few people could tough it out to survive longer than others.�"

[emordnilap]

Imagine, the US having to deal with refugees.

[vtsnowedin]

Imagine, the US having to deal with refugees.

Having some eleven million illegal immigrants already in the USA I think we are already dealing with more then a few refugees.

[emordnilap]

I don't mean people who individually make their way through slightly porous borders - I mean waves of them, including visibles and invisibles.

[Potemkin Villager]

My main takeaway was the astonishing statement "The U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency has spent $2.8 billion since 1989 to buy 40,000 homes in areas particularly prone to flooding, giving their owners the chance to move somewhere safer. But if seas rose 3 feet, more than 4 million Americans would have to move, according to a 2016 study in the journal Nature: Climate Change."

What is going on here? I would have thought it inconceivable for a US federal agency to be allowed to interfere with thaqt capitalist holy of holys in the form of the property market. Apart from anything else the whole thing is choc a bloc with fantastic opportunities for widespread corruption.

I would say the chances of this sort of central government intervention in Britain or Ireland would be next to zero.

[kenneal - lagger]

.....
I would say the chances of this sort of central government intervention in Britain or Ireland would be next to zero.

We are already losing hundreds of homes along the East Coast and the government is doing nothing. With sea level rise that will accelerate and it won't just be the soft clay and silt soils that go. The chalk cliffs and the shales of the Jurassic coast will start to erode at a much faster rate as the current beaches get overwhelmed and washed away.

That would be when the government might be persuaded to compensate people. There might even be court action as the government backed target of only 1.5 deg C maximum temperature rise might be seen to have contributed to the problem.

The ludicrous thing is that there doesn't seem to be any planning guidance over development on low lying ground at the moment. There is a massive development that has just gained approval near Doncaster which is below 10 metres AOD. OK according to the official figures this won't go under water in this century but it will go under within the lifespan of those houses, assuming modern construction will last more than 80 years!!

[adam2]

In Minehead a new hospital, a hotel, and numerous homes have been built in a low lying area within sight of the sea.

The local authority attempted re-assurance by stating that the buildings were several meters above sea level. They are indeed some meters above MEAN sea level.
It sounds less reassuring to state they are already below high tide level ! Lets hope that the sea wall is maintained and improved then.

And if the sea does not come over, or around, or under the sea wall, the area is also vulnerable to freshwater flooding during thunderstorms.

BTW, when applying for listed building consent to replace an upstairs window in my home which is on a hill, I had to complete a "flood risk assessment" Nice to know that TPTB have their priorities right !