Neil deGrasse Tyson: When the rich start losing money, they’ll take climate change seriously (via Raw Story )
Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson characterized the naysaying surrounding climate change as par for the course in footage aired on Monday from his interview with MSNBC host Chris Hayes, “The evidence will show up when they need more evidence,”…
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"“No, it would come up to the Statue of Liberty’s elbow — the one that’s holding the Declaration of Independence. That’s how high the water line will be.”
Well, that's at least one way to get rid of that thing....
Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses, yearning to tread water.
;)
I don't know if this is connected, but these properties are going to be underwater, literally.
A Former Hedge Fund Manager Is Selling His Florida Beach House For $13 Million
There are also going to be seawalls going up soon around extremely high-value property like Manhattan, but obviously that would not work as the water level gets that high on the Statue of Liberty. But unless event really speed up that's down the line many years if the trend continues as projected.
It leaves me curious about the basic ethics. When a person decides to live on the coast or in a vulnerable area to earth forces, then construct a structure, do they have the right to assume the weather, ocean and continent won't change? If so what obligation does society have to protect them and try to stop natural processes. For example, there is precedent in flooding or rain water run off, we make large investments in flood control. There are also examples like snow, rainfall or groundwater where when patterns change and it is viewed as 'bad luck' for the land owner. In areas on the west coast, where fires can rage out of control from earth quakes, the costs are largely distributed by building codes that apply equally to everyone.
Assuming that we decided that we wanted to encourage 'good' climate change (cooling) and discourage 'bad' climate change (warming), how would society do that.
Should we penalize users of the greenhouse gasses according to the science on which create the most severe warming? What about credits for producing cooling pollutants?
What if the science changes or it turns out the models that predict accelerating rates of change turn out to be false?
Given that the all the models have failed to estimate the rates of change and magnitudes of change thus far, How do we complete a normal cost benefit analysis for taxation and investment?
If certain low lying areas like parts of Manhattan, Miami, New Orleans, Seattle or San Francisco can not be saved, should further development immediately begin to be blocked? When do we force people to actually move and abandon their property?
If something turns out to have been wrong (highly likely given that models has been flawed up to now) how do we compensate the winners and losers if society followed the best science 'available'. Who gets the land that people were forced from? Who profits and who loses from making the scientific claims of catastrophe?
End of world type discussions are laced with all these ethical questions and stir up passions but no one wants to talk about the practical stuff, we seem caught up talking about whether the earth will warm up 3/4 of a degree or 4 degrees over the next century which is sort of beside the point. Climate will change, human induced or otherwise, continents will move, and ocean levels will vary radically. What is to be done?
The basic working principle now being followed by custom is that people purchase private insurance to the degree possible and government cover the "acts of God" that can't profitably be insured. But then political decisions have to made regarding the limits to this. It seems pretty clearly unreasonable to cover all eventualities and some seem obvious, That's bound to be disagreement at the margin. So in the end it's likely to be a politically choice with all that implies.
I think we are at the point of facing such choices as private insurance in many cases is rapidly increasing in price as claims increase. This is already beginning to have economic effects, and as Tyson says, when cost becomes an significant issue, then the politics will change, too.
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