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posted by martyb on Sunday February 24 2019, @01:29AM   Printer-friendly
from the I've-got-a-sinking-feeling-about-this dept.

Phys.org:

The far-flung Marshall Islands needs to raise its islands if it is to avoid being drowned by rising sea levels, President Hilda Heine has warned.

Plans are underway for national talks on which of the 1,156 islands, scattered over 29 coral atolls, can be elevated in a dramatic intervention to ensure safety on the islands.
...
Most of the islands are less than two metres (6.5 feet) above sea level and the government believes physically raising the islands was the only way to save the Marshall Islands from extinction.

Is the solution a viable one, or are the Marshallese more likely to join the Sea Gypsies?


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  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Monday February 25 2019, @04:05PM (7 children)

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday February 25 2019, @04:05PM (#806353) Journal

    Yes, it does, particularly when the "land" is mud pumped up out of the local bay. However, in Miami it is a combination effect, subsidence accounted for 90%+ of "rising water levels" through the 1960s, but rising ocean levels are now being given credit for roughly 50% of the overall rate in most places. Rising ocean levels may have only accelerated mitigation projects in my neighborhood from the mid 2000s to the early 2000s, but other neighborhoods that might have been "dry enough" through the 2050s are going to need mitigation in the 2020s, and it continues to accelerate.

    Will those neighborhoods even exist by the time they need mitigation? Even in the absence of climate change, Miami would see powerful hurricanes. While this is an modest example of the harm of rising sea level, it's also an example of people building in harm's way. I don't think we should care about people chasing the nuisance, particularly if some other nuisance gets them first.

  • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday February 25 2019, @04:54PM (6 children)

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Monday February 25 2019, @04:54PM (#806389)

    Will those neighborhoods even exist by the time they need mitigation? Even in the absence of climate change, Miami would see powerful hurricanes.

    Andrew, 1992, qualifies as a highly powerful and destructive hurricane. Everything (of value, which is most of it) that was destroyed in Andrew was replaced, rebuilt bigger, stronger. Some time around 2005-6 Miami got 3 significant hurricane strikes in a single year, again - all rebuilt.

    Building in harm's way? No more than the rest of the tropics / Caribbean, Pacific islands, Oz, NZ, Indonesia, Japan. And, where there's not Hurricanes there are other significant hazards: tornadoes of the Midwest, earthquakes, volcanoes, blizzards, etc.

    Maybe you live under a rock in Montana and think you're safe - but there are hazards there too.

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    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Monday February 25 2019, @05:23PM (5 children)

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday February 25 2019, @05:23PM (#806414) Journal

      Andrew, 1992, qualifies as a highly powerful and destructive hurricane. Everything (of value, which is most of it) that was destroyed in Andrew was replaced, rebuilt bigger, stronger. Some time around 2005-6 Miami got 3 significant hurricane strikes in a single year, again - all rebuilt.

      Where did the money for that come from? It's not climate change that caused that effect.

      • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday February 25 2019, @09:57PM (4 children)

        by JoeMerchant (3937) on Monday February 25 2019, @09:57PM (#806600)

        ~30 named tropical storms in the Northern Atlantic basin one year (one of the bad ones in Miami was named Wilma) - that's an outlier by any measure, and it's too early to tell exactly where the inflection point in "average hurricane severity" will be placed, but it's quite possible that in the future that year with all those storms might be named the beginning of the significant increase.

        As for: was it just a freak outlier? If you go by cost of damage, the 2017 season was even more costly.

        As for: money for the repairs? Insurance. The national pool, because after Andrew the "Good Hands People" and everybody else in the private sector dropped hurricane country like they just learned it was a radioactive skunk.

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        • (Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday February 27 2019, @11:50AM (3 children)

          by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday February 27 2019, @11:50AM (#807540) Journal

          Insurance. The national pool

          Bingo. Don't blame climate change when you publicly fund dumb behavior. Notice that it gets worse each time the rebuild happens.

          • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday February 27 2019, @01:07PM (2 children)

            by JoeMerchant (3937) on Wednesday February 27 2019, @01:07PM (#807572)

            Don't blame climate change when you publicly fund dumb behavior.

            Having been born, and lived all my life, within 30' of sea level and 20 miles of a beach, I don't call living near the coast "dumb behavior." So far, my family has sustained 1 65% house rebuild required due to hurricane activity, and maybe another 80 hours of cleanup, total, in the last 60 years of owning an average of 4 homes in the most hurricane active parts of the U.S. Putting up shutters and evacuating from large metro areas are almost as much PITA as the one rebuild was.

            I do call shoveling snow up to 3 months a year dumb behavior. Take all the labor of that snow shoveling for 240 years and compare it to rebuilding one house. Compare the overall lifestyle impact to productivity and enjoyability. Similarly, compare the risk to the risk of tornado strike in 240 years in Kansas, or earthquake damage for 240 years in California, or Civil War for 240 years in Appalachia.

            Now, if (when) climate change quadruples the effective risk of Hurricane damage, that does start to suck.

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            • (Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday February 28 2019, @02:41AM (1 child)

              by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday February 28 2019, @02:41AM (#807946) Journal

              Having been born, and lived all my life, within 30' of sea level and 20 miles of a beach, I don't call living near the coast "dumb behavior."

              So what?

              So far, my family has sustained 1 65% house rebuild required due to hurricane activity, and maybe another 80 hours of cleanup, total, in the last 60 years of owning an average of 4 homes in the most hurricane active parts of the U.S.

              For your locations and data points, that means that hurricane insurance for your sort of house should be at least 1% of the value of the house per year. Get closer to the beach where the actual storm surges happen, we should see higher replacement rates for that property.

              I do call shoveling snow up to 3 months a year dumb behavior. Take all the labor of that snow shoveling for 240 years and compare it to rebuilding one house. Compare the overall lifestyle impact to productivity and enjoyability. Similarly, compare the risk to the risk of tornado strike in 240 years in Kansas, or earthquake damage for 240 years in California, or Civil War for 240 years in Appalachia.

              You'd be replacing more than three homes worth just from hurricanes in 240 years at your current rate. That buys a lot of snow shoveling (at $200k per house and say $15 per hour for snow shoveling, that would buy 20 full-time man-years of snow shoveling).

              • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday February 28 2019, @03:21AM

                by JoeMerchant (3937) on Thursday February 28 2019, @03:21AM (#807958)

                For your locations and data points, that means that hurricane insurance for your sort of house should be at least 1% of the value of the house per year.

                In flood zones, it's on that order of magnitude - particularly when you combine standard homeowners' with NFP, and it does increase dramatically in the V zones. I believe most low lying property in the V (for Velocity - where storm surge wave action is expected) is self-insured these days. Even 20 years ago, a $100K structure in the Florida Keys was $12,000 per year to insure.

                You'd be replacing more than three homes worth just from hurricanes in 240 years at your current rate.

                You misunderstand the math: an average of four homes for 60 years required 0.65 homes worth of storm damage rebuild - that single event was the only time any house lost a window or had any water damage inside. That's 370 years per total rebuild, which probably explains why net insurance costs run on the order of $1500 per year for a $200K structure: inefficiencies of insurance administration, profits, greed, etc.

                Houses built "on the beach" in the V zones tend to be owned by people who can afford whatever comes, they also tend to cost 5+x what an equivalent home without the open water view costs.

                at $200k per house and say $15 per hour for snow shoveling

                If you like shoveling snow for $15 per hour, sure... I call that stupid, too, but go for that: 13,000 hours of snow shoveling rebuilds one house. Some folks I knew who tried to live in Boston were screwing with the snow for 100+ hours per year, so that would be 130 years per house. Even if you get by with only 35 hours per year of snow shoveling, that's working as hard to shovel snow as people who have our luck in Hurricane country do repairing storm damaged houses - on average - which is why storm damage is handled with insurance.

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