Are people in general this head-in-the-sand or is it really that hard to grasp?
- Estimates of climate change in the scientific literature tend to be conservative. Scientists often publish "at least" projections that lay readers might read as "up to". Especially if readers are consuming multiply digested-and-regurgitated versions of scientific reports (primary literature -> university press office -> Gizmodo).
- Considering average effects without accounting for extremes: e.g. visualizing "X centimeters of sea level rise by 2050" for a property near water without accounting for what that higher average level means during the worst storm of a decade.
- Thinking that you'll have enough warning before everyone else's irrational exuberance evaporates that you can go with the herd for the foreseeable future. With something as big as a home purchase, most Americans will sadly only get one chance to learn this lesson the hard way.
- I only need to worry about this if I live until the year 2100.
- After the year 2100 the trend lines will stop going up. If humans are ready for the effects of AGW in 2100, we're sorted away for the rest of history.
Ports are necessary to a nation for reasons of infrastructure and logistics that I won't go into right now. However, this is not to say that Miami or Myrtle Beach are as important as Houston or... say ... New Orleans. The reality is that there are certain ports that are more critical to the continuance of the US than others. And I'm hard pressed to think of two ports more critical to our survival than Houston and New Orleans. If those two were to disappear tomorrow, I'm pretty sure the rest of us would find out the hard way why they were important. (I'm not a petro-chemical engineer myself, but I was at Halliburton for a bit, and metallurgy alone to replace 5 or 6 trillion dollars worth of pipelines would be staggering.)
So given the criticality of certain ports... maybe there are people out there identifying the "ocean front property" that the US cannot live without... and buying it up where it is affordable? They wouldn't be so much gambling... as they would be seeing where resources will have to go... and getting there first.
"The effects of climate-driven price drops could ripple across the economy, and eventually force the federal government to decide what is owed to people whose home values are ruined by climate change."
Nothing is owed to these people. The sea has always been a hazard. Ocean levels have always fluctuated. That doesn't change just because someone spends a bucket of money to build a house there.
I'm guessing you don't criticize people queueing up for properties in the Bay Area, where the Big One could happen any day, and while it will probably be in the East Bay, we really can't say for sure. And in that case, you don't just lose your basement, but possibly your life. In my opinion there are quite a few "heads in the sand," as you put it, on the west coast.
Your point about doing 'unwise things' because you have the money is well taken, and most waterfront property, like other highly depreciating assets, are a vanity thing, so I get that point well.
It doesn't surprise me at all that your "brilliant engineers" think climate change is a hoax and have bought waterfront property in a flood zone.
BTW, I'm an engineer (EE) myself, so I see this stuff in my colleagues (maybe not the terrorism stuff so much, but definitely the religion and conservatism).
Oceanfront, sure. Seafront, somewhat. Lakefront, not so much.
I expect most of them not only bought property, they voted to make a coal-supporting climate-change denier president....