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Comment by Animats | Hacker News Reader

How do I short Miami and New Orleans on a scale of 30 years?

You make a very big assumption - that people don't care about Miami, a city with global name recognition and so on...

I also assume you are not on Instagram, where Miami is huge - it's the 6th global instagrammed city, second US one (London, NY, Paris, Dubai, Istanbul, Miami, LA) - https://www.statista.com/statistics/655550/most-hashtagged-c...

Instead of shorting it you might want to long "defending it".

It's going to be pretty hard to defend it. It's built on porous limestone. So water's going to bubble up everywhere - not like defending NYC

I think he means invest in seawall manufacturing companies, as opposed to some bizarre financial instrument that allows you to profit from the demise of an entire city.

As parent mentioned Miami can’t be protected with sea walls because the geology allows water to seep up and will drown the first floor of buildings with any sea level rise

I read an article the other day about how Miami residents are mostly not concerned and seem to hold up other places such as Rotterdam who are doing a good job dealing with these issues but not understanding that Miami's geology and hydrology is vastly different and is going to leave them seriously screwed.

Please help me understand how care and instagram pictures are going to stop rising water?

The only thing that may help is quickly lowering CO2 emissions worldwide. I think no amount of care, willpower or even unlimited amounts of federal money can save Miami otherwise.

You say that as if Miami's current popularity will preserve through global climate change. I don't think Miami can "defend" against the earth's inevitable climate change for better or worse.

New Orleans has enough vital infrastructure that it isn’t going anywhere. As for Miami, maybe short some REITs based around there or whatever art you think cartel people like to launder money with when they’re done with the banks

Default swaps on state/city bonds (spoiler alert - you can’t)

Bring enough money to a bank with the trade and they’ll make you a market. Probably nothing with that kind of maturity on any exchange.

Explain why?

The thought is that rising sea levels and/or hurricanes will doom them.

Which is a ridiculous thought. Sea levels are going to rise in the span of hundreds of years. You can move the whole city in that time span.

Cities aren't just a collection of buildings. They're like your grandfather's axe.

You might be a little quick with your cavalier dismissal.

https://www.businessinsider.com/miami-floods-sea-level-rise-...

Miami is already being impacted by sea level rise. It is not ridiculous, at all, to think that in <30 years areas of Miami will be uninsurable, and therefore unmortgageable, and the water supply for the entire area will be threatened.

How is Miami being impacted by the 3" of risen sea levels over the past 25 years?

""thermal expansion" of the ocean has contributed about half of the 2.8 inches (7 centimeters) of global mean sea level rise we've seen over the last 25 years, Nerem said. Second, melting land ice flows into the ocean, also increasing sea level across the globe."

hundreds of years? No, by 2050 Miami will be uninhabitable. (https://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/united-nations-climate-re...) Rate of sea level rise is accelerating. (https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2680/new-study-finds-sea-level...) It is not a linear growth curve. Miami is a city scale game of musical chairs. The question is who will be left holding the land when there are no buyers?

In Bangladesh there won't be a place to move the cities to.

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