Wonder when banks will stop granting mortgages for coastal properties.
Wonder when banks will stop granting mortgages for coastal properties.
- contaminate fresh water aquifers (see Florida now).
- flood wetlands (again, see Florida now).
- contaminate agricultural soil with salt water (see Maryland now; https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-water-farming-feature...).
- increase erosion, especially during storm surges (see NC now; https://climate.nasa.gov/blog/2974/cant-see-sea-level-rise-y...).
- flood low-lying areas during storms (see New Orleans, parts of the Netherlands, and Maldives now).
- due to the above, lost habits for various flora and fauna.
I am certain that seeing former beach resorts permanently underwater would probably be one of the most tangible ways to get people to believe in global warming, but Mother Nature is a bit more subtle than that while still being incredibly destructive.
I fully agree with your concerns regarding climate but specifically in the Netherlands the flooding of designated flood areas is actually by design, with well in advance warnings, these areas are pretty much designed to be escape valves.
The Rijkswaterstaat even goes as far as monitoring upstream river flows from neighbouring countries to predict increased downstream river flow due to storms or alpine glaciar melts.
the Netherlands are already below sea level today - they had to think about building defenses since at least the Iron age[1]. So I guess they have somewhat a head-start. It should be in their "DNA" by now, some kind of "collective cognitive muscle memory" (still for such a tiny country and floods being a real threat already since always even they have many climate change deniers). For small countries zoning solutions can be applied everywhere equally (from both an engineering and administrative view).
But Dutch dikes lend themselves poorly for comparisons against places that occupy the land of half a continent ranging from the arctic to the tropics and 6 time zones.
I'm not saying it isn't a useful model in select regions/countries. but considering how poorly managed public safety is in the US today[2] it sadly takes more than ideas to prevent major loss of life. From [2]:
"> You may wish to pretend that rising seas are a hoax perpetrated by scientists and a gullible news media. Or you can build barriers galore. But in the end, neither will provide adequate defense, the Dutch say."
"> And what holds true for managing climate change applies to the social fabric, too. Environmental and social resilience should go hand in hand, officials here believe, improving neighborhoods, spreading equity and taming water during catastrophes."
Millions will either be displaced or dead until the threat might be acknowledged. Even them I'm pessimistic considering folk on the ICU literally die of covid and still clam it is a hoax. I think the way people cope will be simply by tuning out the horror reports the same way we do today simply because the effects/damage will be distributed unevenly.
[0] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/06/15/world/europe/...
[1] http://dutchdikes.net/history/
[2] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/07/20/the-really-big...
Can I trust climate change models more and why should I?
the reason is that epidemics grow and shrink more or less exponentially - if you mispredict a particular point in time, the error from that point onwards also grows exponentially. temperature relationship between CO2 and other GHGs are approximately linear. global warming predictions made 40 years ago about average temperature rise are basically spot on.
This is over-extraction.
No one will stop the over-extraction because they get to pass the buck to the biblically unstoppable Global Warming.
Personally I trend towards let the world burn, there's no way to stop this. The Global Warming believers cannot be pulled back, there's too many and they are to indoctrinated, they want Armageddon, it's an important part of their belief system.
They won't end the world. And it's sad what they will destroy, but concentrate on oneself over the damage Global Warming followers will cause and personally you will be better off. I unfortunately don't think there is a societal solution.
I said dollars, not people.