Who will pay to protect tech giants from rising seas?
apps.npr.org
apps.npr.org
These companies would take a freebie if municipalities decided to mitigate flooding on their behalf, but it wouldn't end up being an existential issue for them to just move elsewhere if things became untenable.
Also consider that all the workers are also tax payers and they want the company to continue existing, their taxes would also go towards protecting the bay. Their tax dollars wouldn't exist in California if those tech companies weren't there.
In fact, it's from places all over the world, significantly poorer places, where the money would stretch even further.
You're making it sound even worse.
Edit: The main point is that nobody can say that San Francisco has less money with those tech companies operating there than they would if those tech companies left. They are among the richest places on earth and should easily be afford any measures that can be afforded anywhere.
Yes, in the sense that you would still nominally be a taxpayer if you had ways to pay $1-$5 tax per year, while still making $300K.
Costs of sea dikes – regressions and uncertainty estimates (2017)
https://nhess.copernicus.org/articles/17/765/2017/nhess-17-7...
It's kind of how the NYC metro is not meant to break even, it cost the city money to run it, but it second order effect it is a huge economic driver thus worth footing the bill for
As I understand it the system is so behind on updates and repairs that it would take decades to correct and I think there's a lot of graft and mishandling of funds that won't ever be investigated.
They are making the wrong question. Or some of the companies/entities behind (either causing, financing disinformation campaings, or getting "donations" from them) have to support that cost, or should be done by the government (they didn't take any compromise regarding climate for almost 30 years) or the people will have to deal with that in their own way.
And in the last case, the companies are in the same situation.
And the worst part is that the problem won't be a couple of feet of sea level rise, in the last month we've seen plenty of floods by extreme weather alone. And not sure how will end the sea level at the end of the decade with the positive feedback on climate, and high temperatures around Greenland.
what kind of fool tries to fight against the ocean, and bill the rest of society for it?
Basically move the chipplant into an old aircraft carrier, stabilize in production mode with pillars and piers - and thus be encapsulated from local market turmoils, international politics and local politicians.Seasteading, without the sea, but all the negotiation benefits of mobility.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_aircraft_carrier_Liaon...
It's just that if you think of what we're going to spend worldwide to mitigate the harms of sea level rise, it seems incredibly stupid to be burning subsidized fossil fuels. That's without even factoring in the other problems climate change will bring. A proper carbon taxing scheme with tariffs on countries that don't play along would make so much sense.
One way or another the bill will be paid. Nature is a relentless debt collector.
for some definition of cheaper. For full cost you need to factor in political costs of implementing such a a collective action as well as opportunity costs. And once built it needs to be maintained. It requires continuous involvement into political fight to insure that the maintenance is happening to avoid Katrina type situations. The implicit threat of non-maintenance becomes a tool of political blackmail and pressure. It makes for high-risk business environment which is just bad for business.
>it seems incredibly stupid to be burning subsidized fossil fuels.
well, removing the subsidies and decreasing the fossil fuel burn is an immediately available very low cost collective action to slow climate change and delay water rise... We can see how it's been going so far.
>A proper carbon taxing scheme with tariffs on countries that don't play along would make so much sense.
Russia for example has all the sanctions and tariffs (and when there is no tariff imposed from outside, Russia usually takes care about that by having self-inflicted inside tariff there :) so it is hard to make much more, and Russia is anyway going full-steam into that warmer future (the global warming was taught in middle school even back in 198x in USSR) pumping oil and gas like crazy. Many Russian territories are becoming much more conductive for living and doing agriculture there. Short of WWIII there is not much can be done here (and Russia is actively building bases in the North and Far East as well as new strategic weapons system - the point is that they don't bet much on global international cooperation :). I'm pointing at Russia because i know it better than other countries, and of course it may be that Russia is large outlier, yet i somehow think that a number of other countries are also not betting much on successful global international cooperation in particular when it comes to global warming.