Los Angeles Bans New Oil Wells, Plans to Close Existing Ones | Hacker News Reader

Los Angeles Bans New Oil Wells, Plans to Close Existing Ones

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11 pointsLinuxBender8 comments

Just as we're facing an energy crunch and massive inflation, caused in part by high energy prices, we could dramatically expand our production, crash prices, and bankrupt dangerous despots in the process. But no, we just can't have nice things, and our quality of life must deteriorate.

I mean that’s the thing no one’s going to talk about but it should be priority 1.

We have leaders who see the people suffering, see inflation rising, the dollar shrinking. They see power being a problem worldwide. They see people struggling to stay afloat and classes shifting downward in quality of life.

And they keep amping it up. I get the sense this is the wrong site to say this, but I remember in early 2000s Al gore claiming that double digit percentages of Florida would be underwater now.

If I’m understanding, that’s the basic justification for all these energy sources we have available to simply not be used. But afaik Florida isn’t under the ocean any more than when the documentary came out, but people sure are feeling the effects of global manipulation.

I’m sure I’m going to get downvotes and some very witty responses

They had a pretty impressive hurricane that gave it a go. The state's built on limestone, so "under water" might end up "down in the hole" one building at a time. And "under water" also means that everybody's mortgage > equity. Maybe Gore anticipated the insurance businesses leaving Florida and everybody assumed ocean?

Miami is spending hundreds of millions to keep the water at bay. Some streets regularly flood high enough to swamp a car.

https://phys.org/news/2021-02-flood-prone-miami-billions-tac...

> The area, with extensive wetlands and sitting on porous stone that acts like a sponge, makes the state one of the most at risk from rising sea levels. The problem is so visible that, during the summer rainy season, it is common to see Miamians kayaking along flooded avenues and cars sunk up to their windows.

https://e360.yale.edu/features/as-miami-keeps-building-risin...

> Municipalities here have set aside at least $800 million to fight the rising sea.

> And the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has proposed to boost the spending with a $4.6 billion plan to secure Miami from storm surge

> The City of Miami Beach spent some $400 million installing pumps and raising streets around neighborhoods that regularly flooded during high tides

Humor me - your article talks about investment companies building real estate right by the water. The articles tout large numbers, but are almost entirely vague as to what that money is used for.

The only things I see are pumps and raising roads… the Netherlands has been implementing both of those technologies for hundreds of years. I’m sure Florida, being a swamp, has has these kinds of issues before and has solved the issues similarly.

My point being - in the abstract, these sources do very little to convince one that the climate change prophecies are coming to fruition. I remember hearing cities would be flooded by 2020, not they need to raise the roads in problematic areas but real estate investment continues undeterred

Well that’s a stunning denial of reality. Hundreds of billions on engineering projects as kayakers float past flooded cars — but “Miami isn’t flooding.” Good god.

What's so nice about having low capacity oil wells operating inside city limits?

Some cursory searching indicates that the loss of oil production in Los Angeles county would more or less be a rounding error against the total of US production, I can't say this seems like it would move the needle much for energy prices.

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