Comment by ggm | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ggm | Hacker News Reader

It's hardly surprising as amelioration starts to hit, the economic losers bring out the army of voices to try and head off things. And, it would be foolish to assume this is not what's going on, because every single prior case of regulatory end of life for an industry has included this kind of "growing skepticism" -including well meaning skeptics who independently voice positions which are leveraged into "told you so" positions in opposition. (see a well known UK "alternative energy cannot scale" website by a now dead statistician which is very well written but is also now 15-20 years behind improvements in science)

I am completely not shocked that this is being seen, and more importantly being reported on. I would be amazed if it's not picked up and carried by News Ltd which has a significant AGW amplification posture, despite its denials.

If you want a clear signal of change, look to the Insurance industry and defence. Both have a requirement to consider 20-50 year window investment consequences. Both are pretty confident that AGW has costs they want to start to understand. They started this posture several decades ago. I don't see the insurance or re-insurance industry as a bunch of Kumbayah singers, nor defence-materials industry and strategic investment. If they see a problem, then its pretty damn real.

I think the insurance industry is going to declare parts of Louisiana and Florida an insurance free zone. If you want to live there, be super rich and self-insure, or be very poor and wear the loss. The middle ground is told to go elsewhere.

The insurance industry declared parts of Florida uninsurable decades ago. The National Flood Insurance Program and taxpayers are on the hook now: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Flood_Insurance_Pro...

That's disgusting

That's only vaguely related to climate change though - insurance has ditched out because fraud is rampant

Which specific parts of Florida are uninsurable because of climate change?

First, getting flood insurance (because of recurring hurricanes) is something that you rely on the government for in Florida just as getting earthquake insurance is something only the government can do for you in California.

When you are talking about disasters on the scale of earthquakes or hurricanes, then the private sector isn't able to handle it and hands it off to FEMA. This has nothing to do with climate change, but with scale. Private insurance is designed to deal with lots of small random events, but it can't handle the consequences of a major earthquake in California any more than it can handle the consequences of a major hurricane in Florida. In that case, the state has to step in.

FYI, hurricanes are not more severe or frequent now than the historical norm. They do cause more property damage because of population growth and GDP growth, but once you normalize for GDP, they are not causing more damage, either. There is, unfortunately, a ton of misinformation about this point, which is odd since the raw data is so easily available to review[1]. The deception is usually that people observe wind speeds and frequencies are not increasing but the value of damage does increase over time, and they conclude that something is getting more destructive, ignoring the fact that these areas are being built up across time. You have the exact same situation as with earthquakes in California, which I hope we do not blame on climate change -- they also cause more damage over time because there is a lot more value to destroy in 2020 than in 1920. And you have the same issue with forest fires, mud slides, etc -- housing destroyed is much more abundant and valuable now so insurance claims go up over time.

[1] See https://twitter.com/shellenbergermd/status/15765969644472033... for a long thread with lists of multiple sources.

It doesn't help that "global warming" gets renamed to "climate change". I see that NASA hasn't moved sea-level facilities, and private space companies are actively building at sea level. Then you have eg the BBC trying to make a gigantic fuss about the first hot day of summer - rightly mocked by all. The efforts to emphasise the narrative are blatantly... hot air.

Space facilities need to be close to the ocean so that they can ditch rockets without hitting cities.

They need to be as close to the equator (so in North America, as far south) as possible to get the most centrifugal boost from the Earth (use the least fuel) possible.

Perhaps NASA isn't taking it seriously enough wrt facility placement, but they're hardly alone in that. And lots of people are making huge investments, eg, the city of Venice is building sea walls that they haven't previously needed, despite always having been on the coast.

Global Warming was confusing because, while global average temperatures are rising, the effect locally can be unintuitive, eg, destabilizing the polar vortex had resulted in harsher winters in the northern US.

Science communication is hard and it turns out people are pretty bad at it. I'd agree that doesn't help matters. But climate change is indeed real and a huge problem.

I think the parent comment was not (only) about facilities close to the coast, but, more importantly, at a low altitude, more prone to floods.

Couldn't the launch facilities be constructed near the coast, but at higher altitude, say on top of cliffs of 50m or so?

Where? I don't believe Florida has any seaside cliffs. There's California, but the cliffside beach regions are subject to wildfires and mudslides. There's Hawaii, but I imagine transporting the equipment there would be a challenge, and they're not going to move all manufacturing facilities to Hawaii.

California isn't an option, either.

The ideal launch site:

1) As close to the equator as possible.

2) Has open water to the *east* of the launch site. (Wasteland is also acceptable, that's what Russia does. They also care less if they drop it on somebody's head. China doesn't seem to care--we've seen them drop a rocket on a village.)

3) Has a huge amount of open space around it in case the rocket goes boom on the pad.

California fails the east requirement, it's used for polar launches (where you want water to either the north or south) but you can't insert into a normal equatorial orbit from there.

Hawaii fails the space requirement. Not to mention all the logistics hassles it would cause. Thus Florida it is and assume the infrastructure will in time be lost.

You mean the hottest day ever recorded in the UK?

No, I don't.

On average, it's warming, but an average is an average.

Some places will cool, but not cool as much as cold places will warm and other warm places will warm

If you are into podcasts, I found this episode looking at insurance (and reinsurance) for homes in Florida quite enlightening.

https://www.marketplace.org/shows/how-we-survive/risky-busin...

AGW = Anthropogenic global warming

Reply on news.ycombinator.com