The Economic Cost of Houston’s Heat | Hacker News Reader

The Economic Cost of Houston’s Heat

wsj.com

34 pointsimpish920848 comments

I live in Houston currently and the heat is absolutely oppressive. Most days going outside feels like exploring Arrakis. It’s dangerous to go outside while the sun is out, lest you spontaneously combust.

It’s steadily been getting worse, year after year, but this summer is the worst I’ve ever experienced.

I’ve already decided this is the last summer I’ll spend here. If I don’t land an in person job here in the next few months, I’m packing up and going to Denver or Seattle.

I don't know how you guys live there and I grew up in tropical South America!

I had a stopover in Houston coming from Anchorage to MSP. It was 90+ degrees and humid as hell in the airport at 6AM

Never again!

> in the airport

How was it so unpleasant indoors?!

Damned if I know! I just remember thinking that if it was this bad inside, how much worse it had to be outside.

Unrelated to climate, but speaking of unpleasantness indoors, the Houston airport authorities decided to let a barbecue restaurant open in the middle of the newest, nicest terminal at IAH, with smoke pits and all. It smells strongly of smoked meat 24 hours a day (or so I assume, as someone who has been in that terminal at both 2 am and at noon in the last few weeks). It’s completely intolerable and frankly kind of disgusting.

And I say this as someone who loves BBQ! It’s just too much, too soon, as soon as you step off the plane. I can’t imagine spending a long layover there.

This summer in Boston has been the coolest summer I ever experienced in my life (colder than last 4 summers in Boston) including 3 summers I spent in SF (which, as the famous joke goes, are colder than its winters). So, maybe Boston is a good option for our climate change future?

NYC this summer was disgustingly hot though! So maybe this Boston thing is a random statistical anomaly.

Do we live in the same city? The last few weeks has had multiple days over 90 degrees, with a very minor respite when it rains. We haven't even hit August yet (which is typically way hotter than July).

Also FWIW, the entire New England area may be prone to forest fires as bad as the west coast if the region continues to dry out. There is no management of brush in Maine or Vermont or New Hampshire (or even Canada for that matter).

You also can't exactly predict the effects of climate change on regions. I don't think anyone ever thought Washington or Oregon state would experience 24+ hour 100 degree heats during the summer, but they did and will likely experience it again in the future.

There definitely were warm days, but I think overall it was a cold summer, coldest I personally experienced. I've been in Boston since 2018. E.g. night were quite windy and cold, also it rained quite a bit. It was a chilly, windy, wet summer, which is something I enjoyed. It was extremely easy to cool my house down, only worked the AC at the worst of the heat at Eco mode.

> So, maybe Boston is a good option for our climate change future?

Unlikely, given that places nearer to the poles have experienced greater variations. But I don't think Boston is at existential risk or anything like that, with ample water sources and enough elevation aside from a few places.

It will be a fantastic place for HVAC contractors over the next few decades. Not enough homes have AC (and the ones that do are underpowered), and there's a huge imbalance of tradespeople vs. PMC-type people, so the former will be able to command much higher rates.

I grew up in northern US, then used to live in Saudi Arabia / UAE and now I live in Houston. Honestly Houston just feels "warm" to me now, even on the hottest days. The "Khaleeji" GCC area of the Persian gulf is just so, so, so much worse. Even New Orleans felt just a touch worse to me than Houston, but neither compare to Qatar/UAE/the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia.

I often jog or bicycle 3 miles to work in Houston during the summer and enjoy plenty of daytime outdoor activities in my late 30's.

Before my first visit to the Emirates, I made the (what seemed to me) reasonable assumption that it was a dry heat, since sand dunes are literally right next to the city. Boy, was I wrong about that one.

Having grown up in Houston it’s really hard to overstate how oppressive it can be in the summer when it’s regularly over 100° and the heat island effect makes it such that any place you go, outside of an air-conditioned space, is absolutely unbearable.

To the extent where when I left home as soon as I could and purposely went to some place that was cold half the year.

> the heat island effect

I live in a Gulf Coast city as well, but it's much smaller than Houston, and I think this really makes a significant difference. Summers are unpleasant here too, but somehow it's not quite as bad as Houston.

Definitely. There are a lot of dirt/gravel roads around here and in summer, when you turn off a paved asphalt road onto a dirt road there is an immediate air temperature drop.

Having grown up in Houston, it would be worse if Houston had a bunch of things worth being outside for, aside from its few parks, like pedestrian-only zones and market streets and bike lanes.

Instead Houston is eight-lane roads and stroads with no Third Places to visit, so the heat isn't as oppressive since everyone never got out of their SUV to begin with—the city is already oppressive. It just makes the walk to and from your car less comfortable as that's the only reason to be outside.

A little bit of hyperbole, but I blame the heat.

It's well known how to reduce the heat inside our cities - it's vegetation.

Lots and lots of vegetation, both within and beyond the city boundaries.

(a hint for texans: trees & shrubs, not grass or alfalfa)

Houston is literally a swamp, consider looking at a random street view image of any residential part of the city at some point.

Vegetation doesn’t do anything for humidity, see: Southeast Asia, Subsaharan Africa.

Texas has zero alfalfa production, you’re imagining the desert southwest 1000+ miles away from Houston in an entirely different climate.

You're right, I haven't really read the article (paywall).

I didn't know that Houston has average 75% humidity (as high as 90% in summer afternoons). That can't be good.

Forty-year Houstonian here: About 13-14 years ago, one of my wife's nephews called to say that he and his wife were coming to Houston from their home in NYC — in July — to see the nephew's grandfather (my FIL), who lived near us, and show him their infant child. My wife's nephew said, "be sure to think of some things for us to do that Houstonians do in the summer." I responded, "OK, we'll take you to Colorado for a month." (Yes, I know, it's people of a certain income level who do that, and we don't do it.)

https://archive.is/wOQkF

The article briefly talks about energy and HVAC issues. I think Texas needs to really revamp the building code to make sure dwellings are built to a higher standard. Insulation requirements (spray foam), solar shielding, better windows, reflective roofs, solar power incentives, etc. If you notice there is never an effort to become more efficient, they pick the easy way out and just build out more power. In Texas most HVAC units are placed in the hottest part of the house, the Attic. These systems last 5-10 years because of the insane temperatures they have to operate in. They need to be installed inside the home in a closet or environmentally controlled room, that alone would make them more efficient and last longer.

I was thinking earlier this month that this was the first summer that the heat has really bothered me and generally kept me hiding indoors - normally I love it, and feel very comfortable in it, and usually look like a fool during our mild winters where I’m dressed like prepared for Minnesota in January.

But then I was in Northern California last week, and the heat seemed just as unbearable. So, I guess the upshot is, I’m not really looking forward to the next several decades of summers I’ll hopefully be around for.

I miss Houston food a lot but do not miss the weather! I used to bike/walk a half mile to work and would sweat through my shirt June-aug

You can go further south than Houston and find much nicer weather. Heredia, which is a suburb of San Jose, Costa Rica, is much closer to the equator than Houston, but it is in a much rainier part of the world and it is at an elevation of about 3,000 feet. You can live there all year round without having either heat or air conditioning in your home.

Do Texans still largely live in denial of climate change?

No. Most Texans believe in "climate change" and consider regional warming effects to be axiomatic. The primary debate is:

1) Is it s/anthropomorphic/anthropogenic? (Caused by humans).

2) Is it really that bad for the Earth? (Does the heat help and/or can the ecosystem adapt).

Most of the debate has moved from "is it happening" to these other questions.

> 1) Is it anthropomorphic? (Caused by humans).

nit: anthropic. anthropomorphic would be giving it human traits, like the climate has opposable thumbs and road rage.

Anthropogenic seems like the best word.

It’s actually ‘anthropogenic’ (as in caused ‘generated’ by humans) if we’re going to be pedantic

I'm indifferent, it's just definitely not anthropomorphic.

FWIW I did actually check before I commented, but just using my local dict install. Anthropogenic seems to be often used in the news WRT climate change, but the definitions left me with the impression anthropic seemed more correct (brevity bonus too):

  > From WordNet (r) 3.1 (2011) [wn]:
  >
  >   anthropic
  >       adj 1: relating to mankind or the period of mankind's existence
  >              [syn: {anthropic}, {anthropical}]
  >
  >   anthropogenic
  >       adj 1: of or relating to the study of the origins and
  >              development of human beings [syn: {anthropogenetic},
  >              {anthropogenic}]
  >

> FWIW I did actually check before I commented, but just using my local dict install. Anthropogenic seems to be often used in the news WRT climate change, but the definitions left me with the impression anthropic seemed more correct (brevity bonus too)

You may need to look beyond definition 1 (though in many, but not all, current dictionaries, you wouldn't have to), “anthropogenic" is clearly correct and the most specific adjective for human-caused climate change, and is quite often the example shown with the relevant definition. See, e. g., https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/anthropogenic

“Anthropic” would not be a wrong adjective for climate change somehow associated temporally or causally with the existence of humanity, but would be less specific.

Not a Texan here, but let's steelman the argument a bit. I think a lot of people who say "climate change isn't real" (or similar) actually mean that they disagree on what to do about it. Especially in terms of things like:

- What to do about the developing Global South, whose carbon emissions are only going to rise

- The lack of viable alternatives (with current technology) for many things that currently depend on the high energy density of hydrocarbons

- Strong skepticism against proclaimed emergencies that urgently require more centralized government authority and taxation (which is a playbook as old as history, after all...)

- The opportunity cost of implementing green/renewable energy sources, given that all resources are finite and have alternative uses

The existence of people who literally mean that "climate change isn't real" shouldn't take away from this important discourse.

Fundamentally, and zooming out of Texas, there is a divide between people who see the climate issue (or any other big issue) as a categorical imperative to deal with and the people who see it (or any other) as another factor in an ever-changing ocean of constraints and incentives that humanity faces. It's a fascinating divide.

I believe there will be a major city (p. > 1,000,000) lost within the next decade due to a 1-2 punch of extreme heat and extreme weather. The only question remaining is if the uppercut will arrive as fire or flooding. Katrina, Harvey, and Sandy were the warning signs to 'get out now'.

Let's define your major city as a metro area population (not just city limits, since that's often arbitrary) of over a million. How would you define "lost"? A population decline of over 20%?

I'm having trouble imagining what you think could cause that. Katrina itself was about as devastating as flooding can get without being permanent, and we didn't lose New Orleans (nor has it ever even had half a million people in population). A nuclear bomb didn't even cause us to lose Hiroshima.

Seemingly, the only thing that could do this is permanent sea-level rise (not a storm surge) on the level of Katrina or Sandy, but if this was possible, it wouldn't be local and we wouldn't lose one coastal city. We'd lose many.

Have we ever lost an entire city other than Pompeii? Krakatoa killed everyone on Sebesi, but I don't believe had any permanent settlements of its own.

> we didn't lose New Orleans

Not the GP, but on the topic of New Orleans, the metro area lost almost 30% of the population after Katrina, with it having recovered to pre-Katrina levels only in the last few years. So it was severely damaged, and the scars from it are still evident in the city. So this all depends on the GP's definition of "lost".

I often laugh when people ask the question "why do people even live there? Why live somewhere below sea level?" without thinking about the fact that New Orleans is at the mouth of the biggest navigable river system in the world, home to some of the most productive farmland in the world, whose grains all get exported through that city. Until the Mississippi dries up, there will always be a sizable city there, in one shape or another.

You cannot own property with a mortgage without insurance (and if you don't carry it, your mortgage servicer will force place it, at a much higher rate). If updated risk pricing prevents people from obtaining insurance (either because of high cost or total inability to have a policy written), real estate transactions dry up and people will have to move elsewhere to buy. Some buyers can probably perform cash transactions, rent properties out without insurance/self insure, perhaps business owners provide corp housing where a geographic benefit makes the operating model palatable, etc. But wage earners who desire to own RE will need to migrate if they need a mortgage.

I'm paying ~$4k/year in homeowner's insurance through Florida's high risk pool. I know people closer to the coast paying as high as $12k/year. This is unsustainable, but necessary to accurately price risk. Real estate markets will respond accordingly.

https://riskfactor.com/

https://www.npr.org/2023/07/22/1186540332/how-climate-change...

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-07-28/treasury-... | https://archive.is/o2BiF

https://wusfnews.wusf.usf.edu/local-state/2023-04-04/florida...

https://www.cbsnews.com/texas/news/texas-home-insurance-pric...

https://www.nbcnews.com/business/consumer/homeowners-go-with...

People still owned homes before residential mortgages were a thing, which didn't take its modern shape until the 1930s. In uninsurable markets, liquidity will drop, prices will follow, until a new equilibrium forms. In sleepy beach towns where the primary use is recreation, that equilibrium will probably be very low. In New Orleans, the economic value is significantly higher and the equilibrium will be commensurately higher.

Of course, in the real world, the federal government will step in to subsidize insurance (more than it already does) and keep that 30-year mortgage available in New Orleans, for the reasons I outlined in my original comment.

> I know people closer to the coast paying as high as $12k/year. This is unsustainable

Do you know how that $12k/year translates to a percentage of the home's value? Naturally, $12k/year insurance on a two-acre Palm Beach beachfront palace with imported Italian marble countertops and Viking ranges is different than $12k/year on some normal house.

Speaking of unsustainable: I know people in New York (state, not city) that pay 2-3% a year, every year, on property taxes. It's a different kind of risk that needs to be priced ;-)

That property in question is ~$650k in the Orlando area. It is not an overly fancy home, having been inside it. My property value is ~$400k, 40 years old. ~40 miles from the coast, 90 ft above sea level. I will be required to carry flood insurance, even though there is no chance my property will ever flood. I do not plan on owning this property much longer (relocating to a climate change compatible geography, based on a 100 year time horizon).

https://www.citizensfla.com/-/flood-insurance-coverage-rules...

Got it, thanks for the answers. 1.85% of home value per year for that Orlando home is indeed quite pricey, with one source saying that the national average is about 0.35%[0]. Yours isn't cheap either at ~1%, but I would still consider that a reasonable price. Mine's roughly 0.5%.

> relocating to a climate change compatible geography, based on a 100 year time horizon

Careful who you trust: several studies of this sort ranked Vermont very highly in terms of being safe from climate change[1], but as I'm sure you've heard it recently suffered from catastrophic flooding. The final toll may come to single-digit percent of Vermont's GDP. I hear the Great Lakes area is popular for people desiring someplace safe from climate.

I wish you the best with your relocation.

[0]: https://www.creditdonkey.com/average-cost-homeowners-insuran...

[1]: https://projects.propublica.org/climate-migration/

> I hear the Great Lakes area is popular for people desiring someplace safe from climate.

Indeed, that is where I am headed. Appreciate the discourse.

It would probably be at least vaguely regional, like people abandoning all of the cities in some extra hot valley due to a lack of water and oppressive heat.

Many https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Destroyed_cities though admittedly that's a broad list, and includes many that were devasted, but not lost, such has Hiroshima. But still, many.

You should make a prediction market on manifold.markets or metaculus & commit to the bet. I think it would be an interesting market.

https://www.metaculus.com/home/

https://manifold.markets/home

Or sea rise. Or droughts.

I think I would take the other side of this bet. I do think that there will be at least one major U.S. urban area that is rendered permanently uninhabitable at some point this century, and the first one will be somewhere in southern Florida, but I don’t have any confidence in timing or specific local geographies.

My prediction is that large-scale abandonment will be due to persistent flooding and inundation that can’t be solved with sea walls/gates or levees, and not a hurricane-induced flood or storm surge. I don’t think that will happen in the next 10 years, though it certainly could.

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