"I believe it because we’re living it."
September 3, 2016 2:04 PM Subscribe
New York Times: Flooding of Coast, Caused by Global Warming, Has Already Begun — Scientists’ warnings that the rise of the sea would eventually imperil the United States’ coastline are no longer theoretical.
Federal scientists have documented a sharp jump in this nuisance flooding — often called “sunny-day flooding” — along both the East Coast and the Gulf Coast in recent years. The sea is now so near the brim in many places that they believe the problem is likely to worsen quickly. Shifts in the Pacific Ocean mean that the West Coast, partly spared over the past two decades, may be hit hard, too.
These tidal floods are often just a foot or two deep, but they can stop traffic, swamp basements, damage cars, kill lawns and forests, and poison wells with salt. Moreover, the high seas interfere with the drainage of storm water.
In coastal regions, that compounds the damage from the increasingly heavy rains plaguing the country, like those that recently caused extensive flooding in Louisiana. Scientists say these rains are also a consequence of human greenhouse emissions.
“Once impacts become noticeable, they’re going to be upon you quickly,” said William V. Sweet, a scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Silver Spring, Md., who is among the leaders in research on coastal inundation. “It’s not a hundred years off — it’s now.”
[...]
In many of the worst-hit cities, mayors of both parties are sounding an alarm.
“I’m a Republican, but I also realize, by any objective analysis, the sea level is rising,” said Jason Buelterman, the mayor of tiny Tybee Island, one of the first Georgia communities to adopt a detailed climate plan.
But the local leaders say they cannot tackle this problem alone. They are pleading with state and federal governments for guidance and help, including billions to pay for flood walls, pumps and road improvements that would buy them time.Yet Congress has largely ignored these pleas, and has even tried to block plans by the military to head off future problems at the numerous bases imperiled by a rising sea. A Republican congressman from Colorado, Ken Buck, recently called one military proposal part of a “radical climate change agenda.”
The agenda is radical only because the time for lesser measures has passed.
posted by filthy light thief at 2:09 PM on September 3, 2016 [47 favorites]
posted by filthy light thief at 2:09 PM on September 3, 2016 [47 favorites]
Yet Congress has largely ignored these pleas, and has even tried to block plans by the military to head off future problems at the numerous bases imperiled by a rising sea. A Republican congressman from Colorado, Ken Buck, recently called one military proposal part of a “radical climate change agenda.”
I'm sorry, but this is just surreal. Do these people think that they live in a world where they can just wish away reality?
posted by Dip Flash at 2:20 PM on September 3, 2016 [30 favorites]
I'm sorry, but this is just surreal. Do these people think that they live in a world where they can just wish away reality?
posted by Dip Flash at 2:20 PM on September 3, 2016 [30 favorites]
One of my great fears is that it's too late to stop it, and it's going to happen in exponential fashion.
posted by the uncomplicated soups of my childhood at 2:22 PM on September 3, 2016 [10 favorites]
posted by the uncomplicated soups of my childhood at 2:22 PM on September 3, 2016 [10 favorites]
>Do these people think that they live in a world where they can just wish away reality?
I have received assurances that climate change will pay for the wall we will build to keep out climate change.
posted by Sing Or Swim at 2:23 PM on September 3, 2016 [50 favorites]
I have received assurances that climate change will pay for the wall we will build to keep out climate change.
posted by Sing Or Swim at 2:23 PM on September 3, 2016 [50 favorites]
No, no. He means "radical" as in "more surfing".
posted by Etrigan at 2:31 PM on September 3, 2016 [15 favorites]
posted by Etrigan at 2:31 PM on September 3, 2016 [15 favorites]
One of my great fears is that it's too late to stop it, and it's going to happen in exponential fashion.
Uh, according to everything I've ever read on climate change, it is too late to change, and it will happen in an exponential fashion.
All we can really do at this point is try and prevent threse changes from happening in the most destructive and most intense ways imaginable. The changes are happening no matter what we do, but our actions now can save the lives and livelihoods of countless people now and in the future.
posted by teponaztli at 2:35 PM on September 3, 2016 [35 favorites]
Uh, according to everything I've ever read on climate change, it is too late to change, and it will happen in an exponential fashion.
All we can really do at this point is try and prevent threse changes from happening in the most destructive and most intense ways imaginable. The changes are happening no matter what we do, but our actions now can save the lives and livelihoods of countless people now and in the future.
posted by teponaztli at 2:35 PM on September 3, 2016 [35 favorites]
What's even more depressing is that, at least according to Sen. Franken, 90% of Republicans in Congress do believe in climate change, but know that admitting as much would mean an automatic primary from the right.
posted by Bromius at 2:37 PM on September 3, 2016 [25 favorites]
posted by Bromius at 2:37 PM on September 3, 2016 [25 favorites]
At the height of Hillary's upswing earlier last month, I noted to Mrs. Mosley how if only SC would turn Blue, the Democrats could completely dominate both coasts in the election.
Maybe that was the Republican's plan all along.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 2:39 PM on September 3, 2016 [1 favorite]
Maybe that was the Republican's plan all along.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 2:39 PM on September 3, 2016 [1 favorite]
Nononono, the red ribbon on the air grate is still vertical.
posted by clavdivs at 2:42 PM on September 3, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by clavdivs at 2:42 PM on September 3, 2016 [1 favorite]
Do these people think that they live in a world where they can just wish away reality?
They are so insulated by privilege and ideological blinkers from what you and I perceive as reality that it may as well not exist for them. It isn't their reality, and it probably won't be even when the water is lapping around some of their ankles.
Privilege has always an alternate, wholly artificial reality, and this is what the endgame of that looks like.
posted by ryanshepard at 2:44 PM on September 3, 2016 [5 favorites]
They are so insulated by privilege and ideological blinkers from what you and I perceive as reality that it may as well not exist for them. It isn't their reality, and it probably won't be even when the water is lapping around some of their ankles.
Privilege has always an alternate, wholly artificial reality, and this is what the endgame of that looks like.
posted by ryanshepard at 2:44 PM on September 3, 2016 [5 favorites]
“I’m a Republican, but I also realize, by any objective analysis, the sea level is rising,” said Jason Buelterman, the mayor of tiny Tybee Island
That conjunction!
posted by tummy_rub at 2:45 PM on September 3, 2016 [51 favorites]
That conjunction!
posted by tummy_rub at 2:45 PM on September 3, 2016 [51 favorites]
People have been told that climate change is not merely false, but a conspiracy among scientists to keep the sweet grant money (your tax dollars!) flowing and to help usher in one world socialism. How sincere that belief is, among the thought leaders of denial, is unclear to me.
posted by thelonius at 2:57 PM on September 3, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by thelonius at 2:57 PM on September 3, 2016 [5 favorites]
That conjunction!
Funny how politics recedes along with the causeway to the mainland
posted by thelonius at 3:00 PM on September 3, 2016 [19 favorites]
Funny how politics recedes along with the causeway to the mainland
posted by thelonius at 3:00 PM on September 3, 2016 [19 favorites]
Do these people think that they live in a world where they can just wish away reality?
Yes, if that's what the lobbyists tell them to think. Bribery can move mountains.
posted by Sys Rq at 3:07 PM on September 3, 2016 [3 favorites]
Yes, if that's what the lobbyists tell them to think. Bribery can move mountains.
posted by Sys Rq at 3:07 PM on September 3, 2016 [3 favorites]
I live near that first photograph, Tybee Island, Ga, the beach for Savannah, GA.
Check the elevation of addresses here.
I'm up high enough for now, but for how long?
posted by mareli at 3:07 PM on September 3, 2016 [3 favorites]
Check the elevation of addresses here.
I'm up high enough for now, but for how long?
posted by mareli at 3:07 PM on September 3, 2016 [3 favorites]
That conjunction!
it's the first time [jpg] I've visited a meme generator in my life OK
posted by sylvanshine at 3:24 PM on September 3, 2016 [29 favorites]
it's the first time [jpg] I've visited a meme generator in my life OK
posted by sylvanshine at 3:24 PM on September 3, 2016 [29 favorites]
The ironic thing to me is that my hometown of New Orleans is likely to remain viable decades longer than many places nobody realizes yet are at risk because those other places effectively have no defences, and will become uninhabitable at sea levels far short of what our flood defenses could have handled even before Katrina -- and those have been improved considerably in the aftermath.
It's not possible to build floodwalls around Miami. (Well, you could, but they wouldn't work, because the ground is so porous the water would just seep under them.) New York City has about four or five feet above normal high tide before it becomes impossible to keep the subways from flooding, as happened in notHurricane Sandy, and for other reasons like Miami building higher defenses really isn't a practical possibility. Barrier islands are just going to become uninhabitable if they remain above water at all. A lot of other coastal real estate is going to end up looking a lot like Venice, Italy does today.
Meanwhile NOLA might end up looking like a large-scale version of that can around the Statue of Liberty in The Expanse, but we can always build the levees and walls higher as necessary. Eventually it won't be economical but it will be for awhile because of the port and other existing business interests.
posted by Bringer Tom at 3:27 PM on September 3, 2016 [8 favorites]
It's not possible to build floodwalls around Miami. (Well, you could, but they wouldn't work, because the ground is so porous the water would just seep under them.) New York City has about four or five feet above normal high tide before it becomes impossible to keep the subways from flooding, as happened in notHurricane Sandy, and for other reasons like Miami building higher defenses really isn't a practical possibility. Barrier islands are just going to become uninhabitable if they remain above water at all. A lot of other coastal real estate is going to end up looking a lot like Venice, Italy does today.
Meanwhile NOLA might end up looking like a large-scale version of that can around the Statue of Liberty in The Expanse, but we can always build the levees and walls higher as necessary. Eventually it won't be economical but it will be for awhile because of the port and other existing business interests.
posted by Bringer Tom at 3:27 PM on September 3, 2016 [8 favorites]
I'm sorry, but this is just surreal. Do these people think that they live in a world where they can just wish away reality?
PRAY FOR THE COAST
posted by snuffleupagus at 3:29 PM on September 3, 2016 [13 favorites]
PRAY FOR THE COAST
posted by snuffleupagus at 3:29 PM on September 3, 2016 [13 favorites]
Local governments can plead all they want but there's not enough billions to save them. If you live on Tybee Island sell now and move. Climate change is going to destroy our ability to pay for anything but new infrastructure for quite a long time. If we were smart about it we'd get great, new, green infrastructure that was built to the most modern standards and not in a last minute panic. I'm not holding my breath though.
Aren't we glad now we didn't hurt our economy and kill jobs by switching to non-fossil fuels a couple decades ago? That's worked out so well economically for us.
posted by fshgrl at 3:33 PM on September 3, 2016 [20 favorites]
Aren't we glad now we didn't hurt our economy and kill jobs by switching to non-fossil fuels a couple decades ago? That's worked out so well economically for us.
posted by fshgrl at 3:33 PM on September 3, 2016 [20 favorites]
“I’m a Republican, but I also realize, by any objective analysis, the sea level is rising,” said Jason Buelterman, the mayor of tiny Tybee Island
That conjunction!
I'm hoping that becomes an expression for recognizing the blatantly obvious:
“I’m a Republican, but I also realize, that we should probably put out this house fire."
“I’m a Republican, but I also realize, that you shouldn't eat that undercooked chicken you found in the dumpster."
“I’m a Republican, but I also realize, that Donald Trump in manifestly unqualified for elected office."
posted by percor at 4:01 PM on September 3, 2016 [44 favorites]
That conjunction!
I'm hoping that becomes an expression for recognizing the blatantly obvious:
“I’m a Republican, but I also realize, that we should probably put out this house fire."
“I’m a Republican, but I also realize, that you shouldn't eat that undercooked chicken you found in the dumpster."
“I’m a Republican, but I also realize, that Donald Trump in manifestly unqualified for elected office."
posted by percor at 4:01 PM on September 3, 2016 [44 favorites]
“I’m a Republican, but I also realize, that you shouldn't eat that undercooked chicken you found in the dumpster."
I'm on AskMe, but I also realize...
posted by teponaztli at 4:03 PM on September 3, 2016 [20 favorites]
I'm on AskMe, but I also realize...
posted by teponaztli at 4:03 PM on September 3, 2016 [20 favorites]
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
NOAA? Really?
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 4:04 PM on September 3, 2016 [3 favorites]
NOAA? Really?
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 4:04 PM on September 3, 2016 [3 favorites]
Bury your head in the sand, Republican or Democratic ostriches, and you will drown.
posted by Oyéah at 4:07 PM on September 3, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by Oyéah at 4:07 PM on September 3, 2016 [1 favorite]
>NOAA? Really?
Acronym helpfully suggests something for you to yell as the waves bear down on you.
posted by Sing Or Swim at 4:09 PM on September 3, 2016 [14 favorites]
Acronym helpfully suggests something for you to yell as the waves bear down on you.
posted by Sing Or Swim at 4:09 PM on September 3, 2016 [14 favorites]
I have a theory that we're going to see a massive split appear among the richest 10% or so over the next decade or so in terms of their willingness to recognize and react to climate change, mostly based on developments like this. Poor people losing homes or (in extremis) their lives is a distant tragedy that can be shrugged off, but what about when the real estate empire you've spent the last forty years accumulating goes literally underwater? Certain forms of wealth (agribusiness is another great example) are much more vulnerable to the effects of climate change than others.
posted by AdamCSnider at 4:13 PM on September 3, 2016 [6 favorites]
posted by AdamCSnider at 4:13 PM on September 3, 2016 [6 favorites]
If you live on Tybee Island sell now and move.
How it will happen in places like that:
How it will happen in places like that:
- The causeway will get swamped more and more often until it is always swamped at low tide. Eventually it will only be passable for a few hours each day, at low tide, and not every day at that.
- The causeway will get so damaged after storms that it is impassable until repaired. These closures will become more and more frequent and longer.
- Eventually half a mile of the causeway will be wiped out and after months there will be a slow realization that the funds simply do not exist to repair it. If you have a driveable vehicle on the island you will have to pay to have it floated to the mainland or understand it will never leave the island.
- At this point the island is inaccessible to the machinery needed for other infrastructure repairs, and what's left will deteriorate gradually until it is all swamped or wiped out beyond the possibility of repair by a storm.
Lobbyists kept the flood insurance very low so that many could afford it. Now, years later, the govt is no longer willing to foot these increasing insurance premiums, and so those unable to afford expensive flood insurance have to sell homes often passed on by family members. These homes and property now get bought up by those who want to live close to water and can afford the insurance. Somehow, then, even with dire conditions, those that can afford it can enjoy being close to where they want to be. Sort of oceanic gentrification.
posted by Postroad at 4:18 PM on September 3, 2016 [4 favorites]
posted by Postroad at 4:18 PM on September 3, 2016 [4 favorites]
It's going to be an interesting few decades.
What's not clear to me is WHY conservatives are so resistant to climate science. It doesn't seem to fit into the usual pro-business/anti-civil rights agenda. Arguably, there is a ton of money to be made in green infrastructure development. The only rationale that makes sense (in a way) is religious, namely that saying that man ca change climate is like taking power away from God or something. (This argument, by the way, was used to explain why man could never make a species go extent until that became undeniably wrong.)
posted by LastOfHisKind at 4:22 PM on September 3, 2016 [3 favorites]
What's not clear to me is WHY conservatives are so resistant to climate science. It doesn't seem to fit into the usual pro-business/anti-civil rights agenda. Arguably, there is a ton of money to be made in green infrastructure development. The only rationale that makes sense (in a way) is religious, namely that saying that man ca change climate is like taking power away from God or something. (This argument, by the way, was used to explain why man could never make a species go extent until that became undeniably wrong.)
posted by LastOfHisKind at 4:22 PM on September 3, 2016 [3 favorites]
It's because environmentalism in pretty much all it's forms has always been seen as an anti-business/anti-farming activity, and therefore uncomfortably left wing. Even though in this case being opposed to efforts to prevent climate change is just about the most anti-farming activity you could imagine.
posted by dng at 4:28 PM on September 3, 2016 [6 favorites]
posted by dng at 4:28 PM on September 3, 2016 [6 favorites]
It's because the oil companies paid them to be. And they all thought they'd be dead when the shit hit the fan and someone else would have to fix it, which is the Republican way.
posted by fshgrl at 4:32 PM on September 3, 2016 [50 favorites]
posted by fshgrl at 4:32 PM on September 3, 2016 [50 favorites]
Do these people think that they live in a world where they can just wish away reality?
lots of them are just very stupid and gullible
posted by poffin boffin at 4:33 PM on September 3, 2016 [3 favorites]
lots of them are just very stupid and gullible
posted by poffin boffin at 4:33 PM on September 3, 2016 [3 favorites]
These homes and property now get bought up by those who want to live close to water and can afford the insurance. Somehow, then, even with dire conditions, those that can afford it can enjoy being close to where they want to be. Sort of oceanic gentrification.
Republicans, one hopes.
posted by maggiemaggie at 4:33 PM on September 3, 2016
Republicans, one hopes.
posted by maggiemaggie at 4:33 PM on September 3, 2016
At this point the island is inaccessible to the machinery needed for other infrastructure repairs, and what's left will deteriorate gradually until it is all swamped or wiped out beyond the possibility of repair by a storm.
Barges exist. They can easily barge stuff over.
posted by fshgrl at 4:34 PM on September 3, 2016 [1 favorite]
Barges exist. They can easily barge stuff over.
posted by fshgrl at 4:34 PM on September 3, 2016 [1 favorite]
What's not clear to me is WHY conservatives are so resistant to climate science.
- A fear of more government intrusion / World Government Take Over (Paris Agreement)
- An attack on a powerful business ally (fossil fuels)
- Fossil fuels keep the lights on/built this great nation/provide energy security
- A distrust in academia -> a distrust in science in general ("How else will climate scientists have jobs?")
- Anything the Left believes in so fiercely must be wrong (the Al Gore factor)
- Many of the solutions fall into traditional Left policies (eat less, consume less, drive less/EVs, wind/solar...)
- Only God is powerful enough to change the planet that much ("Why worry, that means the Rapture is coming...")
- etc...
posted by gwint at 4:39 PM on September 3, 2016 [31 favorites]
- A fear of more government intrusion / World Government Take Over (Paris Agreement)
- An attack on a powerful business ally (fossil fuels)
- Fossil fuels keep the lights on/built this great nation/provide energy security
- A distrust in academia -> a distrust in science in general ("How else will climate scientists have jobs?")
- Anything the Left believes in so fiercely must be wrong (the Al Gore factor)
- Many of the solutions fall into traditional Left policies (eat less, consume less, drive less/EVs, wind/solar...)
- Only God is powerful enough to change the planet that much ("Why worry, that means the Rapture is coming...")
- etc...
posted by gwint at 4:39 PM on September 3, 2016 [31 favorites]
Do these people think that they live in a world where they can just wish away reality?
Well...they're doing a pretty good job of washing it away, so...
posted by sexyrobot at 4:49 PM on September 3, 2016 [2 favorites]
Well...they're doing a pretty good job of washing it away, so...
posted by sexyrobot at 4:49 PM on September 3, 2016 [2 favorites]
I'm really going to miss beaches. Pretty much every beach in the world is going to be underwater, and we may not see nice, clean, sandy beaches ever again.
posted by Joe in Australia at 5:18 PM on September 3, 2016 [10 favorites]
posted by Joe in Australia at 5:18 PM on September 3, 2016 [10 favorites]
Do these people think that they live in a world where they can just wish away reality?
Last week I read a bunch of comments under a climate change article in the Dallas Morning News (ummm, for fun) and, amazingly, Yes. (I normally read comments in staid Canadian newspapers where the cc comments are only marginally better, but at least they're shorter.)
posted by sneebler at 5:51 PM on September 3, 2016 [1 favorite]
Last week I read a bunch of comments under a climate change article in the Dallas Morning News (ummm, for fun) and, amazingly, Yes. (I normally read comments in staid Canadian newspapers where the cc comments are only marginally better, but at least they're shorter.)
posted by sneebler at 5:51 PM on September 3, 2016 [1 favorite]
At this point the island is inaccessible to the machinery needed for other infrastructure repairs,
There do exist places that are only reachable by boat already. People have managed to get heavy equipment onto the San Juan Islands in Washington, for instance.
posted by the agents of KAOS at 6:03 PM on September 3, 2016 [5 favorites]
There do exist places that are only reachable by boat already. People have managed to get heavy equipment onto the San Juan Islands in Washington, for instance.
posted by the agents of KAOS at 6:03 PM on September 3, 2016 [5 favorites]
A Republican congressman from Colorado, Ken Buck, recently called one military proposal part of a “radical climate change agenda.”
I'm sorry, but this is just surreal. Do these people think that they live in a world where they can just wish away reality?
Well, he is from Colorado, noted for its elevation and located well inland. I think that the final fracturing of the Republicans will occur between the coastal states that simply can't deny the salt water around theirankles knees waists and the I've-Got-Mine-Jackists further inland, even though they'll have their own climate change problems.
posted by Halloween Jack at 6:09 PM on September 3, 2016 [5 favorites]
I'm sorry, but this is just surreal. Do these people think that they live in a world where they can just wish away reality?
Well, he is from Colorado, noted for its elevation and located well inland. I think that the final fracturing of the Republicans will occur between the coastal states that simply can't deny the salt water around their
posted by Halloween Jack at 6:09 PM on September 3, 2016 [5 favorites]
we may not see nice, clean, sandy beaches ever again
Erosional and depositional processes are constantly going on, several beaches, like Waikiki already rely on imported sand and artificial wave breaks to keep them in the same place. I think it's a safe bet we'll still have beaches, but *where* those beaches are located is likely to change.
posted by cnanderson at 6:23 PM on September 3, 2016 [14 favorites]
Erosional and depositional processes are constantly going on, several beaches, like Waikiki already rely on imported sand and artificial wave breaks to keep them in the same place. I think it's a safe bet we'll still have beaches, but *where* those beaches are located is likely to change.
posted by cnanderson at 6:23 PM on September 3, 2016 [14 favorites]
The ironic thing to me is that my hometown of New Orleans is likely to remain viable decades longer...
Don't get too complacent. Even if the island of New Orleans remains dry when the coastline has moved to Lafayette and Baton Rouge, it will be extremely vulnerable to any storm that heads through, especially when they're hurricane-sized.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 6:26 PM on September 3, 2016 [1 favorite]
Don't get too complacent. Even if the island of New Orleans remains dry when the coastline has moved to Lafayette and Baton Rouge, it will be extremely vulnerable to any storm that heads through, especially when they're hurricane-sized.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 6:26 PM on September 3, 2016 [1 favorite]
Well that's just terrifying.
I actually just got back from my first ever multi-day coastal hike that required carrying a tide table to get past certain sections at high tide. A little daunting and confusing at first, but once I got the hang of it it was fun to be like "Can we make it in time to cross? Yeah we can, let's hustle" or "No way we're getting there in time, let's find somewhere nice to sit down for lunch and kill a couple hours." But then it wasn't so fun lying in my tent tripping balls listening to the incoming surf at 1am, thinking that if that tide prediction was off by half a meter or so I could be waking up to a tent flood.
Anyhow, can anyone point me to a layman's explanation of how the tides are calculated/predicted? It just blows my mind that they can predict that high tide on Sep 27 in a specific location will be 2.8m, and that's without factoring in climate change.
posted by mannequito at 6:27 PM on September 3, 2016 [1 favorite]
I actually just got back from my first ever multi-day coastal hike that required carrying a tide table to get past certain sections at high tide. A little daunting and confusing at first, but once I got the hang of it it was fun to be like "Can we make it in time to cross? Yeah we can, let's hustle" or "No way we're getting there in time, let's find somewhere nice to sit down for lunch and kill a couple hours." But then it wasn't so fun lying in my tent tripping balls listening to the incoming surf at 1am, thinking that if that tide prediction was off by half a meter or so I could be waking up to a tent flood.
Anyhow, can anyone point me to a layman's explanation of how the tides are calculated/predicted? It just blows my mind that they can predict that high tide on Sep 27 in a specific location will be 2.8m, and that's without factoring in climate change.
posted by mannequito at 6:27 PM on September 3, 2016 [1 favorite]
layman's explanation of how the tides are calculated/predicted
The moon drives the tides as it orbits the earth. Also the earth spins. It's a wheel within a wheel. Sort of hard to visualize, but not hard to predict.
posted by paper chromatographologist at 6:33 PM on September 3, 2016
The moon drives the tides as it orbits the earth. Also the earth spins. It's a wheel within a wheel. Sort of hard to visualize, but not hard to predict.
posted by paper chromatographologist at 6:33 PM on September 3, 2016
Yeah but if it's really happening--which it isn't--that just means the rapture is coming. Conservatives win either way. Checkmate, liberailures!
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 6:47 PM on September 3, 2016
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 6:47 PM on September 3, 2016
At this point the island is inaccessible to the machinery needed for other infrastructure repairs, and what's left will deteriorate gradually until it is all swamped or wiped out beyond the possibility of repair by a storm.
Barges exist. They can easily barge stuff over.
Barrier islands like Tybee (and the nearby and better known Hilton Head and many others in the area) are separated from the mainland by several miles of tidal marsh and typically reachable by a single highway that rests atop a manmade causeway. In order to use a barge they would need to dredge a canal; not a trivial matter. Meanwhile, the causeway for a few years now becomes impassable just with higher than normal tides; a situation unheard of when it was built.
posted by TedW at 7:04 PM on September 3, 2016 [8 favorites]
Barges exist. They can easily barge stuff over.
Barrier islands like Tybee (and the nearby and better known Hilton Head and many others in the area) are separated from the mainland by several miles of tidal marsh and typically reachable by a single highway that rests atop a manmade causeway. In order to use a barge they would need to dredge a canal; not a trivial matter. Meanwhile, the causeway for a few years now becomes impassable just with higher than normal tides; a situation unheard of when it was built.
posted by TedW at 7:04 PM on September 3, 2016 [8 favorites]
Anyhow, can anyone point me to a layman's explanation of how the tides are calculated/predicted?
It's really complicated! The first tide-predicting machine(*) [drawing] used a whole bunch of wheels and pulleys to mechanically add together a bunch of components like the date, latitude, longitude, etc. People were amazed.
The short answer is that the sun pulls on the earth and makes it distort into a sort of football shape, with its long axis pointed at the sun. The moon also pulls on the earth, with the same result. So the earth ends up being a sort of composite shape of two super-imposed footballs. But! Water is much more malleable than the earth, so the seas are more distorted than the earth. If the level of the earth moves an inch, the seas move much more.
The sun's position relative to the earth changes each day and each year; the moon's changes each day and each month. So we already have six components: latitude and longitude of the sun's position in the sky; latitude and longitude of the moon's position in the sky; latitude and longitude of the place we're measuring. But there's more!
You know how when you're in a small bath and move around, the water sloshes into different parts at different times? Well, the sea does too. If you have a narrow harbour, the tide takes longer to fill it and longer to empty, and the water piles up while trying to enter or exit. So it's not enough to know what the tide level would be hypothetically; you need to take the shape of the shore and the sea bed, its angle, all sorts of things like that. And there are even more factors to take into account, so tide tables are basically a combination of calculation and recorded observation.
(*) That we know of. Who knows what the ancient Greeks got up to.
posted by Joe in Australia at 7:05 PM on September 3, 2016 [31 favorites]
It's really complicated! The first tide-predicting machine(*) [drawing] used a whole bunch of wheels and pulleys to mechanically add together a bunch of components like the date, latitude, longitude, etc. People were amazed.
The short answer is that the sun pulls on the earth and makes it distort into a sort of football shape, with its long axis pointed at the sun. The moon also pulls on the earth, with the same result. So the earth ends up being a sort of composite shape of two super-imposed footballs. But! Water is much more malleable than the earth, so the seas are more distorted than the earth. If the level of the earth moves an inch, the seas move much more.
The sun's position relative to the earth changes each day and each year; the moon's changes each day and each month. So we already have six components: latitude and longitude of the sun's position in the sky; latitude and longitude of the moon's position in the sky; latitude and longitude of the place we're measuring. But there's more!
You know how when you're in a small bath and move around, the water sloshes into different parts at different times? Well, the sea does too. If you have a narrow harbour, the tide takes longer to fill it and longer to empty, and the water piles up while trying to enter or exit. So it's not enough to know what the tide level would be hypothetically; you need to take the shape of the shore and the sea bed, its angle, all sorts of things like that. And there are even more factors to take into account, so tide tables are basically a combination of calculation and recorded observation.
(*) That we know of. Who knows what the ancient Greeks got up to.
posted by Joe in Australia at 7:05 PM on September 3, 2016 [31 favorites]
It's because environmentalism in pretty much all it's forms has always been seen as an anti-business/anti-farming activity, and therefore uncomfortably left wing.
But this degree of opposition is something new. Back in the 80s, people got worried about chlorofluorocarbons and ozone, and science came in that showed an ozone hole starting to form, and (among many others of course) those noted left-wing greens Reagan and Thatcher worked hard to reduce and then effectively ban CFCs.
While I expect the things listed already are pieces of the puzzle, sure, I would put more money on the interaction between a changing Republican coalition (ie, the relative growth in Trump fans) and the absolutely breathtaking lack of concern with policy in any area, much less just environmental policy, in the recent crops of GOP MCs.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 7:08 PM on September 3, 2016 [10 favorites]
But this degree of opposition is something new. Back in the 80s, people got worried about chlorofluorocarbons and ozone, and science came in that showed an ozone hole starting to form, and (among many others of course) those noted left-wing greens Reagan and Thatcher worked hard to reduce and then effectively ban CFCs.
While I expect the things listed already are pieces of the puzzle, sure, I would put more money on the interaction between a changing Republican coalition (ie, the relative growth in Trump fans) and the absolutely breathtaking lack of concern with policy in any area, much less just environmental policy, in the recent crops of GOP MCs.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 7:08 PM on September 3, 2016 [10 favorites]
Maybe we should start calling climate change denial Canutism.
No! Knut Svensson, aka Canute the Great, was awesome. In the context of "set of violent bastards who were feudal rulers graded on a curve" anyway.
The actual story is that some sycophant told him that he was so powerful the waves themselves would turn back if he commanded it. He said "Oh, great, let's give it a shot then" and staged the thing to humiliate the courtier and make a point that truth was more important than sucking up to people in power.
Which now that I've finished describing does still make your calling him out seem even more relevant . . . climate deniers are Canute's sycophants? I wonder if that phrase would catch on.
posted by mark k at 7:19 PM on September 3, 2016 [21 favorites]
No! Knut Svensson, aka Canute the Great, was awesome. In the context of "set of violent bastards who were feudal rulers graded on a curve" anyway.
The actual story is that some sycophant told him that he was so powerful the waves themselves would turn back if he commanded it. He said "Oh, great, let's give it a shot then" and staged the thing to humiliate the courtier and make a point that truth was more important than sucking up to people in power.
Which now that I've finished describing does still make your calling him out seem even more relevant . . . climate deniers are Canute's sycophants? I wonder if that phrase would catch on.
posted by mark k at 7:19 PM on September 3, 2016 [21 favorites]
It just blows my mind that they can predict that high tide on Sep 27 in a specific location will be 2.8m
If that specific location is a major port or other notable place, they may still be using the same kind of algorithm those old tide-predicting machines used: Take the astronomical variables and apply some numbers specific to the location, parameters you'd get through observation. Run them through a big equation and out comes a tide table for that one place.
It's only in the past 20 years or so that computers and ocean floor mapping have gotten good enough to routinely model tides globally, using for example the shallow water equations (derived from the much more famous Navier-Stokes equations which are used to describe fluids in general) and give precise predictions for any location.
posted by sfenders at 7:23 PM on September 3, 2016 [1 favorite]
If that specific location is a major port or other notable place, they may still be using the same kind of algorithm those old tide-predicting machines used: Take the astronomical variables and apply some numbers specific to the location, parameters you'd get through observation. Run them through a big equation and out comes a tide table for that one place.
It's only in the past 20 years or so that computers and ocean floor mapping have gotten good enough to routinely model tides globally, using for example the shallow water equations (derived from the much more famous Navier-Stokes equations which are used to describe fluids in general) and give precise predictions for any location.
posted by sfenders at 7:23 PM on September 3, 2016 [1 favorite]
those noted left-wing greens Reagan and Thatcher worked hard to reduce and then effectively ban CFCs
There's a lot more money in fossil fuels than there ever was in products involving CFCs, I think. And while the science of anthropogenic global warming is just as sound, a "hole in the sky" is a much more visceral image than the vast range of odd and unpredictable consequences that comprise climate change. Even for people who accept the scientific consensus that this is happening will immediately run up against the decided lack of consensus on what precisely will happen, when, and how it will play out. CFCs were a smaller, more viscerally arresting problem with a smaller portion of the elite directly invested in their continuance.
It's also worth noting that Reagan and Thatcher were, fundamentally, in a different position than their successors in the Republican and Conservative parties - they both had wide latitude within the politically revolutionary environments they helped create, and their status and political orientation made it difficult use the traditional attacks that worked against Left/liberal environmentalists. You know that old saw about "only Nixon could go to China"? Reagan had rock-solid pro-market credentials and enough personal prestige to bring his party along on the CFC issue. There have been Republicans since who have also tried to wed environmental advocacy to conservative politics (conservationism and conservatism share a root, after all) but the result was that they ran afoul of either hard conservative voters or moderate, corporate-friendly donors.
posted by AdamCSnider at 7:29 PM on September 3, 2016 [11 favorites]
There's a lot more money in fossil fuels than there ever was in products involving CFCs, I think. And while the science of anthropogenic global warming is just as sound, a "hole in the sky" is a much more visceral image than the vast range of odd and unpredictable consequences that comprise climate change. Even for people who accept the scientific consensus that this is happening will immediately run up against the decided lack of consensus on what precisely will happen, when, and how it will play out. CFCs were a smaller, more viscerally arresting problem with a smaller portion of the elite directly invested in their continuance.
It's also worth noting that Reagan and Thatcher were, fundamentally, in a different position than their successors in the Republican and Conservative parties - they both had wide latitude within the politically revolutionary environments they helped create, and their status and political orientation made it difficult use the traditional attacks that worked against Left/liberal environmentalists. You know that old saw about "only Nixon could go to China"? Reagan had rock-solid pro-market credentials and enough personal prestige to bring his party along on the CFC issue. There have been Republicans since who have also tried to wed environmental advocacy to conservative politics (conservationism and conservatism share a root, after all) but the result was that they ran afoul of either hard conservative voters or moderate, corporate-friendly donors.
posted by AdamCSnider at 7:29 PM on September 3, 2016 [11 favorites]
CFC manufacturing employed only a handful of people, and only a few corporations were making them. Those corporations would still be making a more expensive, profitable product after the ban. Fossil fuel companies (and countries) are facing an existential threat, for a product that is the definition of pure profit.
posted by benzenedream at 8:12 PM on September 3, 2016 [8 favorites]
posted by benzenedream at 8:12 PM on September 3, 2016 [8 favorites]
Tides? Teach the controversy.
That site should be one of the canonical examples of Poe's Law in action.
posted by TedW at 8:15 PM on September 3, 2016 [7 favorites]
That site should be one of the canonical examples of Poe's Law in action.
posted by TedW at 8:15 PM on September 3, 2016 [7 favorites]
Woohoo! We're 92 feet above sea level! Mind you, we're about a ten minute bike ride from reclaimed land built on tidal flats that suffered liquefaction in the Tohoku earthquake, and that almost all of the main roads and transportation (trains and such) that go through this area are built in the low lying areas...
As one more point of doom, we've recently had three typhoons in a two week period that skipped the seemingly standard "start at Kyushu, fall apart by Nagoya, mildly inconvenience Tokyo and Chiba" pattern for a "hey, let's just get up and ocean's worth of power and slam directly into Tokyo, Chiba, and Yokohama" dick move. Not being a scientitian, I have no idea if this has just been some sort of fluke, or if this is just a sign of how things are going to be from here on out.
posted by Ghidorah at 8:24 PM on September 3, 2016 [2 favorites]
As one more point of doom, we've recently had three typhoons in a two week period that skipped the seemingly standard "start at Kyushu, fall apart by Nagoya, mildly inconvenience Tokyo and Chiba" pattern for a "hey, let's just get up and ocean's worth of power and slam directly into Tokyo, Chiba, and Yokohama" dick move. Not being a scientitian, I have no idea if this has just been some sort of fluke, or if this is just a sign of how things are going to be from here on out.
posted by Ghidorah at 8:24 PM on September 3, 2016 [2 favorites]
As a Brit - moreover, as a Devonian and thus heir to one of the more seafaring bits of a seafaring nation - I cannot but draw your attention to a very longstanding story about what happens when a ruling elite encounters a rising sea. Make of it what you will.
posted by Devonian at 8:25 PM on September 3, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by Devonian at 8:25 PM on September 3, 2016 [1 favorite]
Barrier islands like Tybee (and the nearby and better known Hilton Head and many others in the area) are separated from the mainland by several miles of tidal marsh and typically reachable by a single highway that rests atop a manmade causeway. In order to use a barge they would need to dredge a canal; not a trivial matter.
They can bring the barge in from the seaward side. Get a landing craft type barge and drive it right up on the beach if needs be. There are a lot of islands in the world, we have the technology.
posted by fshgrl at 8:38 PM on September 3, 2016 [1 favorite]
They can bring the barge in from the seaward side. Get a landing craft type barge and drive it right up on the beach if needs be. There are a lot of islands in the world, we have the technology.
posted by fshgrl at 8:38 PM on September 3, 2016 [1 favorite]
What's not clear to me is WHY conservatives are so resistant to climate science.
I heard it explained as an ideological dissonance: global warming is something that can only be addressed by collective societal action, not by the free market.
posted by heatherlogan at 8:40 PM on September 3, 2016 [26 favorites]
I heard it explained as an ideological dissonance: global warming is something that can only be addressed by collective societal action, not by the free market.
posted by heatherlogan at 8:40 PM on September 3, 2016 [26 favorites]
I believe it's because the idea of the American exceptionalism during 20th century was built on industrial development, manufacturing, oil industry, auto industry, military complex. Imagine history where the US did not do any of that during the past century. Ideologically, this is the essential gift from God: inspiring the US to be at the forefront of inventiveness that established the deserved world dominance. Looking at it from the other side, it's the fact that America was most in tune with how the God wanted things to work, allowed this country to surge ahead - if any other country was more in tune and not us, they would take the first place.
So it's easy to see how the idea of climate change retroactively flips this history of industriousness on its head and complicates it - the very effectiveness, hard work, puritan, sound work ethic, were edging the entire world to destruction, while the lazier nations, (and unproductive, purposeless, useless, ineffectual parts of the US population), were actively not-contributing to the problem.
Why would a God do that to us conservatives? It's not his job to punish and ridicule goodness; his duty is to do just the opposite.
posted by rainy at 9:00 PM on September 3, 2016 [9 favorites]
So it's easy to see how the idea of climate change retroactively flips this history of industriousness on its head and complicates it - the very effectiveness, hard work, puritan, sound work ethic, were edging the entire world to destruction, while the lazier nations, (and unproductive, purposeless, useless, ineffectual parts of the US population), were actively not-contributing to the problem.
Why would a God do that to us conservatives? It's not his job to punish and ridicule goodness; his duty is to do just the opposite.
posted by rainy at 9:00 PM on September 3, 2016 [9 favorites]
... his duty is to do just the opposite.
And here I thought that God causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.
posted by Jonathan Livengood at 9:11 PM on September 3, 2016 [5 favorites]
And here I thought that God causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.
posted by Jonathan Livengood at 9:11 PM on September 3, 2016 [5 favorites]
Sun and rain, certainly; but Noah's flood is a big no-no!
posted by rainy at 9:21 PM on September 3, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by rainy at 9:21 PM on September 3, 2016 [1 favorite]
" The only rationale that makes sense (in a way) is religious, namely that saying that man ca change climate is like taking power away from God or something."
Yeah, I had this conversation with a Republican climate denier, an objectively very smart man, and his answer was basically, "God gave Noah the rainbow to promise he'd never destroy the world in floods again, so climate change can't be possible," with a secondary dose of "Man can't become extinct because we're made in God's image," which left me with a large dose of "?!?!?!?!?!?!?!"
"Even though in this case being opposed to efforts to prevent climate change is just about the most anti-farming activity you could imagine."
Living in farm country, I meet very few FARMERS who don't believe in climate change (although plenty who object to literally every single thing Democrats propose to deal with climate change), but LOTS AND LOTS of Republicans who use farmers as talismans of what's great about America and why the GOP should be in charge of it but who actually do not know any farmers or anything about farming.
"climate deniers are Canute's sycophants? I wonder if that phrase would catch on."
"sycophant" appears in a Sesame Street skit (the Mad Men spoof) so I say YES, it's preschooler vocab!
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 9:23 PM on September 3, 2016 [3 favorites]
Yeah, I had this conversation with a Republican climate denier, an objectively very smart man, and his answer was basically, "God gave Noah the rainbow to promise he'd never destroy the world in floods again, so climate change can't be possible," with a secondary dose of "Man can't become extinct because we're made in God's image," which left me with a large dose of "?!?!?!?!?!?!?!"
"Even though in this case being opposed to efforts to prevent climate change is just about the most anti-farming activity you could imagine."
Living in farm country, I meet very few FARMERS who don't believe in climate change (although plenty who object to literally every single thing Democrats propose to deal with climate change), but LOTS AND LOTS of Republicans who use farmers as talismans of what's great about America and why the GOP should be in charge of it but who actually do not know any farmers or anything about farming.
"climate deniers are Canute's sycophants? I wonder if that phrase would catch on."
"sycophant" appears in a Sesame Street skit (the Mad Men spoof) so I say YES, it's preschooler vocab!
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 9:23 PM on September 3, 2016 [3 favorites]
Has anyone attempted to make an issue of the fact that, as coastal areas flood and islands get wiped out, all those man-made structures and chemicals are going to end up in the ocean? Is anyone planning to make an effort to get hazardous materials out of areas in danger of ending up permanently under water in the relatively near future? Why do I feel silly even asking about this?
posted by wondermouse at 9:28 PM on September 3, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by wondermouse at 9:28 PM on September 3, 2016 [5 favorites]
No they're not and its infuriating to those of us who work in the field. I mean, the oil companies absolutely have very detailed plans about how to withdraw from some areas but the plan is to leave a lot of stuff behind. Landfills, water treatment plants etc that are publically owned? The Republican party has done a bang up job of stopping any plans for mothballing, disassembling or replacing those. It's all bandaids and emergency repairs. It'll be a complete shit show in the next ten years or so.
Other countries have plans and we could learn from them but we're not.
posted by fshgrl at 9:32 PM on September 3, 2016 [13 favorites]
Other countries have plans and we could learn from them but we're not.
posted by fshgrl at 9:32 PM on September 3, 2016 [13 favorites]
Barring a technological miracle, things are basically over. The time to stop the ball from rolling down the hill was decades ago. We can slow it, maybe. At this point I'm just hoping there's enough time left that I can die of old age before everything gets really bad.
posted by Anonymous at 9:35 PM on September 3, 2016
posted by Anonymous at 9:35 PM on September 3, 2016
I should add there are programs to grant funds to local govt through various agencues like FEMA and NOAA but they amounts are small and they require local match dollars which just aren't going to be there.
posted by fshgrl at 9:36 PM on September 3, 2016
posted by fshgrl at 9:36 PM on September 3, 2016
The fictional history of Headgear's classic series Mobile Police Patlabor (written in 1988!) established that giant robots were originally developed as construction tools, in part to build ocean barriers around Japan, to hold back rising waters from global warming.
What I'm saying is, don't worry so much. Yeah a bunch of cities will drown needlessly, and billions of people will be displaced leading to unspeakable chaos and political turmoil, but at least we'll finally get mecha out of it.
posted by Brie Fantasy at 9:40 PM on September 3, 2016 [5 favorites]
What I'm saying is, don't worry so much. Yeah a bunch of cities will drown needlessly, and billions of people will be displaced leading to unspeakable chaos and political turmoil, but at least we'll finally get mecha out of it.
posted by Brie Fantasy at 9:40 PM on September 3, 2016 [5 favorites]
Has anyone attempted to make an issue of the fact that, as coastal areas flood and islands get wiped out, all those man-made structures and chemicals are going to end up in the ocean? Is anyone planning to make an effort to get hazardous materials out of areas in danger of ending up permanently under water in the relatively near future? Why do I feel silly even asking about this?
Do you feel silly because the question is obvious, or silly because the answer is obviously "No, of course not"? It is an obvious question--but the people who attack climate change for political points have never been about doing the obvious or smart thing.
posted by Anonymous at 9:40 PM on September 3, 2016
Do you feel silly because the question is obvious, or silly because the answer is obviously "No, of course not"? It is an obvious question--but the people who attack climate change for political points have never been about doing the obvious or smart thing.
posted by Anonymous at 9:40 PM on September 3, 2016
Just typing this on my phone so can't link, but James Hanson the world famous climate scientist believes sea level rise by the end of the century is likely to be in the order of several metres, far more than conservative models suggest.
posted by wilful at 9:49 PM on September 3, 2016
posted by wilful at 9:49 PM on September 3, 2016
Do you feel silly because the question is obvious, or silly because the answer is obviously "No, of course not"?
Probably both.
posted by wondermouse at 9:51 PM on September 3, 2016
Probably both.
posted by wondermouse at 9:51 PM on September 3, 2016
"I should add there are programs to grant funds to local govt through various agencues like FEMA and NOAA but they amounts are small and they require local match dollars which just aren't going to be there."
I don't know, local governments are frequently willing to match just about any stupid thing to get federal dollars. Not all of them, but some of them will bite.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 10:17 PM on September 3, 2016
I don't know, local governments are frequently willing to match just about any stupid thing to get federal dollars. Not all of them, but some of them will bite.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 10:17 PM on September 3, 2016
Radio New Zealand's Insight a couple of months ago: Fighting the Pacific's Rising Seas
Also:
The senior pastor of the village church, [in the village of Eita on Tarawa, the main island of the Pacific island nation of Kiribati] Eria Maerere, says when the community first arrived there in 1980, the king tides were never a problem, but now they regularly inundate their homes.So that's a village founded on dry ground in 1980 which in the 21st century has been regularly flooded by high tides.
"When we first heard about the rise of the sea-level, we thought that somebody made up a story, but at the beginning of the year 2000, that's when we begin to realise that it is not a fiction, it is a true story."
"Sometime around the year 2000 we had the first big king tide, where the water swept in and all the floors of the houses were breached with the water."
"All the families had to get up early in the morning because all the water had washed their mats, their pillows and all that."
...
Professor James Renwick from Victoria University of Wellington says sea levels in the western tropical Pacific have risen faster than just about anywhere on Earth.
Also:
- 'The best solution? Move the Mauritanian capital': water on the rise in Nouakchott
- Should the United States Save Tangier Island From Oblivion?
Take the astronomical variables and apply some numbers specific to the location, parameters you'd get through observation. Run them through a big equation and out comes a tide table for that one place.
Almost all the tide predictions you encounter today are still made for specific points, based on historic measurements made at that point. The tide level at a point and time is composed of a sum of one or more tidal harmonic constituents that are the "astronomical variables" mentioned above. There are plenty of other things that alter the sea level - wind, waves, atmospheric pressure - but those are not considered to be "tide" and by definition they don't form part of tide predictions.
People have been gathering sea level measurements at specific useful points (mostly ports) for a surprisingly long time now. (The first self-recording tide gauge was installed in 1837!). The raw data gets tidied up a bit (to remove obvious or known instrument errors, or anomalies) and then folks use a branch of maths called Harmonic Analysis to take a pile of tide data for a specific place, and work out which harmonic constituents contribute to the tide height at that point.
Once the constituents have been identified, you can produce a remarkably accurate tide prediction even years in advance, by taking the average tide height at that place and adding the harmonic constituents back in for the prediction time you're interested in. They were doing this mechanically a surprisingly long time ago (scroll down to the bit about tide predictions!).
In some ports, predicting the sea level much more accurately is valuable - if the sea level affects whether or not certain vessels can get in there - and in that case a port might install its own level gauges to establish in real time how the sea level differs from predictions. Then they can transmit a much better set of predictions directly to the traffic management people and the local pilots who go out to bring the ships in.
It's only in the past 20 years or so that computers and ocean floor mapping have gotten good enough to routinely model tides globally, using for example the shallow water equations (derived from the much more famous Navier-Stokes equations which are used to describe fluids in general) and give precise predictions for any location.
Global tide models are still in their infancy. One of the issues here is that you need a LOT of sea level measurements to make or verify a global tidal model - and it took a long time (and cost a lot) to get a full set of sea level measurements around the globe with satellites. Also, satellite altimetry is (for technical reasons) less accurate near coastlines (I forget why, something to do with removing the effect of waves on the data possibly?), but the coastline is where humans are most interested in accurate tide predictions.
If you want to play with a global tidal model and have time on your hands it looks like you can download the necessary bits here, or maybe just watch pretty pictures.
posted by emilyw at 2:51 AM on September 4, 2016 [11 favorites]
Almost all the tide predictions you encounter today are still made for specific points, based on historic measurements made at that point. The tide level at a point and time is composed of a sum of one or more tidal harmonic constituents that are the "astronomical variables" mentioned above. There are plenty of other things that alter the sea level - wind, waves, atmospheric pressure - but those are not considered to be "tide" and by definition they don't form part of tide predictions.
People have been gathering sea level measurements at specific useful points (mostly ports) for a surprisingly long time now. (The first self-recording tide gauge was installed in 1837!). The raw data gets tidied up a bit (to remove obvious or known instrument errors, or anomalies) and then folks use a branch of maths called Harmonic Analysis to take a pile of tide data for a specific place, and work out which harmonic constituents contribute to the tide height at that point.
Once the constituents have been identified, you can produce a remarkably accurate tide prediction even years in advance, by taking the average tide height at that place and adding the harmonic constituents back in for the prediction time you're interested in. They were doing this mechanically a surprisingly long time ago (scroll down to the bit about tide predictions!).
In some ports, predicting the sea level much more accurately is valuable - if the sea level affects whether or not certain vessels can get in there - and in that case a port might install its own level gauges to establish in real time how the sea level differs from predictions. Then they can transmit a much better set of predictions directly to the traffic management people and the local pilots who go out to bring the ships in.
It's only in the past 20 years or so that computers and ocean floor mapping have gotten good enough to routinely model tides globally, using for example the shallow water equations (derived from the much more famous Navier-Stokes equations which are used to describe fluids in general) and give precise predictions for any location.
Global tide models are still in their infancy. One of the issues here is that you need a LOT of sea level measurements to make or verify a global tidal model - and it took a long time (and cost a lot) to get a full set of sea level measurements around the globe with satellites. Also, satellite altimetry is (for technical reasons) less accurate near coastlines (I forget why, something to do with removing the effect of waves on the data possibly?), but the coastline is where humans are most interested in accurate tide predictions.
If you want to play with a global tidal model and have time on your hands it looks like you can download the necessary bits here, or maybe just watch pretty pictures.
posted by emilyw at 2:51 AM on September 4, 2016 [11 favorites]
Other cheery thoughts for a Sunday morning: As Sea Levels Rise, Are Coastal Nuclear Plants Ready?, National Geographic (16 December 2015).
posted by Sonny Jim at 3:00 AM on September 4, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by Sonny Jim at 3:00 AM on September 4, 2016 [5 favorites]
I was listening to a radio lab about Triage recently. An author described the brutal and inconsiderate triage process of a cut-off hospital right after Katrina. Even though the staff made a lot of bad calls, the problem wasn't that they triaged at all--it was that, due to the huge amount of resources they usually had, they hadn't ever thought they had to be in the position of deciding which patients to care for more than others.
Listening to it, I had to connect Katrina to climate change, and this crises that the hospital went through with what governments will have to do on a grand scale soon with towns, regions, entire nations. We cannot count on being able to save everywhere. So what do we do? How do we (the UN probably) decide? Do we save the most needy or the most resource heavy or the wealthiest or the most politically strategic or some predetermined mix of all the above? We need to start having this conversation, unfortunately. This can only start of course once we have crushed the idiotic denialists under the bootheel of truth so lets do that too, but the conversation can't wait, clearly.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 4:50 AM on September 4, 2016
Listening to it, I had to connect Katrina to climate change, and this crises that the hospital went through with what governments will have to do on a grand scale soon with towns, regions, entire nations. We cannot count on being able to save everywhere. So what do we do? How do we (the UN probably) decide? Do we save the most needy or the most resource heavy or the wealthiest or the most politically strategic or some predetermined mix of all the above? We need to start having this conversation, unfortunately. This can only start of course once we have crushed the idiotic denialists under the bootheel of truth so lets do that too, but the conversation can't wait, clearly.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 4:50 AM on September 4, 2016
I suspect one reason why higher government levels are so resistant to doing anything about flooding is because its a waste of money and time.
People are just going to have to move and leave their houses to the sea.
posted by mary8nne at 5:33 AM on September 4, 2016 [4 favorites]
People are just going to have to move and leave their houses to the sea.
posted by mary8nne at 5:33 AM on September 4, 2016 [4 favorites]
I'm sorry, but this is just surreal. Do these people think that they live in a world where they can just wish away reality?
That's not the way the world really works anymore. We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality— judiciously, as you will— we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors… and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.
posted by flabdablet at 5:42 AM on September 4, 2016 [8 favorites]
That's not the way the world really works anymore. We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality— judiciously, as you will— we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors… and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.
posted by flabdablet at 5:42 AM on September 4, 2016 [8 favorites]
To get an idea of what would need to be done to protect low-lying cities, we have the example of Galveston literally raising itself up to 12 feet on the gulf side after the 1900 hurricane. It was a monumental engineering effort that would have to take place over & over again, probably at the cost of trillions of dollars & note how the brunt was borne by the city government.
posted by Devils Rancher at 5:59 AM on September 4, 2016
posted by Devils Rancher at 5:59 AM on September 4, 2016
So, um, just *how* hard would it be to pump like 1-5% of the ocean into space?
I'm not saying we SHOULD. It just seems like at this point, thats about as sensible a solution as any currently being implemented.
posted by mrjohnmuller at 6:17 AM on September 4, 2016 [1 favorite]
I'm not saying we SHOULD. It just seems like at this point, thats about as sensible a solution as any currently being implemented.
posted by mrjohnmuller at 6:17 AM on September 4, 2016 [1 favorite]
I'm guessing you have never actually seen the ocean, have you?
posted by Bringer Tom at 6:21 AM on September 4, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by Bringer Tom at 6:21 AM on September 4, 2016 [5 favorites]
It currently costs about $15000 to launch a kilogram of anything into space. So it'd cost about $200,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 to launch 1% of the worlds oceans into space (if my quick wikipedia maths is correct).
I think that might be a little more expensive than any other solution to the problem of rising sea levels.
posted by dng at 6:26 AM on September 4, 2016 [9 favorites]
I think that might be a little more expensive than any other solution to the problem of rising sea levels.
posted by dng at 6:26 AM on September 4, 2016 [9 favorites]
It would be much easier to implement some form of geoengineering like carbon capture or injection of aerosols into the upper atmosphere to either reverse the increase in carbon dioxide levels or offset their effect with drivers of cooling.
Why we aren't bothering to do the former, I'm not quite sure. (The latter could have some pretty gnarly unintended consequences) As with most responses to climate change, they would have been much more effective a decade or two ago, however.
posted by wierdo at 6:29 AM on September 4, 2016 [1 favorite]
Why we aren't bothering to do the former, I'm not quite sure. (The latter could have some pretty gnarly unintended consequences) As with most responses to climate change, they would have been much more effective a decade or two ago, however.
posted by wierdo at 6:29 AM on September 4, 2016 [1 favorite]
XMLicious: 'The best solution? Move the Mauritanian capital': water on the rise in Nouakchott
Hey thank you for posting that link. I visited Nouakchott in 2000 and I can't believe what's been happening there since. I'm genuinely shocked.
posted by Too-Ticky at 6:32 AM on September 4, 2016 [2 favorites]
Hey thank you for posting that link. I visited Nouakchott in 2000 and I can't believe what's been happening there since. I'm genuinely shocked.
posted by Too-Ticky at 6:32 AM on September 4, 2016 [2 favorites]
To get an idea of what would need to be done to protect low-lying cities...
Which is to say that raising a wood-frame house 10 feet on jackscrews is one thing, but I don't think anyone is jacking up the hotels & condo towers on Miami beach.
posted by Devils Rancher at 6:34 AM on September 4, 2016
Which is to say that raising a wood-frame house 10 feet on jackscrews is one thing, but I don't think anyone is jacking up the hotels & condo towers on Miami beach.
posted by Devils Rancher at 6:34 AM on September 4, 2016
They can bring the barge in from the seaward side. Get a landing craft type barge and drive it right up on the beach if needs be.
Yes, you can do this for the yellow machinery, but what about the asphalt and concrete? Asphalt is trucked hot from the batching plant and becomes useless if it cools down too much en route. Once batched concrete has to be formed before it sets, which can only be retarded for a few hours with chemical additives. Yes, there are also portable asphalt and concrete batching plants, but you have just taken a bog standard simple maintenance operation and turned it into a major insurance and logistical nightmare. Who's going to pay for it, when everyone knows the island is eventually going to be underwater anyway?
posted by Bringer Tom at 6:41 AM on September 4, 2016 [2 favorites]
Yes, you can do this for the yellow machinery, but what about the asphalt and concrete? Asphalt is trucked hot from the batching plant and becomes useless if it cools down too much en route. Once batched concrete has to be formed before it sets, which can only be retarded for a few hours with chemical additives. Yes, there are also portable asphalt and concrete batching plants, but you have just taken a bog standard simple maintenance operation and turned it into a major insurance and logistical nightmare. Who's going to pay for it, when everyone knows the island is eventually going to be underwater anyway?
posted by Bringer Tom at 6:41 AM on September 4, 2016 [2 favorites]
I wasnt thinking of launching the ocean into space via rockets. That would be silly.
I was thinking more of a massive tube that extends into the vaccuum of space, acting like a giant syphon. Totally practical. We could even use it as a space elevator when we're done watering the void.
posted by mrjohnmuller at 6:51 AM on September 4, 2016 [3 favorites]
I was thinking more of a massive tube that extends into the vaccuum of space, acting like a giant syphon. Totally practical. We could even use it as a space elevator when we're done watering the void.
posted by mrjohnmuller at 6:51 AM on September 4, 2016 [3 favorites]
I'm also being deliberately absurdist here. Please don't shoot the ocean into space, America
posted by mrjohnmuller at 6:55 AM on September 4, 2016 [8 favorites]
posted by mrjohnmuller at 6:55 AM on September 4, 2016 [8 favorites]
So, um, just *how* hard would it be to pump like 1-5% of the ocean into space?
According to my back of the envelope calculation, it would take something on the order of 20 million times the total global energy consumption for the year 2013.
posted by AllShoesNoSocks at 6:55 AM on September 4, 2016 [4 favorites]
According to my back of the envelope calculation, it would take something on the order of 20 million times the total global energy consumption for the year 2013.
posted by AllShoesNoSocks at 6:55 AM on September 4, 2016 [4 favorites]
They can bring the barge in from the seaward side. Get a landing craft type barge and drive it right up on the beach if needs be. There are a lot of islands in the world, we have the technology.
We have the technology and have had it for many decades, but we do not have the resources or the will to do the scale of work it would take to fortify or raise all of these places, or probably even continue routine maintenance once the costs rise.
It's because the oil companies paid them to be. And they all thought they'd be dead when the shit hit the fan and someone else would have to fix it, which is the Republican way.
That last sentence, especially. There was a major miscalculation of believing that the impacts of climate change would only be felt in many decades, so that there would be no cost to ignoring the issue now. That has turned out not to be the case, though it looks like the GOP will continue to avoid getting any blame or consequences for this deliberate obstruction, unfortunately.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:11 AM on September 4, 2016 [1 favorite]
We have the technology and have had it for many decades, but we do not have the resources or the will to do the scale of work it would take to fortify or raise all of these places, or probably even continue routine maintenance once the costs rise.
It's because the oil companies paid them to be. And they all thought they'd be dead when the shit hit the fan and someone else would have to fix it, which is the Republican way.
That last sentence, especially. There was a major miscalculation of believing that the impacts of climate change would only be felt in many decades, so that there would be no cost to ignoring the issue now. That has turned out not to be the case, though it looks like the GOP will continue to avoid getting any blame or consequences for this deliberate obstruction, unfortunately.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:11 AM on September 4, 2016 [1 favorite]
Yeah, launching the ocean into space may be a little impractical. (And oddly redundant, too. After all, there's a very small, but non-zero, chance that runaway global warming on Earth results in a Venus-like situation, in which the oceans boil off into space anyway. So we could just wait a bit.)
Anyway, my suggestion for what we do in the meantime: home storage solutions. Rather than spending US$15000 to send a kilogram of sea water into space, we simply require citizens to store bits of the ocean in those disused areas around the house. You know: in storage cupboards, under the bed (indeed, water beds could make a big comeback under this programme), in children's lunch boxes. That kind of thing. Could work, you know?
posted by Sonny Jim at 7:18 AM on September 4, 2016 [9 favorites]
Anyway, my suggestion for what we do in the meantime: home storage solutions. Rather than spending US$15000 to send a kilogram of sea water into space, we simply require citizens to store bits of the ocean in those disused areas around the house. You know: in storage cupboards, under the bed (indeed, water beds could make a big comeback under this programme), in children's lunch boxes. That kind of thing. Could work, you know?
posted by Sonny Jim at 7:18 AM on September 4, 2016 [9 favorites]
What about hydrolysis? Couldn't we just decompose all of the excess water into hydrogen and oxygen?
This isn't so hard, "scientists". You're welcome.
posted by etherist at 7:19 AM on September 4, 2016 [3 favorites]
This isn't so hard, "scientists". You're welcome.
posted by etherist at 7:19 AM on September 4, 2016 [3 favorites]
Rather than decomposing the excess water into hydrogen and oxygen, why not just decompose the excess carbon dioxide into carbon and oxygen? It'll only cost the same amount of energy that we got out of burning the carbon in the first place. ;)
posted by heatherlogan at 7:34 AM on September 4, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by heatherlogan at 7:34 AM on September 4, 2016 [2 favorites]
Devonian: "As a Brit - moreover, as a Devonian and thus heir to one of the more seafaring bits of a seafaring nation - I cannot but draw your attention to a very longstanding story about what happens when a ruling elite encounters a rising sea. Make of it what you will."
Interestingly enough, it turns out the story isn't that Canute thought he could turn back the tide, but set out to prove to his courtiers that he couldn't, and knew it.
posted by chavenet at 7:36 AM on September 4, 2016
Interestingly enough, it turns out the story isn't that Canute thought he could turn back the tide, but set out to prove to his courtiers that he couldn't, and knew it.
posted by chavenet at 7:36 AM on September 4, 2016
why not just decompose the excess carbon dioxide into carbon and oxygen?
Yes, it's a shame there's no cheap simple process for doing this using solar power, preferably turning the carbon into some kind of useful product in the process. Whoever invents a thing like that will make a fortune!
posted by Bringer Tom at 7:37 AM on September 4, 2016 [6 favorites]
Yes, it's a shame there's no cheap simple process for doing this using solar power, preferably turning the carbon into some kind of useful product in the process. Whoever invents a thing like that will make a fortune!
posted by Bringer Tom at 7:37 AM on September 4, 2016 [6 favorites]
Why not desalinate ocean water at an enormous pace and move it around the planet to drought-stricken areas? Two birds, one stone.
posted by Autumnheart at 7:50 AM on September 4, 2016
posted by Autumnheart at 7:50 AM on September 4, 2016
wierdo: "Why we aren't bothering to do the former, I'm not quite sure." We aren't sequestering carbon in any sort of meaningful way because it is energy intensive and therefor expensive.
mrjohnmuller: "I was thinking more of a massive tube that extends into the vaccuum of space, acting like a giant syphon. Totally practical."
Even if we could construct the tube physics limits the siphon height to ~10m.
posted by Mitheral at 8:37 AM on September 4, 2016 [2 favorites]
mrjohnmuller: "I was thinking more of a massive tube that extends into the vaccuum of space, acting like a giant syphon. Totally practical."
Even if we could construct the tube physics limits the siphon height to ~10m.
posted by Mitheral at 8:37 AM on September 4, 2016 [2 favorites]
Getting water from the ocean into orbit was a major element of The Songs Of Distant Earth by Arthur C. Clarke.
posted by Rash at 8:57 AM on September 4, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by Rash at 8:57 AM on September 4, 2016 [1 favorite]
A Republican congressman from Colorado, Ken Buck, recently called one military proposal part of a “radical climate change agenda.”
Is Ken building a beach-house in Colorado?
posted by adept256 at 9:06 AM on September 4, 2016
Is Ken building a beach-house in Colorado?
posted by adept256 at 9:06 AM on September 4, 2016
Here's a list I posted somewhere else about conservatives and global warming:
* First, there's science. Conservatives reject that out of hand (Creationism, Noah's Ark, etc) -- it's no accident that post-graduates broke for Obama 55%.
* Then there's "Ecology". Conservatives are animated by "Got Ours ~ Fuck Them". Anything that gets in the way of that is anathema. Even better, the "Them" here is either foreigners or future Americans who can't vote in 2016 unless they have a time machine.
* Then there's the fossil fuel industry, which has always been a GOP stronghold/ area of special interest.
Bushes & Zapata
* Reflexive liberal-punching that conservatives must engage in, to keep the tribal lines clear
* Solutions to this involve interfering with markets
* And also require collective action of changing our future behavior from past norms aka "change". Conservatives by definition don't like change.
* So many conservatives want the world to end so everyone can go home to Jesus
* (Per Krugman) Conservatives never, ever want the government telling them what they can and cannot do; Government is the problem, not the solution
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 9:34 AM on September 4, 2016 [5 favorites]
* First, there's science. Conservatives reject that out of hand (Creationism, Noah's Ark, etc) -- it's no accident that post-graduates broke for Obama 55%.
* Then there's "Ecology". Conservatives are animated by "Got Ours ~ Fuck Them". Anything that gets in the way of that is anathema. Even better, the "Them" here is either foreigners or future Americans who can't vote in 2016 unless they have a time machine.
* Then there's the fossil fuel industry, which has always been a GOP stronghold/ area of special interest.
Bushes & Zapata
* Reflexive liberal-punching that conservatives must engage in, to keep the tribal lines clear
* Solutions to this involve interfering with markets
* And also require collective action of changing our future behavior from past norms aka "change". Conservatives by definition don't like change.
* So many conservatives want the world to end so everyone can go home to Jesus
* (Per Krugman) Conservatives never, ever want the government telling them what they can and cannot do; Government is the problem, not the solution
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 9:34 AM on September 4, 2016 [5 favorites]
GOP will continue to avoid getting any blame or consequences for this deliberate obstruction
The blame for getting us into the mideast mess in 2002-2003 stuck with them for all of two 2-year election cycles.
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 9:40 AM on September 4, 2016 [2 favorites]
The blame for getting us into the mideast mess in 2002-2003 stuck with them for all of two 2-year election cycles.
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 9:40 AM on September 4, 2016 [2 favorites]
To address climate change, you have to accept that the model of Grow, Grow, Grow has caused and is causing massive damage. You also have to abandon traditional industries like oil and cars. Profitable industries are fighting like hell to survive. Look at the pushback on solar - it's just dumb. I was stunned at the lack of solar panels in places like Arizona and Colorado, where it's sunny a great deal of the time. The cost:benefit analysis seems bluntly obvious, yet people just don't embrace solar. Interestingly, the US military has done the math and is working on their carbon footprint. Solar farms on military bases, it kind of blew my mind.
The thing that just coming back to me is that if we mount a huge response to Global Climate Change, it would stimulate the economy immensely, creating new opportunities for wealth. Clean air and water would be a byproduct. And, if we're wrong, we'll only have spent money. If we're right about Global Climate Change, and we don't respond, we totally fucked over our kids.
posted by theora55 at 10:02 AM on September 4, 2016 [4 favorites]
The thing that just coming back to me is that if we mount a huge response to Global Climate Change, it would stimulate the economy immensely, creating new opportunities for wealth. Clean air and water would be a byproduct. And, if we're wrong, we'll only have spent money. If we're right about Global Climate Change, and we don't respond, we totally fucked over our kids.
posted by theora55 at 10:02 AM on September 4, 2016 [4 favorites]
if we mount a huge response to Global Climate Change, it would stimulate the economy immensely, creating new opportunities for wealth
Reinventing Fire
posted by flabdablet at 10:49 AM on September 4, 2016 [4 favorites]
Reinventing Fire
posted by flabdablet at 10:49 AM on September 4, 2016 [4 favorites]
* And also require collective action of changing our future behavior from past norms aka "change". Conservatives by definition don't like change.
Global Climate what, again?
posted by Sys Rq at 10:52 AM on September 4, 2016
Global Climate what, again?
posted by Sys Rq at 10:52 AM on September 4, 2016
Conspiracy, dear. You know, all those terrible One World socialists from the UN with their warmist panic and their falsified data and their dreadful emails.
posted by flabdablet at 11:07 AM on September 4, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by flabdablet at 11:07 AM on September 4, 2016 [1 favorite]
I think certain kinds of arguments have no weight with the far right: for example the argument that "this is science, this is what scientists are saying". Their view is that testable, applied, hard sciences are real science and everything else is in a separate category. So building a rocket or finding a new chemical process (as soon as it's tested successfully) is real science, but theory-building is still up in the air. I suspect it's counter-productive to argue that climate change is science to this audience, instead you have to highlight real-world changes that are being observed (as in OP), and the extent to which it was accurately predicted.
If we argue that "90% of climate scientists made predictions that were inline with observed changes", - that carries some weight. If you simply say, "but this is science!" or "this is scientific method", that's just preaching to the choir; -- if the person was sold on that, he would already be agreeing with you.
posted by rainy at 1:23 PM on September 4, 2016 [1 favorite]
If we argue that "90% of climate scientists made predictions that were inline with observed changes", - that carries some weight. If you simply say, "but this is science!" or "this is scientific method", that's just preaching to the choir; -- if the person was sold on that, he would already be agreeing with you.
posted by rainy at 1:23 PM on September 4, 2016 [1 favorite]
The thing that just coming back to me is that if we mount a huge response to Global Climate Change, it would stimulate the economy immensely, creating new opportunities for wealth. Clean air and water would be a byproduct. And, if we're wrong, we'll only have spent money. If we're right about Global Climate Change, and we don't respond, we totally fucked over our kids.
"If I'm wrong nothing happens! We go to jail, peacefully, quietly--we'll enjoy it! But if I'm right, and we can stop this thing...Lennyyyyyyy. You will have saved the lives...of millions of registered voters."
#Venkman/Holtzmann2032
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 4:34 PM on September 4, 2016 [5 favorites]
"If I'm wrong nothing happens! We go to jail, peacefully, quietly--we'll enjoy it! But if I'm right, and we can stop this thing...Lennyyyyyyy. You will have saved the lives...of millions of registered voters."
#Venkman/Holtzmann2032
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 4:34 PM on September 4, 2016 [5 favorites]
The fundamental problem is that we are ruled by madmen who think that it is acceptable to create a superhuman monster called a "corporation" whose only purpose is to maximize short-term shareholder value. Unless we can tear down that entire apparattus of corporate sovereignty we are doomed. And the problem is that the corporations are now rich enough to simply buy our governments, either outright or via election ad buys. And Eisenhower was right, it's really been this way since the mid 1960's. It's just that the stranglehold has gotten worse even as the putative goals of human society and our corporate masters have diverged.
posted by Bringer Tom at 5:38 PM on September 4, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by Bringer Tom at 5:38 PM on September 4, 2016 [2 favorites]
India Ganges floods 'break previous records'
While both are certainly the result of extreme weather caused by global climate change, it's worth distinguishing between coastal flooding and inland flooding. Bangladesh getting pushed out to sea by the rising Ganges is different from Bangladesh getting pulled out to sea by the rising Bay of Bengal. Both are happening, though, so that distinction may be somewhat moot.
posted by Sys Rq at 6:38 PM on September 4, 2016 [2 favorites]
While both are certainly the result of extreme weather caused by global climate change, it's worth distinguishing between coastal flooding and inland flooding. Bangladesh getting pushed out to sea by the rising Ganges is different from Bangladesh getting pulled out to sea by the rising Bay of Bengal. Both are happening, though, so that distinction may be somewhat moot.
posted by Sys Rq at 6:38 PM on September 4, 2016 [2 favorites]
Unless we can tear down that entire apparattus of corporate sovereignty we are doomed.
That opinion is one of the things that makes it difficult for folks on the Right to accept the climate science, which they see as a confected problem created as a stalking horse for radical left-wing economic reform.
posted by flabdablet at 8:58 PM on September 4, 2016 [6 favorites]
That opinion is one of the things that makes it difficult for folks on the Right to accept the climate science, which they see as a confected problem created as a stalking horse for radical left-wing economic reform.
posted by flabdablet at 8:58 PM on September 4, 2016 [6 favorites]
Corporate Personhood isn't an economic reform, it's a social reform. Entities that do not have a vote *should not* have a voice.
posted by mikelieman at 10:14 PM on September 4, 2016
posted by mikelieman at 10:14 PM on September 4, 2016
If we encounter a meteor the size of Mount Everest travelling at 10% of the speed of light, that will send some of the ocean into space and get rid of all our worries about global warming.
posted by benzenedream at 11:05 PM on September 4, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by benzenedream at 11:05 PM on September 4, 2016 [1 favorite]
I see at least two separate issues to tackle here:
What's even more depressing is that, at least according to Sen. Franken, 90% of Republicans in Congress do believe in climate change, but know that admitting as much would mean an automatic primary from the right.
I agree largely with Franken. Conservatives are perfectly intelligent; I think they're often just beholden to their base and don't wish to commit political suicide. The path forward here is the obvious one, which also desparately needs solving for some loud orange reasons: actually work at changing the culture so that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge" is no longer seen as legitimate political discourse. (I think ex-conservatives have much to contribute here.)
The other issue:
I'm sorry, but this is just surreal. Do these people think that they live in a world where they can just wish away reality?
PRAY FOR THE COAST
Yeah but if it's really happening--which it isn't--that just means the rapture is coming. Conservatives win either way. Checkmate, liberailures!
What's not clear to me is WHY conservatives are so resistant to climate science.
...
- Only God is powerful enough to change the planet that much ("Why worry, that means the Rapture is coming...")
Yeah, I had this conversation with a Republican climate denier, an objectively very smart man, and his answer was basically, "God gave Noah the rainbow to promise he'd never destroy the world in floods again, so climate change can't be possible," with a secondary dose of "Man can't become extinct because we're made in God's image," which left me with a large dose of "?!?!?!?!?!?!?!"
As many have pointed out, at least in the US, there's a bloc of Christian conservatives who don't seem to be willing to take the issue seriously. If you factor out (and solve) issues of political support for conservative politicians, then you're left with what's essentially a religious, Christian-internal problem. I think the problem contains the kernel of its own solution then: hammer home the point that humans have a God-given mandate to exercise good stewardship over the earth. After all, you say to them, you take the book of Genesis seriously, right? If necessary, relate environmental stewardship to financial stewardship, which most conservatives seem to understand well. None of the Christian conservatives I know would dare say that being irresponsible with your money is acceptable, and many of them have the view that "it's God's money anyway so steward it well." Encourage them to apply the same logic to the earth: the earth is the LORD's, and the fulness thereof! So steward it well.
posted by iffthen at 12:06 AM on September 5, 2016
What's even more depressing is that, at least according to Sen. Franken, 90% of Republicans in Congress do believe in climate change, but know that admitting as much would mean an automatic primary from the right.
I agree largely with Franken. Conservatives are perfectly intelligent; I think they're often just beholden to their base and don't wish to commit political suicide. The path forward here is the obvious one, which also desparately needs solving for some loud orange reasons: actually work at changing the culture so that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge" is no longer seen as legitimate political discourse. (I think ex-conservatives have much to contribute here.)
The other issue:
I'm sorry, but this is just surreal. Do these people think that they live in a world where they can just wish away reality?
PRAY FOR THE COAST
Yeah but if it's really happening--which it isn't--that just means the rapture is coming. Conservatives win either way. Checkmate, liberailures!
What's not clear to me is WHY conservatives are so resistant to climate science.
...
- Only God is powerful enough to change the planet that much ("Why worry, that means the Rapture is coming...")
Yeah, I had this conversation with a Republican climate denier, an objectively very smart man, and his answer was basically, "God gave Noah the rainbow to promise he'd never destroy the world in floods again, so climate change can't be possible," with a secondary dose of "Man can't become extinct because we're made in God's image," which left me with a large dose of "?!?!?!?!?!?!?!"
As many have pointed out, at least in the US, there's a bloc of Christian conservatives who don't seem to be willing to take the issue seriously. If you factor out (and solve) issues of political support for conservative politicians, then you're left with what's essentially a religious, Christian-internal problem. I think the problem contains the kernel of its own solution then: hammer home the point that humans have a God-given mandate to exercise good stewardship over the earth. After all, you say to them, you take the book of Genesis seriously, right? If necessary, relate environmental stewardship to financial stewardship, which most conservatives seem to understand well. None of the Christian conservatives I know would dare say that being irresponsible with your money is acceptable, and many of them have the view that "it's God's money anyway so steward it well." Encourage them to apply the same logic to the earth: the earth is the LORD's, and the fulness thereof! So steward it well.
posted by iffthen at 12:06 AM on September 5, 2016
beholden to their base and don't wish to commit political suicide.
Of course actual suicide, on the other hand, is perfectly acceptable. Shame they don't see or can't convey the manifest insanity of this position.
posted by From Bklyn at 1:22 AM on September 5, 2016
Of course actual suicide, on the other hand, is perfectly acceptable. Shame they don't see or can't convey the manifest insanity of this position.
posted by From Bklyn at 1:22 AM on September 5, 2016
which they see as a confected problem created as a stalking horse for radical left-wing economic reform.
The thing is, reforming the role of corporations isn't really radical; what is radical is the way corporations were allowed to go wild in the 20th century. The original corporations like the East India Company were chartered for specific purposes, and their activities were closely regulated; they were viewed as a way to let capital participate in activities beneficial to the state without direct state investment and taxation to support it. Before WWII the idea that the East India Company might invest in something unrelated, say a water utility, would have been considered absurd and outright forbidden. Prices were also expected to be in line with production and transportation costs with a fair profit added on.
The notion that the most important role of the company is to maximize shareholder value is entirely modern and, if you look at it with any degree of scrutiny, absolutely stupid. The notion that you should set a price based on what people are able to pay (which would be quite a lot if, for example, you sell the only drug that can cure their terminal illness) is not only not evil but good business practice is entirely modern and stupid. The notion that a corporation might entirely abandon the business for which it was expressly formed in order to focus on something entirely unrelated but more conveniently profitable is entirely modern and stupid. These are the radical ideas and it's probably about time someone started to say so.
posted by Bringer Tom at 7:33 AM on September 5, 2016 [8 favorites]
The thing is, reforming the role of corporations isn't really radical; what is radical is the way corporations were allowed to go wild in the 20th century. The original corporations like the East India Company were chartered for specific purposes, and their activities were closely regulated; they were viewed as a way to let capital participate in activities beneficial to the state without direct state investment and taxation to support it. Before WWII the idea that the East India Company might invest in something unrelated, say a water utility, would have been considered absurd and outright forbidden. Prices were also expected to be in line with production and transportation costs with a fair profit added on.
The notion that the most important role of the company is to maximize shareholder value is entirely modern and, if you look at it with any degree of scrutiny, absolutely stupid. The notion that you should set a price based on what people are able to pay (which would be quite a lot if, for example, you sell the only drug that can cure their terminal illness) is not only not evil but good business practice is entirely modern and stupid. The notion that a corporation might entirely abandon the business for which it was expressly formed in order to focus on something entirely unrelated but more conveniently profitable is entirely modern and stupid. These are the radical ideas and it's probably about time someone started to say so.
posted by Bringer Tom at 7:33 AM on September 5, 2016 [8 favorites]
All of which I completely agree with.
Even so, there's a great deal that can be done about climate change without altering the role of corporations, and it remains a fact that going about saying climate change can't be tackled without fundamental corporate reform really does makes it harder for today's Right to allow itself to see climate change as anything more than the thin end of a socialist wedge.
posted by flabdablet at 8:06 PM on September 5, 2016
Even so, there's a great deal that can be done about climate change without altering the role of corporations, and it remains a fact that going about saying climate change can't be tackled without fundamental corporate reform really does makes it harder for today's Right to allow itself to see climate change as anything more than the thin end of a socialist wedge.
posted by flabdablet at 8:06 PM on September 5, 2016
The original corporations like the East India Company were chartered for specific purposes, and their activities were closely regulated; they were viewed as a way to let capital participate in activities beneficial to the state without direct state investment and taxation to support it. Before WWII the idea that the East India Company might invest in something unrelated, say a water utility, would have been considered absurd and outright forbidden. Prices were also expected to be in line with production and transportation costs with a fair profit added on.
This stuff about the East India Company is completely contrary to my understanding. The EIC was from an era where, for example, ship captains could torture and execute members of their crew, including ones we would consider children, without any repercussions so long as they didn't suffer a mutiny as a result. (And the government if anything was much more likely to prosecute and execute mutineering crewmen than censure in any way a deposed captain who lived through a mutiny.)
The Company could do anything it wanted most of the time, including raising armies, invading foreign countries and foreign colonies, forcing foreign countries to adopt it as the tax authority, running illegal drugs, taking people as slaves, etc. It didn't even end up conducting most of its activity in the East Indies.
I've only got a casual familiarity that mostly comes from high school and before, so someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but the portrayal of the East India Company as a tightly-regulated, tightly-scoped operation with price controls on it is completely at odds with reality as far as I know. And that's true even if you're talking about one of the Age of Sail companies other than the most-frequently-mentioned-in-English British one that conquered large parts of India. (Though the juxtaposition of WWII and any East India Company is confusing me too, so maybe I'm just missing what you're saying?)
Even besides that, to my knowledge the main difference between the 20th century and earlier is corporations gaining a separate legal status from their owners, not that they were well-controlled and regulated and narrowly chartered beforehand. I mean in the U.S. at least, the late 19th century was the era of companies and corporations becoming so large and powerful and both horizontally and vertically integrated that anti-trust legislation had to be enacted.
posted by XMLicious at 1:12 AM on September 6, 2016 [2 favorites]
« Older Avalanches rock it on BBC's Essential Mix, and so... | Cookie Art Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
Maybe we should start calling climate change denial Canutism.
posted by dng at 2:09 PM on September 3, 2016 [31 favorites]