I'm no longer sorry, move to safer and less disaster prone areas.
16
C'mon GOP! This is an area where the beloved free market will work well. Let the private insures handle this and let's get the government out of the insurance business.
Private insurer's rates will more accurately reflect the real risk in these areas.
Of course the GOP is mu on this because they're phony, hypocritical capitalists that socialize losses and privatize gains.
What say ye, right(wrong)wingers?
18
That we are OK with making our planet slowly unlivable just so a few wealthy Americans can become more wealthy is the definition of evil.
Just Vote.
46
Another poster child of misplaced FEMA priorities is surely Puerto Rico.With the island's electrical grid virtually destroyed after Hurricane Maria, and a bumper crop of sunshine most days of the year. the powers that be decided to rebuild the devastated electrical grid rather than to create a new and environmentally sustainable solar powered system that could work for both the cities and the more isolated areas. Why makes these decisions, and why?
As for Louisiana, you just have to read Strangers in Their Own Land by Arlie Hochschild to know that most of these red-staters hate the Federal government with a red-hot fury. You'd think they would rather die than accept Federal money for anything. But you would be wrong. Hands out, start to finish.
The rest of us are supposed to shut up and pay for their follies.
33
If FEMA distributes money then FEMA should be given all the powers so that the money distributed shouldn’t go waste. Otherwise the cycle gets repeated in the event of a calamity at great cost.
13
Given that the late Mr. Hingle died, in jail, for accepting bribes related to the construction of the jail I think that we can draw some conclusions about his thinking. Allowing one locally elected official to make decisions of this kind is an invitation for corruption.
Sometime in the future this area will be hit by another storm. When will we learn to just say no?
14
This article features a photo of Long Beach, New York, but makes no mention of the Army Corps of Engineers' mitigation project in Long Beach, which is in progress, or that many or most homes have been lifted above base elevation.The Army Corps of Engineers has rebuilt jetties driven piles into the sand in preparation of building walkways that will go over the sand dunes which are being installed to protect the City of Long Beach, has , dredged sand from the bottom of the ocean onto the beach, adding 450 feet of beach, and more.
The New York Times has posted one photo of Long Beach after Sandy. I have hundreds of the Komatsu trucks that have been working in Long Beach since early 2017, of the pile driving, of the bulldozing, and more . I have video of the work. The New York Times is welcome to contact me, if it would like to see, and feature photos of the work the Army Corps of Engineers has been and is doing to MITIGATE and PROTECT Long Beach, and of the homes that have been elevated, included out of pocket.
. Hurricane victims get skewered in the New York Times comment section underneath every piece that is published regarding Sandy, or other natural disasters, by heartless victim bashing comments.
This article perpetuates the myth that FEMA showers natural disaster victims with money.,while the NYT can confirm,easily that numerous Sandy victims from Long Beach remain displaced nearly. six years later.
9
In general most people do not think much about any given topic. In specific the federal government appears to be populated by people that do not think.
A Geologist
3
@LongView - the federal government has been issuing warnings about the risk from climate change since at least the late 1970s. You could look up "the Charney Report" and others. The US Senate OK'd the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change - the international treaty to reduce greenhouse emissions - and George H.W. Bush signed it into law.
But some states took it upon themselves to ignore the warnings, or deny the risks, or declare that it's a vast federal conspiracy and power grab.
That's not surprising, because at state level, you have very powerful donors in industries that sell what's causing the problem, and once you get down to individual coastal cities and towns, you have real estate interests fighting ANY zoning. You have cities, towns and counties tied to real-estate tax and other revenues that are built on growth.
But remember, too, that Sen. John McCain had been trying repeatedly to pass legislation to limit CO2 emissions in 2007 - he didn't give up until Palin helped him lose to Obama.
Heck, when Palin was governor of Alaska, she took climate change seriously enough to set up a group to plan how to deal with impacts there. But she took Rupert Murdoch's Fox money and lost any sense of responsibility - like Mike Huckabee, who had previously stated that evangelicals had an obligation as stewards of creation to reduce greenhouse warming.
Citizens United hasn't helped. But it's the GOP at the federal level that's now the biggest problem.
11
The Trump administration has insured that every disaster from here on out be as destructive and costly as possible as they rolled back the Obama regulation put in place to direct rebuilding with an eye towards being able to cope with a much more stormy future. It's great if you're a (cough) crooked real estate developer. Not so great for taxpayers.
Let's face it we have the worst possible leadership to cope with the changes our earth is going to be facing.
14
We need to wake up..this nation..this world has a chance to slow the damage to our earth but only if we work together; climate change is real and having a great impact to many areas of the world. I work in the data analytics world and our scientists see the dramatic increase in weather volatility. These catastrophes are happening at a much higher rate and it won't stop unless we make changes...One of those needs to include cease using FEMA money to rebuild in highly vulnerable areas. I understand how difficult it may be to leave an area you and your family have lived in for generations but the government should not fund this sentimental stance. Many major P&C carriers are considering completely pulling out of coastal states...why would the government keep backing these areas..
8
At what point do we allow people who live in flood plains and areas that are know to be at risk of flooding experience logical consequences? This seems ridiculous that we keep paying to replace and rebuild every few years. I think we should have a one and done policy of replacement on buildings.
17
There is something seriously wrong with a federal program that allows a local sheriff, by himself, where to rebuild the local jail with all federal dollars. I have worked on many federal grants, and they have all had standards that the recipients had to meet to get the money. Building a $105 million jail with documented excess capacity in a flood zone wouldn't merit the use of federal dollars. The FEMA staff knew that, but they were powerless to stop it.
With climate change, there are so many of these disasters occurring that we can't keep subsidizing bad decisions in the name of local control. Going forward, if communities want to rebuild repeatedly in their flood zones, then they need to pay 100% of the cost of the rebuilding.
23
This must stop. If you want to live in a flood zone you get a one time reprieve. After the 2nd "once is a lifetime" flood you're on your own.
17
Is it surprising that a jail was built on a marsh because the sheriff wanted it built there? In Louisiana? There are over 17,000 law enforcement agencies in the United States. Some not so good. And some of the most not so good are sheriff departments.
People in Louisiana are free to have a good old boy sheriff, but they shouldn’t expect U.S. taxpayers to build his idiotic marsh-jail.
23
A few thoughts:
* This is why you need to vote in local elections - some of these decisions are made by local zoning board members.
* Where are the insurance companies on this? Oddly silent, once again, as they are in the gun debate.
* Reporters should be asking Senator Kennedy about this prison & why do much tax payer money was wasted on this project.
11
If the Red States keep digging they will get to China some day.
12
To rebuild in a fire zone or flood zone over and over again is very stupid dangerous and must be stopped. The prices get higher and higher also after each storm. There needs to be laws that once a hurricane hits FEEMA will help only once. If you choose to stay and rebuild its on you. I would not live in a storm area if it keeps getting wiped out.
9
Do not build on barrier land. Simple
14
NY Times.
Indeed it was also true that after hurricane Sandy New York used up a huge amount of FEMA funds to rebuild right on top of the lit bomb of climate change. Most of the places that were rebuilt will be washed away again soon.
I assume that you are suggesting that, from now on, East Coast cities that are likely to be flooded every year, like New York, not be given FEMA money?
Because, that would make a lot of sense to me here in Rochester, NY.
I think all you guys should move to, say, Waxahachie, Texas. No flooding there at all.
3
I think you are ignoring climate science on too of ignoring history. NY was here before the flooding situation changed. They built for the first time in an area being changed by a changing climate. Different.
2
How much, How long, How many times? The cost of flooding is going to drive more states into bankruptcy. Furthermore, taxpayers are not obligated to bailout those that refuse to keep building in high risk areas. Global warming is a reality not a scientific conspiracy.
According to Genesis: Noah built an Ark, . . . God spares Noah, his family, and a sample of all the world's animals from the apocalyptic flood. Today some people think FEMA is going to build them Arks or barriers, dams, and beach’s no matters what the cost.
6
Dear Coastal Dwellers,
We should not have to pay for fortifying the shifting sands in front of your beach house. Nor should we have to subsidize your increased insurance or rebuilding costs due to storms and tidal damages.
No more millions of dollars for putting loads of sand on the beach. Invest it into the general public's welfare and education instead.
Or you can continue throwing endless buckets of our money into the ocean.
Time to get out. Please move. The sea is winning.
Signed,
The Taxpaying Citizens
24
I say that we ask Trump to demand that China pay for all the rebuilding necessary after natural disasters. Trump said that Climate change is a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese right? So make them pay Donald.
We also know the our Congress would rather keep their heads in the sand instead of making homeowners or businesses pay more for their OWN insurance if they insist upon staying in dangerous zones.
Willful denial and ignorance is not a good strategy unless someone is making money off of this?
4
I love how all these MAGA states who rely on taxes dollars keep voting in science deniers, politicians who keep calling for tax cuts, and claim its all a liberal conspiracy.
Perhaps Republicans are right, we should cut FEMA. Let states handle disasters and rebuilding on their own. If they need money the Evangelicals can put out a collection plate.
#MAGA
19
A shining new era is every creeping nearer. 2030 is not too far behind mankind!
I saw on 60 Minutes very recently that Newark, NJ, in league with state and federal authorities is planning to build barriers against flooding, much as Holland has done for its entire country. The rationale is that instead of spending and respending for every storm, we should get ahead of the problem and use those billions of dollars to preclude storm damage in the first place.
Let's get our legislators behind this.
12
Correction: after hurricanes, US spends billions to repair and rebuild in REPUBLICAN areas. If they happen in places where Democrats live, Republicans get all worried about cost (NY, Puerto Rico, etc.).
This country is truly in peril. From within.
16
We must stop rebuilding in these areas that we know will suffer tragedy again.Pay people the money to move elsewhere. If they want to rebuild in the ocean, or deep forest make them use their own money and tell them that they are on their own. No insurance no more FEMA.
If the Republican let Congress do not agree let them raise taxes on the richest one percent to pay for these projects. When the richest one percent scream Congress will hear them.
1
Being Dutch and used to the threat of the water from storm/sea and rivers, I can't believe my eyes. How can you contemplate -again!- to put buildings or an airfield in such areas without proper security against the water. A seawall....it's not even a meter high ?!? Well, good luck next time when a storm hits the area. Would not like to be there then.
Securing a country or large areas against these disasters can only be done with a proper national government system combined with local authorities. It takes continuous upkeep and renewal and modernization. Indeed it all cost A LOT so you need to get the money through national taxes and earmark it. Whatever government is chosen, this is a national program that needs continuity.
Of course, now with the rising temperatures of the planet, an international "Marshall PLan" and commitment is urgent to fight the climate change. If we all don't act now, lower parts of countries all over the world will drown. In the USA too!
19
Totally true. Listen to the Dutch. They know. And could help us, if we’ll let them.
13
If it makes sense, we don't do it. If it doesn't make sense, we do it.
We're Americans. (Of course the super rich don't pay for it!!)
Commonsense ain't so common.
7
Perhaps it's time to tell coastal property owners that they get one bail out every 50 years. Other than that, they are on their own. Multiple bailouts should be a crime. Using money to rebuild without oversight should be a crime.
10
I wonder if culpability extends to all the developers sitting in their
yachts and estates in various tax havens throughout the world
enjoying life at others expense. After all, you supply the weapon,
that individual is as responsible as the one who pulls the trigger.
F3
3
What would happen if non-coastal states sued coastal states for continuing to build in flood prone regions? Those coastal states who continue to build in high risk zones are usurping tax-payer dollars that could pay for other services distributed in a more nationally equitable manner.
3
Given the cost, there should be no rebuilding in vulnerable areas. Floor insurance should not be available for homes that have been flooded and rebuilt more than 3 times.
The government and taxpayer should not be paying for people who choose to build in areas which are regularly flooded during major storms.
13
I live in Southeast Texas, and our home flooded during Harvey. Our county received 60+ inches of rain from the storm. We had flood insurance, repaired our home and purchased an Aqua Dam portable levee for $8,500 to protect our home if we get a huge rainfall again. Surrounding communities are low-balling actual damage to flooded homes (in many cases, if home is 50% or more damaged, it must be razed and rebuilt elevated) to keep residents in the area and the property on the tax rolls. One small town here had 100% homes under water to the roofs, and one of the first post-Harvey actions its council took was to suspend the town's requirement that rebuilt homes had to be elevated. The town would no longer exist if it required elevation; the residents couldn't afford to rebuild. I flooded myself, and I believe we shouldn't repeatedly pay for repairing/rebuilding flooded structures without including construction requirements to mitigate future damage.
20
I know this sounds a little harsh, but why not admit defeat and just build elsewhere? When homeowners need $8,500 levees, maybe it’s just time to move? The government needs to be aggressive in identifying flood-prone areas, buying out residents at fair market value, and putting a moratorium on new construction.
4
One of the erroneous assumptions of people who fail to adapt is that "all geographic risks are equal".
They are not, which is why specifics of insurance coverage vary by location.
In an ideal world, President with a construction background would woo people with incentives to relocate to less flood prone land, and he would get some infrastructure funding for planned communities in less vulnerable areas. It would be stimulus, risk reduction and job creation in the same forward looking program.
And as a businessman, he would lay out the cost advantages, compared to endless cycles of biblical flood disasters.
12
The hegemony of old and fossilized power and wealth has paralyzed us all in the face of a real emergency.
This human tragedy is unfolding as extreme wealth props up the expensive illusion of survival.
Not good.
14
Another big part of the problem is that Trump and others keep playing to their political " base" of uneducated laborers who feel threatened as their livelihoods increasingly are threatened by technology and other changes in the industrialized parts of the economy.
3
We've been entertaining similar questions here in California with regard to fires, which are a naturally re-occurring part of the state's ecology. Still, we spend millions protecting private properties that were built in places prone to wildfires.
California also has robust building codes to improve public safety in areas prone to seismic activity. This is a very good thing, and ongoing improvements to the codes are made.
Meanwhile, in flood/tornado/hurricane zones, people live in flimsy structures which are very vulnerable to annual weather disasters. Mobile homes, in particular, cannot withstand high winds, and are usually occupied by lower income people.
It looks like those areas don't incorporate building regulations that would protect structures in the event of storms, and when they occur, the costs are tremendous.
FEMA and state and local jurisdictions need to think more proactively.
13
@robert b
Even as California's accumulated debt rises toward the half- trillion dollar mark, millions of dollars' worth of fallen trees litter the gound in forests there.
That wood would help pay a lot of tax money, replacing that once paid by the many employers and shop-owners bailing socialism there each month.
But, don't give up, California legislators! Keep trying!
As Sir Winston Churchill said, ''Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.''
2
As the impact of a changing climate hits virtually every region in the country, we will have to figure out better and more fair ways to compensate ordinary citizens who will undoubtedly be terribly hurt. That said, local and state governments must do their fair share to prepare for natural disasters that will occur regardless of climate change, as well as for the increased severity of disasters that will arise on account of climate change. We should require state governments to tax their citizens and corporations accordingly, and to use those funds to prepare for disasters with mitigation efforts and to enforce appropriate building codes and restrictions on developers. States/cities that do not wish to undertake such efforts, or tax their citizens/businesses to pay for them, should not expect taxpayers in other states to fund their clean-up efforts or fund rebuilding. Under the 2017 tax bill, “high tax” states were punished, yet many are actually donor states--less of their federal tax dollars come back to those states and instead go to low tax states that do not want to do their fair share. Debate whether tax dollars are being spent wisely or allocated appropriately, but punishing donor states for being prudent by sending their citizens’ federal tax contributions to states that do not want to prepare for disasters (or to even fund basic R&D, universities, infrastructure, etc.), is not fair to those who were willing to make monetary sacrifices for the greater good.
6
The United States is doomed anyway. Might as well milk the cow while it's standing.
3
Leadership sometimes requires leaders to actually lead, as opposed to seeing where the crowd is going and getting in front of it. It doesn't matter how many voters live in those places. We can't afford this stupidity any longer.
6
I should pretty much know by now not to read any article written by someone from New York about Louisiana, but here I go again.
I went to NYC a few times, I should write a few scathing, ill-informed articles about how much dire trouble you all are in if you don't change your ways!
4
This type of policy is so short sighted and wasteful it physically hurts me. It is objectively silly.
6
the definition of insanity is called for here. we have kept repeating similar mistakes for many years.
4
i love to say, "when someone else is picking up the tab, only the best will do". this article sure seems to validate my thoughts.
2
Yeah because these events only happen once every 100 years. Isn’t that the story?
1
Only in another climate era.
Anybody in the US who is considering moving to a coastal county, or who is in one right now, might want to see if their locale is covered by the Duke University Press "Living with the Shore" series.
https://www.dukeupress.edu/Catalog/ProductList.php?viewby=series&id=...
If they have one for your state (or your part of a state, Florida has several volumes), then get the book, read the book, and enlighten yourself about the amount of money already invested in coastal infrastructure. Read about the impact of every different type of construction - for example, building to protect your beach starves the beach downstream from natural sand flow.
Then think hard about the fact that this series doesn't really dwell on the impacts of sea-level rise. If your water is from wells, then that's an extra risk. If remaining wetlands and coastal marsh are being developed, even more risk. Price out raising roads per mile, or hardening sewage plants.
In the Miami area, leaders, including local Republicans, are trying to raise half a billion in taxes to put in pumps to deal with flooding that now can happen just with king tides, no storms required. Boston, Annapolis, etc. also have this as just the start of the new normal.
https://e360.yale.edu/features/flooding-hot-spots-why-seas-are-rising-fa...
Then push for a price on carbon, and for campaign finance reform, so lawmakers will work for us, not for fossil fuel companies.
3
The US gov (read: we taxpayers) should not be in the business of insuring people’s beach houses or any other buildings in flood zones. Those who want to build in such places should underwrite their own risk.
15
There should be no house insurance and no mortgage for people who lack flood insurance in flood plains. ( Ditto for people without earthquake insurance in places at risk of earthquakes.)
7
Funds redirected to benefit vested interests is usually described as corruption. It will be expensive enough to move and rehouse people as sea levels rise - spending to rebuild what will be destroyed again and again is a waste of energy and leads to the delusion that global warming has no consequences.
Any state, such as the South Carolina , which legislates to pretend that climate change is not happening should not be getting federal funds to rebuild in the same dangerous zones.
1
This is actually an old conservative argument: Why does federal government policy subsidize building in known floodplains? It is not new to the climate change era and is not specifically an anti-FEMA or Trump. Congress needs to change the laws, enacted by both parties.
4
How is it that so many voices of common sense speak of excellent solutions and vote for the same people that do nothing about the problem. Are they expecting a different result?
4
Well all I can say is thank God for FEMA. I see many on here bemoaning about people building on land that should not be built on. There are some good arguments being presented however when applied to Puerto Rico they become null and void. FEMA came in to Puerto Rico and did a very good job/ is doing a good job despite the naysayers. In Puerto Rico's case the hurricane washed over the whole island. There was no safe place. The people cannot move to where it is safe. This is their home and hurricanes do happen. Fortunately most homes are cement and can withstand even a cat 5 hurricane to a point. Without FEMA though the rebuilding would be a disaster. They are doing good work and while there is always room for improvement please don't discount what they do.
6
Sadly, while we rebuild, the likelihood of a repeat disaster in the same areas that have ever had one increases. Both coasts are increasingly at risk as climate change is accelerating. Today’s NYT regarding Climate Change and also Why Half A Degree Matters. The planet is in peril. Trump and the GOP are ignoring science and the US global economy is on a disaster course too. We can’t drink or breathe money. Nationalism is adding to the peril. The United States must be a major part of the solution. With this administration we are adding to the problem in the worst ways.
5
Dear Ms. Heaton,
The insanity is rebuilding the airport terminal and the airport where it is so susceptible to future storms, not the unwillingness to spend 100 million dollars to yet again repair it to only be damaged again.
1
Many conservatives are insurance executives who recognize that Climate Change isn't a hoax.
They need to become more vocal about educating the science deniers.
11
There is s big difference between the National Insurance Flood Program, which was self-sustainable through flood insurance premiums only until Katrina—and FEMA, which offers some relief, but not great relief, to uninsured people—usually first time flood victims who are not required to have flood insurance. Republican lobbyists and special interests want to “privatize” flood insurance, making it unaffordable. I have never flooded and have never made a claim, yet I pay $200 a month for flood insurance. It is required by the federal gov’t and my mortgage company. Re-drawing the maps to encompass every area that has flooded nationwide in the last five years due to climate change will make the National Flood Insurance Program self-sustainable again. This public-private model allows cost sharing between states and regions. Every area does not flood every decade. Making it purely private will lead to huge rate increases every time a national disaster occurs in your area.
Perspective: although the flood insurance program is a total of $20 billion upside down, this is a TOTAL amount—not a yearly amount—accumulated since Katrina in 2005. 5 million homes are insured under the program. So, the deficit is $4000 per existing homeowner, or $4000/13 years since Katrina = $307 per homeowner per year. That is the amount to make the program self-sustaining with no tax money. That number will double as maps are re-drawn. We can’t let the lobbyists and special interests fool us.
7
As the Federal Government (Republican Administration) cuts "entitlements" to the poor and threatens to eliminate Social Security to the elderly, the wealthy flock to build houses along coastlines that are increasingly vulnerable in the path of stronger storms, which bring increased flooding. And "we the people" pay more and more in taxes to subsidize those who believe that federal and state money will continue to bailout their property and restore their beaches are ignorant to the reality of climate and sea level change.
It's time to see this risky behavior of excess building as "an entitlement for the wealthy", and eliminate it.
4
We need a new strict policy that completely ends rebuilding in flood zones. With water levels rising people need to begin relocating. Rebuilding New Orleans in its current location was a major mistake that continues to create unsustainable expectations.
17
Louisiana is in a vulnerable spot. It is a very unique geographical area that will likely be the first climate change casualty, in the United States. It’s a real shame.
More importantly, the real travesty is that Louisiana is a so called “red state”. Most of those people voted for a man (as they did with George Bush, when Katrina hit) that is likely going to destroy the seafood industry and poison the very land they live on.
Sorry to say, you vote for people who behave this way, sadly, you get what you vote.
#bluetsunami
20
I agree Robert. My home state is not what I left 35 yrs ago. Were it not for family, I would leave again.
kick backs that is what it was all about
1
I thought that the cases of Sheriff Hingle skimming construction money and the daft airport renovation pretty much showed where the problem was, so far as local governments are concerned.
And that the various commenters yelling that this is happening because decent folk reject the values of a commie central government, yelling that THEY pay “$3000-5000 a year,” for the federally-subsidized insurance that rebuilds their fancy beachfront monstrosity so don’t blame them, and yelling that it’s unfair to expect them to relocate, really took the biscuit.
I honestly dunno what it’ll take to get it through people’s heads that the more we warm the planet and throw up houses and buildings in areas that ARE going to flood, the more this’ll happen and the more we’ll pay. And more, and more, and more.
But I do begin to think that hey, soaking taxpayers and lying to them about it while you point at food stamps for kids and yell is a lot easier than coping with reality.
Shoves money into local idiot governments and pays off contractors, too. Sweet deal on jobs, too, if you work hard enough to skip lightly past the jobs lost in the first place.
Politically very sweet, too.
1
Gee, no doubt most of these areas of destructive nature happen to be the warmer areas of the country, a.k.a the suckling the public teat of subsidies zone, which just happens to strongly correlate with many states of the former Confederacy.
Hey Lindsay, when you find some time to quit being a Trump sychophant maybe you could actually help ALL of your constituents in South Carolina, not just those who give you large amounts of campaign cash.
9
The USA government needs to close shop. I refuse to pay for a repugnant agenda. We have a crackpot running the country right now and he is dangerous to the future of the country. It's time to kick out every single Republican. Anything less. We will completely lose this country to Russian infiltration. Lead by the crackpot in chief and the ugly old men and women in Congress.
14
There is clearly the biggest celebration of ignorance in this country that I’ve seen in my lifetime.
Vote in November my friends we need to take back our country and democracy from these immoral people.
15
It's not just that the "storms keep coming", but that they're coming at an ever accelerating rate, and they are also becoming stronger at an accelerating rate. Water weighs about 60 lbs. per cubic foot. The mere weight of all this flood water, coming ashore further inland, and more frequently exacerbates the effect of rising sea levels and storm flooding. People who refuse to see the obvious illogic of living in threatened areas will no longer be insured. Will that affect on their attitudes? Will threatened communities "do the right thing" and abandon their indefensible lands? We'll see. I'm not optimistic.
7
I guess FEMA is what passes for an infrastructure plan in the US.
4
While the Federal taxpayers are on the hook for Flood damage , States and individuals living in vulnerable areas will not exercise due care and responsibility.
Just like Earthquake insurance individuals and States should bear the responsibility for damage , States like Florida , Carolinas etc would then think twice about regulations that reduce the risk of flooding.
Elsewhere in the NYT there is a profound warning of rising seas ever increasing temperatures we not only have to reduce our carbon footprint but stop building on Sandbanks
1
With a President and an administration not only denying climate change but accelerating our climate change by deregulating anything that is good for the environment and that might curb global warming and climate change, what is the answer? One first has to recognize there is a problem in order to fix it.
10
you know, even if you REFUSE to accept science-based proof of climate change, it will come back to bite you in the arse, no matter HOW MUCH you don’t “accept” it.
7
“The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it.”
- Neil deGrasse Tyson
4
Yes, it's great to use my taxes again and again to rebuild in areas where nothing should be built, primarily in states that deny climate change and don't want to pay taxes.
Let them bear the cost of their ignorance and stupidity. I wouldn't send another penny to the Gulf coast states. Let 'em sink.
13
The Democrats STILL complain about how the federal government didn't respond to help the poor people of New Orleans after Katrina, but NOW you suggest not spend so much to rebuild there?
But as a believer in spending less money from so far away as D.C., I promote local people deciding where to spend local money, and lower federal taxes leas more circulating locally.
Do teach us more.
''Personally I'm always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught.'' -- Winston Churchill
3
@L'osservatore - good to hear you want Texas to pay back federal money they applied for Harvey while they left their own $8 billion+ rainy day fund untouched.
I'm in favor of federal disaster support being to save lives but not save property for any state that doesn't start enacting necessary, realistic plans now. Did you know that in Houston they approved a new development in a flood plain AFTER Harvey? And that the flooding from Harvey followed 500-year floods there in each of the previous two years?
7
@L'osservatore The operative word here is, "poor." People who do NOT have the wherewithal to move, much less rebuild, on their own are the ones she SHOULD help, not the wealthy individuals and companies that simply take advantage of these government programs even through they easily could relocate. Or did that no occur to you??
4
Isn't it time to start thinking about prevention rather than pouring billions to re-build areas as they were with not thought given to preventing such destruction with the next weather disaster?
1
Insanity is repeating the same thing over and over and expecting different results. This nonsense has to end. If you want to live in a flood zone than that risk should be all yours and any insurer should they choose to gamble on it. At the very least housing suited to environment should be mandatory. In this case the ideal would be geodesic domes on stilts.
But how would all the government contractors out there get to needlessly fleece the taxpayers in that case?
3
Since we have lost our gift to innovate, I suggest that study what Holland has done to prepare for the future.
3
It may take getting hit by hurricanes 3-4 times a year for Trumpites to open their minds.
5
The metaphor, of a new state-of-the-art prison in a swamp and on course of a direct hit of the next and all future hurricanes due to climate change is, well, perfect. I feel that the whole world is prisoners of the government's power and resolve to worsen the threats and ensuing chaos. There is no escaping weather. It's criminal.
1
"Damage, repair, Damage repair......"
So where's the outcry about the billions of wasted dollars, monies lost, simply gone? Donald Trump and other 'Science deniers' are not being called out for their reckless, costly behavior, much of which is tied to his support for the Evangelical Movement, who, by the way, are likewise Science Deniers. And this needs to be highlighted.
At every turn, this support of the Religious Right and the Evangelical Movement coninues to harm our country.
And did you know another of Trump's supporters was the CEO at Accuweather and now Trump's appointed head for NOAA Chief. And surprise, surprise this Trump supporter is without a Science Degree? His background is in Finance.
Simply Google a piece in Politico 10/12/2017
'Trump's pick for NOAA Chief causes a storm'
Meanwhile, President Trump's Swamp gets deeper with another of the incompetent added.
6
It would be far cheaper to invest in renewable energy, buy people energy-efficient appliances, IOW do everything we can to hold back these extreme weather events instead of waiting for them to happen then cleaning up the mess. No matter how much you spend to clean up the mess, people's lives are harmed and disrupted. It's a foolish way to go.
1
So, if you build in a flood plain and don't have flood insurance, WHY do the taxpayers foot the bill for your folly? It's rather like saying that if you walk across the highway at rush hour and get hit, the government should pay your medical bills. WHY are we continuing to rebuild in areas that over time consistently experience weather-related disasters that we know will only get worse as global temperatures rise? Oh, right: Climate change deniers and construction industry that get government-backed contracts.... Got it!
13
The George Clinton lyric "as sure as land don't shrink and money don't grow" is no longer valid and people have to start acting based on the new reality. Any nation with a coast is now shrinking. The amount of lost land depends on how much more greenhouse gases we produce, but there's sea-level rise already built-in by what's we've emitted already.
North Carolina's legislature tried to legally avoid the problem so as to keep developers happy. But here's what one study predicts if we continue business as usual like the GOP seems to want. I'm converting units to American measurements, and "RSL" means relative sea level.
"Projections based on a fusion of process models, statistical models, expert elicitation, and expert assessment indicate that RSL at Wilmington, NC, is very likely ... to rise by 16.5–51 inches between 2000 and 2100 under the high-emissions RCP 8.5 pathway. Under all emission pathways, 21st century RSL rise is very likely ... to be faster than during the 20th century. Due to RSL rise, under RCP 8.5, the current ‘1-in-100 year’ flood is expected at Wilmington in ~30 of the 50 years between 2050-2100."
That's here https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-015-1451-x
We need to stop making it worse. A price on carbon emissions is necessary, and campaign finance reform is even more so. If Justice Roberts doesn't see just the teensiest bit of quid-pro-quo going on with the coal companies and the White House now, Justice Roberts needs a guide dog.
1
I'm tired of my hard-earned dollars being funneled to this ridiculous rebuilding. I want my tax dollars to pay for practical solutions to climate change, to protect the environment and to relocate people to more realistically located dwellings.
Those who want to rebuild time after time in weather-stricken areas need to save up and/or buy insurance for their own projects, not put out the paw to those of us who live in less interesting but more pragmatic locales.
As to public projects like the prison -- we should be suing whoever advised the locations, not rewarding them with federal funds.
It’s hopelessly. Maybe these homes and jails should be disposable products, say $12K homes.
1
Dr. Orrin Pilkey summed it up over the previous decades:
Move to higher ground...
But then we have as much as a fifth of our urban population living in a coastal plain below, at or slightly above current sea level. Do we abandon these cities or do we look to The Netherlands for the answer.
There are time, places and reasons for both of the above solutions.
3
More taxpayers paying for weak zoning and regulations to the anything for a dollar crowd. Insurance companies and the federal government need to start charging everyone full price for the risk. Where we live the only risks are hail and wind. No earthquake, no hurricane, only two tornadoes in history, not in a floodplain, never flooded. We chose to live and build there to minimize risk
2
There should be a no-second-chance policy. First time yes, rebuild but after that if the same things happen the government should only help people resettle in safety areas and there should be a moratorium on any government help for rebuilding in the same place in the same way. But we do need to help people move and resettle because that is incredibly emotionally, socially and culturally hard to do and what is most needed.
9
Closer to the NY Times home, the Army Corp of Engineers (whose expertise has traditionally been tapped for building temporary structures to support our troops in war) is currently making an expensive and ultimately-futile tax-payer funded attempt to save a relatively few ocean-front vacation homes on Fire Island by placing large sand piles in front of them.
5
If you relocate schools and other public buildings, you will probably have to relocate homes, too. Building a new city where there is an old city is a terribly expensive undertaking. But it is better than flying by the seat of your pants. Careful planning is called for. It would be expensive, but it is the only option that makes sense.
3
What you and/or your county/state can do: In my first comment I close by pointing to a fundamental problem illustrated by the response to the Andover-Lawrence MA natural gas explosion - read at https://insideclimatenews.org/news/02102018
If the individuals and cities are concerned about climate change then the absolute worst response would be to restore the fossil fuel system.
The best would be to turn to renewable energy (100% or any percentage better than natural gas). In the article the author does refer to heat pumps as such an alternative but refers to them as if they are something new - and does not refer to any source.
In 1955 the NYT had one article stating that in New England, heat pumps would replace all other sources to heat and cool. Never happened did it. If you who read this live there, that choice has long been available to you. Did you choose it? Probably not.
In 1955, at least here in Linköping SE, there was also a second alternative: District heating using solid-waste incineration. Did US cities choose that? No.
I write from a city heated entirely by solid-waste incineration and heat pumps. I am always in one of two homes heated by one of those systems. You could do the same but when I am in NE I see mostly the steady expansion of the natural gas network.
That is why my first comment simply says that no national change can be carried out in time.
How do you heat your home? Tell me please.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
9
@Larry Lundgren
You only restore the fossil fuel system -
- if you want people to be able to live more than a hundred feet from work and the grocery
- if you still want humanity living north of theMason-Dixon Line in winter
- and if anyone ever wants to fly in an aircraft.
Other than that, you have it all figured out 100%.
@L'osservatore Sorry do not understand your reply. Larry L. By the way I was only writing about heating homes - and with heat pumps also cooling them.
Larry,
Our previous home was heated by a geothermal system. Wonderful.
1
Is this how the Trump Administration reduces unemployment?
2
We have the right president and cabinet to "vision" the American response to climate change, don't we?
11
Anyone serious about dealing with climate change must read the NYTimes, "Losing Earth: The Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change"by Nathaniel Rich. I read it this summer and was blown away.
Then, you need to elect leaders whose number one priority is to do something about it. Suffice to say that those currently in the White House and Senate are the total antithesis to what is needed.
21
I live in Florida; we are toast. 16 ft above sea level. My house will be under water. GOP denies Climate Change and is ripping up anything that would help stop climate Change. Vote out GOP to save the World. Ray Sipe
32
As people keep living where they shouldn't FEMA will keep spending Billions in ‘Cycle’ of Damage and Repair
FEMA needs to stop bailing out those who hug the coast and let them face the consequences on their own nickel
1
The way our FEMA tax dollars are used is symbolic of how humans are deliberately in denial about anthropogenic mass extinction and one of its main symptoms, climate change.
Our species got where it is by believing we're god who can do whatever we want wherever we want and that Nature, ecosystems, native species are all to be bulldozed for our economic pleasure.
People who choose to live in disaster-prone areas should NOT be subsidized. Land use, zoning and other governmental policies should be tailored to reduce population growth in general and in marginal areas.
But humans never learn, and the cycle of using our tax money to subsidize stupidity will never end.
15
It’s unlikely humans will go extinct quickly as we are a very adaptive species and have spread to every corner of the globe, including areas that will continue to support life. But certainly it will be a very different world and there may well be a mass die off of the species. We will exterminate each other fighting over reduced resources if deadly weather and mass extinctions of other biota doesn’t kill us first. There will be survivors though, and with lower populations in a few generations if they have preserved a knowledge base life might be pretty decent in places. But it is certainly terrifying to know I will be facing this in old age and I have no certainty that my family will be amongst the survivors.
1
The problem is we have one political Party with a huge media propaganda empire, a Party has lost the popular vote the last 6 of 7 national elections, that does not want to resolve any health, deficit, immigration, housing, civil rights, climate change or tax fairness issue, they just want to use and exploit and lie about them to delude, distract, disorder and divide the voters so they can win the next election and stay in power. Stay in power to serve their wealthy donors with tax cuts, deregulation and control of all branches of government. As long as that Party has power, the nation's well being will be at increasing and inevitable risk.
16
Does anyone seriously think this smash and grab administration will make decisions which are for our collective long term betterment?
We need to get beyond the corrupt two party system. Same team in power. Just a different jersey.
7
" Same team in power. Just a different jersey. "
I beg to disagree. The parties are not the same and to claim that they are is to invite voter apathy. The Democrats have been far more active in efforts to slow climate change. Republicans, on the other hand, deny the concept.
9
@Darren McConnell If, after the last year-and-a-half, you see no difference between the two parties...I have no words.
3
@heyblondie Yes - huge difference - but the electorate always want a choice - and having the GOP as the "alternative" to the Democrats just does not work. They should NEVER be in power with their current values.
It's tempting to buy beachfront property … but, if you do so, don't expect my tax dollars to bail you out.
9
@David Behrman: And would you say the same about FEMA funds being expended in the greater Houston area?
As your former fellow resident Susan said in this comment section, “Living at sea level in a city that has no zoning restrictions and has zeal for a building on every square inch of soil has contributed to the problem as much as climate change. The problem has become so complex that it truthfully is insolvable.”
4
The current administration does not believe there is a climate crisis- it's just bad weather- so of course they will defy nature and rebuild in the same place. It used to be conservatives who championed states' rights, but now it needs to be liberals so that California and New York can follow scientific rationale and Texas can do what it wants, and without money from the "liberal" states subsidizing the climate recidivists.
1
We are willing to spend trillions to keep people in disaster areas, but aren’t willing to fund education or universal health care. Someone is profiting hugely from our blind, twisted priorities.
12
We have experienced so many weather related disasters in Houston, that we have monikers for storms that the rest of the nation has never even heard of. Witness the Tax Day Flood, the Memorial Day Flood to name a couple. I lost a car parked in front of my condominium during the not so famous but destructive Memorial Day Flood of 2015. Living at sea level in a city that has no zoning restrictions and has zeal for a building on every square inch of soil has contributed to the problem as much as climate change. The problem has become so complex that it truthfully is insolvable. At the same time, virtually nothing has been done since Harvey to prevent another wholesale disaster on the Gulf Coast. There is a measure on the November ballot to create retention ponds which is a partial solution we should've done 25 years ago. Too little, too late. In Houston since 1976, I've lived through a 100 year flood (Allison) and then I lived through a 500 year flood (Memorial Day Flood) and then I lived through a 1000 year flood (Harvey). Along the way, there were other hurricanes and tropical storms and water challenges from normal rain events. Last year, as I stood on my porch and watched water rising to unbelievable proportions during Harvey, I said, "Enough." I moved to Santa Fe, New, Mexico. I have no confidence in the government on the federal, state, or local level to protect us. For the first time in 100 years, Houston experienced a decline in population in 2018. Think about that
135
The only reason Houston is a city is because of the ship channel and air conditioning. It should have remained a swamp.
3
@Susan
I lived in Spring Branch school district in 1974 and remember simple rain storms flooding the street curb to curb.
@Susan I can understand your pessimism, but, in the wisdom of Walt Kelly's Pogo, "We have met the enemy and they is us." The federal government, which is to say your Congressional delegation and mine, can help by requiring that no good money is thrown after bad. It is folly due to bad federal law that FEMA has no control over how money for repair and rebuilding is spent. It is, after all, mostly your money and mine. Insist that your Congressional delegation help rectify this problem.
1
It might not be common knowledge that FEMA zones aren't just on the coast but can be far inland by rivers. I happen to live in one, and it costs $3,000 a year to pay for mandatory insurance at FEMA rates. I live in a 1200 sq ft dilapidated rowhouse, it hasn't flooded in at least 130 years, probably longer. Do you wonder why am I paying so much? I do. Is it because I am in the same flood insurance program as coastal properties that have been destroyed and rebuilt multiple times? I wonder. Perhaps its time to declare certain coastal zones "live at your own risk", so those of us hundreds of miles from the coast aren't strangled by mandatory insurance rates.
147
@Ricky
This is absolutely correct. Billions of blue state dollars are shipped to red states where climate change denial is a fervent, near religious, belief. I am tired of my money being shipped to states that just rebuild while making no provision for the inevitable. Either: (1) let the private insurance market cover the risk (they won't, and everyone should think about why they won't); (2) let the coastal builders live at their own financial risk as Ricky states; or (3) rebuild in a manner that can actually survive the next hurricane.
1
@Ricky
Why do you on live on a floor plain? Sooner or later it will flood.
1
@Ricky - FEMA and the state and local authorities have been buying out homeowners in the Chicago area for quite some time - the Des Plaines and other local rivers out here flood often.
But look at your own address in the FEMA map and see what the designated risks are - here's the map, and I picked Harrisburg since you said you're in Pennsylvania.
https://msc.fema.gov/portal/search?AddressQuery=harrisburg%20pa#searchre...
Here's the FEMA site's official answer to "How is my flood insurance calculated?"
"A number of factors are considered when determining your flood insurance premium. These factors include: the amount and type of coverage being purchased, location and flood zone, and the design and age of your structure. For homes in high-risk areas (e.g., Special Flood Hazard Areas or AE, VE Zones) built after the first Flood Insurance Rate Maps were drawn for that community, the elevation of the building in relation to the base flood elevation is also required. For more information, visit Flooding and Flood Risks or download Flood Insurance Basics [PDF 27KB] to learn more."
https://www.fema.gov/faq-details/Calculation-of-Flood-Insurance
You ask if you're paying because of coastal residents. The true answer is more likely that you're paying for FEMA backed insurance because commercial insurers won't insure properties near you without that backing.
Letting local sheriffs make any kind of funding decisions without oversight from local government is a disastrous policy. I worked for ten years in a town council. Every sheriff, police chief and fire chief wants to "grow their business" forgetting that they are there primarily as a public service. With no source of funding other than the public trough, they come up with stuff like confiscating and reselling the possessions of people stopped for minor traffic infractions; larding up their jails; buying unneeded fire trucks and police vehicles. These kind of people need to be put under the control of responsible officials who can't be bribed or otherwise bought off.
123
@Jamyang
Good luck with that. These narrow-minded tin pots and their work castles are a big part of the problems caused by climate change. And where are those ideal responsible officials? Invisible. We need to find them.
1
An excellent point!
According to the UN report released a couple of days ago, it will be only about 20 years until irreversible and devastating climate changes upend the world as we know it. We can see the early effects today with the increase in devastating droughts, fires, floods and killer storms. The feckless Republican governments that promote more coal use and deny climate change are effectively accelerating the destruction. Throwing billions of dollars at towns for rebuilding on floodplains and along the coasts is a gross dereliction of duty and diverts money that should be used for proper longterm planning on things like alternative energy and relocating vulnerable communities. This is the most important scandal of the Trump administration because it will affect the world in ways so terrible most people can't even imagine it.
94
@MM
I am 85 years old and have belonged to several major conservation organizations for the last 40 years all of whom have been calling for action on global warming for years. The fact is that our natural world is dying of pollution and we will go the same way, as our leaders refuse to lead. They are small little people who refuse to see what is really important and in stead feather their nests which will be swept away in the near future at immense societal cost.
1
The Robber Barons are ecstatic. All that government money will go straight into their pockets right out of OUR U.S. treasury, which is funded with OUR hard-earned taxpayer dollars.
Insatiable greed and theft as the world has never seen.
WE THE PEOPLE are the only ones who can/will stop them.
12
My real resentment in this is that FEMA is providing funds to people and organizations that are paying for insurance to protect themselves against losses due to floods and wind. My neighbors and I though do pay insurance premiums that increase annually at renewal time. We pay about $3000 to $5000 a year just for a FEMA National Flood Insurance Program policy.
As I remember few if any homeowners in New York City and New Jersey had any flood insurance even with their properties being on the water and received a huge grant at no cost to them.
4
Even beyond that, FEMA was successfully lobbied to have their new post-Sandy FEMA maps effectively struck from existence in order to avoid the many property owners having to obtain flood insurance based on those new maps.
1
A good start would be to end all federal and state subsidies to flood insurance premiums. Forbid any new subsidized insurance policies to be written; gradually reduce the subsidies on existing policies. Bring back the discipline of the free market. Isn’t that what conservatives always push for?
10
Seems that some are trying to freight what is and always was basically a reactive agency with blame for the realities of normal politics. Louisiana undoubtedly rebuilt the destroyed prison because it provides employment for county residents and revenue for county coffers, as well as opportunities to skim beneficences through corrupt means that the Fleur-de-lis State is famous the world over for being so adept at doing.
The fact that it was financed by FEMA simply testifies to an unwillingness to superimpose the values of central elites on every single decision taken by states and localities – to do that likely would swell the needed manning of FEMA from the current 20,000 (10,000 of whom are “reservists” awaiting the need for practical help on the ground during actual emergencies) by some ungodly number and greatly exacerbate intrusions by the “deep state”.
Rather, cut their rebuilding budget for non-private dwellings and non-commercial facilities substantially, forcing states and localities to think carefully about where they’re willing to site facilities that require them to take on risk themselves.
Welcome to politics, American style. But it's not FEMA's fault.
4
You’re actually arguing that this is all the fault of commies who try to impose commie values on peaceful folks.
Good grief.
2
@Robert
No, Robert. I'm actually arguing that this is all the fault of commies who try and FAIL to impose commie values on peaceful folks.
1
This is the American Way: it is more simply more profitable to rebuild in vulnerable areas when taxpayers foot the bill. It's the same thinking that goes into letting banks fail when the government will bail them out. Rather than addressing these problems head-on, we perpetuate a cycle of moral hazard. Before we can even begin to address the ravages of climate change, we need to acknowledge the problem first. But we can't even do that when doing so will cut into the profits of the fossil fuel industry, developers, etc. As Upton Sinclair said, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
21
there's another, psychological dimension as well:
many, if not most, people are resistant to change. it unnerves them. even if their location is dangerously exposed to hurricanes, they don't want to leave the familiar place to start over somewhere possibly safer, but also new or different...
just as many don't want to give up living in depressed industrial or agricultural areas history has left behind to seek better opportunities elsewhere.
this is also the reason a big segment of the population is more comfortable with houses designed to resemble 400 year-old styles than anything developed within the past 100 years.
whatever happened to America's pioneer spirit?
at he same time, folks just a relative stone's throw from here live right ON the San Andreas fault.
1
Rebuilding in flood plains guarantees jobs for the construction industry and jobs is all that Trump is interested in. Always remember that corporate profits end up in the pockets of the decision makers.
1
Money for schools, nope!
Money for healthcare, find your own!
Money for roads and bridges, forget about it!
Money to $105 Million dollar prisons guaranteed to flood again, Of Course!
29
The joke will be on the American fools who vote Republican and eagerly destroy the planet when they end up bankrupting America, and turning it "into Greece," because of all the trillions these mounting disasters are going to cost us.
30
Louisiana Republican Governor Jindal said it best when he called his own Republican Party, "The Party of Stupid." The handwriting is on the wall. Climate Change will cause dramatic changes in weather patterns including more frequent heavy rains, more severe hurricanes, rising sea levels, flooding, melting glaciers and drought, and we are only in the early stages of the climate change catastrophe. It will get worse and soon.
Meanwhile, the "Party of Stupid" rebuilds where more flooding is inevitable and refuses to allocate Federal and State funds to build a rail tunnel under the Hudson River through which 10% of the United States total GDP travels.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-29/nyc-hudson-tunnel-pro...
8
I grew up in the 60's and many of us dreamed of a day when the federal government would be powerless, and we would be freed from restrictions on how we lived our lives. Seeing the anarchy and stupidity fostered by the current administration and its friends, I now know that our dream was really a nightmare.
5
Given all the information available about the awful destruction of natural phenomena, when coupled with human-caused climate change, it takes willful ignorance (hence, malevolous), as an increase in frequency and severity of floods, droughts and fires, is upon us already. And re-constructing in flood-prone areas, in addition to the excessive costs, is stupid beyond redemption and 'a la Trump' idiocy. How much longer ought we be willing to see such a waste with our tax dollars...while basic needs in Housing, Education and Health go unmet?
5
@manfred marcus "The love of money is the root of all evil" and so it is with climate change. Those who stand to lose big time if we change things, love their money more than they love life itself. It will take the oppressed to end capitalism as we know it.
2
Disaster Capitalism. I'm sure more than a few "new" construction jobs are actually tied to re-building from this foolishness.
4
President Trump is the first president since 1941 not to name a science adviser.
But then why would he when his, like, really good brain already knows better than everyone else's?
The trick of being the Great American Fraud (GAF) is to not really know, or do, or prepare for anything -- it's to convince just enough suckers that you're responsible for all the good things that happen in spite of you, and that all the bad things are someone else's fault but can be overcome with "thoughts and prayers."
We are on the verge of a mini Dark Ages that is actively cultivated using the machinery of the Information Age manipulated by psychopaths who call themselves "super-elites."
Welcome to Bizarro Trumpworld where down is up, wrong is right, and truth isn't truth.
18
First it's not denial, stop saying they are deniers, their liars, lying to support greed. For all those saying God would save you in the NC hurricane, as a Christian he tried to, he sent angels to your neighborhoods offering you a way out. Get real folks. God gave you a beautiful planet and fake Christians are destroying it for greed.
34
GOP denial of climate change and is just a set up to create a massive wealth transfer from the Northeast and the Pacific coast to red states via federal disaster aid. Texas, Florida, Louisiana and the Carolinas stand to benefit while the rest of us are on the hook.
2
Yes. It is theft. It may sound radical, but I believe that it is time to regionalize America and acknowledge that the values and goals of California and the northeast are utterly different from those of a Texas and Wyoming. If they want their guns and prisons on flooding rivers, that is their own wish and their own problem to solve when it floods.
2
@Bob
I believe we were all on the hook for $50 Billion to the Northeast a few years ago after Sandy wrecked New York City and New Jersey. Have you forgotten?
If the states in the northeast weren't funding year-after-year repairs in Louisiana, Florida, Texas and so forth, they could have easily paid for a (very) rare storm such as Sunday.
Making climate change political is a death nail in all our coffins.
8
After the hurricane damage to Puerto Rico's electric grid, the locals wanted underground power lines that would not be susceptible to high winds.
The Trump Administration -- having taken back the $300 million contract to two guys from Ryan Zinke's home town -- decided to restring the wires on poles, leaving the island vulnerable in the event of another big blow. That already happened.
This is the "unsung success" Donald harped on when he gave his recovery efforts a 10.
22
Underground is expensive. Concrete polls do just fine. Other states need to be required to harden their infrastructure at their expense not ours. In Florida we have been fighting this fight for 25 years now. We can not stop rising sea levels but we are getting pretty good at stopping wind.
1
How many of the congressional representatives and Senators from Louisiana even recognize that humans are causing the climate change that threatens their state?
8
Tired of my tax dollars and those of other doner states flowing to these ridiculous projects. “Because the sheriff wanted it!?” Since when do we spend $105m if federal money because one local law enforcement officer wants it?
There will be a revolution in this country and it will be fought with money.
12
As horrible as this cycle is for people, especially poor people and the economy it is a win for Trump. He gets to play hero to his base ever more frequently and he is able to funnel rebuilding and housing Monet from the federal coffers into the pockets of his monied supporters
2
One days soon, the Republicans will cite these re-building follies as examples of Big Government wastefulness and incompetence. The only answer, they will say, is to privatize these projects, turning the job over to big construction companies that have given massively to the GOP.
2
Thanks to the GOP "majority", we are now the only the country in the world denying the reality of climate change. That train of idiocy is being led in part by Louisiana's two Republican Senators.
Climate change is not a future issue. It is a full-blown crisis right now, from the hurricanes repeatedly decimating Eastern seaboard and Gulf states to the wildfires consuming the West. And it is going to get a lot worse.
If we can't quickly open our minds to the fact that this is THE issue to confront, now and for the rest of our lives, our society will cease to exist. Reality always wins.
12
That jail is worse than a bridge to nowhere.
People need to get it through their heads: water always wins. We need to change policy and stop encouraging reconstruction in hazard-prone areas.
8
Unregulated greed has crowned the tipping point. .
9
Now is when we need a POTUS who acknowledges the reality of climate change. Instead, we have a "president" and administration who evidently never learned the difference between climate and weather.
5
@ChristopherM Hmm, California. Aren't they suffering the effects of severe overpopulation leading to rampant forest fires and drought to the level of not having enough water to support their population? Is that where you think more people should go live?
@JR California still has less density per square mile than many east coast counties.
Fires are part of the ecology of California and years of suppressing their natural annual or biannual occurrences have caused them to be much worse when they happen. Frequent fires burn just grasslands and low underbrush without destroying the tree canopy. When fires are suppressed, the under-story layers get so dense that the less-frequent fires burn everything, leaving hillsides bare and vulnerable to mudslides during rainstorms. This negatively impacts both human settlements and the state water system.
Smokey the Bear is wrong.
In my edition of the Times, this story ran side by side with one about how resilient Californians were to rebuild after last year’s wildfires. Hurricanes strike Louisiana a couple times a decade, but wildfires happen several times a year in California. So why dump on Louisiana for rebuilding while praising California for the same thing?
4
Santa Rosa is a mostly flat community with fire a rarity. these neighborhoods are being rebuilt and probably won't have disaster again. The remote and hilly area is not rebuilding. No comparison to the vulnerability of hurricane zones, and the idiocy of rebuilding again and again.
1
@Rick Oh but see California good, Louisiana bad. That's all you need to understand if you read the NYT. Louisiana people - subhumans - California people and New York people - angels who deserve everything.
1
For those of you who believe that climate change doesn't really exist, I know of some coastal North Carolina property that you can buy cheap! But you may not be able to buy homeowner's insurance....
4
@Judy K. Unfotunately, too many of our benighted NC state legislators don't believe in climate change. They passed a law in 2012 forbidding the discussion or study of rising sea levels within our beautidul but threatened state. I'm hoping the tragic experience of Florence causes them to rethink their views. If not, this state is in big trouble.
6
@Judy K.
Actually you can buy property insurance. I just got my new policy. I also renewed my FEMA policy although at an increased price.
If you want my house bidding starts at $ 900,000.
But no, it’s people in places like California trying to build for the future we actually face who are really the crazy ones.
3
What do you want to bet that whenever a huge quake eventually hits California, Red State Senators from Louisiana and other southern states will argue against spending billions and billions to rebuild facilities there.
17
@Ron Adam Religious southerners and other conservatives often state that earthquakes (infrequent as they are) in California are "god's punishment" for our liberal stance on social issues. They don't seem to feel the same about the annual onslaught of tornadoes, floods, and hurricanes in bible belt states.
Collectively speaking, we have shown by our votes--Russians or no Russians--that if we aren't smart enough to reject a con artist like Trump, we certainly aren't smart enough to tackle climate change. Of course we rebuild pet projects on swampland. What else you got that we can break?
8
Gulf states and South Atlantic states are 1) repeatedly damaged by strong storms; and 2) inalterably opposed to positive measures to fight global climate change. Why should the taxpayer and the insurance companies (read: insurance policyholders) subsidize these states with FEMA and disaster relief funds that have become a bottomless bucket the rest of us are expected to pour lots of money into year after year? And it is getting worse every year! If these vulnerable states who vote for politicians who are irresponsible and refuse to lead on climate change -- they actively campaign against responsibility!
I think these states should be required to self insure. They cover their own losses, don't look to the rest of us to bail them out YEAR AFTER YEAR. Maybe they will get a clue if they are playing with their own money.
16
@Brian Prioleau
The only time our tax dollars are used is when we have to bail out uninsured properties as when Sandy struck New York City and New Jersey.
Those of us who carry the necessary insurances are putting our money into a pool that makes whole all the other persons who paid into the insurance. If claims are high then our premiums will increase to cover them the next year. That's the way every insurance pool works whether it's property or health insurance.
Looking at the aerial photo of the Plaquemines Parish Detention Center, rebuilt on sodden marshland that is guaranteed to flood again and again, I am more sure than ever that, while humans might be the dominant species on this planet (for now), we sure ain't the smartest.
13
But we are the greediest. We want to use up all of it. All of it!
I'm sick and tired of my tax dollars going to very conservative states like Louisiana and the Carolinas who complain about paying taxes, deny climate change and keep re-building in flood zones.
The president doesn't pay his taxes, and has increased our national debt by tens of Billions of dollars to pay for tax breaks for his Billionaire buddies - Why should I pay my taxes when our money is being used like this?
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@S B
I'm sick and tired of my tax dollars going to New York City and New Jersey residents and public agencies that are on the water or very near and didn't carry insurance to cover the flood and wind damage from Hurricane Sandy.
How many of those properties were rebuilt using our tax dollars in the same locations?
1
FEMA money is disappearing fast in Puerto Rico too according to news articles of mismanagement of the Approximate $40 billion in relief funding after the 2017 hurricane and resulting damage. They still do not have electricity in some areas of the island yet! Why the lax over watch of our tax money is the big Q.
11
@Moe Def
Ask a better question. Otherwise, you have not paid attention to the misspending and inappropriate spending, plus just no spending in Texas, Louisiana, New Jersey, etc where hurricanes have hit. Ask how many people whose homes are still not repaired after reams of red tape and years of effort to do so.
FEMA as a system is overloaded and not set up for the current pace of disasters.
1
One of the major problems with FEMA-funded repairs is that the money must be used to restore the pre-storm infrastructure. Puerto Rico really needs that money to design and implement a more storm resistant power grid. Instead, it is having to put the same failure-prone system that failed the last time around.
1
I was in the insurance industry when Hurr Andrew hit South Florida. The devastation of that storm was unbelievable. The claims adjusters were dumbstruck by the devastation...and, a lot of the damage occurred a good distance inland. Miles of trash, destroyed homes, dead farm animals...my god, the stench...just overwhelming. But...the whole state of Florida is at risk. And, still...people move there. It isn’t just low lying locations...it’s the places near fire prone areas, or places on a fault line...etc. I guess it’s just boring to live some place relatively safe.
70
@A Aycock
Safe? Like in the West where there are earthquakes, wildfires, mudslides, droughts and floods?
Or the Midwest where there are hundreds of killer tornadoes every year and drought?
The coast with its hurricanes and Nor'Easters?
And the Southeast with hurricanes and tornadoes?
There's nowhere safe to live. All the regions have some inherent dangers.
@A Aycock - my guess is that most people new to an area are not consciously choosing to live in risky places. The major problem is that humans aren't generally good at thinking ahead in detail, especially about risks. And a lot of people simply don't know enough history and context. Sometimes even insurance companies (whose business it is) get it wrong, in major ways. And many people think lightning/hurricanes won't strike twice.
So making the risks evident by way of short term financial costs is the most effective way to get people's attention and to make a difference. When insurance companies do a good job at pricing risk, that helps, because each insured gets reminded frequently (e.g., monthly) about the cost of the risks they've chosen.
I wonder if we might start requiring governments (at least city and state) to buy insurance rather than planning to self-insure out of their annual budgets. That would help to bring outside risk assessment into their decision-making. I'm not a fan of ensuring private profit when attaining public goods, but external risk assessment might be a case for that. And new standards for quality and effectiveness of risk assessment might need to be instituted (say by the industry), to help ensure those we're depending on for the services are competent.
@A Aycock What place in the U.S. is "relatively safe"? Earthquakes and fires in California, hurricanes in the South, tornadoes in the middle of the country, blizzards and ice storms in the north, etc. Every place seems to have SOME risk of natural disaster. That said, there should be minimum requirements for dealing with said disaster. For example, California has building codes that take earthquakes into account; but many new homes in Texas don't even have storm cellars for tornadoes.
Too many people live where they should not live. Flood plains, coastal areas, cliffs that are sand, etc. These areas are all vulnerable to ongoing flooding and storm damage. Storms are getting stronger and cause more damage than ever before. Building materials are often nothing more than plywood. We see that the winds just rip these structures apart so easily. More people are dying because they get caught in flood waters or trees fall on their houses. We cannot ignore these issues. It will only bring more death and destruction.
3
Perfectly logical behavior for an agency led by a party that does not believe global warming is real. Just keep putting patchwork repairs on the symptoms of the problem instead of working on a plan that responds to the root cause and prepares millions of Americans for the need to migrate away from flood prone areas as sea levels rise.
1
I suspect that Trump and Republicans in Congress, with the approval of the newly-minted Federalist Society Supreme Court, will now start to gerrymander FEMA assistance as well.
4
This is just the tip of the (melting) iceberg. Soon we will be left with no choice as millions of humans are displaced by rising sea levels, even stronger and more frequent storms, and peak temperatures too high in some regions too for humans to stay. Fingers in the dike don't last forever.
1
The recent 2017 tax "reform" law dramatically limited the amount of SALT (State and Local Taxes, mainly state income taxes and local property taxes) that individuals could deduct from their gross income to $10,000. This provision mainly affected northern, urban and (not so incidentally) blue states - like Illinois, where I live.
The rationale for this was that low-tax states shouldn't subsidize taxpayers in high-tax state.
Please explain, then, why we in states like Illinois, New York, New Jersey, California, etc. should continue to subsidize taxpayers in the mostly red states that are continually damaged by these storms - Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, the Carolinas - ESPECIALLY since they continually rebuild in areas that will likely be damaged or destroyed by the next major storm that comes along?
25
@David Silberbetg
You do it just like you pay for the Western states with their cycle of wildfires, mudslides and floods. Or for the tornado damages in the Midwestern states like Illinois and the Northeastern states with their Nor'Easters and blizzards.
All regions of the country have their weather quirks and we help each other out.
@David Silberbetg: Super Storm Sandy, maybe?
FEMA and the Louisana state penal division thought it would be great to put that penal facility there on the water again. The problem is not inmates escaping--the problem is everybody drowning.
We are in for a very costly awakening that's going to cause great damage to the US budget, to people, and what we thought of as coastal areas.
I find myself thinking about the outrage over "entitlements" like welfare going to say, poor women who keep having more children. Why should we as taxpayers, the outraged rail, keep subsidizing poor choices?
Then there's this, which amounts to entitlements for the construction industry and developers to keep making bad choices. Unlike the poor woman, developers are in a much better position to buy elected officials to keep the spigot open.
Taxpayers, you need to focus your outrage much higher up the food chain instead of fighting amongst ourselves for scraps from the 1%.
10
Taxpayers cannot continue paying out for the same properties over and over. It is apparent Climate change will become a stronger force and nature will reclaim and pursue future lowlands. For those who refuse to believe, take a look at next years homeowners insurance!
1
Credible scientific study indicate that huge land in south and east coast of USA are beyond salvage due to global warming. It's not much feasible to keep on spending billions of $ almost every year to repair damages due to recurring "historical" flood and such natural damage. Jesus or any religious or other superpower can not save us. Trump and other leaders in GOP and their church backers need to understand this simple fact before they keep on denying man made climate change and its consequences.
8
FEMA has found itself in a role it was never intended to carryout. The Army Crop of Engineers are the ones who should be weighing the costs of mitigation versus relocation. FEMA is designed to provide immediate emergency relief. They are not designed to invent environmentally sustainable development plans. If the USACE says a town like Parish isn't worth saving, FEMA should be able to withhold relief for anything other than relocation.
Moreover, handing judgement to the the USACE keeps the decision making process within federal control. Local politicians are allow to spend their funds as necessary but FEMA is no longer responsible for determining what sort of funds they receive. I'm essentially suggesting an inter-agency approach to accountability. USACE determines risk and mitigation. If they have the resources to fund the mitigation project, FEMA rebuilds. If not, FEMA relocates.
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@Andy - I kind of agree, but the Corps of Engineers also has a habit of thinking they can build there way around any water problem.
2
@b fagan
They can build their way around any water problem. However, the question is whether the cost is worth paying. The federal government, and by extension your public representatives, get to decide in the form of budget allocations. That's kind of what I was trying to imply by saying "if USACE has the resources."
@Andy - I hate to have to say it, but the Army Corps of Engineers hasn't been an angel either. A lot of the damage in Katrina was largely due to ACE's insufficient previous work.
Another approach is entirely up to FEMA (if Congress allows it). They could take a 3-disasters approach for any structure: after the first disaster, pay to rebuild as long as suitable mitigations are included; after the second disaster, pay half the expected repair/rebuild cost, again including suitable mitigations (or a complete buyout); after the third, no repair/rebuild payments, only a buyout. That would address both the likely increase in disasters as long as we stay on our current carbon course, and the tendency people have to underestimate future risk. Part of FEMA's response to the first disaster should be making the 3-disaster rule plain to the recipient of funds and to encourage them to acquire insurance on their own to deal with the expected future lack of FEMA's support for that structure. The effect of getting people to get insurance will be to provide short-term financial pressure on them about the risks their choices entail.
Private property and casualty insurance isn't always available in risky areas, so provides some pressure. FEMA could announce that by (say) 5 years from now, it will not provide any repair/rebuild support for structures without adequate insurance, including catastrophe reinsurance. That would help move disaster relief to the private market.
I lived at the Jersey shore during the Nor'easter of 1992. In the aftermath, FEMA money rebuilt homes all along the coastline. It became obvious then -- and again in 2012, when FEMA paid to rebuild/replace many of those same homes damaged or destroyed by Sandy -- that the only sane policy is for FEMA dollars to be available to a particular property (public or private) once and only once, whether or not said property changes ownership.
If a property is rebuilt with FEMA funds, it should then become ineligible for future aid -- with such information an easily retrievable matter of public record, and all disclosures mandatory to any potential future buyer.
All recipients of FEMA aid should have two choices -- rebuild in the same place (with higher construction standards), on the agreement that this property's allotment of FEMA assistance is permanently depleted, or use that money to relocate to safer terrain. Otherwise, given the increasing frequency of catastrophic weather events, we're just fostering a ludicrous and unsustainable cycle of paying to fix the same structures many times over. As climate change makes some places less habitable, humans need to respect the power of nature.
I think anyone of any political stripe would find such a policy unobjectionable. It'd ensure that everyone with a first-time catastrophe is cared for, but prevents the waste of paying repeatedly to remedy a recurring problem.
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@D Price You had me until the end. Many of the people along the coastline tend to have money. So, they probably have a good working relationship with politicians to ensure the public will continue to subsidize their risky real estate purchases.
2
@D Price
Those of us with FEMA flood insurance get a record of how many claims were made on damage to the property even if we didn't own it at the time.
@D Price
You are asking that the world be run on logic when it fact it is unfortunately run on emotions. Nevertheless, I wish you luck.
1
When it comes to capital projects, few governments ever examine life-cycle costs as part of their determination on the size or scope of a public facility. If a local bond referendum or a FEMA grant can pay for the upfront bricks and mortar, then up they go with all the associated groundbreakings, ribbon-cuttings and photo-ops for the local pols!
The actual recurring cost of upkeep, operations, or replacement of static or mechanical systems that should be part of any net-present value calculation for capital expenditures just does not happen. So public facilities either fall into disrepair or become a terrible drain on scare municipal resources to keep in service.
Therefore, is it really that surprising when even more basic questions go unanswered about whether a replacement facility exposed to the same conditions that damaged/destroyed it to begin with should be rebuilt at all ? Especially with federal money designated for "recovery" if the plan is to put it right back in harm's way ?
As climate change exhausts our capacity to replace-in-place, our local, national, and global leadership are going to face hard, unprecedented choices, and so are we.
5
Construction along coasts vulnerable to rising sea levels should not be encouraged at all. The government, through FEMA, should stop bailing out residents, businesses, and government agencies who get flooded in storms if they are rebuilding at the same sites. And insurance companies should stop relying on the government to protect them when they insure catastrophe-prone areas and can't cover the claims. This cycle of destroy and reconstruct is a boondoggle for the insurance and construction industries much the same way as war is for the military industrial complex.
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@PTNYC
Most insurance companies would just as soon refuse to insure high loss prone areas but try and tell that to a state insurance commissioner.
This short-sighted policy of building up where the weather has torn down , as if we were playing bowling and setting up the pins for the next strike, proves what I fear most about our present administration. I have wondered how the Senators and Representatives and the Powers in the Executive Department could accept, tolerate , and even promote the evisceration of our major government institutions. The structure of government is being demolished. In my circle , we have lost respect for Court and Congress. (Trump we never respected.) Losing this respect is bad. This is our government --the legacy we leave our children, the institutions we rely on to protect them and help them prosper. How can we allow our institutions to crumble into meaninglessness. The answer lies in what FEMA is doing: building where the hurricanes are most likely to strike. They won't last for a really long time. But they will last for a short time, so for maybe a few years we will have nice buildings to live in. Like all babies and immature people, immediate gratification is more important than long-term success. Live for the moment and forget about the future. Let the Court become disrespected institution and let Congress be feckless . But meanwhile the Senators and Reps can travel at government expense and get paid well in cushy jobs and maybe pick up some extra cash on the side and certainly later when they come back as lobbyists get more easy cash. Who cares about the growing deficit ?
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@shimr
Don't forget that Senators and Representatives also get free health care even while many of them want to abolish the ACA (a.k.a. Obamacare) and severely limit Medicaid.
2
Hold on to your hats folks. The future is now. Have a look at some present day weather maps. The Pacific, Atlantic, and Arctic oceans are much warmer than normal. The continental high that used to sit trapped somewhere around the frozen North Pole now sits in northern Canada and thrusts its icy tongue all the way down into middle America. We've had winter in Alberta since Labor Day and not even a stronger than normal El Nino will save us. Alaska will be its destination.
What this means for those of you living near the coasts and the intersections between the cold and warm fronts is highly volatile weather. These are no longer anomalies. This is our world NOW, not forty years hence as the sister column soothingly predicts.
I jest. It's catastrophic to those of us who understand the implications. But to those who wish to pretend there's nothing amiss here, forty years is manyana. Money will fix whatever needs to be fixed. Business as usual must prevail.
The Plaquemines Parish Detention Center, built by public money, sits largely empty, waiting for the next flood of either water or new prisoners who mysteriously will have fallen afoul of harsh new law and order mandates. Commerce, that mighty engine of prosperity, must not be impeded. Heaven forbid we even try.
12
I am tired of my tax dollars going to bail out states that 1) have no income tax and 2) refuse to acknowledge and develop plans to mitigate the effects of climate change. I would like to see Congress pass a bill that any state whose elected leaders deny climate change and who fail to produce a plan to anticipate and cope with it cannot receive federal funds. It may sound heartless in terms of the poor people who live in vulnerable areas, but too much of our federal help goes to people who knowingly build vacation homes on beaches where sand dunes should be, or to developers who make millions off building where no buildings should be. Enough already.
455
Caveat Empter- Well sai, but your solution isn’t likely to happen in in the coming decades. It’s a sad state of affairs that Congress works with blinders on.
@Caveat Emptor
Good point about the income tax. Let Florida levy its own citizens to pay for this nonsense instead of dunning the rest of us. I live in the boring midwest -- cold winters and nary a beach in sight -- and don't turn into a mooch every time a storm strikes.
@Caveat Emptor Your state is one of the biggest offenders, with so many houses built in vulnerable areas. Little to do with climate change, just stupidity.
Congress writes the laws that FEMA administers.
FEMA is the implementing arm of Congress.
Congress is beholden to corporate funds for re-election.
If you want change, vote for Congress that recognizes global climate change has an impact on our national budget and it will only get worse in the coming decades.
Case in point - FEMA applied to incorporate the realistic cost of flood insurance for coastal homes in 2013. This action would have raised the annual flood insurance premiums significantly. The real estate & banking industries vigorously objected since these revised rates would deter new buyers from purchasing homes along the coast, resulting in less profits for the banks and real estate firms who operated here. So in 2014, Congress rescinded these rate increases that were based on a realistic cost of flood insurance for coastal properties.
56
@GTM And yet FEMA tried to charge us flood insurance on our 1882 home that they said was in a 100 year flood plain. There was a loophole. You could have your house surveyed for elevation (which cost us over $1,000) and if it sat high enough, the house was exempt. Being on an obvious hill, we still had to have it surveyed and submit the results to have the flood insurance requirement rescinded. Yet coastal houses are not required to have flood insurance. Ridiculous mess.
2
In Ulster County, NY Hurricane Irene and Tropical Storm Lee did extensive damage to the historic Catskill Mountain Branch rail corridor that parallels Route 28, a major highway through the Catskills. FEMA money was available to reconstruct the line, but years later the county has yet to get the funding that was available. The current county administration is anti-rail; they want to use the funds to turn the line into a rail trail instead, to boost tourism. (And get rid of the railroad.)
In the age of climate change, restoring the rail line would be the smarter move. Although it is used for very limited tourism on the surviving segments, it also used to carry freight - and could again. It also used to bring thousands of visitors to the Catskills.
The line runs under the New York State Thruway at Kingston; it used to connect with the old West Shore Line right in the middle of the city. There's no passenger service on that line today - CSX runs freight only - but it once used to bring people to the Catskills year round. Now they all must travel by car.
25% of the greenhouse gases in America come from transportation. Rails are the most efficient way to move goods and people. That should be part of adaptation.
America has invested billions in highways, and almost nothing on rail. Ulster County has spent millions tearing up rails for trails. Short term gain, long term pain.
What's that saying about doing the same things over and over and expecting different results?
26
It is actuarial science, not climate science, that Congress defies when it subsidies flood insurance through FEMA -- and keeps granting new insurance for new construction after it pays off the old damage.
At a minimum, there should be no flood insurance for new or rebuilt construction. Existing policies should expire in 20 years, and be wound down over that period.
38
@Hu McCulloch
It’s ALL science that Greed Over People denies......except for the science of Machiavelli and raw political power by any destructive means necessary.
3
Today, William Nordhaus shares the Nobel Prize in Economics with Paul Romer for work on development, growth, and innovation. Nordhaus in particular has studied issues of climate change, energy, and carbon emissions for over 40 years. For much of that time, politicians across the political spectrum were indifferent. In the past 20 years, Republicans have been criminally hostile to any work warning of the effects of carbon emissions and climate change. Cycles of blind (and doomed) redevelopment in at-risk regions are precisely the kind of practice Nordhaus has investigated.
27
A key problem with the Stafford Act is that under the Act, FEMA is only allowed to fund rebuilding to a level of what existed before the disaster. The Stafford Act prohibits funding rebuilding efforts to a level that would be resilient to the disasters that repeatedly damage properties.
For example, if narrow electric line poles are destroyed in hurricane prone areas like Puerto Rico, the Stafford Act only allows rebuilding what was there before, thus repeating the cycle for the new poles to get destroyed the next hurricane.
Federal funding for resilience rebuilding requires cost shares and is intermittent.
What is needed is a new Act, equivalent to the Stafford Act, to provide permanent funding for mitigation efforts after disasters strike.
Only then will we not be throwing good money after bad, repeatedly.
41
@Ed Fine with two suggestions. One, Federal money is capped the the rebuilding level, or state and local money cover a third of the costs. The people directly benefiting have to have some skin in the game.
@Ed And not just one shot mitigation projects but comprehensive mitigation planning that integrates and deconflicts mitigation efforts through community plans.
It is imperative that we break the cycle of destruction and rebuilding in areas that have proven to be especially vulnerable to natural disaster. We are all sympathetic to emotional ties or attachment to community, but there comes a time - and that time is now - when reason must prevail. Some of the victims have suffered loss or damage to the same property two or three or more times over. When is enough enough? FEMA cannot continue to spend billions to rebuild in flood plains and other areas that, based on past experience, are highly prone to natural disaster. FEMA funding must be tied to rebuilding in places that do not pose unreasonable risk to life or property. This will undoubtedly require some victims of disaster to settle in new locations. This is a small but necessary price to pay for safety and disaster relief. We cannot continue to spend mindlessly and without regard to climate change. While red tape should be minimized, there must be strict controls and accountability when it comes to allocating taxpayer dollars. We owe nothing less to every American.
24
The climate report is sobering. And credit to the NYT for reporting. But in listening to the morning news show all they continue to talk about is Judge K. So there is the reason the majority of people give no substance to climate reports. The national news media and local news media give no substance to it. Or if they do its a 10 second report. If the news media does not give the climate report credibility why should the people.
24
Climate denial is expensive and will continue to get more expensive.
36
FEMA - Failed Efforts of Ministrational Apathy - aka Corruption in all levels of Government, in all States of the Union - especially notable in the building construction industry - flood plains have been ignored in government funded construction of Housing for Elderly and Disabled. Taxpayers are swindled time and again, as featured in this well documented and written article. We the people have a problem in learned from our mistakes. The same-old-same-old, same place and same reason. A numbness, a lack of interest in managing money - in the household and in the Nation. Hard to believe that we are called the leaders of the world.
8
It's really the cost of re-construction that has gone up. You get almost nothing for billion dollars now. It used to be you got nothing for a million.
3
This offers a good example how "stupid" is a predominant feature
of government decision making these days. In addition, it offers a whole new category of public expense for good government monitors to insist upon the proper spending of tax dollars.
I don't suppose the holy hypocrites within trumpican circles can be convinced to join in, but it would be worthwhile to coerce them into trying. Those deficit pseudo hawks should at least
be invited to help oversee things since improper spending
was, originally, one of their pet peeves.
Unfortunately, this eminently bipartisan theme may also fall
victim to the partisan wars. Insufficient media attention must not
be allowed to let this just subject just slither away in the dark. We clearly need a constant and bright light to shine on the darker recesses of "stupid" at work, and on steroids, these days.
9
@bl -Not long ago, noted climate change denier Donald Trump petitioned to build a sea wall along the section coastline fronting his Scottish golf course. When questioned regarding the need for such a wall, Trump's lawyers cited rising sea levels due to climate change.
This article makes a great point that has been needed to be addressed for decades. The problem is that talking about climate change throws dirt on the problem. This issue existed long before climate change, flooding along rivers has been an issue for a long time. Damage on the coast is another issue as is say New Orleans being below sea level for a long time. I seem to remember a time long ago when the entire middle of the eastern US was flooded, far before climate change.
5
Unlimited Federal FEMA money becomes an irresistible target for monuments of folly to burnish the image of local pols, as aptly described in the Plaquemines prison and Lakefront Airport examples. Thanks, NYT!
The simple answer is to reduce the maximum FEMA share of reconstruction to 50% or less. Local funds will drive better decisions, including necessary abandonments.
The worst example of Federal folly is the US Navy. While some 90% of their sea port installations will be impacted by projected sea level rise, the Navy is prohibited by Congress from using these projections or even the term "climate change" in appropriations requests. So they submit requests that disguise adaptation to sea level rise as normal construction for recurrent flooding, which prevents any official acknowledgement or future planning for what the science says is inevitable.
This is no way to run a Navy or a government.
40
The lead photo of the Plaquemines Parish Detention Center epitomizes the insanity of FEMA funding and rebuilding.
Who in their right mind would ever decide to build their home or anything in this location? It's surrounded by water and low lying soil as far as the eye can see.
"Oh, a beautiful swamp and marsh. What a great place to build a home." Any yet, the locals and the federal government currently think this is a great idea.
The ignorance is astounding; yet, if the locals were entirely responsible for the cost of rebuilding, this building would no longer exist (I hope!).
79
The last paragraph leaves me wondering about the reporting in the entire article. To simply state the local sheriff raised property taxes unilaterally, as if on a whim, without further explanation, is journalistic malpractice. MAybe it was due to lazy editing, but the glaring deficiency is no less. That said, Plaquemines jail seems to have plenty of room for the first round of political prisoners soon to be convicted of disloyalty or belonging to the wrong party. One has to wonder if there's any place in the parish that the jail could have been reasonably relocated to, the whole place is mere feet above water level and prone to flooding. Perhaps instead of raining taxes the sheriff should have installed a dry marina and sold slips as condominiums.
3
@EricR
Congress has the legal authority to waste as much taxpayer money as it pleases. If voters like yourself do not hold them to account, the fault lies with you.
1
wouldn't it be better to spend all those taxpayer dollars on developing alternative energy sources? How about rebuilding after disasters in locations with climate change storms in mind? We could build the new structures using green energy, employing all the disenfranchised out of work or underemployed people to do the work! We could do it folks.
31
@Ellen There is plenty of money for alternative energy and of course anything done there won't have an effect for decades. Now not rebuilding where flooding will eventually occur is smart, but has a price.
3
The only sensible solution:
1. Property in a flood plain is destroyed.
2. We, the taxpayers, bail out the owners (in reality, we bail out the banks, which never should have agreed to lend the money in the first place).
3.We, the taxpayers, now own the land, which is prohibited from being rebuilt on.
Moreover, require local governments to adopt land use restrictions going forward, barring future construction in vulnerable areas. Otherwise, they lose FEMA (and federal flood insurance) protection altogether.
136
@Terry
That would last until the next group of developers line the pockets of a few politicians and promote ideas of local construction jobs. A few years of no storms and the chorus to redevelop would start.
8
Was someone in charge watching the 60 Minutes segment on how the Netherlands prevents storm damage? Doing what we do in the United States is like pouring a drying agent used on baseball fields into lakes.
40
@nzierler: The Netherlands is a tiny, tiny nation (5 million) built on "reclaimed land" that is below sea level -- and for hundreds of years. (Remember the story of the boy with his finger in a dike?)
The amount of actual land they have, exposed to the sea, is a fraction of the share that just one US state has.
Florida ALONE has 21 million people -- 4 times the population of The Netherlands!
Republicans are very good at winning, retaining and using power. They stink at governing, re: Iraq, The Great Recession, climate change. I could go on and on.
Wake up people. Vote Nov. 6.
191
@feddef Dems are bad at managing or governing. I could make a list longer than yours and I disagree with some of yours. Iraq mistakes were more Obama than anything, other than not destroying their country in Gulf War 1 and not bothering to help them any.
2
That sheriff needs to be prosecuted for wasting crucial tax payer money.
6
@Issy
Congress has the legal authority to waste as much taxpayer money as it pleases. If voters like yourself do not hold them to account, the fault lies with you.
2
@Issy
If you could prosecute elected officials for "wasting crucial tax payer money" the halls of government would be empty!
1
I don't want my tax dollars paying for this nonsense. I'll let my elected officials know and I hope you all will too!
15
There needs to be a new Federal law prohibiting rebuilding of any sort in repeated flood prone areas of the U.S., and prohibiting any bank or financial institution from financing such rebuilding and barring any insurance. No rebuilding what so ever. Local and state officials are mostly just pro development and exercise no control.
My sister in Houston owned a house that flooded three times in roughly 20 years that was rebuilt three times. She sold house over 5 years ago. Then in 2017 another hurricane wiped out the house again. FEMA and private flood insurance covered the rebuilding. Is this stupid or what?
Climate change is here; we need not only to reduce carbon emissions but recognize water prone development needs to halt and in fact we need to move structures to safe and high ground
72
@john So "climate change" destroyed that home over 20 years. Just forget talking about that, it does not help your argument, and in fact is not required to support it.
3
"Help, my house got hit by a train."
"Glad to help! Where will you rebuild?"
"Over there on the tracks"
137
How wonderful it is to return to some sense of reality, by reading what appears to be, at first glance, a news story based on some scientific data, concerning realistic assessments of the practical dangers of sea level rise and coastal cities.
While this important news story only deals with Louisiana, it shows why the New York Times is a responsible newspaper doing it's job.
In this story, the NYT also tackles a global issue -- which confronts all responsible humans, especially those who willingly take the responsibility to act like adults.
11
Not that I blame the educational system, but, we elect all kinds of "well-educated" individuals to political office, some coming from prestigious Ivy League schools, and yet, they pass policies and promote projects that are just plain dumb, dumb, dumb. The science community is doing everything possible to wave a red flag in front of the American public's face, our response, keep buying giant SUV's and property on Miami beach.
32
Consider a radical idea that will save us hundreds of billions or perhaps trillions of dollars over the long term. Instead of rebuilding on the same wetlands that are repeatedly devastated by hurricanes, let’s retreat inland a bit and let the marsh grasses and other vegetation herbaceous trees, crocodiles, egrets, harons and other native flora and fauna reclaim their rightful place so that they may protect us and our eroding coastlines from future storms.
We humans are such stupid, greedy and shortsided creatures. Will we ever learn?
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@Dabney L
The sooner we are extinct, the better off all other species (what's left of them) will be. It can't happen fast enough.
To all the Republicans and especially Democrats want more big government... this is what you get.
1
One would think that both of today's lead articles might wake up our moronic president. But I doubt it. He'll solve the problem by having FEMA stop spending money on saving people and repairing damage.
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@DBA How interesting, I bet FEMA has a law that tells them how to do their work, the president can't just change that. And he is smarter than me, and I bet you as well.
2
FEMA Fail: Flood Insurance requires a new home’s lowest floor to be one foot above surge level. My neighbors were built to one foot above ‘92 nor’easter, had three and a half feet of water in ‘12. My new home is 6’ above Sandy surge elevation.
Positive note:
Prevention: US Army Corps of Engineers are constructing flood prevention in Port Monmouth NJ, an area devastated by Sandy. Dikes, Floodgates, Dunes -a catalog of preventive measures.
5
@William J Dougherty don't get your hopes up on the ACOE projects as they have a sterling record of failed flood prevention projects and storm erosion remediation projects. Hopefully they can get it right this time.
On the same day that the UN issues extremely dire warnings about climate change, we read this article and realize how doomed we are due to unbelievable greed and ignorance of our government and (a minority) of our people. At a time of such dire crisis, when the government must rise up and take drastic, difficult and unpopular measures that will require enormous change and sacrifice to ensure the existence of our country and world, instead we deny there is a problem and build over and over wasting taxpayers money. I think I need to go back to bed.
9
People shouldn't be allowed to rebuild in same place to be wiped out and paid for by again. This is a failure of local oversight body.
I assume most of them would be red state, just believe in take-take-take and waste, who don't believe in Global warming.
May be a less heat of green bills may awaken them.
I the citizen of the USA, who pays fair share of tax unlike our cheat fake president; demand that any rebuild done against EPA (of Obama) and against new norms, must never be paid or supported.
I hope that our commercial institutions like Banks start to enforce this just to be good citizens and help everyone here, but not providing money for such properties.
8
@P2 I seem to remember New York and New Jersey rebuilding after Super (super wimpy) storm Sandy. If a real hurricane visited the damage would be immense. It is not just red states that are ignorant about rebuilding.
3
@P2 Not just red states. I live in NJ & it happens here too, and New York and, and, and... Ignorance knows know political stripe.
13 foot tidal surge. Super wimpy?
"Nonsensical positions" is pretty much the definition of government regulations these days.
Bring in the insurance industry to make these assessments and you will get real reliable numbers.
2
Socrates has answered this correctly. Every disaster is a summons to reasonable consideration of alternatives that are less predictably dangerous. This is Trump to a T. Always do the worst thing and then claim victory.
3
The 306billion dollars sustained last year from hurricanes and water damage is not a cost that the government can keep paying .We obviously need a new and more creative approach to the new reality of climate change.Trump proposed a new agency for outer space- how about a new agency to face the inevitability of climate change.John Kennedy challenged the country to go to the moon fifty years ago and NASA was created.Why not a new agency which will help us sustain the viability of life here and create something like NCCA, National Climate Change Administration.The problems now are so dire that there needs to be central planning, not just government subsidies for hard hit areas.The challenges we face cannot be patched- wise and visionary planning is needed-NOW!
8
@JanetMichael - That's a great idea! It'll be a tough sell to the deniers and petro industry supporters, but this should be done now. Should have been done 20 yrs ago.
3
Imagine how much better off we would all be if this wasted money (and money given to farmers who face flood or drought almost every year) had gone to reclaiming land for wetlands and other natural defenses for storms.
6
so we have a strong coastal community and my parents have a home near the water. Even my father agrees that should something happen in this area, the government and insurance should buy the property for fair market value and then the people of the country then own the waterfront property. We as taxpayers should not be repairing and replacing homes destroyed by nature that is doomed to occur again. An unjust amount of resources go toward these places and people. Stop the madness.
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@matt: your parents would sell -- for some vastly inflated price, paid for by US THE TAXPAYERS -- lol -- but many would not sell.
They have a sweetheart deal.
My uncle's oceanfront condo in Florida was wiped out 5 times since 1989 by flooding, rain or storm surge. EVERY TIME, insurance has rebuilt it entirely from just cosmetics to a "from the studs" reconstruction.
Uncle is a snowbird, who only goes there in the winter. When it floods, he simply returns to Ohio until construction is finished. He's basically gotten an all-new condo several times, with new drywall, kitchen, bathroom, all flooring, appliances. SWEET! and he's gotten to totally redecorate with brand new furniture FIVE TIMES in 29 years.
When a storm approaches, he starts reading those fancy decorating magazines, looking for design tips.
@Concerned Citizen yes, we should pay the people a fair market value for the land/house. It is a onetime thing, then it is owned by the people of the USA.. to be used, to be visited and enjoyed by the many.. for the exact reasons you stated by your uncle. the US government could create an eminent domain type law. or people don't get the help anymore.
FEMA isn't spending anything. Taxpayers are subsidizing throuth FEMA people who want to live near the ocean on in an earthquake zone. Most of the people out here in California don't have the resources to rebuild their homes after the big one hits us.It's going to happen. It's a tranfer of funds from sensible people to foolish people.It's time to tell the FEDS, no more aid to rebuild. If it washes away, that's your problem.
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@Ross Salinger: I agree. FEMA should offer a ONE-TIME rebuild -- the homeowner (or city) can rebuild in the same place or SOMEWHERE ELSE.
Rebuild in the same place and you get nothing.
That will change a lot of minds in a big hurry.
BTW: many posters blame this on Red States or the South....but blue liberal California has done the same thing and most homes there are NOT earthquake proof.
FEMA is the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Pretending that it is the only, or biggest source of infrastructure funding is ignorant and misleading.
The abject lack of infrastructure that has been built to protect communities from storms is terrible, and not FEMAs responsibility. That is like getting mad at firefighters because you didn’t keep a fire extinguisher in your kitchen.
Cities, states, and the Federal government have lagged behind infrastructure investment. You are less safe as a result. You are more likely to die as a result. So enjoy the tax break.
4
@Covert
On the other hand sending $100,000,000 down the drain, over and over again, and shrugging your shoulders and saying "It didn't seem all that smart to me" seems to indicate an agency committed to the silence that ensures a bump-free ride to survival.
No we know where all that Puerto Rico money went.
Thanks, Louisiana: America's Mean-Spirited and Greedy Welfare State.
2
@oogada
Really? New York has had just as many FEMA dollars. Katrina was so terrible because the response was bungled in addition to unprecedented. Sandy was so expensive because it was also unprecedented.
Rather than telling us why the firefighters should ignore certain houses when they catch fire, maybe we need to work on the infrastructure to prevent them in the first place. Nastiness is not a plan. It does not replace a plan. It does not excuse the infrastructure failures, it just adds more bad behavior.
Seriously, why don’t we have a better risk system to evacuate every part of the Country?
Why don’t we have systemic flood control?
It isn’t rocket science, and being nasty doesn’t solve the problem.
That's one expensive hoax.
So if it isn't climate change, it must be God, and if it's Good, then there's no clearer sign that She's beyond displeased with Trump.
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Here is something to consider, when rushing relief to States hit by natural disasters and storms.
Many of these States are in the south. They pride themselves for the low state income tax, or even zero state income tax. They also prefer State laws and "their way of life" instead of Federal laws, (aka expanding medicare, gutting voter rights, same sex marriage).
Yet when disaster hits, they stand in line for aid like a 3rd world country. Houston, is good example..
States in the south, deny climate change, yet suffer the most. They should impose a disaster relief fund for precisely this. The Red Cross is advertising for Florence Relief in NCAA games, but was bot visible when PR was hit...
4
The forces fighting effective oversight are stronger than the forces who understand how essential it is.
If you want effective oversight over FEMA, you're victim-blaming.
If you want effective oversight over Defense, you hate our troops.
If you want effective oversight over Medicaid, you hate poor people.
If you want effective oversight over the police, you hate cops.
If you want effective oversight over Medicare, you hate seniors.
If you want effective oversight over public education, you hate teachers.
And the band plays on...
And if you question why the band is being paid so handsomely, you hate the arts.
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@knockatize - Since at least the Reagan administration the the right wing has been hammering on the idea that government is bad. Then they got a megaphone in '96 with Fox Newz and have been blaring it ever since (along with how horrible any politician named Clinton is). The result is what you list here. Until there is a counter education campaign to re-explain that government needs the involvement of all citizens to be well run, and to enact legislation of, by, and for the people, we will remain in this unfortunate and self destructive state.
1
What is there left to say, given the ever sadder story of America? As a professor emeritus of Earth and Environmental Sciences who wrote text book chapters about what you readers see before you in that picture, I know the future of the Detention Center.
As a citizen of the US and SE who begins every day by first reading my Swedish newspaper, DN, in print version and then NYT, in OnLine version, I can compare how the extremely serious IPCC report is presented in both newspapers and the context in which it is reported.
In the US the complete rejection of science and no plans state by state to do anything now. In SE complete acceptance of science, already many intitiatives to reduce emissions, but in contrast with the emissions from the giants just a drop in the bucket.
Small MA anecdote to illustrate that in the end, the US will do zero. In Andover and Lawrence MA people need new systems to replace the natural gas systems that exploded and burned. I find a report stating that it really will cost too much to use none fossil heat-pump technology, cheaper to just return to natural gas (the short version of that story. No mention of fossil fuel effect on climate change).
As coastal USA goes under, perhaps adding Kavanaugh to SCOTUS, will just look like an irritating detail.
We do know many steps that could be taken. They won't be.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
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@Larry Lundgren: natural gas has nothing to do with this.
Actually most people in the Northeast heat their homes with OIL -- much worse than using natural gas.
But of course. Disaster Capitalism needs this continued way of thinking to assure profits. Land use planning and a proactive civil preparedness program would end this nonsense.
3
I studied architecture and city planning at MIT in the 1970s. I specifically remember discussing flood plain insurance and how stupid it was because it would encourage building in the wrong places and involved spending government money for purposes that were not good public policy. At that time, there was no talk of climate change but there was still awareness of flooding.
Probably half of the value of buildings in flood plains came from construction after the MIT professors were saying that government subsidized property insurance was a bad idea.
The MIT professors said that flood plains should be used for agriculture and parks.
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@Kay After major destruction by the 1997 Red River Flood Grand Forks North Dakota did just that. Low lying areas, including entire residential neighborhoods, were converted to parks, including a broad parkway along the river.
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Well, they might as well stop because if there’s any truth to the UN Climate Change report, we have 12 years to prevent a global catastrophe. Instead of spending billions to rebuild homes in places where homes should not exist, perhaps we should spend it on science education. Because we’re going to need an army of scientists if we’re going to adapt and survive in a world we’ve destroyed through sheer ignorance and greed.
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@Henry time will tell but I bet that report is full of holes and assumptions.
1
Who among us doesn’t love paying for this stuff, while not being equally represented in Washington?
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You don’t have to be an Einstein to figure this one out. FEMA’s main job is to enrich companies. The government handouts to the wealthy are priority. Every event that destroys buildings and hurts the less fortunate is just another way to make money. Did anyone really believe anything different?
4
A Streetcar Named Desire, 1951 (dir. Elia Kazan) Blanche DuBois: "Whoever you are, I have always depended on the kindness of strangers."
High time to end this drain on the public tax rolls. When the 100 year flood becomes the 10 year, it's time to pull the plug on the flood of tax money being used to bail out stubborn citizens and pig headed public officials. We can't afford the wasteful spending, and it is only going to get worse.
The story of King Canute and the tide is an apocryphal anecdote illustrating thestupidity... Yet "continuing to rise as usual [the tide] dashed over his feet and legs ... casts the story in terms of "Canute's arrogance" of "attempting to stop the tide". ... (Donald Trump, please learn from the lessons of history... and science, which seems a foreign concept to you.)
14
I understand why Russia is against climate change regulations worldwide.
A rise in temperatures would make half their country into a massive farm, instead of the frozen wasteland that it is. It would have warm water ports and waterways that now are solid ice.
But why does the US fight climate science so hard? Why does the Trump administration cheer on the destruction of America, and with the rise of the oceans, the destruction of many cities like Miami? Is Trump really just Putin's pawn?
All I can do is vote. It feels, at least in these times, pretty weak a response. I am proud of those students in Eugene who are fighting a court battle to save their right to a healthy planet.
https://www.ourchildrenstrust.org/us/federal-lawsuit/
Hugh
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@Hugh Massengill Because we unlike others are meeting the Paris goals without the bribes and allowing say China to increase their emissions. The president is open to an agreement, if it is fair to the US and has no bribes in it.
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@vulcanalex We aren't meeting our goals. Why lie about something like that in the age of the internet?
@Hugh Massengill: isn't the same thing therefore true about ALASKA? wouldn't it be millions of acres of warm farmland with warm water ports?
Wouldn't global warming turn the upper Midwest into a tropical paradise -- like Florida? or Southern California? palm trees? year-round growing cycles?
I live in Northeast Ohio. I've already got my lounge chair, sun glasses and tanning lotion at the ready.
I am fed up paying for Red States which deny climate change and don't pay taxes but immediately draw from the Federal well funded by the North and West.
30
In my hometown of Seattle, only 15% of homes have earthquake insurance, despite the risk being even worse than California for " a big quake". Throughout the West, most homes are not insured by earthquakes.
They represent a humongous future disaster relief bill for our nation.
People also keep building homes in areas prone to forest fires, which are worse each year with global warming.
So please don't perpetuate the myth of saying that denial of climate change is a " Red State versus Blue State" problem .
Hurricanes and floods keep getting more extreme yet we continue to rebuild in areas that are increasingly prone to severe disaster situation. North Carolina's Outer Banks come to mind as do barrier islands elsewhere, but especially in Florida. This is insane.
Better to use the funds to rebuild in higher areas. Granted that land purchases would be needed, but we can't continue to the present programs as is.
3
Most rich people have many houses in the USA, even abroad. There are not concerned wiwth these problems.
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@Roland Berger I guess those "rich" people are a very small minority.
1
How wonderful it is to return to some sense of reality, by reading what appears to be, at first glance, a news story based on some scientific data, concerning realistic assessments of the practical dangers of sea level rise and coastal cities.
While this important news story mainly deals with Louisiana, it shows why the New York Times is a responsible newspaper doing it's job.
In this story, the NYT also tackles a global issue -- which confronts all responsible humans, especially those who willingly take the responsibility to act like adults.
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one of the many ironies is: since the center is built in the middle (edge) of nowhere, fossil-fuel-burning driving (which increases climate change) will be increased with ANYTHING having to do with the center: visiting, evacuating, supplying, etc.
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The irony here is that the states most affected by the effects of climate change are mostly the same states with prominent climate change denying politicians.
Maybe FEMA should be funded proportionally by those states that use FEMA's money the most.
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@Scott J. So, what I hear you saying is you have had no roll in climate change and feel no obligation to contribute. Is that right?
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@G-unit If the majority of voters in your state don't want to change things for the better they should be held financially liable for their foolish and short-sighted positions. Consider moving to a state that does have a majority of the electorate behind taking active steps to change the situation if my proposal bothers you. BTW, I am (or was) a scientist myself at one time. Climate change is real.
It just shows how all government spending is reactive. There is never any foresight used to get in front of problems. Disaster relief is an obvious one at this point. But so is healthcare, infrastructure, tax policy, rising sea levels, economic opportunity.
the list goes on.
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@Jonathan Sanders How foolish you are flooding was in the past addressed by making dams and other things. Today regulations prevent a lot of that. See TVA and the Corp of Engineers work in the past. Do more today.
1
This column and the article on the risk of catastrophic climate change before 2040 have together received remarkably few comments. Are we like the proverbial clueless frog in a the pot of slowly heating water, or is the catastrophic scale of climate change so vast that we can only fatalistically shrug our shoulders as to working to avoid the looming disaster? Climate change is THE issue facing the world. It affects us on a daily basis now (example: near 90 temperatures in October that are now common, with autumn an increasingly distant memory in southern Ohio.)
To people who say that Democrats, who favor clean renewable energy (with its industries and jobs of the future) and policies that accept the scientific reality of climate change, are no different from Republicans who are busy rolling back standards to enrich and accommodate the fossil fuel lobby, wake up and start voting for your children’s future.
To those who say the solutions are too hard, get involved. Make changes in your daily lives that add up to significant collective change. Join organizations like the Citizens’ Climate Lobby. If you can, donate to the Natural Resources Defense Council and other environmental advocacy groups. Make your voice heard to your representatives. (Learn how much of their campaign funding comes from the Kochs and other petro-chemical billionaire industries).
To those who say climate change isn’t real, educate yourself from non-partisan, scientific sources. Your lives depend on it.
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@J. A quick look at historical temperature averages for Cincinnati shows that the record highs in most months were set prior to 1953. Moreover, for the month of October specifically, the record daily highs for almost every single day in the month were set prior to 1953.
Perhaps non-partisan, scientific sources do not always show what you feel they should show.
http://www.intellicast.com/Local/History.aspx?location=USOH0188
2
@J.
My chosen role is to promote solar charging of electric vehicles. We should all collect our own free energy and use it for transportation (and homes, too). Ideally, you keep your own solar electricity off of the utility grid for the highest return on your investment.
Thanks for the reference to Citizens Climate Lobby as a bipartisan organization focused on this issue. I had not heard of them.
“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.”
--- Albert Einstein
Perhaps it's time America grew an IQ, opened a science book, and showed some respect for Mother Nature and common sense.
November 6 2018
VOTE
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@Socrates - America started to down play science since Saint Reagan was in office, and started embracing opinions or ancient texts as science. From Nancy's love of Astrology to intelligent design, etc. Sadly, voting may help slow the trend down, but not going to stop it! Educating America will take a long time... Mother nature has her own timetable... Common sense.
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@Socrates Yes, but it will take much more than restoring Democrats (and Democracy.) We're a lazy, pathetic country today compared to how we lived, worked, learned and collaborated 50-60 years ago, for 4+ decades onward, and when compared presently to many of the countries with whom we have trade imbalances, infant mortality gaps and advanced degree deficits. We have generational issues, and deep-seated ones (as this article highlights.) I'm definitely voting (always have) but we're in need of serious resuscitation and reinvention as a nation of 50, independent states + territories and possessions and that's what I'm preparing for.
1
@Socrates - Soc I always write the same - VOTE. But tell me which Democratic Party candidate is well informed about renewable energy and has been active in promoting it.
I only know of one (actually independent) and I know in some detail about his efforts. That one is of course Bernie Sanders. In 2013 he held a major workshop in Burlington to promote the widespread use of heat pumps and especially ground source geothermal heat pumps.
Last summer when I was in Vermont he was a major speaker at another such workshop in Randolph VT.
Vermonters as individuals still seem hooked on natural gas but the State of Vermont and these two (perhaps others) colleges have a major commitment to Ground Source Geothermal: Champlain College, Saint Michaels College, Vietnam Memorial Rest Stop, Bennington State Offices.
Opening the science book is not enough. Each state needs a Bernie Sanders.
Larry L.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
2