The sea is rising — and the clock is ticking | The San Francisco Bay Area will need an estimated $110 billion to combat sea-level rise in the coming decades
https://paloaltoonline.com/news/2023/10/20/the-sea-is-rising--and-the-clock-is-tickingOpen linkView original on slrpnk.net
8 replies
Don't do it. Quit fighting nature. Move inland. Quit living in cities! Okay, I know no one is going to do any of this.
San Francisco Bay is kind of unique; there are parts of it where geology and topography let you build levees and keep back the sea. One community, Alviso, is at ~13 feet below sea level due to land subsidence.
I don't expect people anywhere to stop living in cities; they've got enormous advantages in terms specialization letting people be more productive and therefore society as a whole live better.
Yeah, but from an anthropologist view, cities (and specialization) have basically been the downfall of our species. I don't know; I guess bolo'bolo mentioned some city-like places supported by farms. (and Çatalhöyük)
At a certain point, nature always wins. Why expend absurd amounts of money and labour on a fruitless endeavour?
It's like paying rent; the landlord still owns the property, but it gets you the ability to to use it for a while.
People pay a landlord rent (most often) because they don’t have any other realistic options. In this case we do. The money is going to be spent regardless, why not spend it on something that is more long-term?
Because a century is longer than a lifetime. That's enough for most people when it comes to a place to live
Which is why we are in the mess we are in. Kicking the can down the road.