Reply #36: It rather depends on how much information they have [View All]

[Dead_Parrot]

You are right that people can happily take risks with where they live: As an example you brought up, I live near a fault line (about 25 metres from it, in fact) but this was based on the current projection that it's unlikely to move within the next 500 years, never mind the 4 or 5 I'm planning on being here. It's an acceptable risk.

What worries me is the people on Gulf coast don't have the sort of risk information they need to make an informed decision as to whether they should be rebuilding: The intensity of gulf hurricanes is going to get worse, and there seems to be a 50/50 chance Greenland will be loosing it's ice-shelf in the next 40 years or so: While sea defenses that can cope with a 20ft rise in sea level are perfectly possible, I'm not sure how much faith I'd have in a defense to cope with a 20ft rise and a cat-5 hurricane at the same time. Certainly I wouldn't want to bet my daughter's life on it holding up.

What worries me is all this rebuilding work is being done by people who haven't got the foggiest notion about what the future has in store for them. The current admin is hardly the world leader in getting to grips with climate change, or education: the only modeling being done is by a handful of individuals and foreign governments (who are understandably more interested in their own coastlines).

Rebuilding after Katrina because they did after '69 is a bit of a lop-sided view, because it carries the assumption that the situation will be the same for the next 35 years - and it won't be, not by a long way.

The problem is, I don't think they have that information. If they do, and they still want to rebuild, then fair enough. But if they are rebuilding when they are not aware, I think we should be very concerned. Not to the point of going down to Biloxi and spitting on them, but at least to the point of running some models and telling them what the results are.