Don’t invest in seaside roller coasters, warn the authors of Risky Business: The Economic Risks of Climate Change in the United States
By now you’ve all probably heard about the terrifying new climate report from a bipartisan group of ex-cabinet officials that outlines the impending economic horrors associated with climate change, on top of the usual environmental ones. For example, due to rising sea levels, as much as $681 billion worth of Florida real estate could be underwater by the end of the century. Literally under water, not the metaphorical you-owe-more-on-your-mortgage-than-your-home-is-worth thing. Although as a consequence, that too, no doubt.
Extreme heat, rising sea levels, intensified storms, and shifting rain patterns could cost hundreds of billions of dollars and tens of thousands of lives nationally. But it’s interesting to note that here in Cascadia, not so much:
The Northwest is among the least exposed to climate-driven agricultural, mortality, energy, and labor productivity impacts; however, the region is likely to experience an increase of 3 to 8 times the number of hot days per year by the end of the century.
I hate the heat, so shifting from our current average of 5 days a year of 95 degree weather or warmer to an additional 18 to 41 such days a year by the end of the century would really suck. But it’s all relative. In the same time frame, the Southwest could be suffering as many as 110 extreme heat days a year, and the Southeast as many as 138!
As for sea level, the Northwest might actually see it fall a bit over the next few decades, or rise only slightly, thanks to the reduced gravitational pull from Alaska’s shrinking glaciers! (Really. I’m not making that up.)
Yeah, our own snowpack is predicted to decline as more precipitation falls as rain instead of snow, but if we start planning now, that’s something we can manage. There’s plenty of opportunity for conservation, and a few more reservoirs could help even out the dry periods. Also, we could always tap in to the oft criticized Brightwater sewage treatment plant’s impressive greywater capacity (99.9 percent clean!) to help further reduce demands on potable water. (Thanks for planning ahead, Ron Sims!)
So compared to the rest of the country, we won’t have it so bad. And while it may sound cold-hearted to say so, that means global warming could give Seattle a competitive economic advantage.
Think about it. Where would you rather live or start a business? Relatively temperate 22nd century Seattle with our mild winters and mere three or four weeks of 95-plus-degree days? Or storm-battered, steadily-sinking Florida with its four and a half months a year of oppressive heat and equally oppressive humidity? And then there’s the arid Southwest, where summer temperatures already routinely exceed 110 degrees. Phoenix area boosters have long pitched their region as “the next Silicon Valley”—crank up the heat much further and they could achieve that vision quite literally as the surrounding desert melts into glass.
Look, I’m not making light of climate change. It’s a fucking disaster. But if you don’t think people are going to want to move to the Pacific Northwest to escape the brutal heat elsewhere in the country, you’re crazy. Rain or shine, Seattle’s weather is going to become one of its major selling points over the next half century. So if you think housing costs and traffic congestion are at crisis levels now, just wait and see how bad things get with a few million more people packed into the region.
Or rather, let’s not wait. Let’s plan.
I say why not let the southeast secede, and tell them we’re going to send “illegal aliens from the northeast to trick them into building a border wall for us.
Who cares – gay people don’t have to worry about the next generation.
@2: obviously you’re way to stupid to know that many Gay families have children, so they of course worry about the next generation.
But then reality, reason and logic are not what teabaggers are best at is it?
Time to buy stock in Alaska air conditioning companies! Get it while the shares are still cheap! And don’t overlook the profit potential in selling refrigerators to Inuits*!
* Formerly knowns as “Eskimos”
The shit really hits the fan when the Arctic thaws and all the frozen methane in the tundra goes into the atmosphere.
#3,
The empty teabag is one of yours!
BTW here is another sea level data measurement method…
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.....the-trend/
@3 my stupid way of imitating a teabagger and bring sarcasm and cynicism to the table. Looking for the reaction that you gave.
And although I don’t have kids, I have several nieces and nephews and they have kids. Unlike a teabagger I do care about other people other than myself.
@3 – one last stupid comment. I was hoping by me saying who cares because I’m gay, then the Taliban would actually start to care. Kind of like when Obama is for something, they do the exact opposite regardless of what they really believe.
With all those people coming to Seattle, why in the world would someone decide to sell a downtown hotel?
Needlessly scaring people used to work.
A complete list of things caused by global warming
http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/warmlist.htm
You could try that.
Of course, it mostly works on children and on YLB – was that redundant? – and it doesn’t get you very far with the NYT:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04......html?_r=0
And if you want to parlay it into a job, your chances would have been better about 2-3 years ago:
http://www.indeed.com/jobanaly.....22&l=
Finally, there’s the possibility that you put off even your friends by using scare tactics (this opinion piece published today):
Alarm over climate turns people off
However, trying to make people reduce emissions by frightening them has “harmful consequences” because they often respond suspiciously or decide the issue is “too scary to think about”.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/.....128107.ece
NYT suggests you play up nuclear energy. Looking forward to your post on that.
Course, we are going to be in trouble since a good deal of Seattle manufacturing and shopping is in flood plains that will be underwater. Magnolia will be an island. Lake Washington will be part of the ocean. Down in Oregon, the Willamette Valley will be a shallow inland sea.
Think about all the freeways and train tracks we will have to reroute and re build. Serious spending on infrastructure.
@11
Better get busy on that ark,
NoahBetter.