what's an ounce of prevention worth again?
August 7, 2015 4:10 PM Subscribe
It's been posited that one way to deal with climate change is to be rich, or, failing that, to live in a country that can afford to take protective measures. However, a new study published in the journal Science concludes that mega-engineering projects along river systems -- particularly near river deltas -- will actually worsen the eventual impact of flooding. The underlying reason is simple: when you prevent flooding in a delta system, you also prevent fresh sediment from being deposited. The land that's already there compacts, erodes, and subsides.
Combine that with rising seas, more extreme weather events, and even post-glacial forebulge collapse in certain areas, and it appears that even the heavily engineered and fortified river deltas of the world are living on borrowed time.
Combine that with rising seas, more extreme weather events, and even post-glacial forebulge collapse in certain areas, and it appears that even the heavily engineered and fortified river deltas of the world are living on borrowed time.
Also, mega-engineering to prevent floods impacting one area usually just means that some other poor schmoe's land floods instead.
Flood control engineering (whether mega or small scale) almost always change the failure mode from gradual to sudden and catastrophic. With a wide floodplain and lots of riparian vegetation, flood waters rise and fall slowly and energy is dissipated. With levees and other hard structures, flood waters are fully contained until the capacity is exceeded, at which point bad things happen.
We aren't going to engineer ourselves out of this situation.
posted by Dip Flash at 5:20 PM on August 7, 2015 [7 favorites]
Flood control engineering (whether mega or small scale) almost always change the failure mode from gradual to sudden and catastrophic. With a wide floodplain and lots of riparian vegetation, flood waters rise and fall slowly and energy is dissipated. With levees and other hard structures, flood waters are fully contained until the capacity is exceeded, at which point bad things happen.
We aren't going to engineer ourselves out of this situation.
posted by Dip Flash at 5:20 PM on August 7, 2015 [7 favorites]
The futility of trying to control water:
Sorry, I can't seem to link it on my phone atm.
posted by glaucon at 5:32 PM on August 7, 2015 [3 favorites]
Sorry, I can't seem to link it on my phone atm.
posted by glaucon at 5:32 PM on August 7, 2015 [3 favorites]
I think it's important to point out that the rich will, in many cases, still be okay, as they can afford to deal with issues such as soil erosion.
Two things - first, things like this up the ante on just how rich "rich" is - that is to say, if you're assuming a direct connection between wealth and the ability to survive/thrive in an environmentally apocalyptic world, then with each new one-up disaster like this narrows the field of people wealthy enough to stay on the island - it was everyone with an income over $100k a year, whoops, now it's just millionaires and up, oh, sorry millionaires, now it's just billionaires....
But the whole premise is borked. Money isn't magic, a billionaire doesn't set foot outside his door, wave a wand made of banknotes and the seas recede. Money is a form of power which operates through a very specific social infrastructure - industrial production, land rents, a banking system built around investment and lending, etc. Money comes from somewhere and it has to go somewhere to get anything done.
The question which arises in the context of massive ecological dislocation is then a) to what degree does this dislocation alter the sources of wealth (If Miami and New York City go under water, who loses out on real estate, which agribusinesses see their lands turn to smouldering ash), and to what degree do they limit the capacity of wealth to achieve its goals (what happens to industry when global supply chains of energy and materials fall apart, when trained technical staff and their equipment are harder to get hold of (education requires infrastructure), when banks collapse and this time there's no goverment bailout to save them, etc.).
The interesting thing is that some elites are going to see personal loss from climate change well before many ordinary people do, at least in the developed world. Because a lot of the areas (geographical and economic) which are likely to be most impacted are precisely the areas where a great deal of wealth is concentrated. Coastal real estate. Agribusiness. Hell, any commercial fortune based around a mass consumer base is going to find itself in trouble as soon as that base is sufficiently disrupted (enough people out of homes and work, no disposable income, debt becomes meaningless with enforcement mechanisms collapsing and no real chance of it ever being paid back).
So yeah, "wealth" won't mean much unless the wealthy put out some effort to maintain the world within which wealth can function.
posted by AdamCSnider at 5:41 PM on August 7, 2015 [16 favorites]
Two things - first, things like this up the ante on just how rich "rich" is - that is to say, if you're assuming a direct connection between wealth and the ability to survive/thrive in an environmentally apocalyptic world, then with each new one-up disaster like this narrows the field of people wealthy enough to stay on the island - it was everyone with an income over $100k a year, whoops, now it's just millionaires and up, oh, sorry millionaires, now it's just billionaires....
But the whole premise is borked. Money isn't magic, a billionaire doesn't set foot outside his door, wave a wand made of banknotes and the seas recede. Money is a form of power which operates through a very specific social infrastructure - industrial production, land rents, a banking system built around investment and lending, etc. Money comes from somewhere and it has to go somewhere to get anything done.
The question which arises in the context of massive ecological dislocation is then a) to what degree does this dislocation alter the sources of wealth (If Miami and New York City go under water, who loses out on real estate, which agribusinesses see their lands turn to smouldering ash), and to what degree do they limit the capacity of wealth to achieve its goals (what happens to industry when global supply chains of energy and materials fall apart, when trained technical staff and their equipment are harder to get hold of (education requires infrastructure), when banks collapse and this time there's no goverment bailout to save them, etc.).
The interesting thing is that some elites are going to see personal loss from climate change well before many ordinary people do, at least in the developed world. Because a lot of the areas (geographical and economic) which are likely to be most impacted are precisely the areas where a great deal of wealth is concentrated. Coastal real estate. Agribusiness. Hell, any commercial fortune based around a mass consumer base is going to find itself in trouble as soon as that base is sufficiently disrupted (enough people out of homes and work, no disposable income, debt becomes meaningless with enforcement mechanisms collapsing and no real chance of it ever being paid back).
So yeah, "wealth" won't mean much unless the wealthy put out some effort to maintain the world within which wealth can function.
posted by AdamCSnider at 5:41 PM on August 7, 2015 [16 favorites]
what's an ounce of prevention worth again?
Twenty dollars, same as in town.
Try the veal!
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 8:30 PM on August 7, 2015 [2 favorites]
Twenty dollars, same as in town.
Try the veal!
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 8:30 PM on August 7, 2015 [2 favorites]
So yeah, "wealth" won't mean much unless the wealthy put out some effort to maintain the world within which wealth can function.
I seem to have missed the article in Modern Luxury where they described the suffering of the elites during Katrina.
Harm to an investment portfolio isn't the same as how wealth will function during the gradual disruption of the world economy because of climate change. For that just look at the crisis happening to migrants to the EU and how wealth is quite effectively functioning to kill them through both active and passive means.
Remember the bridge where Katrina refugees were turned back at gunpoint?
This has already and is already happening and the wealthy are doing better than ever.
posted by srboisvert at 8:56 PM on August 7, 2015 [1 favorite]
I seem to have missed the article in Modern Luxury where they described the suffering of the elites during Katrina.
Harm to an investment portfolio isn't the same as how wealth will function during the gradual disruption of the world economy because of climate change. For that just look at the crisis happening to migrants to the EU and how wealth is quite effectively functioning to kill them through both active and passive means.
Remember the bridge where Katrina refugees were turned back at gunpoint?
This has already and is already happening and the wealthy are doing better than ever.
posted by srboisvert at 8:56 PM on August 7, 2015 [1 favorite]
AdamCSnider: "when banks collapse and this time there's no goverment (sic) bailout to save them"
Never happen in the current USA. You think the wealthy are going to tolerate a haircut? Ain't gonna happen. The little people always pay even if they didn't screw up.
posted by InsertNiftyNameHere at 10:09 PM on August 7, 2015
Never happen in the current USA. You think the wealthy are going to tolerate a haircut? Ain't gonna happen. The little people always pay even if they didn't screw up.
posted by InsertNiftyNameHere at 10:09 PM on August 7, 2015
However, a new study published in the journal Science concludes that mega-engineering projects along river systems -- particularly near river deltas -- will actually worsen the eventual impact of flooding. The underlying reason is simple: when you prevent flooding in a delta system, you also prevent fresh sediment from being deposited. The land that's already there compacts, erodes, and subsides.
And this is exactly what happened in the Cambridgeshire Fens after the draining of the 1650s!
and in the Netherlands in the late Middle Ages - not that the Cambridgeshire guys knew that. One wrote how they were different and didn't need windmills because they were above sea level, unlike the "Low Countries".
Aw, suckers. Now large parts are well below sea level.
posted by jb at 11:13 PM on August 7, 2015 [1 favorite]
And this is exactly what happened in the Cambridgeshire Fens after the draining of the 1650s!
and in the Netherlands in the late Middle Ages - not that the Cambridgeshire guys knew that. One wrote how they were different and didn't need windmills because they were above sea level, unlike the "Low Countries".
Aw, suckers. Now large parts are well below sea level.
posted by jb at 11:13 PM on August 7, 2015 [1 favorite]
But in the long run, it doesn't matter. The poor will suffer first and longer, but the warming cycle won't stop or turn around.
And the ground's not cold
And if the ground's not cold
Everything is gonna burn
We'll all take turns, I'll get mine too
posted by kewb at 11:20 AM on August 8, 2015
And the ground's not cold
And if the ground's not cold
Everything is gonna burn
We'll all take turns, I'll get mine too
posted by kewb at 11:20 AM on August 8, 2015
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I think it's important to point out that the rich will, in many cases, still be okay, as they can afford to deal with issues such as soil erosion.
Please... don't fear, mega rich. All is still well. (For you.)
posted by markkraft at 4:28 PM on August 7, 2015 [1 favorite]