All Things Environment

[jhu72]

This business about people still purchasing beachfront property has been shown numerous times to be a bogus argument in regards to climate change. The relevant question is when and that is a local question.

Why is that a "bogus argument"? We are told repeatedly that all polar ice is melting and soon sea levels will consume Miami, New York City, Boston, and so forth. We could post thousands of articles stating so.

If sea levels rise like is warned, wouldn't it be smarter to acquire land anywhere but the oceanfront? Both Al Gore and Barrack Obama are beach buyers. You explain that.

What is the investment time frame? For most of the predictions we see it is end of century. Not every beachfront property will be underwater even then. The argument that beachfront property is worthless today and if CC were true no one in the know would buy it, just doesn't hold water. There is still money to be made. There is also the greater fool theory. So CC being true would not necessarily put a damper on demand immediately. There is also the hope, not completely unfounded that it will not be as bad as predicted, due to technology.

Look at the predictions in detail. There are websites that do this very nicely. It is all about location, location, location, followed by timeframe. My boyhood home will be gone by 2100 if the midline predictions are true. My old back yard will be under inches of water by 2050 if midline predictions are true. If highline prediction are true, by 2050 the house is gone. The lowline prediction shows the backyard underwater by 2100, but the house is not destroyed. What is clearly true is that my boyhood neighborhood is in real danger. All of this can change if the government were to spend money on water abatement, but they won't in a poor neighborhood. Home prices have not crashed as far as I know in this or nearby neighborhoods.

That is my point.

[jhu72]

This business about people still purchasing beachfront property has been shown numerous times to be a bogus argument in regards to climate change. The relevant question is when and that is a local question.

Why is that a "bogus argument"? We are told repeatedly that all polar ice is melting and soon sea levels will consume Miami, New York City, Boston, and so forth. We could post thousands of articles stating so.

If sea levels rise like is warned, wouldn't it be smarter to acquire land anywhere but the oceanfront? Both Al Gore and Barrack Obama are beach buyers. You explain that.

Nobody looks past 30 years in residential RE deals, and a 100 year lease on a plot of land is considered to be long enough to build a skyscraper.

The critical part is that we have to make material changes in the short term, before the long term calamities roll in. Don't misunderstand short-sighted residential (5 to 10 years) and commercial decisions (you'll make money from day one if you planned well) lead you to believe that in the long term insurance will have paid off and our kids will be scrambling......

Exactly!

[Peter Brown]

Nobody looks past 30 years in residential RE deals, and a 100 year lease on a plot of land is considered to be long enough to build a skyscraper.

The critical part is that we have to make material changes in the short term, before the long term calamities roll in. Don't misunderstand short-sighted residential (5 to 10 years) and commercial decisions (you'll make money from day one if you planned well) lead you to believe that in the long term insurance will have paid off and our kids will be scrambling......

It's a good thing then that Al Gore isn't a residential RE agent, and only a smart real estate investor.

On December 14, 2008, Gore predicted the North Polar Ice Cap would be completely ice free in five years, or in 2013. Which if true, would have swamped Miami, NYC, Boston, Baltimore, and pretty much the entire east coast of the United States...much of lacrosse territory would be underwater. As it is, Arctic sea ice came nowhere close to disappearing, and has rebounded to be within 2 standard deviations of normal.

In 2010, Al Gore bought a $10,000,000 house on Montecito's beach. Obama bought a $15,000,000 this year on Martha's Vineyard, also on the water.

These purchases certainly seem like inconvenient truths to the alarmist bells, but not necessarily to the overarching issue.

[jhu72]

Nobody looks past 30 years in residential RE deals, and a 100 year lease on a plot of land is considered to be long enough to build a skyscraper.

The critical part is that we have to make material changes in the short term, before the long term calamities roll in. Don't misunderstand short-sighted residential (5 to 10 years) and commercial decisions (you'll make money from day one if you planned well) lead you to believe that in the long term insurance will have paid off and our kids will be scrambling......

It's a good thing then that Al Gore isn't a residential RE agent, and only a smart real estate investor.

On December 14, 2008, Gore predicted the North Polar Ice Cap would be completely ice free in five years, or in 2013. Which if true, would have swamped Miami, NYC, Boston, Baltimore, and pretty much the entire east coast of the United States...much of lacrosse territory would be underwater. As it is, Arctic sea ice came nowhere close to disappearing, and has rebounded to be within 2 standard deviations of normal.

In 2010, Al Gore bought a $10,000,000 house on Montecito's beach. Obama bought a $15,000,000 this year on Martha's Vineyard, also on the water.

These purchases certainly seem like inconvenient truths to the alarmist bells, but not necessarily to the overarching issue.

No one but Al Gore was predicting that. The scientist, the most aggressive predictions were not the same as Gore's. No where near as aggressive. At that time there were predictions and then there was how bad it could get. Gore is and was a fool taking the worst imaginable case and selling it.

[3rdPersonPlural]

Nobody looks past 30 years in residential RE deals, and a 100 year lease on a plot of land is considered to be long enough to build a skyscraper.

The critical part is that we have to make material changes in the short term, before the long term calamities roll in. Don't misunderstand short-sighted residential (5 to 10 years) and commercial decisions (you'll make money from day one if you planned well) lead you to believe that in the long term insurance will have paid off and our kids will be scrambling......

It's a good thing then that Al Gore isn't a residential RE agent, and only a smart real estate investor.

On December 14, 2008, Gore predicted the North Polar Ice Cap would be completely ice free in five years, or in 2013. Which if true, would have swamped Miami, NYC, Boston, Baltimore, and pretty much the entire east coast of the United States...much of lacrosse territory would be underwater. As it is, Arctic sea ice came nowhere close to disappearing, and has rebounded to be within 2 standard deviations of normal.

In 2010, Al Gore bought a $10,000,000 house on Montecito's beach. Obama bought a $15,000,000 this year on Martha's Vineyard, also on the water.

These purchases certainly seem like inconvenient truths to the alarmist bells, but not necessarily to the overarching issue.

Let's all agree that predicting the timing of climate change is an unfinished alchemy. Climate Change moves at a pace we've never seen before. Not as slow as geological change, but still at a pace we have no confirm-able reference to.

Nonetheless, build-up of CO2 in the atmosphere retains heat in the atmosphere. No one argues that.

More heat in the atmosphere melts ice caps left over from the Ice Age and warms the oceans which regulate our weather.

In time - informed minds can differ on that time frame - this will result in catastrophic changes in sea levels, weather patterns and severity, and habitat realignment. No one argues this, either.

So the last defense is "This hasn't happened in my lifetime, I can't see that it will, so all these warnings have been a hoax".

This is the defense of folks without children.

[3rdPersonPlural]

In 2010, Al Gore bought a $10,000,000 house on Montecito's beach.

I have a home (or, actually, my ex has a home) maybe 10 feet above sea level in Santa Barbara which is indistinguishable from Montecito.

You can still want to live in lovely places even if you realize that your grand kids might well be visiting the site where grandma had a house that is now underwater.

We are a species, Pete. The grown-ups in our room try to plan for our future.

[cradleandshoot]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/movies/celebr ... spartandhp Now I know the planet is saved... Hanoi Jane is on the job. I thought she died awhile ago...

[cradleandshoot]

In 2010, Al Gore bought a $10,000,000 house on Montecito's beach.

I have a home (or, actually, my ex has a home) maybe 10 feet above sea level in Santa Barbara which is indistinguishable from Montecito.

You can still want to live in lovely places even if you realize that your grand kids might well be visiting the site where grandma had a house that is now underwater.

We are a species, Pete. The grown-ups in our room try to plan for our future.

You can still want to live in lovely places even if you realize that your grand kids might well be visiting the site where grandma had a house that is now underwater.

I love the terrifying rhetoric... how long before grandmas house is under water? Is that before the republicans throw her off the cliff?

[RedFromMI]

The idea that oceanfront property will _soon_ be underwater is not actually what is predicted currently. However the sea levels should continue to rise because of average temperature increases. The more temperature increase the larger the sea level rise. If the temp goes up enough, you can get a large amount of freshwater ice entering the ocean and creating extra rise, and also a feedback effect which accelerates warming (hot summers melt more ice/snow which allows less energy to be reflected back into space).

But the sea level has already risen some due to climate change. Louisiana does not have the same area as when I was growing up in the 60s, and a part of that is the small water level rise (most is that by channelizing the Mississippi we have cut off flooding into the delta and kept the natural flood cycle from continually refilling the delta with silt).

The biggest effects of climate change will be in the extra energy (mostly absorbed into the oceans) driving more extreme weather. Some of the more recent hurricanes impact, particularly in terms of total rainfall/flooding rather than extreme wind have been driven by this. Sometimes it is just extreme winds, like in the Bahamas, along with an extremely low velocity of the motion of the storm (stalling). The energy in the water is greater, and therefore the storms get more energy themselves.

Other climate effects will be in changes in rainfall amounts and patterns of wet/drought conditions.

"However the sea levels should continue to rise because of average temperature increases." That is certainly some reassuring scientific wisdom there. I have read over and over and over and over that the best and brightest minds of science understand CC/GW backwards/forwards/inside out and upside down. Your reassuring terminology is that it SHOULD happen based on what you all think you understand today. I don't have the wisdom and knowledge that you possess but I do know what a guess is. I should grant you some slack here because after all... it is an educated guess. Again this is a question based on my lack of understanding and your expertise. If you know what the average temperature increase is can you not convert that in a formula that projects what the average sea rise WILL BE? SHOULD BE is making a guess off of what the data a computer model is giving you. WILL BE means you can prove what it is that you theorize. If you are going to emphatically state your position that you unquestionably understand what is happening, is it too much to ask for a specific time frame and how this problem will manifest itself on what part of the world and when it will become a cataclysmic disaster? As of this moment all the information we are being given by the best and the brightest is that its gonna be really, really, really devastating We don't know where or when or how but as Dr Indiana Jones once said... trust me

You are reading too much into the language _I_ used. A review of global sea level rise projections made in 2012 by NOAA gave a wide range to sea level rise by 2100 of (90% confidence level) more than .2 meters at the minimum and up to 2 meters at the max. That is a fairly old review, and it encompasses multiple predictions, not just one model. I am sure that more modern calculations have better estimates.

The each end of the confidence interval would be less likely than something in between. But note that the lower limit is twice what happened in the prior century, and the upper limit is basically over 6 feet.

Even the lower level is a good size rise. The upper level would be coast changing in a large way.

Sure the studies are not the kind of certainty you seem to think is necessary - but it is much more than a mere educated guess.

[Peter Brown]

Sure the studies are not the kind of certainty you seem to think is necessary - but it is much more than a mere educated guess.

I'm not even denying the science here, but what I'm asking myself is: if the two leading political proponents of CC/GW simultaneously purchase multi-million dollar oceanfront homes (certainly the most expensive homes of the multiple homes they own, by factors of 3 and 4x), doesn't that give you any pause whatsoever? A little?

Some of the smartest minds in America are buying oceanfront property, mostly in Miami and Palm Beach. It makes me wonder what I don't know...

[youthathletics]

Sure the studies are not the kind of certainty you seem to think is necessary - but it is much more than a mere educated guess.

I'm not even denying the science here, but what I'm asking myself is: if the two leading political proponents of CC/GW simultaneously purchase multi-million dollar oceanfront homes (certainly the most expensive homes of the multiple homes they own, by factors of 3 and 4x), doesn't that give you any pause whatsoever? A little?

Some of the smartest minds in America are buying oceanfront property, mostly in Miami and Palm Beach. It makes me wonder what I don't know...

In police work.....they cal that a clue.

[Peter Brown]

Sure the studies are not the kind of certainty you seem to think is necessary - but it is much more than a mere educated guess.

I'm not even denying the science here, but what I'm asking myself is: if the two leading political proponents of CC/GW simultaneously purchase multi-million dollar oceanfront homes (certainly the most expensive homes of the multiple homes they own, by factors of 3 and 4x), doesn't that give you any pause whatsoever? A little?

Some of the smartest minds in America are buying oceanfront property, mostly in Miami and Palm Beach. It makes me wonder what I don't know...

In police work.....they cal that a clue.

[HooDat]

What they know is that all the alarmist stuff is hooey. We most certainly need to be investing in research around more sustainable ways of life. The problem is greed heads have (and almost always do) corrupted the process. Gore for political gain, developers for monetary gain.

If only we had some grown ups with actual integrity to drive our decision making processes......

What is frustrating is that as corruptible as our system is, it is still the best system humans have come up with.

We just need ordinary folks to stop falling for the greed-heads cons.

[youthathletics]

This about sums it up.....

[Peter Brown]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/movies/celebr ... spartandhp Now I know the planet is saved... Hanoi Jane is on the job. I thought she died awhile ago...

The most revealing line in that article is this:

the industries that are destroying our planet for profit

Fonda fails to appreciate that many of those 'industries' are also prolonging the lives of many of earth's inhabitants, mostly in the undeveloped world. What Fonda ultimately objects to, parsed inside some respectable concern for the environment, is the fact that some folks due to their work ethic and brains earn more than an actress. Time and again, the people who yell the loudest about an issue are invested financially to some end. The guy who yells the loudest against pornography is often the most perverted among us.

[Peter Brown]

I debated whether to put this post in the Good News thread or on this one. So here you are:

Both A-Basin and Keystone opened at the earliest date ever for skiing this year.

https://theknow.denverpost.com/2019/10/ ... 19/226250/

[RedFromMI]

I debated whether to put this post in the Good News thread or on this one. So here you are:

Both A-Basin and Keystone opened at the earliest date ever for skiing this year.

https://theknow.denverpost.com/2019/10/ ... 19/226250/

Not true - Arapahoe Basin typically opens in mid October and earliest was 10/9/2009. The article itself says that for Keystone it is the earliest opening since 1995. A-Basin goes up to around 13500 feet - that is well above the tree line...

Both resorts supplement their snow with snowmaking - and A-Basin and Loveland compete to see who opens earliest, so this is not either a surprise nor especially significant. Every year since 2003 A-Basin has opened in October.

I will be in Aspen next week - but not to ski. Right now there is a few patches of snow on the top of Aspen Mountain at just below 12000 feet, left over from the first snowfall they had on Thursday (maybe an inch in town was expected at 8000 feet). Highs in town are to be in the mid 60s to 50s at the end of the week.

[jhu72]

Russian Scientists observe increasing methane levels in the arctic. Up to 4 times greater than previously observed.

[youthathletics]

Russian Scientists observe increasing methane levels in the arctic. Up to 4 times greater than previously observed.

I guess we need to ban methane and oceans and the earths mantle?

[holmes435]

Russian Scientists observe increasing methane levels in the arctic. Up to 4 times greater than previously observed.

I guess we need to ban methane and oceans and the earths mantle?

You completely missed the point. The melting permafrost is releasing all this. If we weren't contributing to all that melting, it would have stayed sequestered.

It's interesting seeing how simple things get so misrepresented and distorted by deniers to fit their narrative that "these are all 100% natural caused events".