The Climate Change Discussion Thread

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by VANRIDERFAN

Much rather having a cooler April that limits the possibility of devastating spring floods.

The ship has sailed on this one. There are already places that are uninsurable with homeowners who have lost substantial value. Talk to Gatineau residents whose properties fall in the town's 25 year flood forecast. Not fun owning what becomes a stranded asset overnight. Lots more of that to come. But hey, it's nice that some millionaire farmer can grow peaches I guess.

[milomilo]

If we had a choice, keeping the climate the same is the less risky option. Sure, there's a chance that things might end up better somehow for certain places. But we built our physical infrastructure around the natural systems the way they were at the time. If the climate changing causes those natural systems to change, then it's likely the built forms we had optimised to those old natural systems becomes less optimised to the new ones.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by CityTech

Periodic late snowfall is actually beneficial to plants (at least, plants that are actually native or otherwise well suited to the region) as it provides a nice boost of moisture.

Depends where you are. I am pretty sure one year, May in Halifax had 400 mm of rain. Maybe it was 300 mm. NS has temperate rainforest like BC and the limiting factor for plants can be good drainage.

Also, those "extreme southern regions" are most of the population lol. Might as well say SK is cold because it's cold at Lake Athabaska.

This is kind of SaskScraper's "thing", arguing that Ontario or Quebec are cold because some part of those provinces still has snow. You could argue the same thing about Canada as a whole because it never gets reliably warm at the northern tip of the country. You could use the same weak reasoning to argue that Chile or Argentina are cold countries.

[goodgrowth]

New climate suitability study:
https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2.../28/1910114117

We show that for thousands of years, humans have concentrated in a surprisingly narrow subset of Earth’s available climates, characterized by mean annual temperatures around ∼13 °C. This distribution likely reflects a human temperature niche related to fundamental constraints. We demonstrate that depending on scenarios of population growth and warming, over the coming 50 y, 1 to 3 billion people are projected to be left outside the climate conditions that have served humanity well over the past 6,000 y. Absent climate mitigation or migration, a substantial part of humanity will be exposed to mean annual temperatures warmer than nearly anywhere today.

[someone123]

13 C is ideal? Los Angeles is 18-19 C while Miami and Honolulu are about 25 C, way too warm for humans! No wonder California, Florida, and Texas are so unpopular.

[VANRIDERFAN]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

The ship has sailed on this one. There are already places that are uninsurable with homeowners who have lost substantial value. Talk to Gatineau residents whose properties fall in the town's 25 year flood forecast. Not fun owning what becomes a stranded asset overnight. Lots more of that to come. But hey, it's nice that some millionaire farmer can grow peaches I guess.

I feel for the folks who lose everything due to flooding. That being said, I've owned homes across the country and my #1 real estate rule was never ever on a flood plain or even close to a flood plain.

If it was my decision it would be map out the 100 year flood plain, buy out everyone within that zone at market price, and turn that area into a park. Upstream try to save the wetlands or purchase land and re-establish them. Yes it would cost a lot of money but the savings from not having to clean up, not having to deal with mental anguish, or having to build massive flood control structures would pay for those homes many times over.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by VANRIDERFAN

I feel for the folks who lose everything due to flooding. That being said, I've owned homes across the country and my #1 real estate rule was never ever on a flood plain or even close to a flood plain.

Sea level rise is definitely happening though it's a lot slower than people tend to think (plus there can be geologic processes that have an impact). Flooding is debatable and hard to measure. Flood damage is going way up but so are populations and property values.

Something to keep in mind is that it's really convenient for officials and victims to blame climate change for floods, because it suggests the damage could not be prevented and nobody made a decision to assume any risk in exchange for a reward of cheaper or nicer waterfront property. A lot of recent flood areas show up on very old flood maps (1940's or earlier).

[goodgrowth]

Flood plains are a thing with or without climate change. Risk to build there...at the very least you need berms.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by someone123

Climate change means droughts and floods!

Sea level rise is definitely happening though it's a lot slower than people tend to think. Flooding is debatable and hard to measure. Flood damage is going way up but so are populations and property values.

Something to keep in mind is that it's really convenient for officials and victims to blame climate change for floods, because it suggests the damage could not be prevented and nobody made a decision to assume any risk. A lot of recent floods show up on very old flood maps (1940's or earlier).

I always get annoyed when people blame catastrophic climate change then say, "this is the worst flood since 1890!" or "hottest summer in 30 years!". The thing about records is that even if the climate stayed exactly the same, we'd see some record broken somewhere all the time, and even with a changing climate it is more likely that an extreme happened some time in the past than for it to happen in the present.

[VANRIDERFAN]

Originally Posted by someone123

Sea level rise is definitely happening though it's a lot slower than people tend to think (plus there can be geologic processes that have an impact). Flooding is debatable and hard to measure. Flood damage is going way up but so are populations and property values.

Something to keep in mind is that it's really convenient for officials and victims to blame climate change for floods, because it suggests the damage could not be prevented and nobody made a decision to assume any risk in exchange for a reward of cheaper or nicer waterfront property. A lot of recent flood areas show up on very old flood maps (1940's or earlier).

Then there are cities desperate for property taxes or greedy developers who get city councils to approve developments in obvious flood plains.

Brandon MB is a victim of this. The Assiniboine River that runs through Brandon floods annually and has been since the Wisconsin Ice Sheet retreated so long ago. Some years it would be barely noticeable and some years it would be massive. The Shellmouth Dam that was built up river for irrigation and flood control supposedly allowed the development pressure on Brandon city to become too much and a massive "Power Centre" and housing development was built on the flood plain. Then came the massive flood a few years ago and scarce funds were expended to save the houses and business followed by another project to build even more flood control measures to somehow protect the area from the next big one.
All this could have been avoided by not approving the development proposal in the first place.

[Truenorth00]

I don't see why taxpayers should shoulder the burden of those who choose to ignore the risks. Even the current situation in Gatineau is interesting. I've heard anecdotes of residents and realtors organizing to have the municipal authorities not make the flood forecasts public. All so they can offload on the next sucker.

Taxpayers need to stop bailing property owners out. If they don't, we will end up with the ridiculous situations we see in the US where blue states are now paying more and more to rebuild impacted communities (via federal insurance funds and disaster relief programs) in climate change denying red states that are still building near threatened areas.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/a...atter-records/

You want to build near a fire or flood prone area? You pay for insurance. And if you can't get insurance, you get to carry the risk entirely. I could have understood helping shoulder these risks two decades ago when not as much was known. Today? Not so much.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by VANRIDERFAN

Brandon MB is a victim of this. The Assiniboine River that runs through Brandon floods annually and has been since the Wisconsin Ice Sheet retreated so long ago. Some years it would be barely noticeable and some years it would be massive. The Shellmouth Dam that was built up river for irrigation and flood control supposedly allowed the development pressure on Brandon city to become too much and a massive "Power Centre" and housing development was built on the flood plain. Then came the massive flood a few years ago and scarce funds were expended to save the houses and business followed by another project to build even more flood control measures to somehow protect the area from the next big one.
All this could have been avoided by not approving the development proposal in the first place.

The Lower Mainland had a huge flood in the 1950's or so. I wonder how vulnerable it is today, if areas like Chilliwack have improved flood controls now or if the same weather conditions will hit someday and it will happen again.

I used to live near Bedford/Sackville NS and the Sackville River runs through that area (Halifax Harbour is the old Sackville riverbed from long ago). Floods are very common, and 100% public knowledge. The area near the river is mostly used for parks and sports fields or in some cases parking. There are some office buildings with parkades that occasionally flood; that happened one year when I was working in one of them.

A number of new buildings in Halifax are engineered for sea level rise. Queen's Marque is designed to handle 100 years of sea level rise.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by someone123

The Lower Mainland had a huge flood in the 1950's or so. I wonder how vulnerable it is today, if areas like Chilliwack have improved flood controls now or if the same weather conditions will hit someday and it will happen again.

One policy that is fantastic in BC is that government aid is contingent on having private flood insurance. No insurance? No bailout.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

One policy that is fantastic in BC is that government aid is contingent on having private flood insurance. No insurance? No bailout.

This doesn't actually make much sense to me. What if the insurance companies randomly collapse before an event takes place? Or what if the premiums are really high? I could theoretically pay $50,000 annual insurance fees on my $200,000 property that floods every 30 years, right? Why do they get a bailout at all if they have private insurance, with insurance companies getting paid to assume the risk and the province paying out for damages? It just sounds like an insurance subsidy.

I think the answer is really simple. If you're in a flood plain, make a rule that it always needs to be disclosed to the buyer, and there is no bailout. If you go on realtor.com or something it should say ***BUYER BEWARE, THIS IS IN A FLOODPLAIN***. This would cover the vast majority of recently flood damaged properties in Canada.

Then if the person wants the property with the risk, great. And if they want to buy expensive insurance instead, that's good too. Maybe it's an awesome property and worth rebuilding every 30 years, or worth the extra money to engineer something flood-proof.

Perhaps Canada should have national disaster insurance like EI or CPP. Then there is no political calculus when deciding when to pay out. It's just a benefit. And like CPP it could be an arm's length fund. If climate change will be very serious then let's make a $1T+ fund to handle it based on consistent rules rather than having cronies lobby the government of the day.

[VANRIDERFAN]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

I don't see why taxpayers should shoulder the burden of those who choose to ignore the risks. Even the current situation in Gatineau is interesting. I've heard anecdotes of residents and realtors organizing to have the municipal authorities not make the flood forecasts public. All so they can offload on the next sucker.

You pay now or pay later, again and again. It's not just the houses, its the streets, utilities and all the other requirements to service the development that has to be repaired and maintained. Also the emergency services that have to be turned out to help the people coupled with the lost working hours when people have to sand bag, pump and then clean up after.

I seem to recall that after the devastating Mississippi River Floods in 1993 several states moved entire towns to the bluffs overlooking the river. The state said you can move or stay its your choice but you'll have no state/federal relief after the next one.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by someone123

This doesn't actually make much sense to me. What if the insurance companies randomly collapse before an event takes place? Or what if the premiums are really high? I could theoretically pay $50,000 annual insurance fees on my $200,000 property that floods every 30 years, right? Why do they get a bailout at all if they have private insurance, with insurance companies getting paid to assume the risk and the province paying out for damages? It just sounds like an insurance subsidy.

I suspect the entire point of such policies is very much to limit exposure to taxpayers. And over the long run to depopulate those areas without the government paying out substantially to those property owners. If premiums skyrocket, a lot more people will move or never take up in the area to begin with.

More broadly Canadian governments have gotten a reputation for limiting bailouts:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/10/c...es-buyout.html

I still wish our governments were less generous on this though. We're already committing to be spend billions on all kinds of mitigation. On top of that we have to bailout waterfront property owners?

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by someone123

Perhaps Canada should have national disaster insurance like EI or CPP.

Hell no. That leads to what we see in the US. Blue states are net contributors to federal revenues which are basically paying insurance subsidies for red states that are so in on climate change denial that they refuse to restrict development on flood plains and in many cases refuse to update them while accounting for climate change effects.

https://theconversation.com/a-year-a...-rebuild-99178

I can just see a national disaster insurance in Canada becoming a giant subsidy to Vancouver developers and landlords, for example. These kinds of subsidized insurance programs, prevent logical resettlement and depopulation when sensible.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

I suspect the entire point of such policies is very much to limit exposure to taxpayers. And over the long run to depopulate those areas without the government paying out substantially to those property owners. If premiums skyrocket, a lot more people will move or never take up in the area to begin with.

More broadly Canadian governments have gotten a reputation for limiting bailouts:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/10/c...es-buyout.html

I still wish our governments were less generous on this though. We're already committing to be spend billions on all kinds of mitigation. On top of that we have to bailout waterfront property owners?

The microbrew pub referred to by the guy with the beard and kegs behind him is now open. It's called À la dérive (which means cast adrift).

It's on one of my usual cycling routes, as is the entire area.

[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by someone123

Sea level rise is definitely happening though it's a lot slower than people tend to think (plus there can be geologic processes that have an impact). Flooding is debatable and hard to measure. Flood damage is going way up but so are populations and property values.

Something to keep in mind is that it's really convenient for officials and victims to blame climate change for floods, because it suggests the damage could not be prevented and nobody made a decision to assume any risk in exchange for a reward of cheaper or nicer waterfront property. A lot of recent flood areas show up on very old flood maps (1940's or earlier).

Sea level rise is accelerating.

https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2680/n...-accelerating/

• Video Link • Video Link

Llovel, W., Purkey, S., Meyssignac, B., Blazquez, A., Kolodziejczyk, N., & Bamber, J. (2019). Global ocean freshening, ocean mass increase and global mean sea level rise over 2005–2015. Scientific reports, 9(1), 1-10.

Bamber, J. L., Oppenheimer, M., Kopp, R. E., Aspinall, W. P., & Cooke, R. M. (2019). Ice sheet contributions to future sea-level rise from structured expert judgment. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 116(23), 11195-11200.

Sweet, W. V., Kopp, R. E., Weaver, C. P., Obeysekera, J., Horton, R. M., Thieler, E. R., & Zervas, C. (2017). Global and regional sea level rise scenarios for the United States.

Chen, X., Zhang, X., Church, J. A., Watson, C. S., King, M. A., Monselesan, D., ... & Harig, C. (2017). The increasing rate of global mean sea-level rise during 1993–2014. Nature Climate Change, 7(7), 492-495.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

Sea level rise is accelerating.

https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2680/n...-accelerating/

Yeah, the construction projects I am aware of plan for this 65 cm increase plus an additional buffer, making 1 m or more. This 65 cm estimate for 2100 is still pretty speculative.

The lowest point of land in the Netherlands is 6-7 m below sea level. Acadian farmers had the engineering ability to create farmland below sea level in the 1600's. And of course tides and storm surges are not new.

Chicago's grade level was raised 14 feet in the 19th century. A lot of cities were originally marshy and prone to flooding (which is great for agriculture but not so good for cities).