We desperately need The Wall.

[OAITW r.2.0]

Reposting from GD as it dropped like a dying polar bear......as it addresses both topics equally, I thought this would be a better place to get visibility and comment. Added a little further detail, too.


But not the environmental / economic / social disaster that Trump and the complicit Republican Party are selling.

A wall system must be planned and built around both coasts to address the coming sea level changes caused by massive climate change and melting ice caps. This directly affects major population areas and regions that will be severely disrupteed or destroyed if we continue the do-nothing vision of the GOP. This truely is our #1 national security issue.

Our climate will be our children's children living nightmare and a sure end of the grand experiment known as the USA.

When will Congress unite and address the #1 existential threat to this country? Constructing the wall will have lots of positive impacts on our economy with immediate boost to meaningful jobs that will define our vision for protecting this country's future.

Solar panels and wind generation could also be incorporated into the wall systems, further reducing our dependency on foreign oil and the costs paid by taxpayers (see USN/DOD) to get and secure Big Oil's product to market. Why aren't we billing Big Oil for services rendered?

This is The Wall vision/message that I wish Democrats - in a unified clear voice - would work on and communicate to the American people now, in advance of the 2018 elections.

[Binkie The Clown]

1. Wall won't protect us from sea level rise.

The bedrock in Florida is too porous, and sea water will seep up from below. Florida is a lost cause. It will be gone in another 100 years. A wall on the Mexican border? Don't be ridiculous. That won't help anything, and will do vast economic harm. A wall around New York? Not even remotely possible, economically. Already pumps run around the clock to remove seeping sea water from the New York subway system. The subways are doomed, and when they fill up with water, erosion will cause massive sink holes everywhere in the city. New York will have to be abandoned in another 50 to 100 years.

Nobody is going to unite with a clear unified voice over a project that is impossible from the start.

[OAITW r.2.0]

2. Pretty bleak outlook Binkie...

That's why we need to centerpiece this issue....it truly defines the alternate futures between the 2 Parties. Lots can be done to mitigate the effects, but we got to start getting serious now.

[Binkie The Clown]

4. Realism is often called pessimism by optimists.

The outlook is bleak because the future is bleak.

"Lots can be done" might be true (even the experts aren't sure if it's too late or not, but many think it is already too late), but "lots will be done" is certainly not true.

What needs to be done is politically and economically impossible, and simply won't be done. Once it becomes blindingly obvious to the masses that we have a crisis that we must deal with, that very crisis will have damaged the economy to the point that it is no longer possible to do what needs to be done.

To paraphrase one expert in the field, the only thing that can save the planet is the immediate and total collapse of industrial civilization. Who's going to vote for that?

Will you give up your car right now?
Will you give up buying anything made in China right now (shipping consumes a massive percentage of the world's fossil fuels)
Will you give up eating meat right now? (Meat production consumes a huge amount of fossil fuels producing and distributing animal feed)
Will you give up using the Internet right now? (A huge amount of electric power, most of generated by fossil fuels, is required to keep the Internet going).
Will you give up eating anything that comes from more than 100 miles away right now?

And that only scratches the surface of the things that you, and every one of us must give up right now to prevent runaway global catastrophe. Are you going to give up virtually every benefit of modern civilization right now?

So you can't ask everyone to give up all these things until after you, yourself have given them all up, otherwise you're asking everyone except you to do what needs to be done.

And that is why nothing will be done in time. Nobody wants to do the stuff that really, really needs to be done, right now, to save the planet.

That's why I'm a realist about how bleak the situation is. Nobody is willing to do what needs to be done, so nothing will be done. Period. End of story. End of civilization.

[thucythucy]

3. I agree with you about Florida, but

other coastal areas might be salvageable.

The Dutch do an amazing job living and prospering in areas that have been below sea level for very many decades.

We have nothing like the system they have in place to protect Amsterdam and other low lying areas. (It's not called "The Netherlands" for nothing).

Of course, it'll take an enormous economic and engineering effort, which would dwarf the Apollo project. Then again, so will evacuating entire swaths of coastal America.

One way or another, the future of this country, and planet, will look nothing like the present.

[The_jackalope]

5. Why not just move the coastal population inland a couple hundred miles?

That would be a a whole lot more doable, far more effective, and people would be clamoring for it once the salt water creeps over their door-sills.

?????

Remember too that the "solution" (if there is to be one) has to be applicable to every coastal area on the planet.

[OAITW r.2.0]

6. According to NOAA-

"In 2010, 123.3 million people, or 39 percent of the nation's population lived in counties directly on the shoreline. This population is expected to increase by 8% from 2010 to 2020."

That is a significant relocation effort. We need to look at the cost/benefit of infrastructure investment vs. population relocation.

[The_jackalope]

7. Or we could just let the affected people take care of it themselves.

Like they have for the last 100,000 years.