Conservative #SCOTUS Spurns Personal/Private Responsibility, Encourages Nanny State

The next time a climate denier moans and groans and bellyaches over the "nanny state" forcing the burden of climate change mitigation onto the average taxpayer, remind him or her of Kivalina, AK.

The citizens of this sinking village tried to hold the private parties responsible, rather than their fellow taxpayers, but the SCOTUS and other courts dismissed the case. Tell me again, my precious little right-wing denier friends, how interested you are in personal responsibility, and how averse you are to the big, bad, nanny-state government moving in to offer up its oh so "scary" help (thanks for that, Ronnie), if the way your fellow Americans are being mistreated here doesn't burn your bacon. I just can't get enough of your completely transparent horsepuckey.

How many times are we gonna fall for industry lying in order to push the real costs of their huge profits onto us? No, seriously, how many times?

So keep truckin', America. Keep doing your abysmally confused, misinformed best in those voting booths.

Bang up job last November in the voting booths, America. Cruz to oversee NASA, and Rubio NOAA. Both climate deniers. http://t.co/2O2DxjBMni

— Planet Evans (@ExoplanetEvans) January 14, 2015

That is, of course, if you can at all be bothered to get up off yer lazy arse and show up at them.

Them There Libberls Shouldn't Oughtta Be There, Anyway

Yesterday, I blogged about a rather unsettling policy response to sea level rise (SLR) due to climate change being adopted by countries which apparently have resigned themselves to the seeming inevitability that we will do little or nothing to change our fossil fuel-dependent ways.

Like a lot of countries, the USA has many people living along its shores and in large, seaside metropolises, so the logistics of applying this retreat plan will be....interesting, to say the least. I suppose another general state of American affairs — that liberals mostly prefer urban lifestyles, whereas conservatives often opt for rural and suburban environs — could hold true elsewhere, and I could even imagine that disdain for those with opposing personal politics who have chosen different living arrangements is a universal phenomenon as well, but, for my international readers (all 2 or 3 of you) who may not be aware, I should stress that this animosity can be particularly strong here in the States. Nothing exemplifies the intensity more clearly than the schadenfreude some conservative climate change deniers experience when considering the negative effects SLR will have on more cosmopolitan surroundings.















Obviously, this exercise of copying and pasting obnoxious and worthless denier quotes could go on indefinitely, but, make no mistake, these people are so hopelessly confused they truly believe they are adding something of merit to the discussion. To them, the troubling implications of SLR for port cities and people living close to the ocean are just fodder for jokes, or just deserts, or both. That, of course, assumes they believe seas will rise. Blaming/taunting city slickers and writing off major towns on shorelines as superfluous and expendable is more than just a huge economic mistake, however. Perhaps paradoxically, the urban way of life on average has about 30% less of a carbon footprint than living out in the country. And, in fact, if places like New York do end up being abandoned and evacuated, the worst possible outcome would be to ask the residents to adopt, say, what might appear to be an ecologically-sound lifestyle of a Vermonter, surprisingly enough.

The key to New York City’s relative environmental benignity is the very thing that, to most Americans, makes it appear to be an ecological nightmare: its extreme compactness...Americans tend to think of dense cities as despoilers of the natural landscape, but they actually help to preserve it. If you spread all 8.2 million New York City residents across the countryside at the population density of Vermont, you would need a space equal to the land area of the six New England states plus New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia — and then, of course, you’d have to find places to put all the people you were displacing.

We need our cities for more reasons than might meet the eye, and certainly more than thoughtless deniers are capable of understanding. More importantly, they are entirely too vital to our civilization to concede defeat and begin this strange, disheartening retreat in ten years.

Planned Retreat Starting in 2025

"I think maybe the biggest issue, the biggest concern, is what will sea level do in the coming centuries? [Nine meters] is pretty high. I mean, that's going to displace nearly every major mega-city on the planet just about."

- Dr. Mick O'Leary, Marine Geoscientist, Curtin University

This video is really well-done and informative, and you should watch the whole thing, but if you want to fast-forward to what was the essential bombshell for me personally, it comes at about the 10:28 mark. I must admit I had no idea some countries, such as Wales, are already conceding defeat to our crushing fossil fuel addiction, and assuming a do-nothing-meaningful, business-as-usual "response" to what is the most urgent, known threat we face. I don't even know how to process the adoption of such a plan just yet. To some degree, it makes perfect sense, because basically not a single nation capable of making an impactful difference is willing to do so. And time for effective policy has all but run out. On the other hand, it is simply too depressing for words.



I guess I only have one question after viewing this video: where will the 8.4 million people living in New York City relocate?

Oh yeah, and how much exactly will it cost to build this new New York?

Also, since we found out during Katrina that the poorest Americans can't even afford to evacuate temporarily, where will they find the money to permanently move their families and take up new residences elsewhere?

Additionally, what will this new location offer all of them in the way of a livelihood?

Not to mention, how far inland does New New York have to move to escape an eventual 75 meter rise in ocean waters?

Or is the idea to retain its major port city status by keeping it on an ever-changing shoreline, and turn this into a never-ending relocation program?

And what about the nearly 25 million people in Shanghai? Where are they going to go/work? Hong Kong?! With its nearly 7 million inhabitants who will need a new home every bit as much as Shanghai residents?

While we're at it, where do all the tens, if not hundreds, of millions of people in London, Mumbai, Tokyo, Sydney, etc. migrate? And how do they recover some semblance of their previous existence/prosperity?

Hate to harp on matters, but do I need to remind everyone that our cities, their populations, and their economies are not our only concerns here?

I guess I actually want a lot more answers than just one. In fact, the more I consider this "adaptation," or "solution," or whatever unsatisfying label we choose for this strategy, the more I begin to realize that I have veritable shit ton of questions about it.

Don't you?