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The Municipal Bond Market Is Using Geospatial Data For Climate Risk Evaluation (latimes.com) 103

mikeebbbd shares a report from Los Angeles Times: The $3.8-trillion municipal-bond market has found a new tool in its effort to understand the effects of climate change: satellites orbiting Earth. Assessing climate risks is a particularly vexing problem given that U.S. state and local governments tend to give investors information that's too little or just too late. But the use of geospatial data and information from sources such as Google Earth could help municipal bond investors evaluate and price the risks posed from a warming climate, rising sea levels and natural disasters.

The deployment of spatial technology in the municipal market advanced in January when credit rating company S&P Global Ratings completed an analysis of U.S. water utilities using data from NASA satellite missions. Other investment firms say they're starting to focus on geospatial information as a way to evaluate climate risks as well. [...] S&P, one of three big U.S. credit rating companies, used information from NASA satellites to examine whether the location of public water utilities had anything to do with their financial strength. They found that utilities located in ecosystems that foster better water quality, such as evergreen forests, were associated with better debt metrics.
"The article goes on to describe uses that analysts make of satellite data and GIS analysis," adds Slashdot reader mikeebbbd. "Is there a risk that this could create a modern version of 'redlining?'"
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The Municipal Bond Market Is Using Geospatial Data For Climate Risk Evaluation

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  • The people with money facing risk that they will lose it all should spend that money to reduce the risk. We can use modern technology to adjust to some of the changes we face, until they change so much we can't maintain an industrial society. When infrastructure is destroyed faster than it can be rebuilt, there is never an end to disaster recovery. Then everyone gets to die early and miserable deaths.
    • The people with big money are the ones who pointed out climate change in the first place (after Exxon's disinformation campaign). The reinsurance industry is what paid for the studies in the 1990s that showed one more gigantic disaster per decade. Of course, the "conservatives" blasted them because the studies were done by long-haired scientists at research institutions. Nevertheless, the results were accurate and more importantly, the folks who paid were the folks who insure insurance companies.
  • by blindseer ( 891256 ) <blindseer@@@earthlink...net> on Saturday February 08, 2020 @06:52AM (#59704598)

    As important as it is to do what we can to reduce greenhouse gas emissions we should not forget that adaptation to global warming is important.

    One thing that keeps getting brought up again and again with national measures to lower greenhouse gas emissions, in any nation, is that these efforts will do nothing to lower greenhouse gas emissions in other nations. Large contributors like China, Russia, India, and Indonesia don't appear to be terribly concerned about lowering their CO2 emissions. Their use of other greenhouse gases, such as methane, don't seem to concern them either.

    If rising sea levels and risks of hurricanes concern your city then there will have to be funds for sea walls, drainage pumps, and other flooding mitigation. If there is a concern that wildfires, tornadoes, and droughts can be made worse with global warming then this needs to be taken into account in city planning.

    Another thing I'm hearing is that even if we got our CO2 emissions to zero tomorrow the CO2 that's in the air will still mean global warming for a long time coming. We will have to adapt to global warming. There is no deciding on if spending should be for adaptation or lowering emissions, there's deciding on how much needs to be spent on each.

    I'm just amazed how much resistance I get on pointing out the need to adapt, as if this is somehow denying the need to lower CO2 emissions. For some reason this triggers some people, I can't even finish my thought on how we need to do both before I'm cut off and berated about how important it is for energy subsidies or something. We need both. Getting tools on how to decide on spending priorities is a good thing.

    • CO2 that's in the air

      extracting co2 should also be a big thing, probably a lot cheaper than adapting.

      • And I bring this up, and will get modded down. This, as with all amelioration efforts, should be handled carefully, as overdoing it can induce an ice age in as little as a couple of years (all you need is one summer where the snow doesn't melt and you will get a deep winter). Then billions die rapidly, rather than be irritated at retaining walls over a century or three.

        • We drill 90 million barrels of oil a day. Nothing I've read so far has any chance at all of ameliorating that except perhaps a Fossil carbon tax but that's not even a proposition. Not all carbon is the same and focusing on emissions is a waste of time (but it feels good). Even if we can decrease emissions enough to actually decrease the CO2 we dump into the air, then the oceans will start burping it back out.

          90 million barrels of oil a day.
          A day.
          And tons and tons of coal. And natural gas isn't any be
    • by Anonymous Coward

      I agree. That's why we need to build new nuclear power plants to replace all the ones the environmentalists had shut down last decade, plus all the ones that melted down due to design flaws or misunderstood test procedures.

      Since California has so much land cleared now with all those climate change induced wildfires, I propose we build them all in California. With lots of nuclear power plants strewn about, we can reduce the length of the power lines needed to support all the energy users, which should help r

      • Nuclear power plants are not worth the cost to build or operate [ssrn.com]. This is a November 2019 economic analysis paper, covering the frequently advocated "new" types that are actually 50+ year old failed designs.

        From the summary: "investing in nuclear power plants is not profitable, i.e. expected net present values are highly negative, mainly driven by high construction costs, including capital costs, and uncertain and low revenues. Even extending reactor lifetimes from currently 40 years to 60 years does not
        • These people say nuclear power is cheaper than renewable energy sources.
          https://www.world-nuclear.org/... [world-nuclear.org]

          How can this be? Perhaps because your paper is a study on Germany and mine is on the USA. Also, your paper is limited to third generation nuclear while the paper I cite takes into account the potential for fourth generation nuclear. You even admit to this flaw.

          This is a November 2019 economic analysis paper, covering the frequently advocated "new" types that are actually 50+ year old failed designs.

          Sure, lets compare 50 year old nuclear power plants to wind and solar power that was designed last year. Or, maybe we should compare 50 year o

          • The paper I linked was published methodical research which covered all of the western market driven economies using actual cost data and rigorous simulation to cover random (that is, actually things we can model since they are random) costs in construction. It also does not include the fantasy "4th generation" because that does not actually exist yet, and so has no cost data to examine. Your link is to a nuclear power industry press release and you are simply repeating the claims which the paper I linked me
            • If wind and solar is overpriced but worth the effort for development and implementation, why wouldn't nuclear?

              • by Jzanu ( 668651 )
                Give your definition, with technical details, of how wind and solar may be overpriced. Otherwise your comment is meaningless. Use things like levelized costs, try it. Nuclear power has issues that make it unsuitable overall, see all of those externalizes excluded in the paper linked previously, but even ignoring all of that and judging in the strict investment sense isolated form those issues it is unprofitable, uneconomical, and a bad investment both for construction and operation.
          • because your paper is a study on Germany and mine is on the USA.

            The USA doesn't have a good track record. Two sites have attempted to build nuclear power plants in the last several decades. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]>Virgil C. Summer Nuclear Generating Station cracked ground in 2013. The company went bankrupt in 2017 because of $9 billion of losses from its two U.S. nuclear construction projects.

            Vogtle_Electric_Generating_Plant [wikipedia.org] began construction of two new units in 2013. These are projected to complete in 2022. It is currently $11 billion over budget.

            • The USA doesn't have a good track record.

              Between 1970 and 1990 the USA built nearly 100 gigawatts of nuclear power generation capacity, most of which still operates today. That's something like four AP1000 reactors, like the ones at Vogtle, coming on line every year for 20 years.

              The USA simply forgot how to build nuclear reactors, but we learned how to do it then so there's no reason to believe we can't learn how to do it now. Given the advances in computer aided design, a larger industrial base, and lots of documentation from when we did this b

              • Thanks to the China Syndrome movie. I'm old enough to remember it from the theaters. Sadly, the most memorable moment was "Buuuuuuuuuut!"

              • by Layzej ( 1976930 )

                The problem has not been funding, its been a government unwilling to issue licenses for four decades.

                How many requests have been made, and how many have been denied? The fact is that Nuclear is a real gamble. Who would invest outside of governments?

        • Nuclear power plants are not worth the cost to build or operate [ssrn.com]. This is a November 2019 economic analysis paper, covering the frequently advocated "new" types that are actually 50+ year old failed designs.

          For the first time and just this once, the left evinces concern about what something costs. Pardon me for not finding this analysis greatly convincing.

          Smaller reactor designs, say 100 MWe, that can be factory-built and then set in place without twenty years of pouring concrete, are in the works. How many more melted glaciers will it take for us to decide that we absolutely, positively need to do this?

          • by Jzanu ( 668651 )
            I'm German CDU which is a centrist party - it is left only by the standards of the Nazi. Again, fantasy reactors that do not exist and even most of those 3rd generation, reactors built in Russia and China without market mechanisms, or those 2nd generation in the US and France paid for by decade ahead power agreements for ruled areas, do not show positive outcomes through market mechanisms. Based on actual costs, Nuclear is dead. Based on fantasy technology and best case scenarios even those slimmest of pote
            • Aah, CDU! The fantasists who are closing good nuclear plants while digging new strip mines - up to 85 square kilometers at a time - to grub for lignite, which has the energy value of damp firewood. And keeping old hard-coal power plants going by importing the fuel from overseas in diesel ships, because Germany is now out of anthracite and the plants are not optimized to run on anything else.

              • by Jzanu ( 668651 )
                You mean the CDU that is also going to close every single coal power plant over the next 19 years [hhttps]? You are deluded by denialist fantasies and Russian propaganda imagining all of Germany as East Germany with its economic woes. I was East German, so I see right through your bullshit Ivan.
                • It's easy to promise to close coal plants in another twenty years. Meanwhile, a new coal plant is opening right now:
                  https://www.bloomberg.com/news... [bloomberg.com]

                  • by Jzanu ( 668651 )
                    Your stupidity is what I expected, but given any genuine interest it is easy to find in English news stating how quickly this is progressing. The first will be this year [reuters.com], with 12 decommissioned within the next 2 years. Further, Uniper's coal power plants [reuters.com] will be shut down in the next 5 years by buying out the owners and placing the former workers. The remaining operators will be shut down over a longer delay required to gain agreement. This is not a command economy, it is a mixed market one where incentives
        • This is a November 2019 economic analysis paper, covering the frequently advocated "new" types that are actually 50+ year old failed designs.

          Not saying the work is wrong, but your way of dismissing any new technology on the basis that it's fairy tale stuff doesn't quite convince me.
          There have been many nay sayers on loads of new tech that worked out. No wireless, less space than a Nomad, lame, can be said and has been said of many things.

          From the theory, several of the new/ proposed designs could w

      • Solution for what? The fraction of emissions caused by the energy sector? That alone is nowhere near enough.
        • Solution for what? The fraction of emissions caused by the energy sector? That alone is nowhere near enough.

          We have to start somewhere. Once we get started on replacing coal and natural gas with nuclear then we can work on replacing petroleum with nuclear.
          https://www.forbes.com/sites/j... [forbes.com]

          Then we can work on the CO2 emissions from cement and concrete. This can be by mining basalt instead of limestone for the quicklime needed. We don't do this now because limestone is a rock that is much easier to break loose, but once mined it has to be put in a kiln to produce the quicklime. This is a process that uses a lot

          • Once we get started on replacing coal and natural gas with nuclear then we can work on replacing petroleum with nuclear.

            OR, once we get started on replacing coal and natural gas with other things that will allow us to use the money saved from not using nuclear to do that other stuff outside of generating electricity. Since the money you have for that is not infinite, you might as well use it in the best way you can.

            Instead of telling people how their ideas won't work how about you offer an alternative.

            People have been offering alternatives for a very long time. I'm not doing anything new here.

      • The solution has always been nuclear. Explain that to the Left, which still hasn't gotten over The China Syndrome
    • by HiThere ( 15173 )

      There's a problem here, though. If you adapt to a 1 foot sea level rise, and instead the sea level rises 2 feet, much of the money and effort you spent adapting to the predicted 1 foot rise is wasted. And if it keeps rising, and you keep making minimal adaptations, you'll spend an indefinite amount of money and still not solve the problem.

      It would be better to adapt to, say, a 10 meter rise from the start, even if it only ever rose 3 meters.

      • The models have all been proven accurate going back to the 70s, we are told. Your "what if the models are wrong" thing is just a 1%er billionaire club right wing distraction. If the models say sea level will rise between 0.8 and 1.1 meters then we are perfectly safe building protection for a 1.1m rise. The models have always been right.
        • by HiThere ( 15173 )

          You are listening to "public spokesmen". The models have not been tested in the high temperature region, and can't be, because there's no data yet available to validate them. Therefore there are lots of possible feedback looks that can't properly be evaluated. E.g. "How much methane will the permafrost release when it melts?", but there are others.

          Additionally, the official forecasts have routinely culled the higher end projections of the models to avoid alarmism.

          Also, no one model is good for forecastin

          • You are listening to "public spokesmen". The models have not been tested in the high temperature region, and can't be, because there's no data yet available to validate them. Therefore there are lots of possible feedback looks that can't properly be evaluated. E.g. "How much methane will the permafrost release when it melts?", but there are others.

            Additionally, the official forecasts have routinely culled the higher end projections of the models to avoid alarmism.

            Also, no one model is good for forecasting, so an ensemble is used, and the mean is taken as the projection. (That's the mean after the extreme predictions are eliminated.) But the extreme projections may just be counting something that the others aren't, like, e.g., the rate at which clouds evaporate. (That example is from one of the extreme models that were culled. ... It predicted high temperature feedback cycles that we haven't gotten hot enough to see yet.)

            And you were doing so well.

            Additionally, the official forecasts have routinely culled the higher end projections of the models to avoid alarmism.

            You post is, sadly, contaminated by unsupported assumption.

            If you care to provide a citation ...

            • by HiThere ( 15173 )

              No. Look into the official notes on the preparation of the WG1AR5 report, or of several of the others. (They're part of the report, which is freely downloadable. Unfortunately, it's a multi-part pdf file, but it's not a small report. Try: https://www.google.com/url?q=h... [google.com] . I've got to admit the one I looked at was a few years earlier.)

              • No. Look into the official notes on the preparation of the WG1AR5 report, or of several of the others. (They're part of the report, which is freely downloadable. Unfortunately, it's a multi-part pdf file, but it's not a small report. Try: https://www.google.com/url?q=h... [google.com] . I've got to admit the one I looked at was a few years earlier.)

                You would have done much better by omitting opinion pieces.

                I've made that mistake and it's not persuasive.

                In any case, your initial remarks were Informative, sans editorial remark. It wasn't necessary.

                Still, your other points show that you know the subject and your contribution was valuable.

                Thanks.

          • No. No. No. No. We have been told a zillion times how accurate the models are. The results are proven by the scientific consensus. The models are correct. We should take the facts the models provide and act on them. Anything less is a crime against humanity and the earth and should be punished with jail time and re-education for those who can be. No further data is needed. The models are accurate.
      • It would be better to adapt to, say, a 10 meter rise from the start, even if it only ever rose 3 meters.

        No it would not. You need to have ports that work the entire time this "adaptation" is taking place which means it depends on exactly how fast the sea level is rising at this place we're planning to rebuild the docks that will last for 80 years.

        The Parks department of Chicago is planting trees that will survive in the climate they expect the trees to live in for the next 80 years.

    • One thing that keeps getting brought up again and again with national measures to lower greenhouse gas emissions, in any nation, is that these efforts will do nothing to lower greenhouse gas emissions in other nations

      But if the high-tech, high-carbon nations put in the biggest efforts to point technology in the direction of carbon reduction, the rest will follow.

      Another thing I'm hearing is that even if we got our CO2 emissions to zero tomorrow the CO2 that's in the air will still mean global warming for a long time coming.

      That's why sequestration is as aimportant as reducing emissions. By applying technology, we can soak up carbon as quickly as we produced it.

      • Yard waste was banned from landfills and composting touted as the good-hearted steward of the planet option, under leftover 1970s innumeracy of the falsity of running out of landfill space. I was a believer back then.

        Now everybody has mulching mowers amounting to the same and you don't need to deal with bags either way.

        • That's just the evolution of the greenwaste disposal process. Remember the 3 R's: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. In the old days, all we did was recycle. Tossing it in the landfill eventually (inefficiently) generates methane which some landfills collect and use to generate electricity. Composting it recycles and reuses it to produce a soil improvement product, but doesn't necessarily reduce the quantity of waste being generated. Using a mulching mower (hopefully electric!) reduces the amount of stuff in the waste

      • But if the high-tech, high-carbon nations put in the biggest efforts to point technology in the direction of carbon reduction, the rest will follow.

        Not if it costs more than fossil fuels they won't. Why would they? If the USA is burning money on reducing CO2 then they can burn coal to beat the USA in the market selling goods at lower prices or higher profit margins.

        There is only one certain way to get someone to use a low carbon fuel instead of fossil fuels, have it cost less.

        I've seen people claim solar is already cheaper than coal, but how much does that solar power cost at local midnight? The levelized cost of electricity makes certain assumption

    • As important as it is to do what we can to reduce greenhouse gas emissions we should not forget that adaptation to global warming is important.

      [snipped to make way for my book. :p]

      I agree with your assessment in its entirety and would extend your remarks to include:

      A metric that's useful for gauging the validity of climate change is the effort that goes into measuring it and by taking notice of non-agenda driven actions by parties who are concerned about real effects.

      That's what's happening here.

      --

      Another effect of climate change is migration. Those living in affected areas will eventually have to move. Question:

      Where will they move? At this stage in the evolution of homo sapiens, we

    • Large contributors like China, Russia, India, and Indonesia don't appear to be terribly concerned about lowering their CO2 emissions.

      It's worse than that. Countries that do try and curb CO2 emissions through carbon tax type systems just end up pushing more manufacturing to the countries that don't care. Meaning the CO2 is still being produced on your behalf and even more so than if you didn't even try to cut the emissions because those countries just don't care to produce it cleaning. Then even more C
  • "The article goes on to describe uses that analysts make of satellite data and GIS analysis," adds Slashdot reader mikeebbbd. "Is there a risk that this could create a modern version of 'redlining?'"

    Yes, it is now very easy to see that political and mass media groups are systematically "categorizing" thoughts and beliefs, resulting in discrimination and prejudice against groups labeled "conservative".

    As for using satellite data to "analyze" climate risk, be aware that it is really what is called "re-analysi

    • by jdagius ( 589920 )

      Sorry, I forgot to include the link to windy.com:
      https://www.windy.com/-Show---... [windy.com]

    • "The article goes on to describe uses that analysts make of satellite data and GIS analysis," adds Slashdot reader mikeebbbd. "Is there a risk that this could create a modern version of 'redlining?'"

      Yes, it is now very easy to see that political and mass media groups are systematically "categorizing" thoughts and beliefs, resulting in discrimination and prejudice against groups labeled "conservative".

      As for using satellite data to "analyze" climate risk, be aware that it is really what is called "re-analysis". Instead of measuring "current" temperature directly with thermometers, reanalysis will apply computer models to "forecast" what the temperature outside "really" is, likely not the same value as your thermometer is telling you.

      For example, the online "windy.com" weather tool uses reanalyzed satellite data to display "current" temperatures around the world, even in places where there are no thermometers.

      Look at Antarctic for example, green denotes areas with temperatures above freezing. But this is "re-analysis", not directly observed temperatures, filtered by the ECMWF weather model. Click on "GFS" and you will get a different set of temperatures.

      And yet flooding, fires, stronger hurricanes, droughts, batshit crazy weather showing up in unexpected places, plus real efforts at local mitigation are in real time.

      • by jdagius ( 589920 )

        And yet flooding, fires, stronger hurricanes, droughts, batshit crazy weather showing up in unexpected places, plus real efforts at local mitigation are in real time.

        I actually did not make such claims about those things in regard to re-analysis, except for the uncertainty/ambiguity it has introduced into meteorology. So, you must believe that all re-analyses are 'correct', even when they contradict each other? And you believe massive squelching freedom of thought and beliefs is a good thing?

        But I (and many other skeptics) do believe that virtually all of that "it's worse than we thought" is pure alarmism. Extreme weather has always existed, even the kind of political p

  • I will never understand the finance industries. Just seems like moving money from point A to B, or arbitrarily wagering on the future outcomes of some thing (isn't that just betting?) Strikes me as very arbitrary compared to say, the physical sciences. Am I wrong? I honestly want to understand. A lot of gobbledygook involved too, that doesn't help.

    • by cusco ( 717999 )

      Well, in this case I think it's the financial industry catching up with the 1980s. "They're using satellites to predict weather and long term climactic changes! Who knew?"

      (isn't that just like betting?)

      Yeah, except for the upper echelons of the industry who have foreknowledge of almost all the dice throws. You or I invest our life savings and we get a gambling addict as a financial advisor, but if you start out with a billion dollar trust fund the managers will use it to manipulate the market to enrich b

      • by EvilSS ( 557649 )

        Well, in this case I think it's the financial industry catching up with the 1980s. "They're using satellites to predict weather and long term climactic changes! Who knew?"

        (isn't that just like betting?)

        The trading industry has been using satellite imaging for about as long as civilian products have been available. They look at parking lots on big shopping days, or at industrial plants to get clues on production. They look at crops to judge yield and drought/disaster impact. This is just a new use of an old tool for them.

        • CIA use to come out with forecasts and facts on foreign countries using satellite and other data.

      • The reinsurance industry (big, big money) is who paid for the studies in the 1990s that showed one more gigantic (expensive) storm per decade.

        Here's the deal with big money--they are in it for the long-term. Gates and Jobs and Zuckerberg got lucky, just like any random entertainer with a huge hit. Warren Buffet makes money the old-fashioned way, looking at the long-term. Bezos did that by creating a company that didn't make a profit for 20 years. Not many folks can afford to invest their money for that lo
    • Let's say you need to build a bridge right now. That takes money. Where do you get the money? Unless you have $100 million laying around you need to borrow it. That is what a municipal bond is. Investors buy the bonds and the municipality gets their $100 million to build the bridge. Investors get paid back eventually (say in 10 years) + tax free interest. The more risky the bond, the higher the interest. So they use this data to help figure out what the risk is. If the bridge is going to get built in an are

      • The bonds are backed by the legal power to tax, which is a unique collateral only governments possess.

        Sadly, the bond buyers must consider governments defaulting if not outright bankruptcy, which in more normal times would not be an issue as they would not be borrowing to the hilt in good times, and so that risk should be minimal.

        Rare is the government, like the US federal, and currently the states, which cannot legally shrug off their loans via bankruptcy.

    • The problem is "fintech," which is technology narrowly applied to useless but lucrative arts like high-speed trading and jumping on market trends milliseconds before the next 'quant' does. These people have lost touch with the fact that out there in the great wilderness beyond the Hudson and even outside of New York State, people are smelting steel and growing soybeans and fabricating semiconductors. The real basis of the economy is not playing with paper on Wall Street.

    • I will never understand the finance industries. Just seems like moving money from point A to B, or arbitrarily wagering on the future outcomes of some thing (isn't that just betting?) Strikes me as very arbitrary compared to say, the physical sciences. Am I wrong? I honestly want to understand. A lot of gobbledygook involved too, that doesn't help.

      Maybe I can help.

      It's actually a non-arbitrary physical science-based practice.

      If I came to you asking for money to build a hotel in Puerto Rico, your answer would not be the same as it would have been thirty years ago, agreed? The financial industries would be looking at the science and the history of the place in an effort to predict the future health of the investment, right?

      I feel certain that we could not get a loan from the finance industries and the decision would be based on figures gained from data

  • by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Saturday February 08, 2020 @11:30AM (#59704984)
    Go look up companies SEC filings where they call it out as a major risk.

    You can lie to the voters. You can lie to your priest. Hell, you can lie to yourself. But you can't lie to the SEC.
  • by argStyopa ( 232550 ) on Saturday February 08, 2020 @02:46PM (#59705422) Journal

    The fact that the bond markets are responding doesn't VALIDATE that global warming is a thing.
    It merely means that the public has been convinced it's a thing.

    That's all.

    It's the same logic behind a dot.com that has never made $1 profit trading for billions of value on the stock market - it's about what the traders BELIEVE it's worth, not what it's actually worth.

    If you could convince a bunch of people that genetically modified foods are dangerous, for example, despite the idiocy of the idea, likely those stocks would go down.

  • So what do these people do when the *actual* coastline doesnt change? Ive been waiting 50yrs to see oceans rise at my east coast beach. Still waiting. Its fun that a bunch of millennial insurance adjusters have found a way to charge more. But what happens when people start asking, "for what"?

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