Climate Change Is Bankrupting America's Small Towns (yahoo.com) 226
"Rather than bouncing back, places hit repeatedly by hurricanes, floods and wildfires are unraveling," reports the New York Times.
"Residents and employers leave, the tax base shrinks and it becomes even harder to fund basic services." That downward spiral now threatens low-income communities in the path this week of Hurricane Ida and those hit by the recent flooding in Tennessee — hamlets regularly pummeled by storms that are growing more frequent and destructive because of climate change. Their gradual collapse means more than just the loss of identity, history and community. The damage can haunt those who leave, since they often can't sell their old homes at a price that allows them to buy something comparable in a safer place. And it threatens to disrupt neighboring towns and cities as the new arrivals push up demand for housing...
Adapting to climate change in the United States arguably comes down to a brutal decision: When to build back, and when to help move people away from threats that are only getting worse.
The first option is becoming more expensive and less effective as disasters mount. The second option is usually too painful to even consider.
"Residents and employers leave, the tax base shrinks and it becomes even harder to fund basic services." That downward spiral now threatens low-income communities in the path this week of Hurricane Ida and those hit by the recent flooding in Tennessee — hamlets regularly pummeled by storms that are growing more frequent and destructive because of climate change. Their gradual collapse means more than just the loss of identity, history and community. The damage can haunt those who leave, since they often can't sell their old homes at a price that allows them to buy something comparable in a safer place. And it threatens to disrupt neighboring towns and cities as the new arrivals push up demand for housing...
Adapting to climate change in the United States arguably comes down to a brutal decision: When to build back, and when to help move people away from threats that are only getting worse.
The first option is becoming more expensive and less effective as disasters mount. The second option is usually too painful to even consider.
Do what the Anasazi did (Score:5, Interesting)
People always wondered why the Anasazi left their pueblos. Well, when the food and water go away, the people leave. Seems simple enough.
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In the case of hurricanes, they can still live there after the storm is gone, so they might just get poorer and poorer and live in huts they can rebuild after each storm.
Forest fires will be replaced by grass fires eventually, those are easier to survive with a perimeter.
There is a false premise here; that the choices are to move away or rebuild exactly the same. They might not be able to move away and have exactly what they had before. They might have to rebuild smaller, if they stay or if they go.
The Anas
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I strongly suspect some of this is regular old pattern recognition. Not that I deny climate changes are indeed a critical part of this, but a lot of it may be better information distribution.
Public awareness of what happens to people when they buy homes on flood plains or when they buy timber framed homes on the southeast US coast is rising due to news and social media. People have grown up hearing every year from Facebook friends that EVERY year is a "once in fifty years" scenario for some community. I thi
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Home insurance has existed for more than 50 years. They had that data already.
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Absolutely. Actuaries are an excellent place to look if you want impartial ideas about how risky something is. But data availability is not exactly the same thing as public perception. Furthermore most agree that the fossil fuel industry has paid heavily to reduce public awareness, whereas now the hype is going to the other side.
Re:Do what the Anasazi did (Score:4, Insightful)
A similar thought is we should not bail out the insurance companies. They made risk calculations and collected premiums, with built in profits, to cover these homes and businesses. They are on the hook for not charging enough. That's what re-insurance is for.
I believe there are places people should not live. The federal government should not come in and rebuild whole cities every year because of a predictable natural disaster. If an insurance company won't cover your home then you probably shouldn't rebuild there. And you sure as hell should not expect the rest of the country, through the federal government, to pay for your beachfront mansion every 5 years. But they always do.
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What insurance companies should offer, is to not rebuild the housing to the existing American template, which is not designed for such adverse weather.
I'm not an environmental engineer, but I'm sure that advances in all aspects of building adverse weather ready housing exists.
As a naive example, modern traditonal-style Japanese houses are built to handle regular Hurricanes (Typhoons), heavy snow, high-heat, high-humidity, and non-stop earthquakes.
The features are generally not used in the US. Built houses
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We really shouldn't be rebuilding these little hick towns at all. If we are going to spend public money, it should be to help people move elsewhere.
I grew up in Appalachia. With the coal mines closing, there is nothing left. The schools suck so nobody is going to open a software dev center in the hills of eastern Tennessee.
The sooner these people restart their lives somewhere else, the better. Then we can turn Appalachia into one big national park.
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You'd do well in the old communist block. Just move everyone into concrete towers near the factories. Never mind history and culture - work and productivity are all that matters. Work till you're musclebound, all night long.
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Move where? No one wants them.
Nearly every urban area in America has labor shortages. There are plenty of jobs for people willing to move.
Besides, it doesn't matter whether they are wanted or not. Americans have a right to live where they want: Edwards v. California [wikipedia.org].
Re: Do what the Anasazi did (Score:3)
"Labor shortage", sure. There's a labor shortage in my living room too. No one is willing to be my full time personal servant for $1 a day. Here I am, a job creator creating jobs, and nobody wants to take them, the ingrates!
---
Creating jobs is the easiest thing in the world. Creating jobs that are sustainable - that people can actually afford to take, long term - and don't foist negative externalities on the rest of society/the world is another matter.
If you're a person displaced by climate who had to sell
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Florida is a prime example of premiums adjustments and insurance companies fleeing. Premiums are through the roof in many locations. It sucks when your insurance company packs up and leaves while you are still paying your mortgage. You will end up paying through the nose to whichever insurance company remains in your area. No insurance, no mortgage. Eventually, they won't be building in parts of Florida unless they can do it without buyers taking out a mortgage.
Florida has a lot of built quick and cheap hom
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Only within the confines of what insurance will cover.
Re: Do what the Anasazi did (Score:3)
I never understood this line of reasoning.
There are at least 200 cities in the U.S., 50 states, 3 coasts, etc.
So, yeah, we can expect a 50-year storm SOMEWHERE every couple of months.
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Maybe the US should consider putting its power lines below ground and constructing homes out of solid materials like stone instead of shitty wood.
Infrastructure in the US is too much about cheapest and simplest masquerading as "efficient" and not enough about durability and sustainability.
Climate change (Score:2, Insightful)
The change in hurricanes over the past century is very small, and the number that make landfall has gone down.
People aren't abandoning these towns because of climate change or even climate. They are abandoning them because of the greater opportunity elsewhere.
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Really?
Been to New Jersey in the last couple of days?
Tell me when that was happening to the level it is in the past.
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Really?
Been to New Jersey in the last couple of days?
Tell me when that was happening to the level it is in the past.
The towns that flooded have indeed flooded in the past, you just didn't notice. Thirty years ago I lived in a beautiful NJ town that regularly flooded. People sometimes had to be evacuated from their homes.
Anybody buying homeowners insurance would know if they live in a flood zone. We used to joke that you should never buy a home in a town with a water reference in the name, like "Bridgewater, NJ" which floods all the time. It's like an advance warning.
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In California we've been building houses in flood zones. An area by the river that flooded 7 years earlier just got a whole housing development. If it had been built a littler earlier, those houses would have been under three meters of water.
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I grew up next to a town that had Water Street. It reliably flooded in the spring. There was a dam a mile and a half downstream. If it couldn't dump the snowmelt fast enough, Water Street earned it name.
Geologically, New Orleans is sinking, and sea level has been rising. The city will have to be abandoned.
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Re:Climate change (Score:5, Insightful)
The change in hurricanes over the past century is very small, and the number that make landfall has gone down.
The number that make landfall [noaa.gov] might have gone down, but not the total number of hurricanes and tropical storms [noaa.gov]
They're also getting stronger [noaa.gov] with more frequency and duration [wikipedia.org]. Prior to the 1980s, it wasn't common for a category 5 hurricane last 24 hours or more.
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Looks like some of your references don't agree with you. Over the last 45 years of the data, looks like we haven't reached average number of hurricanes even once, and have reached average number of strong hurricanes only once (61-70)
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Then link that data.
As the rest of the world disagrees.
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A wet string wasn't enough to tell us if it was just a sprinkle or a hurricane. Good thing technology improved.
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Good thing technology improved.
Yes.
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So have the storms :P
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but not the total number of hurricanes and tropical storms [noaa.gov]
This is the kind of number you use if you want to spread propaganda.
It's not propaganda. We know it's increased since we've had reliable ways to measure them, such as meterological flights by aircraft, developed during WW2 to a significant degree and continued since. It's not propaganda, just facts. That there have been slightly fewer making landfall on average is true, but the measure in terms of damage is not just that, but the overall intensity (capability to do damage). I mean, if someone pokes you twice with a finger that's not generally as bad as a person punching you
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That's true, single-employer and single-industry towns are especially vulnerable. Also towns that give huge tax breaks to Wal-Mart to move in, who demands a lease restriction so their single-use building cannot be used for another retail store when they move out. And then 10 years later when the tax breaks expire, they move to a new building a few blocks away, and they use the old, useless building as comps for property tax assessment purposes so they continue to pay close to nothing in property taxes in pe
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who demands a lease restriction so their single-use building cannot be used for another retail store when they move out.
And on wich planet would that be legal binding or could be enforced in court?
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Ours [npr.org], obviously.
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But historically it was super rare that a Hurricane makes landfall in Texas and then moves up north east and floods New York.
Historically the droughts where rather brief and not so server.
The climate is changing dramatically, and that dramatically fast. Funny, that you do not see it while you are in the middle of the change. If you were older you would perhaps remember how it was 40 - 45 - 50 years ago.
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But historically it was super rare that a Hurricane makes landfall in Texas and then moves up north east and floods New York.
Every event is unique and unprecedented in some way or another.
Reminds me of an anti-poverty proposal (Score:3)
This is one of those ideas that came up and was never heard from again. I vaguely remember that it was proposed by a Republican.
The idea was relocation grants. It's tough to move to another state with a better economy if you don't have family there to land with or savings for first and last month's rent and deposit. The relocation grants would have been meant to solve that problem.
Let me tell you, though, I know West Virginia people, and there's just no way to explain to an outsider how emotionally rooted they are there. Bet it's the same lots of other places.
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Let me tell you, though, I know West Virginia people, and there's just no way to explain to an outsider how emotionally rooted they are there.
It's kind of funny how the people who crossed an ocean to get to America have descendants who refuse to go anywhere else.
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Because they were peasants with no land and a diet of potatos in Ireland. So they came here, established a homestead and for generations their wealth has been their land.
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The Irish didn't leave because they had wanderlust.
The Irish side of my family left in the 1600s because the English side of my family had invaded Ireland and was murdering whole villages, and taking control of all the land. And it was perhaps a good call to leave; partial independence was 300 years away. I'm just glad most of my ancestors stayed farther north than West Virginia.
WHAT PERCENTAGE ARE AFFECTED FFS?! (Score:4, Interesting)
Teh story tells us that Climate Change Is Bankrupting some of America's Small Towns that are affected by climate change.
America's Small Towns that are not, or hardly, affected by climate change are, erm, not affected by climate change.
SO TELL US THE NUMBERS, OR THIS STORY IS ALMOST MEANINGLESS.
Jounalism 101.
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Urbanisation is a thing, and admitting to it would kill this specific narrative. Propaganda 101.
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You are missing the point. This is just the start, and it's going to get worse. Climate change is going to cause a lot of poverty and mass migrations in America, and pretty much everywhere else too.
climate change is NOT bankrupting America (Score:3)
All around, we have president, CONgress, legislatures that would rather play political games, as opposed to SOLVING ISSUES.
These idiots are not even moving chairs around the deck. They are simply doing NOTHING.
Sometimes, U-Haul is the answer (Score:2)
If a place is no longer a good place live -- due to global warming or changes in hat fashion or no known cause -- why shouldn't people leave it?
Because it makes other people sad to see a small town go away? Not much of a reason.
Re: Sometimes, U-Haul is the answer (Score:2)
17 comments before someone has some sensible discussion that doesn't blame ideology or some crazy hypothesis about a political party. This site has gone to crap.
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The summary mentioned not being able to sell their home for enough money to move. It's probably why it is usually the young who leave, they don't have an investment in staying.
At mid-age and being forced to move by circumstances and not being able to cash in your home etc is hard.
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Having lousy prospects, and a home you can't sell in a down market for as much as is needed to buy something comparable in a stronger market, is worse than having lousy prospects and having no home to sell? Looked at unemotionally, that makes no sense.
Agreed, the "sunk cost fallacy" can keep people from making good decisions.
Just reversion to status quo ante (Score:5, Insightful)
Local property developers find these locations, buy the land on the cheap and persuade the federal government to provide insurance. The party that normally opposes big government programs is strangely silent. The other party never disliked the idea of government stepping in the path of free market. So federal govt steps in, takes your money and my money and provides "insurance".
The original promoters sell their cheap land at decent profit, and go looking for new low lying areas, forest enclaves and shifting sand in the Atlantic to lather, rinse and repeat.
Remove these federal programs we will return to sane development, guided by the almighty Invisible Hand. Everyone can rejoice.
LIES! (Score:2, Interesting)
Under ORANGE MAN BAD, not only did we reduce our carbon emissions, become energy independent, and experience an actual CALM in the middle east, small towns were prospering. His leadership gave use the best economy in US history prior to China's virus carelessly or intentiona
So, what do we do about it? (Score:5, Informative)
Global warming is a problem, we get that, so what should we do about it?
Here's an idea, we list all the energy sources and rank them based on metrics we care about. We care about safety, CO2 emissions, cost, resources required (land, labor, materials, etc.), perhaps more. We can only list energy sources available to us today, and metrics we can measure today as anything else is speculation and wishful thinking. Then we look at the government policies and regulations that are holding these up and clear a path for them. Don't put any government money into this as that artificially skews the costs and again puts personal favorites into law rather than allowing the market to allow the top picks on the list to naturally work out the best allocations of resources to keep costs low. We want to only filter out the bottom of the pack so the remainder aren't distracted and held back.
I've seen such an analysis done before, by different people all coming to similar conclusions. The top picks were all the same but the details differed slightly. This tells me anyone doing the same honest assessment of energy solutions will come to the same solutions. Where the solutions differed most was on non-energy solutions, such as how to best capture and sequester carbon. The best options for carbon capture and sequestration were those that produced useful products that could be sold, and therefore did not require any subsidies to be viable.
We don't need government money to solve this, only the government to get out of the way by stopping their tactics of picking winners and losers to appeal to ignorant voters and campaign contributors. Politicians have been choosing to feed on ignorance than educate because that's the easy path. That works until someone comes along to educate the voters, and we are finally seeing that happen. I've seen the solutions and they are coming to us soon.
What ended what has been decades of politicians keeping people in the dark on viable solutions to global warming? The internet, social media, inexpensive electronics, and more. We live in an information age now, and from this we can expect to see solutions come far more quickly than before. We still need to work out some of the issues on finding solutions. There's a saying on how the internet sees censorship as damage and routes around it. We still need to clear out some of the means by which censorship skews politics. We are almost there.
We will see solutions come, and they will not require government mandates or subsidies. We need only the government to regulate, something it's failed to do for a long time.
I purposefully left out what the solutions will be on energy and carbon capture. I'll leave that as an exercise for the reader.
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We have yet to see any hint of nuclear getting any cheaper
It's not going to get cheaper until we develop the technology. That means building nuclear power plants. Building them at full scale and as operating prototypes and demonstrators. Did solar power get cheaper by just sitting on our hands and waiting for the costs to come down? No, it did not. Solar power got cheaper by building them, and over time improving the process. What has happened with solar power costs is that it is reaching a limit based on material costs. Nuclear power needs far less materia
Climate baddening (Score:2)
Let's call it what it's reported as: climate baddening. Because 100% of the climate changes seem to be bad.
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Of course. You can't get an average bad climate change unless all climate change is bad - that's just math, right?
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Averages consist of events on either side of the average. You can't have an average without examples on both sides of it.
Because ... (Score:2)
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We really should, but good luck with that. It has too many tall buildings for any substantial portion of its business properties to be relocated.
Good grief (Score:2)
1) I believe anthropogenic climate change is real.
2) I believe this story is complete nonsense.
Small towns have been dying since before World War II. I’ve been hearing about it since I was a kid (1960s-1970s). The explanations have included that people have been leaving small towns because of the lack of farm jobs, the existence of universal education, more attractive job opportunities elsewhere, cheap transportation - and even that World War II opened up millions of young men’s eyes to big citi
Young country (Score:2)
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Sounds more like a core infrastructure problem? (Score:2)
<sarcasm>
Gosh, it's too bad we don't have a core infrastructure bill to fund shoring up our flood plain control & levies, implement responsible anticipatory/preventative forestry management, and fund rebuilding & landscaping to higher disaster-resistant building codes & standards. Alas, that fully-passed bipartisan House bill is being held hostage from the Senate until they can pass a profligate $3.5 gazillion Santa Clause bill to lusciously fund NPR, the National Endowment for the Art
It is not climate change, it is poor planning (Score:2)
Crap (Score:3)
No one is leaving small towns because of weather. That's just absurd. Only a NYT nitwit who has never been to small town would say this. When people leave small towns, it's usually because of jobs or occasionally access to healthcare for the elderly. In a post-covid world, many information economy jobs can function fine in small towns and a lot of people will migrate back to small towns for economic reasons as the cost of living is generally much lower there due to less competition for real estate.
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The story is not about "leaving a small town because of weather".
It is about a "a small town gets destroyed by weather" and: no one wants (or has the funds) to rebuild it.
Everyone has their hand out .... (Score:2)
Like many of you already posted, I think the bulk of the people complaining they "can't afford to relocate" are really just hoping their sob story will qualify them for another Federal government payout.
If you live on a flood plain or in a coastal area where hurricanes are a known risk? You've chosen poorly as a place to put your permanent residence! It's really that simple. The weather doesn't care if you're rich or you're poor.
I mean, I say this as someone who has good friends who moved to areas not fa
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You can't just beg for the American taxpayers to come to your rescue time after time.
Apparently you can, the rules are set up such that you just get paid again and again. To my mind a reform plan would be that you can get paid, but the property becomes the property of the government and when enough of it is lumped together it becomes a wildlife preserve, or at least a national park.
Bookmarked (Score:3)
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If you're going down that road, you should look at Watts.
Bad fire season (Score:3)
We had a bad fire season this year and lost the bulk of our summer to heavy smoke. If it was like this every year I wouldn't live here.
Climate change notwithstanding, torching significant portions of (in this case) British Columbia each summer isn't good for anybody. We need answers. Now.
...laura
Hilarious (Score:2)
Small towns have been dying for 50 years.
Now it's climate change, of course it is.
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> Are we still supporting censorship, tearing down statues and erasing history
Only during election years. This is an off-year, so the concern is man-bear-pig.
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the communist agenda was to wipe out ... community
/facepalm
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> Communism is about community, it's right in the name - K. S. Kyosuke
Yes. I'm sure The west coast limousine liberals care as much about "fly over states", "rednecks" and "MAGA country" as much as Mao, Lenin or Kim Jung -* cared about their people.
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Actually it is to remind us and to teach us history.
I don't think we should have statues of traitors to our country celebrated in our country.
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But those are the people who it is most important to identify early before they do much damage.
I don't recall any of that (Score:5, Insightful)
Also I normally don't feed the trolls but who in the name of Christ modded this guy up? I don't expect much from slash Dot but I do expect people to understand when those statues were put up and why.
Re: I don't recall any of that (Score:2)
It has some merit
https://www.washingtonpost.com... [washingtonpost.com]
And? (Score:2, Insightful)
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It wasn't enough to go to war with (Score:3)
But you knew that, which is why you had to try calling me a communist when I'm a conservative capitalist. You need to distract, confuse, derail because you're wrong about everything you believe and it hurts. But the money's good so you can't give up those fixed beliefs.
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I honestly don't know why America decided to put up statues of enemies who lost a war in the first place. Did you erect statues of Hitler too?
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They were put up by the descendants of some of those enemies to make themselves feel better by making black people feel worse.
Ironically, if you've seen 'em, even the best of them are pretty mediocre and the worst of them are like "master race wat"
Re: Brutal decisions (Score:3)
Free abortion, free sterilization, procreation permits and no insurance for properties on the 1000 year flood level.
Carbon reduction is the final solution (Score:2, Interesting)
You are the "carbon", they want to "reduce".
From the "crazy alt-right fear-mongering" [imgflip.com] to mainstream in one generation...
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nope, still crazy alt-right fear-mongering
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I think, you meant to reply to Z00L00K...
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Yes. Stop breeding so many humans.
China did that and now they are facing a labor shortage, an aging population, and possibly a collapse of the population. While I have great sympathy for the Chinese people I do hope this brings an end to the communist government that brought this on them.
We could start in the US by discouraging single motherhood
That's just generally a good idea but I don't see what that has to do with population control.
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China did that and now they are facing a labor shortage, an aging population, and possibly a collapse of the population.
And why are these things bad? Labor shortage means higher wages and more efficient economy, aging population means that children have much more value and attention, and a collapse of population will result in less resources used and more space for everybody.
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And why are these things bad? Labor shortage means higher wages
The Chinese economy relies on exporting cheap labor. Lose that and they don't have an economy. China imports coal for their industry and food for their people, then they export all kinds of cheap products because they pay people very little there. Labor prices go up and it's not so cheap to make stuff in China any more. Now they don't have the money to import the food, or the labor to grow food themselves.
One means to lower the economic bleeding is to replace imported coal with domestic thorium. They h
Re:Brutal decisions (Score:5, Informative)
The Chinese economy relies on exporting cheap labor. Lose that and they don't have an economy.
That hasn't been true for some years. Chinese economy now relies more on internal consumption than on export.
Labor prices go up and it's not so cheap to make stuff in China any more. Now they don't have the money to import the food, or the labor to grow food themselves.
Oh please. China is just exporting more high-tech goods, instead of cheap labor. That's why these days trashy T-shirts and sneakers are made by Bangladesh and Malaysia, not China.
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The Chinese economy relies on exporting cheap labor.
Not at all. Labor in China is much more expensive than Vietnam, Indonesia, Bangladesh, or almost anywhere in Africa.
Now they don't have the money to import the food, or the labor to grow food themselves.
That is a ridiculous statement. When the population declines, the need for food falls much faster than the production of food. There is more land per person and the least productive land is taken out of production first.
China is such a closed society.
China is not a closed society. Any American can go to a consulate, get a visa, and travel there. Or even live there. I lived in Shanghai for several years. My kids attend
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China needs a collapse in population, what they had is not sustainable. The whole world NEEDS to reduce population.
Re:Brutal decisions (Score:5, Interesting)
GTFO of areas that are constantly being hit by hurricanes. Anyone who stays gets no taxpayer-funded assistance
People build in hurricane prone areas because water is a cheap way to move people and commodities, and moving things over land is more difficult. When optimizing a transportation system that wants to maximize the cheap transport and minimize the expensive transport you end up with a lot of people on low lying areas next to rivers and the sea.
If it wasn't hurricanes then it would be earthquakes, tornadoes, snowstorms, or some other natural event that would cause loss of life and property. We notice hurricanes because there's more people affected. Put people in large concentrations anywhere and something is going to get them. The point of taxpayer funded assistance is as a kind of insurance on public works, and a means of last resort when private insurance fails the public for some reason.
I can certainly understand we may need some restraint, oversight, and so on but putting an end to it will not mean people stop building in the path of hurricanes. That is because there is considerable economic incentive to build near water.
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Local government controls building codes and land use laws? The State and Federal governments write the checks and hazard maps?
Also, agreed on the "stop building" but what do you do with the already built environment that survives? Governmentally, that is.
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The belief that periodic natural disasters, which have plagued mankind from time to time throughout recorded history, is "climate change" is...
...fortunately something nobody with a brain believes. Those periodic natural disasters have nothing to do with today's anthropogenic transient event.
You're missing the point intentionally (Score:2, Interesting)
Small towns we're having a hard enough time as is because automation and process improvements have taken out most of the farm jobs and factories that they depend on. A large uptick in them getting flooded out may not be the only reason that people are leaving but it's naive to think that it's not a factor.
If your home gets flooded out
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A lot of that was automation. Suddenly tractors made most farmers non-essential and big business took advantage by forcing the farmers out. Without the automation, the banks wouldn't have foreclosed.
Today, even the automation and huge farms aren't good enough to weather the weather.
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Of course this is modded down. You're not allowed to dispute the #MediaIndustrialComplex narrative. You must be punished.
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First rule of propaganda is that anything can be blamed on the target of propaganda.
This is utterly agnostic of propaganda point in question being true or false.
Re: BS (Score:5, Funny)
What we need now more than ever are some tax cuts for the rich.