Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Academics pouring climate doom on Florida real estate prices.
Leading In A World On Fire: Putting Climate Change First
Gautam Mukunda Contributor Leadership Strategy
I Write About Leadership, Innovation, And Policy For Entrepreneurs And Execs.…
If today’s capitalism assumes a stable climate, what will it mean when that goes away? Suddenly falsified hidden assumptions are one of the most common causes of crisis. How bad will this one get and what will that mean for leaders? To find out, I spoke with Spencer and Rebecca Henderson, one of only 25 University Professors at Harvard (Harvard’s highest honor) and the author of Reimagining Capitalism in a World on Fire.
What will climate change do to the economy? Spencer said, “when I look at estimates that Florida will lose two or three or five or 10% of GDP, I laugh, and not happily…No individual in Florida should own their own home as a meaningful form of their own personal savings, because that wealth will go away.” Florida is a low and flat peninsula made of porous limestone. This makes its coasts incredibly vulnerable to flooding. This will, sooner or later, make new home buyers reluctant to take on a 30-year commitment when the insurance companies they depend can leave at any time. Banks, similarly, will be unwilling to make 30-year loans in Florida – making it different than everywhere else in the United States. The consequence will be the collapse of real estate prices in a state whose tax base is primarily driven by property taxes and whose economy depends on a constant inflow of people who purchase property.
…
Read more: https://www.forbes.com/sites/gautammukunda/2021/12/23/leading-in-a-world-on-fire-putting-climate-change-first/
The current rate of sea level rise does not pose a threat to Florida or anywhere else. But what if I’m wrong? What if alarmist predictions come to pass, and there is a sudden surge in sea level?
Academics like Spencer never seem to consider human ingenuity and problem solving.
The $2.8 Billion Plan To Protect Keys From Flooding Now Includes Raising Homes, Floodproofing — But No Buyouts
WLRN 91.3 FM | By Nancy Klingener
Published May 5, 2021 at 6:01 PM EDTAdapting to climate change in the Florida Keys is going to carry big costs. Monroe County has already estimated the bill for raising county roads at $1.8 billion.
But help may be on the way from the federal government for other aspects of that adaptation: elevating homes and floodproofing businesses and infrastructure like hospitals, utilities and fire stations.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ latest recommended plan is meant to help the Keys cope with the increased flooding caused by climate change.
That plan, now estimated at almost $3 billion, includes shoring up six segments of the Overseas Highway and elevating nearly 4,700 homes. That is fewer than in an earlier draft — and the latest recommendation includes no buyouts.
…
Read more: https://www.wlrn.org/news/2021-05-05/the-2-8-billion-plan-to-protect-keys-from-flooding-now-includes-raising-homes-floodproofing-but-no-buyouts
If raising thousands of buildings to increase flood resilience seems radical, its actually a very old solution. People have been raising buildings for centuries. Much of Chicago was raised several yards in the 1850s, to improve flood resilience. Seattle, which also had flood problems, had a different approach. Instead of raising buildings, they raised the street level, but left the buildings alone, giving everyone a new basement, also giving Seattle an impressive network of underground passages.
And of course there are many other solutions. Italy’s Venice, instead of abandoning their beautiful city to the sea, they just kept building upwards, creating a unique water city serviced by a network of canals. Or the Netherlands, which has been holding back the sea for centuries with a network of dykes.
We might lose the occasional shifting sand barrier island, but nobody will abandon large chunks of valuable land they care about to rising seas. Whenever flooding becomes intolerable, for whatever reason, the land will simply be filled and built up until it is flood proof.
One clueless idiot talks to a couple other clueless idiots. Why would we expect anything useful to come from the conversation?
Shocking how dysfunctional Harvard has become, and they are proud of it. I enjoy vacations partly in Miami Beach, and will continue to do so as long as I want.
Harvard & Yale are community college for rich people. Even MIT has started down the slippery slope of woke decline.
“Even MIT …” In the early to late 1960’s Case Institute of Technology was consistently ranked in the top 3 for engineering and science. Very difficult to get in and even harder to graduate. About 500 of us in the freshman class in 1966 and about 250 of us graduated. Since its amalgamation with Western Reserve rankings are in the 30 to mid 40 range. The left leaning there is amazing now. I can hardly stand to read my Case magazine any more.
First they’ll come for your small gas yard tools, then they’ll come for your gas generator, then they’ll come for your SUV, finally they’ll come for your ability to own property period. If you let them succeed, they’ll come for YOU next
ah for the good old days when it was bangladesh bangladesh bangladesh,,,,
….now it’s Florida Florida Florida
I started studying this climate change business back in 2006. After studying it, I decided that moving to a house in Florida was the smartest thing I could do. Haven’t seen any reason to change my mind yet!
Having a front row seat for the future, I am sure you will sound the alarm if things get ……damp?
The conspiracy of ignorance MASQUErades as common sense.
” I spoke with Spencer and Rebecca Henderson, one of only 25 University Professors at Harvard (Harvard’s highest honor) and the author of Reimagining Capitalism in a World on Fire. ”
“The road to hell is paved with Ivy League degrees” – T. Sowell
“Intellectuals have many skills which enable them to evade the testing of what they believe” – T. Sowell
“Too much of what is called ’education’ is little more than an expensive isolation from reality.” – T. Sowell
If anyone reads Sowell and then still believes in any of the nonsense spewed by the “intellectual left” I believe we have a basis to question their competency.
“Educated beyond their intellectual means”, George Jonas
And far bey9ound their knowledge.
And no Reset globalist under the guise of “climate change” should own their own home, anywhere! Which is worse – hypocrisy or greed? So leave Florida and homeowners alone and clean up your own mess!
No such problems in Mediterranean, invest in property there. It is a concentration basin where evaporation greatly exceeds precipitation and river run-off. The Mediterranean Sea is a semi-closed sea,exchanging water with the Atlantic Ocean through the narrow and shallow Gates of Hercules, which if required could be closed, with a bit of Herculean effort.
/sc
So… What should Nancy Pelosi do with the multimillion-dollar beach front Florida property she and her husband just bought? Should the Goobermint take possession of it? Maybe use it to house some homeless folks in luxury? Provide a safe space for junkies to shoot up? I am really interested in Speaker Pelosi’s opinion on what The People should do with her property… I mean, The People’s property, for the sake of Climate Change.
Well, if Mr. Mukunda’s “hidden assumption” here is that the weather we have observed right up to today is well within the bounds of natural variation (Source: Richard Lindzen), that assumption has NOT been falsified.
Moreover, there has been NO DATA presented ever which could shift the burden of proof onto the null hypothesis from where it now soundly lies, on the conjecture (styling itself a “hypothesis” — not so, since it cannot be tested) about human CO2 causing “climate change.”
It is merely a supposition.
Gautam Makunda, I’m afraid your leader-ship has sailed.
Henderson and Oreskes exemplify the reasons I told the major gifts team they will never see a cent from me. Harvard has gone nuts since I earned three degrees there long ago.
Same with me and M.I.T.!
Climateering leadership and wifty-pooftyhoodness for Execs and and Ex-entrepreneurs. No geologists or engineers were disturbed in this flight of fantasy. The poison-ivy league universities, led by harvard, are now beyond rehabilitation, unlike Florida Real Estate. But, thanks for alerting me to potential bargains on a possible exodus of designer-brained home owners in the Sunshine State.
I certainly hope this discourages leftists from moving to Florida.
Recently it was reported that registered Republicans outnumbered registered Democrats.
This post should be upvoted a million times.
From your lips to god’s ears…from a very happy and confident person living 10 feet above sea level in Florida. Even though I won’t live past mid-century, I’m sure my kids and grandkids will enjoy this place as a winter getaway.
PLEASE, keep the idiot Progressives out of this state! We already have too many; witness Ron DeSantis won by fewer than 50,000 votes out of I think >6M. SMH!
Only 50,000 votes! Are you sure there weren’t trainloads of phoney votes shipped by the post office in Brooklyn down to Florida? They honed their election fraud techniques during the last fed election shipping from vote factories in NY to Detroit and Philidelphia and maybe Arizona and Georgia.
Some morons, for unknown reasons, feel compelled to advertise their moronity.
When dealing with Puritans, which Harvard derives all it’s history from, always remember TULIPS that guides their every belief.
Seriously, you are going to blame Calvinists for what is going on at the atheist Ivy league?
We should warn the people in year 3000 to not listen to these idiots.
“This will, sooner or later, make new home buyers reluctant to take on a 30-year commitment when the insurance companies they depend can leave at any time. Banks, similarly, will be unwilling to make 30-year loans in Florida”
Do these eggheads know anything about flood hazard areas, flood insurance and flood hazard mitigation?
Currently if you are in a SFHA (Special Flood Hazard Area) you must have flood insurance to get a federal backed home loan. But you do not have to have flood insurance if the home is higher than the base flood elevation even if the rest of the property is designated a SFHA.
My property was designated SFHA-AE12, Flood Zone A with elevation of 12 feet above mean high tide. When FEMA redrew the flood maps in 2016, my property was re-designated Zone X, not in a SFHA. Bye bye flood insurance!!!!!!! Added over $10,000 to my “Viva Las Vegas” fund since then.
When I am removing a structure through a (relatively) complicated process, I knock on the neighbors doors and ask them if they would like to participate and get in on the savings.
Only about a third are wanting to save any money.
If I would have knocked on your door 3 years ago and told you that I would get you removed from the SFHA for $3,500, what would you have done?
(also … you can now get flood insurance for about $500 a year instead of $2,500/yr … not a terrible idea)
The experts all seem t think they have all the answers. They don’t. They already have missed the boat if they haven’t considered the ongoing solar Grand Minimum. The climate likely to go into a long cold season similar to the Little ice age, possibly a real ice age.
Since no one knows the future the sensible choice is a spectrum of versatile policies until we know. Waste not want not. Trouble certainly is brewing in the future.
I suggest we handle our existing problems; let people of the future handle their own problems (unknowable to us). Everything we’re doing today as normal courses of business will vastly improve the lives of future generations. Every dollar pissed away today on CliSciFi hysteria hurts people of the future.
Bjorn Kurtin is a paleontologist who, as part of his profession, has studied climate change. In a 1988 book published by Columbia University he says on page 14, “we are now living in an interglacial which is rapidly nearing its end. So, unless man manages to cause some radical changes in the trends of climate, a new glaciation appears to be just around the corner.”
Does he quantify “rapidly” and “just around the corner”? These words are pretty meaningless otherwise.
“in a world on fire….” Boogieman! Be very afraid!
Long past time to defund universities!
Reality check: Florida is currently experiencing a real-estate buying boom . . . prices are skyrocketing because the demand is so high.
As a separate issue, there is this quote from the excerpt of Gautam Mukunda given in the above article:
“. . . Rebecca Henderson, one of only 25 University Professors at Harvard (Harvard’s highest honor) . . .” I will just note that if the highest honor that Harvard can bestow on anyone is granting that person the title “University Professor at Harvard” they are all too full of themselves, and such an “honor” meets the urban dictionary’s definition of being a blivet (see: https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=blivet )
A close cousin to the blivet is the pompous git. They pop up here at WUWT from time to time.
Like pesky flies.
When the Obamas panic sell their Martha’s Vineyard estate, then I *might* give this commie Harvard Perfesser a passing listen…
Because it has nothing to do with climate, but “Equity”, redistribution of wealth. That is, from you to the oligarchs, as WEF says “you will own nothing and be happy”. They are coming for your property.
Capitalism DOES NOT depend on stability. If anything, all this whining about market failures completely inverts reality — “market failures” are the opportunities which bring innovation and efficiencies. A working perfect socialist economy (what a long convoluted oxymoron!) would have no innovations, no improvements, no changes — no weather (or climate!) problems, no sickness, no retirement, no deaths, no new workers on their first jobs.
A market failure is anytime that market produces a result that the socialists disagree with.
And of course the only response to a “market failure” is full on socialism.
“A working perfect socialist economy (what a long convoluted oxymoron!)”
I’d lengthen it . . by one letter, anyway; A working perfect controlled economy. I feel a sort of responsibility to, to the younger useful idiots. They seem to have a rather fanciful view of “socialism” . . as though it would be run by something other than a small group of ruling elites, hell bent on keeping it that way.
Why help keep that naive kid stuff floating around in their heads, thinks I.
“Whenever flooding becomes intolerable, for whatever reason, the land will simply be filled and built up until it is flood proof.”
Except that the EPA, Army Corps of Engineers, and various state environmental departments make it all but impossible to fill in land near a riparian zone. Go ahead, try getting a fill permit in New Jersey.
“What will climate change do to the economy? Spencer said, “when I look at estimates that Florida will lose two or three or five or 10% of GDP, I laugh, and not happily…”
When I look at people laughing “not happily”, I tend to wonder about their sanity.
I tried to watch one of the new network sitcoms a few weeks ago.
I think I now understand exactly what she means by her “not happily” laughing. Everything is endlessly self-conscious. To let go and have a genuine, cheerful laugh is impossible with the left these days.
First, a laugh has to navigate a committee comprised of a proper intersection of recognized disadvantaged groups. Today (according to the Official Democracy Doomsday Clock), that consists of 5,397 groups (they added non-binary Palestinian breakfast cooks yesterday). This committee requires 100 days to issue a declaration, which resets every time someone is added to the committee.
Once the laugh is approved, meaning all 5,397 (oh, I think they’re adding number 5,398 as I type) committee members can find nothing offensive about it, it is then integrated into an approved script, where it is tested by Facebook’s fact-checkers and the San Francisco Board of Education.
Finally, if that test is passed, the script is mailed to Donald Trump. If he laughs, the script is rejected and everything is discarded. If he doesn’t, then the network is free to go ahead with taping as long as its cast has been approved by the committee as sufficiently diverse.
In the end, you can do nothing more than laugh, and not happily at all. I get it now.
The funniest part of that post is that in this day and age it isn’t obviously sarcasm.
It’s pretty ridiculous for them to assert that capitalism isn’t taking climate change into account.
The real markets give climate change all the weight they deserve, nothing.
It’s why those insurance companies they mention are quite happy to insure all those new hotels in the Maldives and all the other places supposedly sinking under the waves.
The only real threat to us remains government intervention in the markets.
My dream: the federal government halts all funding to universities and shifts it to other learning avenues, particularly trade schools and professional schools. Funding trickles slowly to the universities when it shows clearly that it has balanced it’s entire catalogue of education so that education is the focus (“learning how to learn”) instead of indoctrination, and all viewpoints are receiving equal analysis and respect. And they also demonstrate clearly that research areas are valuable first to the betterment of the US, its citizens, the freedoms enshrined in the Constitution, our way of life, and (secondarily) humanity across the globe.
Reality: not a snowflake’s chance in hell of ever happening.
Brandon’s recent executive order requiring all federal contractors and anyone with whom they have contact to be vaccinated and to wear masks when inside the affected buildings has flushed universities out into the open. Most are so dependent on $billions in federal grants and contracts that they feared catastrophic financial losses, so they made plans to kowtow to the order. The order is presently stayed for Supreme Court review. Sudden defunding would be unnecessarily painful, but universities need to be slowly weaned from federal dependence. Just as President Eisenhower predicted long ago, science has been politicized and undermined by federal largess. Without government, who in their right minds would fund climate change research, gender studies and a host of other woke subjects?
I agree, give them time to wither, and face the massive throng of ill prepared “college graduates” they’ve hoodwinked into taking on massive debt.
#Refunds.woke ; )
What will Climate Change Hysteria do to the economy, is the question. SLR will likely continue as it has been, slowly and inexorably over many centuries. So what? Are storms getting worse? Nope. And if we get an extended cooling period such as the LIA, sea levels could even drop.
Nobody owned their own homes in the Soviet Union either.
BBC just broadcast a snippet of a caller saying to the president ‘Let’s go Brandon’ and he replied ‘I agree’.
Hilarious moment.
Note subtitle is about 3-4 sec delayed, by then JB may have realised what happened and swiftly turned back to camera.
click on to magnify
I doubt Biden has any idea as to what the phrase means. None of his handlers felt the need to tell him.
I called this! When Joe Brandon passed on the Army-Navy game (this is a PR event no rational politician would pass up, particularly the Commander in Chief), speculation was the White House staff cancelled because chants of LEt’s Go Brandon might occur. My speculation was that staff did not fear that Joe would be offended, they feared he might join in!! And here we are.
The problem arises when they socialize the cost— just like Federal Flood Insurance.
If the dimbulbs want to own or build in hurricane prone areas, don’t make me subsidize their stupidity.
as long as you are paying federal taxes,
you don’t get to pick and choose which stupidity you subsidize.
“Italy’s Venice, instead of abandoning their beautiful city to the sea, they just kept building upwards”
It wasn’t a beautiful city back then. But, it was immune from attacks both from land, because the city is surrounded by water and there were no bridges until the 19th Century. and by sea because the city is inside a lagoon that ocean going ships could not penetrate without expert local pilots who knew the channels.
They expanded the city to keep up with their growing population and wealth. But, it was defense that was the first issue.
BTW, The American Republic has endured for 245 years, which makes it the second oldest government in the world today. The Roman Republic lasted for 482 years. The Venetian Republic lasted for 1100 years.
Venice formed as a reaction to the dissolution of the western Roman Empire
For safety as you said
Such an endlessly interesting place to visit
Capitalism depends on a stable climate??
First time I’ve heard of that requirement.
First time I’ve heard that it was an underlying assumption, too.
Betting against rising Real Estate Market prices in coastal areas of Australia has always proved to be a loser. People do not even have to notice that there has been virtually no sea rise in over 150 years around Australia to find this out.
“Suddenly falsified hidden assumptions are one of the most common causes of crisis.“
Oh, the irony! Consider the current power crises in Germany and UK – with California and South Australia in close pursuit. Im tempted to say, from the mouth of babes. Or the intellectually immature in this case.
Happy Xmas to all !
Vuk
Sacramento is another example of a city that has been raised up above flood levels.
That’s a good trick! No wonder it’s one of Harvard’s finest honors… One professorship out of a couple.
Even as one, their brains are a little loose in the professor’s head.
“If today’s capitalism assumes a stable climate….” Ummmmm, it does not so the article is worthless.
Half of Louisiana will wash away before Florida does. Build your house on rock not mud.
“What if alarmist predictions come to pass, and there is a sudden surge in sea level?” — article
What if NOT ONE of those predictions comes to pass? What part of “Florida used to be at least two times as wide as is it now a long time ago” is not comprehensible? The sea level can drop just as easily as rise, maybe more easily. The assumption that what is now “has always been” and “may be worsened” is ridiculous.
Ivy League CEOs nearly destroyed Apple. Steve Jobs had to be brought back to resuscitate it.
Will the rest of our coastal cities face the fate of Venice?
Continually adding floors to buildings as they sank was very expensive, but Venice was once a very wealthy city. At the time, the advantages of its location more than made up for the expense and inconvenience of dealing with the ever rising tide. This continued for the most part for centuries as long as Venice was an economic powerhouse of industry and trade. But by the end of the 19th century, it was the economic and political tides that changed for Venice, and its wealth and influence waned. It became a economic and cultural backwater and did not return to international consciousness again until its rediscovery by the romantics in the 20th century.
Today, Venice survives economically mostly via tourism. Although tourism does bring in enough money to sustain numerous shopkeepers, hotels, restaurants and the arts, it’s nothing compared to the wealth that was created when Venice was a center of international manufacturing, trade and naval power. It’s been centuries since most of its long standing buildings have had floors added to avoid the advancing tides.
So Venice’s biggest problem is not “global warming”. It’s that it is no longer an economically viable city that can afford to address its inevitable sinking. Tourism alone will never generate enough wealth to offset the expense of mitigating the consequences of its geologically vulnerable location as it did centuries ago.
This provides a useful example for where eco-Progressivism is currently pushing the wealthy nations. By dismantling our economy in the name of preventing “climate change”, we will no longer be able to afford to mitigate climate events that are inevitable regardless of our CO2 footprint.
Sure and Pelosi purchased a house in Florida but wait, that was fake news too
Standard Marxist drivel. You will own nothing and you will be happy.
The picture below was labeled 1920 but I suspect it was Miami Beach a few years later.
This vacation spot (a planned destination for the Dixie Highway) was created with streets below King tide a hundred years ago.
Anyone silly enough to build a home (neve mind a sky scraper hotel) on sand gets what he or she deserves. This has nothing to do with Climate Change.
Why is Florida of particular concern?
The location of the city of Cape Town – and the associated densely populated land known as the “Cape Flats” – has been alternatively flooded and then high and dry throughout history. These floods occurred long before the first coal fired power station was ever built – so a logical person should conclude that the burning of fossil fuels by human beings did not influence these events. If sea level is to continue rising once again to the extent that the “flats” are to be inundated with sea water during the present interglacial – then there is not very much that can be done about it.
Hopefully sea level rise is nearly played out during the present relatively mild Holocene era and that the inevitable flooding is postponed to a future interglacial event.
Quaternary Coastlines A5 – Geology of Cape Town – Wikipedia