• Soup@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    On top of what the other person said people still need to live in those places. It is actually crazy to say that the entire south-eastern seaboard of the United States should just be permanently evacuated wholesale. We could slow, or even stop, a lot of this by just admitting that climate change is real and doing something about it and it would be a helluva lot cheaper than turning several states in ghost towns.

    • OpenStars@discuss.online
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      1 month ago

      During the pandemic, Trump dragged his feet in developing a response to it - leaked conversations mentioned how individual #1 liked the fact that it was primarily affecting highly liberal areas such as NYC and LA, while leaving conservative strongholds such as Idaho and Utah alone, and had asked about delaying the federal response a bit so as to let the people in the former stew in it a bit more, for his political advantage.

      Also I note that that same individual #1 was in charge of nationwide disaster recovery efforts - even going so far as to take the binders of ready-made plans and throw them into the garbage.

      So this whole “it is not the job of the government to use its tax collected revenue to take care of We The People” is very much by design. i.e. not merely a factual matter but a political one, in having to choose between deeper tax breaks for the wealthy vs. preparedness. And Individual #1 made that choice, in conjunction with Congress, that now applies to us all.

      In fact, the former swing state turned Republican stronghold NC is one of the very reasons why climate change is hitting us so strong and fast, unprepared and seemingly even unawares.

      Perhaps “admitting that climate change is real and doing something about it” is something that NC will now change its mind about, so that the federal government can do differently?

      But I somewhat doubt it. It is very hard to help someone who seems dead set against being helped, nor allowing the rest of us to help ourselves as well (see e.g. medically necessary abortions).

    • ChonkyOwlbear@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      I’m not saying to abandon the whole southeast, but something in the range of 15 million US homes are built in flood plains. A large portion of these are in Texas and Florida. It is absolute madness to keep building and rebuilding in these areas.

      Even if we drop global CO² emissions to zero tomorrow, it will take more than a century to even begin to see trends reverse. In the mean time lowland areas will continue to flood over and over.

      • Bytemeister@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        Well dang. If only we knew about this back in the 70s, we’d have some time to focus on green energy, increasing efficiency, reducing excess, and building homes/communities that could withstand the changing climate.