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Interesting. I am now more pessimistic on climate change in the next 10 years: coastal flooding, storm damage, and droughts will be more severe than I had assumed. No doubt we are going to witness some awesome changes in our climate for the rest of our lives. Lets hope we don't see another worldwide depression or world conflict that would put our other, more optimistic projections to bed.
I'm very frightened by the millions of methane hot spots found by NASA's survey, and by the incredible amount of methane being released. The survey covered only a small portion of the Arctic land mass, and a methane fountain already has been found in an Arctic sea.
Under a different Presidential administration, I like to think that NASA would have signaled a multiple alarm warning about its discovery, at least providing much more context.
Within a few years, when sea level rise is accelerating much faster than projected even by the scientists, mankind will likely search for an explanation. It may be provided much too late.
There have been many warnings about runaway global warming triggered by permafrost melting. To actually see evidence of such a scenario is gut wrenching.
This is just one of the specific examples of disastrous climate change that should be discussed not only in our 2020 Presidential election, including the primaries, but also in Congressional races.
We may now have a scientific explanation for why Cleveland's recent winters have been much more mild -- Arctic warming is being supercharged by methane releases into the atmosphere.
I've put off providing my projections because I was contemplating the probability of the Great Climate Change Migration beginning in this decade. Recent news stories about accelerating ocean heat content; the vulnerability of the Antarctic ice sheet, much of it anchored below sea level, to surrounding oceans already above the melting point of ice and still warming; the significant evidence of mounting methane releases in the Arctic from permafrost melt and the initiation of other dire natural feedback loops; and massive deferred infrastructure costs in states like Florida compounded by the increasing need for new infrastructure such as sea walls, pump stations and raised roads, are just some of the factors that now suggest to me that the Great Climate Change Migration will begin in this decade, but I'm not certain about the magnitude in this decade (I believe the climate migration will be much, much more significant in subsequent decades).
See post 4 in this thread for my explanation of why I believe the climate change migration will begin this decade.
Not emphasized in that post are the great costs to be incurred by private property owners, including businesses, and local governments as sea level rise accelerates.
<<While much of that cost will be borne by private property owners, local governments will incur significant expenses to protect roads and other infrastructure. Things aren’t much better for Sarasota County, where the cost of new sea walls is estimated to be roughly $1.2 billion.>>
It seems possible that sea level rise may be inches per year by late in the decade with the rate still accelerating even if, which appears unlikely, mankind transitions rapidly to a fossil free global economy. How attractive will coastal communities and states be when beaches and coastal areas are inundated, erosion and infrastructure costs soar, and property values collapse? Substantial revenues resulting from development likely will plummet as the desirability of living in coastal areas or more southern states (rising atmospheric temperatures and humidity) declines significantly.
If the U.S. transitions to a fossil free economy, such as with a carbon tax now proposed by all Democratic Presidential candidates, severance taxes from fossil fuel production will plummet in states such as Texas. Will income taxes become a necessity in Texas, making the ever hotter and more humid (yet drier in some regions of the state) Texas climate a more unbearable living condition?
Fresh water shortages will increase in the U.S.
So Great Lakes states, especially with the decline of its harsh winters, will be likely havens. Cleveland, with its superb bones and great cultural and pro sports amenities and especially with its currently relatively low cost of housing, will be an immediate beneficiary.
See post 1 here for a discussion of the decline in Cleveland winters and why its weather may eventually resemble that of Barcelona, Spain.
...The most surprising development in the 2020s will be the impact of the accelerating climate change onslaught on mankind, including northern Ohioans.
With the western wildfire season likely months away from its end, already 8.4 million acres have burned nationally in 2020 due to wildfires, with 58 active fires accounting for almost half the total.
In September, ProPublica and the New York Times Magazine published a series on the "Great Climate Migration," detailing the catastrophic impacts bearing down on the U.S.
<<Today, the combination of truly dangerous heat and humidity is rare. But by 2050, parts of the Midwest and Louisiana could see conditions that make it difficult for the human body to cool itself for nearly one out of every 20 days in the year.>>
The COVID-19 epidemic has accelerated and exacerbated the conditions that underlied some of my predictions:
Quote:
Originally Posted by WRnative
A massive federal government fiscal crisis will ravage the nation, resulting in a relative depreciation of the dollar, higher inflation, and perhaps a resurgence in U.S. manufacture, which may still benefit Greater Cleveland relative to the rest of the nation.
Nouriel Roubini, famed forecaster of the 2008 Great Recession, now anticipates a Greater Depression, one worse than the 1930s Great Depression, for later in this decade.
<<NOURIEL ROUBINI: Well, this year, if we had not done these massive monetary and fiscal and credit stimulus, there's greater recession because this recession has been more severe than the global financial crisis. It could have already ended up into a greater depression, because initially, there was a free fall of economic activity that looked like the greater depression.
So we avoided a greater depression for this year. But the point is that first of all, we cannot run fiscal deficits of 10% to 20% of GDP forever. And monetizing large fiscal deficit in the short run prevents depression and deflation because we have a slack in goods market, in labor markets, in real estate, in energy commodities. But over time, we're going to see negative supply shocks, two sources of them. One, de-globalization, decoupling, fragmentation of the global economy, trade restrictions, balkanization of global supply chains, that's going to reduce growth and increase costs.
And the second one, we'll have less technological innovation because we'll have a decoupling between US and China on AI, robotic, internet, 5G, you name it. And if we don't use the Chinese, say, 5G, but we use the European one, it's 30% more expansive and 20% less efficient. And therefore, the same 5G network costs us 50% more. That, again, is a negative supply shock.
So globalization and technology were positive supply shocks for the last decade that increase growth and reduce inflation. The next decade, we're going to see negative shocks coming from de-globalization and less technological innovation. And if you add to them monetization of fiscal deficit, eventually, the inflation genie gets out of the bottle and you end up with stagflation, stagnation and inflation, like we did in the 1970s when we had two oil shocks that were negative supply shocks that were monetized and fiscalized, and we ended up with the stagflation after '73 and after '79. So that's the risk we're facing.>>
Artificial intelligence, including autonomous long-distance trucks, may greatly reduce employment in many currently large employment sectors. Improved education and job training will be essential, but Ohio currently is starving public schools and lowering its testing standards. Madness IMO:
Lower quality public schools will impair Ohio's economic competitiveness and greatly increase income disparities, especially with the mounting impact of artificial intelligence on employment.
The COVID-19 epidemic has accelerated this trend. University budgets and programs are being slashed.
High school and elementary students are suffering educational deficiences likely never to be fully recovered. Income and digital resource disparities, as well as vastly different school budget resources, are exacerbating the educational divide between the more wealthy and the more poor.
Interesting. I am now more pessimistic on climate change in the next 10 years: coastal flooding, storm damage, and droughts will be more severe than I had assumed. No doubt we are going to witness some awesome changes in our climate for the rest of our lives. Lets hope we don't see another worldwide depression or world conflict that would put our other, more optimistic projections to bed.
Climate change migrations may be increased by economic depression conditions. Consider the great Okie migration of the Great Depression (captured by John Steinbeck's "Grapes of Wrath").
By 2030 I predict Cleveland will again lay claim to the three tallest skyscrapers in Ohio.
Wrong again (barring another, now anticipated major project featuring a prominent skyscraper)!
Sherwin Williams reportedly will build a cost effective, highly productive downtown campus with more modest, though significant towers. This apparently will recreate in a modernized expanded environment the Landmark Office Towers workplaces that served Sherwin Williams so well in recent decades.
Wrong again (barring another, now anticipated major project featuring a prominent skyscraper)!
Sherwin Williams reportedly will build a cost effective, highly productive downtown campus with more modest, though significant towers. This apparently will recreate in a modernized expanded environment the Landmark Office Towers workplaces that served Sherwin Williams so well in recent decades.
Yes. I’m a little disappointed at the height that is speculated. I’m really interested in how the Sherwin-Williams buildings interact with the street.
Wealth destruction expected by experts in Florida as sea level rise accelerates
See post 143 in this thread for a discussion of sea level rise acceleration and its impact on Florida even in this decade. We are entering Solar Cycle 25 which may result in a catastrophic acceleration of climate change, ice melt in the cryosphere, and sea level rise.
See posts 29 and 46 in the above thread as leading experts on the financial and economic impacts of sea level rise contemplate the upcoming wealth destruction in Florida.
Perhaps read John Englander, a top expert on sea level rise, in his new book, "Moving to Higher Ground," where he apparently contemplates not just accelerating sea level rise, but "abrupt" sea level rise. Discussed in post 33 in the following thread:
See post 11 in this thread for a discussion of "How to Prepare for Climate Change" by renown technology reporter David Pogue. He focuses on the Great Lakes region as climate change migration destination.
Increasingly, evidence suggests we are just at the start of the great climate change migration that will reshape Greater Cleveland and Ohio, and the changes likely will not improve our quality of life despite a mushrooming population.
I think if a great climate change migration were to occur it would be over the course of decades and centuries and that it would not impact anyone currently reading this. I think Florida is safe for the time being. And hopefully it stops being in the 30s so I can actually come visit and not have to think about the possibility of snow in May.
I think if a great climate change migration were to occur it would be over the course of decades and centuries and that it would not impact anyone currently reading this. I think Florida is safe for the time being. And hopefully it stops being in the 30s so I can actually come visit and not have to think about the possibility of snow in May.
I disagree with both of your suppositions.
If you read post 143 and all of the links in the following thread, Florida could experience a foot or more of sea level rise by 2030. That alone likely would be devastating given the low elevation of much of southern Florida, where a foot of sea level rise would be catastrophic for fresh water and sewage systems, let alone sunny day flooding and hurricane storm surges. A major hurricane strike in a heavily populated area could break the Florida residential insurance and therefore home financing markets (see the last link in the post).
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Evidence mounts
