
Tokyo Is Preparing for Floods ‘Beyond Anything We’ve Seen’ - blondie9x
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/06/climate/tokyo-floods.html?ribbon-ad-idx=4&rref=climate
======
foobar__
Interestingly, the official website doesn't mention climate change at all, as
far as I can see [1].

Instead, it claims that the purpose of the tunnels is to protect the areas
surrounding some smaller rivers upstream of Tokyo, which are on flood plains
and regularly used to get flooded (no climate change required, just regular
rain season/typhoon does this). Now due to urban sprawl more people want to
live there, exacerbating the problem and creating the need for this system.

I do not doubt that climate change is happening. I just don't like articles
with such a clear agenda in the background, especially when the official
sources contradict the statements.

[1]
[http://www.ktr.mlit.go.jp/edogawa/gaikaku/intro/01intro/inde...](http://www.ktr.mlit.go.jp/edogawa/gaikaku/intro/01intro/index.html)

(Please correct me if I'm wrong or I missed something.)

~~~
endorphone
Isn't it an agenda to call the consensus reality an "agenda"? I'm not being
facetious, but that discourse has fallen the point where simple statements of
reality are politicized has dumbed the entire discourse.

~~~
averagewall
Calling it a consensus reality is also showing an agenda - trying to make it
sound more certain than it is, which is to push the agenda of saving people
from possible harm of future climate change by fooling them into believing
it's certain because they're not competent enough to assess the risk of
uncertain things. I'm not complaining about trying to do good, but it's not
science, it's belief and it might be wrong.

The rest of science doesn't get described so confidently because people don't
care if the general public believes it or not. If you're interested in
understanding, not politicizing, then it doesn't matter if there's a consensus
or not. Look at the history of consensuses about how nature works to see how
unhelpful they are at determining what reality is.

~~~
rxhernandez
> The rest of science doesn't get described so confidently

Um what? I feel like you haven't spent 10 minutes in a physics class. As
someone who spent many years studying physics, you have to get within range of
the quantum level before people in that field start feeling a little shaky in
their beliefs.

The history of consensuses? Yes, please, _you_ should do that, because it has
gotten us quite far given the constraints of time. There are so many crackpot
ideas that are thankfully rarely explored due to consensus.

~~~
late2part
Things that were described confidently for centuries (or less):

    
    
      1.  The earth is flat.
      2.  The sun revolves around the earth.
      3.  Fire is an element.
      4.  They have chemical/nuclear weapons.
      5.  No one can enter the search market; AltaVista owns the market.
      6.  Pets.com can't fail - look at who is invested and how big is the market.
      7.  Noone will ever need more than 640K of ram.
      8.  There is a world market for maybe 5 computers.
    

etc. Who cares how solid the consensus is - what matters is facts and truth.

~~~
mrob
Bill Gates denies making that 640K statement, and there's no clear evidence he
ever said it:

[https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/09/08/640k-enough/](https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/09/08/640k-enough/)

There's also no clear evidence that Thomas Watson ever made the world market
for five computers statement:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_J._Watson#Famous_attrib...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_J._Watson#Famous_attribution)

~~~
late2part
Congrats. You poked a hole in the meta-consensus, proving the point.

You ignore the others, that dogma leads to shallow thinking.

All the world is the blend of chaos and order; acceptance and rejection, yin
and yang. Your contribution helps drive the analytical consideration of
acceptance or rejection.

~~~
ergothus
I accept that dogma can allow wrong thoughts to persist, to drive criticism
underground.

I accept that prevailing scientific/expert opinions can also be right.

I accept that the claim of climate change, if true, would have disastrous
consequences on a huge number of human lives, and of course business.

I also accept that I'm not seeing people studying this field denying human
caused climate change.

I am not seeing countries other that the U.S, where it has become political,
denying climate change.

In fact, I see a larger number of nations in the world agree on something than
ANYTHING in human history. These countries have their own scientists.

I can certainly entertain that a few countries might make false claims to push
other countries to make bad investments. But you're claiming that a global
conspiracy on a literally unprecedented scale is happening and that we should
ignore a high consequence concept because a relatively small number of people
that happen to come from the single country where it is a political issue and
to a dizzying degree come from outside the field say everyone else is wrong?

I'm not a climate scientist. I've done a little digging and have my own guess
as to what is likely correct, but frankly my opinion of this is low confidence
because I'm so ignorant on the topic. When one side says volcanoes are orders
of magnitude less greenhouse gas contributers than humanity, and the other
side says the reverse, any decision I make is based other than evidence.

Using the same criteria I use to decide what OTHER scientific advice I follow,
I conclude that there is a chance that counter positions to climate change are
correct...but is more likely that they are wrong.

High chance of occurrence x high consequence if it happens = you need a lot
more evidence than I've seen.

If the history books in 500 years talk about how humanity put forth a lot of
effort to stop a calamity at a global scale that turned out to be snake oil,
that is still a result preferable than about how people followed dogma that
lead them to discount repeated evidence and the millions or billions of people
suffered for generations. That might sound like a straw man - i could say that
failing to rub my head daily would have disastrous consequences - but when
paired with the likelihood that someone on the internet saw through this
global hoax, it is part of my reasoning.

May I ask your profession and country of residence?

~~~
late2part
"But you're claiming that a global conspiracy on a literally unprecedented
scale is happening"

No I'm not actually. What I'm saying is what I said. It was in reference to
the ancestral post asserting that arbitrary confidence was being applied to
certain statements.

------
poulsbohemian
I may not understand the scope of this project, but when I read the $2
billion, my thought was "wow that's cheap!" Consider the Big Dig or the
current Seattle tunnel, at $14B+ and $3B+ respectively.

~~~
emodendroket
To be fair, nobody would have undertaken the Big Dig if the true cost were
known up-front. And a debt that's 200% GDP is a unique circumstance.

~~~
KGIII
The Big Dig may have been closer to the budget, except it kept getting
changed. An example would be that they initially planned on shutting down
certain routes until a politician decided to announce that traffic flow would
not be disrupted.

That's great if you're paid to model the traffic but probably not so great if
you now have to pay the added expenses.

~~~
dghughes
But that indicates the project was not planned well since change requests for
such a large project would have been expected.

~~~
KGIII
You can only plan on so much.

Notably: I only modeled traffic. I am not to blame. ;-)

(I have used that caveat so many times.)

~~~
dghughes
Maybe so, but I'm referring to the actual project management process group
called Planning I don't mean plan in general but the actual official and
formal steps of Planning.

Then the Monitoring and Control process group will evaluate Planning again
each time it loops back, so it makes no sense to me their plan failed,
multiple times really for each loop. It's even worse knowing that each time
they come back to Planning as part of the process they screwed up yet again.

------
acabal
It's so crazy to me that everyone in vulnerable places--Tokyo and Houston in
the article for example--are happy to spend hundreds of millions, even
billions, to put a bandaid on their local climate change problems.

It seems like they all acknowledge the reality and danger of climate change
and are willing to spend money on it.

In TFA Houston wants $400 million to build a reservoir. They seem to
acknowledge that things are only going to get worse for them as the years go
on. And yet everyone there still drives everywhere spewing carbon into their
own air with every trip, public transit is in a poor state, and oil
exploitation continues apace. Everyone's OK with spending money and manpower
on huge public works projects, but they're not OK with addressing habits and
addictions that make the projects necessary in the first place.

It's as if our eyes can see the oncoming train just a mile away, but instead
of stepping out of the way we want to build a mechanized winch that will
temporarily lift us over the train, and hopefully we'll be done building it
before the train hits us, and oh yeah, never mind how we're supposed to get
down, or the taller train after that one.

Why can't we put that money, effort, manpower, and will into actually
_addressing climate change_ and make crazy projects like vast man-made Mines-
of-Moria-style underground tunnels and huge artificial reservoirs unnecessary?

Yes it's a global problem, but solutions to global problems start at home.
Throwing our hands up and saying it's pointless until the other guy does
something too can't be the way to progress on this issue.

~~~
ctdonath
_yet everyone there still drives everywhere spewing carbon into their own air
with every trip_

This.

Every single person who claims they believe global climate change is a very
serious, and man-made, problem absolutely should be taking _personal_ steps
_now_ to address it. Telecommuting is a thing. Home-solar is a thing. Electric
cars are a thing. Quit telling _others_ to solve the problems, and start doing
it _personally, now_.

Put another way: if you're seriously concerned about global climate change,
and using gasoline-powered vehicles (directly or by proxy), you're not
seriously concerned about climate change - and I can't take your concerns
seriously because you don't.

And "leaders" who take private jets to "climate change policy conferences" are
straight-up charlatans.

(I'd be construed as a "climate change denier", and yet _I_ do more about
mitigating climate change than anyone else I know.)

Be the change you want in the world. You can afford it.

~~~
WalterBright
Changing economic behavior with public campaigns has a pretty much zero
success rate. Anyone remember Pres Ford's "WIP" buttons (Whip Inflation Now)?
It had the hubris that inflation could be stopped if only people would just
stop raising prices.

Even as a kid, I laughed at the absurdity of that campaign. Of course it had
zero effect.

Something that will work is to tax pollution, i.e. a carbon tax. Making it
more expensive will do far more to influence behavior away from it than any
marketing campaign. And besides, it raises spending money for the government,
too.

Using the tax system to "internalize the externalities" (economist jargon) is
an efficient and effective way to do it.

~~~
alexanderstears
_Changing economic behavior with public campaigns has a pretty much zero
success rate._

yet advertising and marketing happens.

~~~
WalterBright
When it's of immediate local benefit to the individual, yes.

------
mikeyanderson
Hurricane Katrina was estimated to have over $200 billion in losses—if that's
true, it seems like there should be more investment in this type of
infrastructure.

~~~
r00fus
Why? When you can use disaster capitalism and profit on the "volatility"
provided by such events?

~~~
tonyedgecombe
I've heard it said that in the UK a fatal car crash increases GDP by about £1
million.

~~~
6nf
I think you mean 'decreases'

~~~
mortehu
GDP famously includes the cost of ambulance rides, replacing broken windows,
and insurance claim examination, even though we might not really want those
things.

------
jpindar
Boston is too: [https://www.boston.com/news/local-news/2017/09/06/what-a-
fut...](https://www.boston.com/news/local-news/2017/09/06/what-a-future-sea-
barrier-in-boston-would-look-like)

------
jamesash
Savannah Georgia is spending over a billion to dredge the harbor to make way
for bigger Panamax container ships. Same with Charleston, about 2 billion. My
point is that there are a fair number of billion dollar infrastructure
projects that fly under most people's radar. Source: today's WSJ
[https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-panama-canals-big-bet-is-
pa...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-panama-canals-big-bet-is-paying-
off-1507464000)

------
woodandsteel
From what I understand, Japan thinks the climate is getting warmer due to
human action, and serious steps need to be taken to deal with it.

I have a question for the global climate change skeptics out there.

Are there any major countries in the world besides the US and maybe Russia
where the central government agrees with you on what is happening and what to
do about it? (If there are give us some links)

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Does the USA have a central government with a central policy? Obama believed
in climate change even if Trump doesn't, most of congress, even on the right,
believe in some amount of climate change (e.g. McCain). I'm really at a loss
to find that unified anti climate change sentiment in the states. It's more
like a democracy where politicians and electorates are allowed to have
different opinions.

~~~
woodandsteel
By central government, I meant for the US the federal government, and in
particular the present administration.

My question still stands.

~~~
jessaustin
When I google "china coal power", a confusing set of links appears. Some are
certain that coal power plant construction in China has halted or will halt in
future, others are not. I suspect reality doesn't match the marketing exactly.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Your post is misplaced but...

China is definitely building new coal plants, just not in every district.
Beijing has a ban, for example, but not surrounding Hebei.

------
ASlave2Gravity
A little off topic, but the novel Japan Sinks [0] by Sakyo Komatsu is a
wonderful insight into Japan and its fears/feelings on natural disaster. Also,
more generally, just a really great disaster novel.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Sinks](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Sinks)

~~~
lloeki
Also fascinating, Dragon Head[0] is a 10 volume post-apocalyptic natural
disaster psychological and survival horror manga worth a read.

[0]:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_Head](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_Head)

------
rgrieselhuber
Between natural disasters and weaponized weather modification (yes it still
sounds crazy but it's becoming increasingly clear that it's a real thing),
this is definitely a priority for a country like Japan.

~~~
xeroaura
I do believe there's a movie coming out with a similar premise of weather
modification to control natural disasters gone wrong called Geostorm.

------
NeoBasilisk
The US feels more like a third world country in its "response" to climate
change compared to countries like Japan

~~~
anon_d
Tokyo is 30% of Japan's population..

------
tincket
Fukushima Is Preparing for Melt-down(2008)

Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster was happend. Disasters occur at unexpected
places.

------
1125
The caption of the last image says: "Visitors can tour the system, which cost
$2 billion and was completed in 2006." I hope that's just a typo.

~~~
sxates
I initially read that as the tour costing $2 billion. Seems a bit steep!

~~~
segmondy
Is it? How much have the recent floods experienced in the Americas cost?

~~~
arjie
What is honestly going on in this comment section? First guy is confused by a
perfectly good caption saying that the facility cost $2 billion to build and
was completed in 2006. And second guy said he somehow thought that meant that
taking a tour costs $2 billion (which would be obviously expensive just for a
tour). And you have somehow misinterpreted the comment about the tour to be
saying that the facility is expensive.

Come on, guys. Read before you comment. Jesus.

~~~
twic
I assume the second person was joking. I have no idea what the first person
was concerned about, unfortunately.

