
Humans Can Survive Underwater - RickJWagner
https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/rising-sea-levels-media-alarmism-by-bjorn-lomborg-2019-11
======
jmull
What a weird article.

He admits climate change is real and we need to do something about it... but
the main problem is the media, which is trying to claim climate change is real
and we need to do something about it, but they are too _scary_ about it.

He thinks it's going to go pretty smoothly building dykes to keep our cities
from flooding so the media should not be making big deal out of it.

It's not a logical argument to me.

Building dykes to product numerous coastal areas may well be a good answer,
but in aggregate that is an absolutely massive capital project. Media reports
will obviously need to be part of that since people will need to understand
why their taxes are going up and why the government is taking their land.

He also drops this doozy: "The real solution is to lift the world’s poorest
out of poverty..."

Oh, OK, so it's that's simple then. /s

Frankly, I think this is just a somewhat subtler form of climate change
denial. He acknowledges the problem, but then hand-waves the problem away and
blames the media.

He might as well be saying we'll use the magic crystals to solve our problems.

~~~
davedx
Indeed. It's true that large parts of the Netherlands are below sea level. The
reason we're safe here now is because a catastrophic storm in the 50's killed
a lot of people and the government of this rich nation decided to invest in a
gigantic public works project to protect the population.

The Deltaworks project is pretty incredible (there's a great museum here all
about it). But it certainly wasn't cheap or easy.

"Though officially completed in 1997 at the cost of $7 billion, the
Netherlands continues to add infrastructure to the Delta works as needed. It
is estimated that it will continue to need construction to protect the area
against the rising water levels caused by global warming." [1]

The Dutch public infrastructure department, the Rijkswaterstaat, is called the
"Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management". Water management is a huge
continuing challenge.

[1]
[http://www.unmuseum.org/7wonders/zunderzee.htm](http://www.unmuseum.org/7wonders/zunderzee.htm)

[2]
[https://www.rijkswaterstaat.nl/english](https://www.rijkswaterstaat.nl/english)

~~~
holstvoogd
Since I just did the math:

Spending was up to $13 billion in 2013. Based on that, securing all the coast
lines of the world to that level will cost over $10 trillion.

And I'm pretty sure by 2050 we will have spend a lot more on updating &
maintaining the delta works.

~~~
xorfish
Was that 13 billion per year or in total?

So I looked it up, it is 13 billion in total or 1.4% of the yearly GDP of the
Netherlands. That seems rather affordable to me.

------
dr_dshiv
I thought it was a great article. Just because we need to do something about
it doesn't mean we should let the facts be distorted. Showing a map that has
most of South Vietnam under water in 2050 suggests something totally different
than what this article points out to be the truth.

The answer is so often "people are bad and need to radically change." The
reality is that people are good and we are only capable of incremental change.
This article helps show why that is likely to turn out better than alarmists
claim.

~~~
hootbootscoot
This article is disinformation.

A singular map and strawman-premise do not undermine millions of human hours
of climate science, core samples, troves of data, etc. You believe this
nonsense at our mutual peril.

The climate crisis WILL utterly destroy human civilization through an ever
reducing funnel, an ever tightening noose, and we are currently in the last
phase of determining the height of that curves trajectory.

There is nothing "too extreme" to attempt at this point in time. We should be
prepared to spend up to 100% of our resources in fighting this existential
threat. Certainly giving up fossil fuels is not "too extreme". They were due
to exit-stage-left decades ago.

We have the tech, let's make it happen.

And for heavens sake, enough of this fake "moderate" fossil fuel drivel.

~~~
dr_dshiv
I just don't understand this thinking. The sea levels 8000 years ago allowed
people to walk from the Netherlands to England. Climate change is consistent.
Yes, humans are causing it this time and we should try to stabilize the
climate. But..

>There is nothing "too extreme" to attempt at this point in time

No, this is not the apocalypse. Aren't you concerned that an even more extreme
version of yourself would do something very, very bad to many, many people for
the sake of the cause? Extremism is bad.

~~~
dwaltrip
8000 years ago there weren't large cities with dozens of millions of people
living in each one, many of them right on the coast. Humanity didn't need to
grow enough food to feed billions of people. There was no potential for large-
scale modern warfare that can kill hundreds of million of people. We didn't
depend on a wide array of advanced technologies and infrastructure -- which
can be damaged, uprooted, or destroyed -- to support a relatively comfortable
lifestyle for most people in developed countries.

Incredibly rapid climate change has a much different impact now that it would
have 8000 years ago. By the way, the science is pretty clear that then climate
change happening today is far more rapid than anything that has happened in
recent geologic history.

I agree that spending 100% of our resources doesn't look to be necessary. But
5% or 10%? If this is what the science and engineering analysis tells us we
should probably l do, then that seems like a rather responsible and beneficial
course of action, given the known risks and the potential unknown unknowns.

------
Ididntdothis
If I read this correctly he thinks that reducing emissions is too expensive
but everything else like increased cost through extreme weather or building
dams to protect areas below sea level is totally affordable. I am not sure I
agree with that.

But this is how things will probably work out. I don’t believe we will make
any meaningful reduction in emissions over the next decades so we will deal
with the consequences.

~~~
rich_sasha
My reading is different: * Paper says, sea level will rise, with many areas
vulnerable * Newspaper exaggerates to say, "OMG people will be at the bottom
of the sea" * Article says, well this one bit of global warming we can deal
with, as we always did. Dikes will be built, drainage added, and it's all
kinda cheap

I don't think they argue against combating climate change.

Another way to put it: let's worry first about the climate change issues we
cannot mitigate.

~~~
holstvoogd
> Dikes will be built

* Venice entered the chat *

For reference:

Dikes are not cheap to build and maintain, securing the dutch coasts cost ran
up to $13 billion in 2013. That cover about 700km of coast lines & river
sides.

Not sure how many kilometers of dikes will be needed, but based on
[http://world.bymap.org/Coastlines.html](http://world.bymap.org/Coastlines.html)
even covering 10% of the coast lines will cost more about $1 trillion.

~~~
jschwartzi
It’s even worse than that. The land he’s proposing to secure with dikes
includes the land area of all of the island nations in the world. None of
those nations can afford that. There’s a very subtle racism at play in saying
“look the dutch did it so it must be easy.“ The reality is that a lot of poor
island nations are going to be destroyed by the actions of a few wealthy
nations, and that isn’t the story you hear often. We will lose a ton of arable
land. And much of the biodiversity we cherish today will be extinct. There are
a lot of children yet to be born to whom we will owe an apology for so
thoroughly wrecking the planet.

------
dogma1138
The title should be rich humans can survive underwater.

Yes we have the capacity to run engineering programs that would halt the
rising sea levels, we can build huge dykes, perform land reclamation, pump
water out and even use the rising sea levels for energy generation.

And while we can save Manhattan and perhaps even venice this won't help
Bangladesh and other poor regions which are at risk of being flooded by the
rising seas destroying not only their homes but also their ecology putting
their limited food supply at greater risk.

And that is a problem a distbalized Bangladesh and other poor(er) countries in
South East Asia would destabilize the more established nations like India,
China and Pakistan all 3 of which are nuclear powers.

A destabilized middle east and africa would spill out into Europe, a
destabilized South America would spill into North America.

You can't rely on local solutions for a global crisis if you want to maintain
the same quality of life you enjoy today.

Even in the current political climate which some loonies on the left would
call a "fascist regime" in the US no one is going to open fire on millions of
refugees that could come to the border once their homes get flooded. And the
author also forgets that if we want to save New York we would likely need
China to be stable and continuing providing it's manufacturing capacity to the
world which means that if its neighbourhood turns into a warzone the capacity
of the west to perform these amazing feats of engineering would be greatly
diminished.

If anything the media portrays the wrong message, I don't think we are screwed
or we have already run out of time and reached some point of no return and I
don't think that we will go extinct in the next 100 years due to climate
change, I don't see climate change as something we solve but as something we
adapt too and maybe eventually reverse but this also something that cannot be
performed on a local scale because once it gets really bad and people get
desperate they'll flood you and while a dyke can hold off water it won't hold
up against 50 million people wanting to get in.

~~~
hackeraccount
The title should be - We need all humans to get rich.

------
inanutshellus
Non-clickbait title:

> "Humans Can Survive Below Sealevel"

Actual article's point:

> An academic paper exaggerated and now we're focusing too much on avoiding
> greenhouse-emissions and should instead focus on protecting below-sealevel
> areas.

..... Weird article.

~~~
beatgammit
I thought it was some awesome breakthrough in underwater engineering that
makes long term underwater human life sustainable, but the article had nothing
to do with that and was much more mundane.

How about "Humans can survive rising sea levels"?

------
rich_sasha
A general problem with climate change discussions is that the people who are
vocal are largely uninformed, and the people who are informed are rather
reserved.

Climate change charities, activists etc. do a very important role, and I am
very grateful to them for it, but their impact on my personal level of
informed-ness is actually negative.

------
omarhaneef
From the piece: "Alarming media stories that twist the facts about rising sea
levels are dangerous because they scare people unnecessarily and push
policymakers toward excessively expensive measures to reduce greenhouse-gas
emissions. The real solution is to lift the world’s poorest out of poverty and
protect them with simple infrastructure."

Part of me is hopeful that this might be right.

And another part of me is worried that this might be a overly optimistic view
to make us feel better.

I think I am leaning towards the latter when the proposed solution is simply
"life the world's poorest out of poverty."

Feels like "we" have wanted to do that for a long time for many reasons.

~~~
dr_dshiv
And have been remarkably successful at it, tbh

------
mseidl
The author largely seems to be a skeptic?

[https://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/economics/nat...](https://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/economics/natural-
resource-and-environmental-economics/skeptical-environmentalist-measuring-
real-state-world)

We can't hope that some magical technology will come and save us from
ourselves. We need to act now with what we have to avoid too much damage.

------
phreack
So he's saying that instead of working on reducing pollution, we should rather
enable people to survive it, even if it means making them live underwater,
because that'll increase wealth? Considering how incredibly unequal that
wealth is bound to be, this just reads like a Big Coal backed piece to try and
justify the destruction of the planet in the pursuit of profit.

~~~
reportgunner
No, he's saying that we should stop scaring people with likely future outcomes
that are not likely.

------
petermcneeley
Can we update the link to better reflect the title.
[https://www.thevintagenews.com/2016/03/24/jacques-
cousteaus-...](https://www.thevintagenews.com/2016/03/24/jacques-cousteaus-
underwater-colonies-from-the-1960s-copy/)

------
dzdt
I am not sure how much in good faith this author is, but honest discussion
about mitigation of climate change needs to take place.

A huge amount of sea level rise is locked in already; the uncertainty is about
the rate of change not the inevitability of it.

But straw-man arguments that costal communities are doomed because they are
built below the coming high tide levels are not much help. Yes, there is a big
and demonstrated possibility to mitigate this. An honest discussion of the
costs and risks and tradeoffs is merited.

------
mavdi
Hella mental gymnastics there. Instead of reducing greenhouse gases,
apparently, we should be learning to turn every coastal city to Venice.

~~~
newfangle
>we should be learning to turn every coastal city to Venice

This sounds simpler than reducing greenhouse gasses

~~~
ceejayoz
Not really, considering Venice itself is being impacted by rising sea levels.

[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/nov/15/venice-
council...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/nov/15/venice-council-
flooded-moments-after-rejecting-climate-crisis-plan)

> Veneto’s regional council rejected a plan to combat climate change minutes
> before its offices on the Grand Canal, in Venice, were flooded, it has
> emerged as the city continues to battle high water levels.

~~~
newfangle
Local bureaucracy is simpler to overcome than global bureaucracy which is
needed to reduce global greenhouse emissions

------
FrozenVoid
Living on below sea-level creates huge flooding risk, with severe weather or
terrorism multiplying the effects. See
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floods_in_the_Netherlands](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floods_in_the_Netherlands)
Its like living in a city below a dam.

------
gmuslera
"Global seawater rise is ok because we could eventually get used to live in
frequently flooded cities". That is the wrong way to see it. Crops (ok, maybe
besides rice and a few more) may not adapt. The change doesn't stops there,
nor would be the only thing that would change. And things will keep getting
worse.

------
tempguy9999
Years ago Lomborg and scientific american had a major clash. There was quite a
lot to it, here's a summary
([https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-response-to-
lom...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-response-to-lomborgs-
re/))

"Selective citations of the literature allow Lomborg to make statements that
are correct but unrepresentative of the best, full state of environmental
scientific knowledge"

"Yet his [lomborg's] critics are rarely attacking the facts in his citations
per se; they fault what Lomborg does with them and, of course, his neglect of
more relevant citations elsewhere."

Anyway, that's SA's side. Follow the link to find more. Caveats: this was
years ago, and the quotes above are my selection, which you may consider one-
sided.

------
jacknews
"stories that twist the facts"

Like this one?

Really, his message is, it's all going to shit, but we can survive?

------
Lagogarda
Hacker news likes wierd articles.

------
skrap
The author is a long time climate change denier. He's apparently just moved
onto a different phase of the denial strategy now that AGW is largely
undeniable.

~~~
newfangle
Do you have a source showing he is a climate change denier? I think you should
provide one given that you posted this trying to attack his credibility.

~~~
ceejayoz
It doesn't take much Googling to prove.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bj%C3%B8rn_Lomborg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bj%C3%B8rn_Lomborg)

> In January 2003, the DCSD released a ruling that sent a mixed message,
> finding the book to be scientifically dishonest through misrepresentation of
> scientific facts, but Lomborg himself not guilty due to his lack of
> expertise in the fields in question.

~~~
shkkmo
From what I can tell, that book does NOT deny climate change, it denies the
efficacy of proposed interventions.

From the Wikipedia page you linked:

> He became internationally known for his best-selling and controversial book,
> The Skeptical Environmentalist (2001), in which he argues that many of the
> costly measures and actions adopted by scientists and policy makers to meet
> the challenges of global warming will ultimately have minimal impact on the
> world's rising temperature.

Misrepresenting climate science to dispute the efficacy of specific
interventions is not the same as misrepresenting science to deny that climate
change has human causes.

It does however mean that you should take his opinion on these matters with a
grain of salt.

~~~
ceejayoz
It’s just the next step in the denial. Once “it’s happening” becomes
transparently silly to deny, the next step is “fine, it’s happening, but we
can’t do anything”.

~~~
mayiplease
Hold on, what evidence do you have that Lomborg ever held that first position?
I've run into interviews with him since forever and remember his position has
having been very consistent: climate change is real but not an existential
threat and we should be more rational in prioritizing our responses to it. Or
something like that.

------
hootbootscoot
"hey don't do TOO much about climate change or else how will the fossil fuel
industry be able to sit on it's laurels properly"

Because nothing says "a rising tide floats all boats" more than our currently
massively diverging have/haven't disparity. A world in which 42 individuals
own as much as 3.5 billion people, in which it was 65 individuals in the same
position 2 years prior doesn't sound like a world in which the authors
proposed "solutions" function at all.

Maybe that's the point.

Excuse me while I pillage and lay waste. Clearly we wouldn't want to risk
doing TOO MUCH to salvage what's left of the age of mammals.

