
The California coast is disappearing under the rising sea - moritzplassnig
https://www.latimes.com/projects/la-me-sea-level-rise-california-coast/
======
mogadsheu
Macro trends in nature are strong, humans can try and mitigate but we’re
ultimately takers on the trend. There might be cases where sea walls provide
compelling protection along specific parts of the coast, but as a grand plan
to save the existing coastline, it’s a waste.

We studied Pacifia’s cliff side/coastline degradation in hydrology class.
What’s happening is that waves erode the bottom of the cliff and the rest
sloughs off, like pulling Jenga blocks from the bottom of the pile. A massive
sea wall could slow the rate of cliffside erosion on the time scale of a
generation, But the risk/hazard will remain. I don’t see the the benefit to
society for not retreating development here.

~~~
olliej
No.

We created almost all of this - the increase in global sea level due to
melting ice caps and glaciers is entirely on us. Similarly the increase in
energy in the global weather systems is driven by the same source, and causes
the increases in "extreme" weather, which further drives accelerated erosion
of coastal regions, flooding, and droughts.

We can try to slow down the damage caused by the symptoms, and as you say,
that's all we can do, but it's super important to acknowledge that humans _do_
override "macro" trends in nature. The problem is how we undo changes we
caused. Short of magically coming up with a way to dramatically remove heat
from the oceans and atmosphere we are at best stuck where we are. Given we
haven't made any meaningful changes in the industries causing the climate
change we can't expect anything more than further acceleration of the
extremes.

~~~
nitrogen
Even at a constant sea level we still have wave erosion.

------
sulam
A good friend used to rent a house overlooking the ocean in Pacifica. That was
2000, and that house is gone now. Amusingly, she lives in Manhattan now, and
might get to see Chapter 2 or 3 of this epic saga we are living through. My
kids will hopefully get to the end of the first book, if we get lucky and
avoid a serious war somewhere in the middle. We moved from 8’ above sea level
to 700’ above sea level last year. I still expect to help pay for saving the
SF Bay Area, which will actually be able to engineer its way out of this
thanks to a combination of fortuitous geographical circumstances and an
economy large enough to sustain the trillion dollars it will cost to protect
the area.

Ocean Beach will be history soon enough, though...

~~~
olivermarks
I've lived in the bay area for over 25 years and Ocean Beach has always
remained exactly the same. Pacifica has had serious cliff erosion problems for
as long as I can remember. huge problem in California is building in places
that shouldn't be built on - fire plains, cliff tops etc

~~~
khuey
The reason Ocean Beach has always remained exactly the same is that the city
relocates thousands of tons of sand to south end of it every year.

~~~
olivermarks
The city moves the wind sand drifts yes, but the tidal flows in and out of the
golden gate are moving incredible amounts of sand pretty well every day, which
is why the high surf moves around so much. It's not as though SF engineering
is pushing sand south with bulldozers every year after it piles up near the
golden gate bridge. There is way to much drama and misinformation flowing
around on this topic IMO

~~~
brodie
It's hard to imagine SF being affected by this that much anytime soon. I can
imagine the Marina and places like that having issues, but SF itself is so
tall and there's so much hard rock everywhere.

But I don't know much about the Sunset or the Richmond so I guess you could
speak better to that. I live near Twin Peaks.

~~~
jacobolus
Decently sized chunks of SF used to be water.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_Bay,_San_Francisco](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_Bay,_San_Francisco)

Edit: elsewhere in the thread there’s a nice link to a map from the US coast
survey,
[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9d/1858_U.S...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9d/1858_U.S._Coast_Survey_Chart_or_Map_of_San_Francisco%2C_Califorina_-
_Geographicus_-_SanFrancisco-uscs-1859.jpg)

~~~
brodie
Marshland and lagoons sounds a bit different than ocean, though. Would they
not be easier to drain and contain? Or are you saying this past makes it more
susceptible to bay/ocean encroachment in the future?

I'm no civil engineer so this is totally out of my realm of knowledge.

Also, I guess I'm lucky to live on one of the highest points in the city.

------
stevenwoo
For most who do not own a home near a shore or in a flood plain, the answer is
obvious, and the game reinforces this (it only allows this as a long term
success) - do not attempt to change the advance of rising sea levels at sandy
beaches and buy back the threatened homes for a managed retreat, every other
option essentially is short term stop gap solution for the threatened home
owners.

~~~
ruytlm
To play devil's advocate a little, why should those homes be bought back?

~~~
eloisant
Because it's the job of the country/state to decide what land are safe to be
built on.

If building too close to the shore was a bad idea, and it was known at the
time, the zoning should have forbid it to start with.

These people are not personally responsible for the raise of the sea level, it
makes sense to have the risk taken away from them.

~~~
lettergram
> Because it's the job of the country/state to decide what land are safe to be
> built on.

Not everyone agrees with you. Personally, I don’t think it’s up to the
government to tell you where you can / can’t live on land you purchase.
However, inspections should and do occur informing you of risks.

Zoning has to do with a variety of factors, but I doubt for most of U.S.
history it had to do with “will this coast erode in 100 years” From my limited
understanding it has more to do with what CAN be built, not what SHOULD.
Basically, “this can be commercial real estate because we need revenue/jobs”
vs “this can be residential because we need people”

~~~
hrktb
> Personally, I don’t think it’s up to the government to tell you where you
> can / can’t live on land you purchase.

I respect your opinion, but isn’t it the very purpose of zoning to define what
can and cannot be done on that purchased land ?

And it’s already used for protection of habitations, for instance not allowing
houses in industrial areas. For high risk areas, this all issue could have
been avoided by refusing building permits as well, but blanket deciding a
whole area can’t be used for living is the easiest course of action IMO.

------
vixen99
For those interested in data from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO
1233) Published by: WMO ; 2019

"Over the period January 1993 to December 2018, the average rate of rise was
3.15 ± 0.3 mm yr-1, while the estimated acceleration was 0.1 mm yr-2. "

[https://library.wmo.int/doc_num.php?explnum_id=5789](https://library.wmo.int/doc_num.php?explnum_id=5789)

There are of course debates relating to the well-known discrepancy between
land-based and satellite observations of sea level rise.

------
el_don_almighty
Why are you all responding as if the information in this article is true? It's
obviously false to anyone who has been to the same beach for the last 30
years. Have you all lost your minds? Have your eyes stopped working? GO LOOK
FOR YOURSELVES.

Go watch the compelling video from Tony Heller regarding this article.

I thought my friends on Hacker News were smarter than this

------
cobookman
If the Netherlands managed to reclaim land through dikes. Why couldn't
California do the same in their coastal affluent neighborhoods? California
doesn't get bad storms and it rarely gets a hurricanes / tornadoes /
tsunamis...etc.

For the bay area...Why not just drain the bay. There was a proposal previously
and cost wise it'd easily pay off given the land gains. Heck could easily
solve our housing and transit issues

~~~
_jn
There are large wildlife preservation efforts in the Bay Area marshlands
(particularly near shoreline park) that would be destroyed.

~~~
cobookman
Then just damn up the entrance to the bay and control it's water level. Same
risk as draining the bay all together.

Either way global warming is going to change the landscape. Might as well
attempt something that limits damage

~~~
cjensen
That's close to literally impossible.

There was an absurd plan to place a dam between Richmond and San Rafael[1].
When it was finally studied, there were two fatal problems with the plan. (1)
There is not enough water in Summer, to keep the bay behind the dam full. (2)
There is too much water from snowmelt in early spring and the San Joaquin
valley would turn into a lake.

Now to the environmental side: the bay is amazingly productive. It also acts
as a nursery for the ocean. The damage done to the Pacific Ocean ecosystem
would be all out of proportion to the gains of a little bit of land.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reber_Plan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reber_Plan)

------
everybodyknows
Not mentioned at all are the big winners, at least for a time, of managed
retreat: Owners of the properties just inland, who suddenly acquire whitewater
views. These can now charge rent to vacationers at some multiple of what was
formerly possible.

Admittedly it's a bit of a puzzle how in practice either their former seaward
neighbors, or the public, could lay claim to a share of that increase in
value.

------
cletus
Let me preface this by stipulating that I believe the evidence that humans
have contributed to a warming climate in the last few centuries with all of
our carbon emissions, primarily from energy production. I'll further add that
it's entirely possible and even quite likely that we are in and have either
caused or massively contributed to a mass extinction event.

That being said, I really wonder at the thinking of what I would call "climate
alarmists". I mean the Pacifica cliffs are a story about erosion. Ok, sure.

But some like to push this narrative that unless we drastically do something
the Earth will turn into Venus, basically.

Thing is, these "boy who cried wolf" type narratives don't really help change
perceptions or habits around climate change. What's more, they don't really
pass the smell test.

The Earth has been around for billions of years. It's also been much hotter
than it is now (eg [1]). The smell test is basically this: a lot can happen in
5B years and if the Earth has been much hotter than it is now and it hasn't
turned into Venus yet, why is now different?

There's actually a pretty natural limit to how much carbon we can add to the
atmosphere. Eventually we'll just run out of fossil fuels, at which point,
we'll just start making them out of thin air and that, by definition, will be
carbon neutral.

Honestly I just don't believe we'll fundamentally change human nature here.
While that might be fatalistic, even pessimistic, personally I'm optimistic.
And I'm optimistic because with not much more automation than we already have
the Earth can grow enough food for 10 times as many people as we have now and
possibly much more than that and that everything changes once we get
sufficiently cheap energy (and obviously I'm optimistic about that happening
in the not too distant future). Some here will write that off as naive
futurism. Whatever.

With regards to sea level rise, let me add some more context. Over the span of
~5000 years 9000 to 14000 thousand years ago the sea levels rose SIXTY METERS
[2]. And we're still here. That's also a blip on the timeline of Earth's
geological history.

Whose to say the sea levels won't recede with the next Ice Age? Or are we now
arguing the Earth is done with those too?

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleocene%E2%80%93Eocene_Therm...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleocene%E2%80%93Eocene_Thermal_Maximum)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Holocene_sea_level_rise](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Holocene_sea_level_rise)

~~~
olivermarks
'...the evidence that humans have contributed to a warming climate in the last
few centuries with all of our carbon emissions, primarily from energy
production' What is this evidence exactly? I"m on the fence about human
contributions to changes in earth weather and suspicious about carbon
taxation. Sensible stewardship of the planet is a no brainer, but the hysteria
is slowly increasing with children particularly freaking out about the planets
demise after daily doses of alarmist rhetoric. This can't be healthy and
pushes people to go along with questionable political measures. We are at a
point where 'climate change' by human activity has to be pushed by Greta
Thunberg and others as a slightly fanatical emotional event. I'm not seeing
nearly enough hard evidence despite the legions of angry people I come up
against who assure me 'it's all been proven' and claiming I am anti science...

~~~
cletus
The history of CO2 levels in the atmosphere [1] is a good starting point
unless you're arguing that adding CO2 to the atmosphere does not and will not
cause warming, which would be a bold position to take.

And why do you even care what some Swedish teenager I'd never heard of until
right now is protesting climate change? Why does that matter?

[1] [https://climate.nasa.gov/climate_resources/24/graphic-the-
re...](https://climate.nasa.gov/climate_resources/24/graphic-the-relentless-
rise-of-carbon-dioxide/)

~~~
olivermarks
It's a heretical position to take against popular opinion and beliefs that
adding CO2 to the atmosphere does not and will not cause warming, but the
evidence is by no means absolute.
[http://www.petitionproject.org](http://www.petitionproject.org) I care about
the Swedish teenager because she's been nominated for the Nobel prize and has
dominated popular opinions this year. Daniil Gorbatenko wrote a good piece on
her, I found a link to that here [https://fee.org/articles/the-real-problem-
with-greta-thunber...](https://fee.org/articles/the-real-problem-with-greta-
thunberg-is-not-her-age/)

------
scarejunba
There are homes right on the edge in Pacifica. You walk out of your backyard
and to the cliff. I can't wait for us to bail out these people.

------
nerdponx
The ocean is literally inundating your town, and you're worried about home
values and 30-year-mortgages? These people all need some kind of loss and
grief counseling. Can't wait for the federal bailout money to start pouring
into these areas over the next few decades as localities deny and delay until
they have no choice but to up and relocate in a hurry.

~~~
olliej
Federal money has been plowing into many of these regions for years.
Guaranteed loans and insurance are entirely tax payer funded subsidies/payouts
to people who aren't willing to move to areas that don't get flooded/washed
out every few years.

I recall John Oliver having a segment on it at some point - basically a bunch
of areas in Florida and the South get wiped out repeatedly but the federal
support means they're not moving, and some of the same houses have been wiped
out multiple times, and are still getting federal support to be rebuilt in the
same place.

~~~
tzakrajs
Also that federal support comes without any funding to make the house more
weather-ready for the next storm.

