'I have no idea what DeSantis really thinks, but I do know that he is a Florida hustler, not a Florida fool. He knows damn well that climate change is real, that it is fueling the destruction of Florida now.'
The consequences of all this: bigger, stronger, wetter storms, hitting more people and wrecking more property. Unless something changes, that arc of destruction will only grow.
The other thing that needs to happen is climate triage. By that I mean, making strategic decisions about what can be saved and what can’t. At some point, as the seas rise and the storms get bigger and more and more the coastal areas become unlivable, somebody, somewhere will have to make hard decisions about what stays and what goes. After all, money — and political will — are not infinite. There is no evading this reckoning.
The problem is, people don’t like being told where they can live, much less what they can do with their property. And hell if a politician like DeSantis is going to push for this. Making people pay higher insurance rates to live in high-risk places is one way encourage people to move, but higher insurance prices also has the perverse effect of discouraging people from buying it because it’s too expensive.
So what’s likely going to happen in the aftermath of Ian is predictable: the same dumb stuff will be built in the same dumb places. Trumpers who don’t believe in government will be calling for government cash for rebuilding and then screaming when it isn’t enough. There will likely be some marginal strengthening of building codes and a few zoning tweaks. Real estate speculators will move in. A few people who have had enough will move out. And that will be about it.
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