https://news.yahoo.com/is-it-a-mistake-to-rebuild-in-climate-danger-zones-201845727.html
Yahoo News 360
Is it a mistake to rebuild in climate danger zones?
Mike Bebernes
Senior Editor
Wed, October 5, 2022 at 1:18 PM
“The 360” shows you diverse perspectives on the day’s top stories and
debates.
What’s happening
In the wake of major disasters like Hurricane Ian, which devastated
large swaths of the Florida coast and caused at least 84 deaths last
week, the goal of rebuilding what was lost often becomes a unifying
mission for local residents and the country as a whole.
Both President Biden and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who are on opposite
sides of most issues, spoke recently of the enormous task that lies
ahead if communities that experienced the worst wind damage and flooding
are going to be revived. Their statements echo sentiments from political
leaders after other disasters, including previous hurricanes, major
storms elsewhere in the country and wildfires in Western states.
With climate change increasing the severity of hurricanes and wildfires,
among other natural disasters, the sheer scale of rebuilding efforts has
become enormous. Hurricane Ian alone is believed to have caused as much
as $57 billion in damages, according to an estimate from the risk
management firm Verisk. Since 1980 there have been more than 330 weather
and climate disasters that each have caused more than $1 billion in
damages, according to a database maintained by the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration. The costs are only getting bigger. In the
1980s, weather-related damages averaged about $20 billion per year. Over
the past five years, that figure has reached almost $158 billion a year.
The escalating costs — let alone the extraordinary logistical and human
challenges — of reviving communities after these increasingly common
events has led many experts to raise an uncomfortable question: Should
we rebuild in places that face a high risk of being destroyed again by a
climate-fueled disaster in the near future?
Why there’s debate
Though they universally express sympathy for people who would be asked
to abandon their homes for good, a number of experts say that it’s
simply not feasible to keep pouring resources into communities that are
directly in the likely path of future hurricanes and wildfires. They
argue that people in these areas must stop treating major disasters as
random events and instead accept the reality that climate change has
made more catastrophic weather all but inevitable.
But others say this attitude raises incredibly difficult questions that
we’re nowhere close to having clear answers for. Chief among them, they
say, is the problem of deciding which communities aren’t worth reviving
and which ones deserve saving. People from those areas, many of whom are
frequently facing desperate financial circumstances, will also need
somewhere else to go that satisfies their needs and sets them up for
long-term success — some small-scale efforts to do this in California
fire regions have proved expensive and politically contentious.
These issues are why many experts argue that the work of preventing
people from living in climate danger zones should be done before
disaster strikes, rather than in the aftermath.
In recent years, millions of people have moved to areas that face
elevated risk from hurricanes and fires, essentially deciding that
natural beauty and comparatively low cost of living in those communities
outweigh the — often poorly understood — risks of disaster. Experts say
it’s possible to change that calculus and make these areas less
desirable by levying climate-risk taxes on properties, forcing real
estate agents and developers to disclose fire and flooding dangers to
potential buyers and providing financial incentives to those who are
willing to move to safer places.
Perspectives
It’s wasteful and dangerous to keep rebuilding communities that will
likely be destroyed again
“The definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing over and
over — building and rebuilding in areas we know are deadly — with the
same result: destruction.” — Anita Chabria and Erika D. Smith, Los
Angeles Times
Refusing to help communities rebuild will leave countless people with
nowhere to go
“It’s easy for people in other parts of the country to say we shouldn’t
rebuild in areas most vulnerable to storms, but if not, how could or
should those people be compensated? Again, someone has to pay that
bill.” — Editorial, Miami Herald
If we’re going to rebuild, we must rebuild smarter
“Around the world, weather is becoming increasingly violent and
unpredictable, with bigger, more destructive storms and increased
vulnerability to high heat and other perils. [DeSantis] should also
force the acknowledgement that as sea levels rise, flooding will emerge
as the No. 1 threat to lives and property in Florida. Any reconstruction
along the coast must consider the inevitability that sooner or later,
the invading sea will prevail.” — Editorial, South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Moving people out of danger zones will be an enormous task, but the
alternative is far worse
“Nothing about changing the way we develop our coastlines would be easy,
but nothing about the way we allow it makes sense given what we know is
a growing danger of more severe storms ahead.” — Al Tompkins, Poynter
We can’t ask people not to rebuild until we have a real system to help
them relocate
“There are probably areas that we simply shouldn’t put any
infrastructure back in. But it’s really difficult to make that call
after an emergency when everybody’s just trying to make themselves whole
again. … We just don’t have the right kinds of incentives or
disincentives to change that economic calculus yet—anywhere, not just in
Florida.” — Rob Young, geologist, to Wired
At the very least, every potential resident should be forced to
acknowledge the risks they’re taking on
“If every Realtor was required to tell people, ‘You should know over the
period of your mortgage your home will flood at least once, maybe
twice,’ I think people would go, 'Whoa, what?’ But due to policy
failures in state capitals and in Washington we have made it extremely
difficult for people to not only find that information but to even tell
people about it.” — Rob Moore, environmental policy analyst, to
Washington Post
Choosing to live in high-risk areas should come with extra costs
“The best policy when an activity imposes costs on society is to create
a pricing system that pushes those costs back onto the individuals
responsible. … In the case of disaster zones, municipal property taxes
need to reflect the additional costs of public services like disaster
relief that are often provided by state and federal authorities. … The
key thing is that the tax creates a disincentive to engage in the
undesirable activity short of an outright ban. And research shows these
kinds of taxes are effective.” — Alexander Smith, Conversation
We need the money we’re wasting on rebuilding to fortify other
communities against climate disasters
“We should walk away from the most vulnerable areas of our oceanfront
and spend the money saved on buttressing the more sustainable parts of
the community. We should be demanding this approach in the allocation of
federal funds. This is not about abandoning the coastal economy. This is
how we preserve it.” — Robert S. Young, New York Times
Climate disasters aren’t random, and we should stop pretending they are
“Our disaster management system was based on a premise that disasters
were random and rare. That is no longer true, but we still pay people to
return to where they were before. … Our disaster management system is
not sustainable. I know it is hard to address after a tragic disaster.
But, as a government policy, we continue to [incentivize] risk, though
the devil returns again and again.” — Juliette Kayyem, CNN analyst
Nothing will stop people from choosing to live in places that are
destined for disaster
“The way things ought to be is not always the way things are. Sunshine,
low taxes, and freedom from consequences can be a compelling vision,
especially for the old and cold, and it’s working for Florida’s
Republicans just as it worked for Cape Coral’s developers. … The Florida
growth machine has outlasted a lot of killer storms, and it will outlast
this one too. We ignored what was coming, and we’ll forget what came.” —
Michael Grunwald, Atlantic
Mass climate migration is inevitable, but we can choose whether it’s an
orderly process or chaos
“In the next few decades, millions of Americans whose cities may
literally fall into the ocean will need to relocate inland. … And
although it might seem like an extreme idea, the fact is that we are
already doing it — just in a way that’s reactive, expensive and
unsustainable as the problem gets larger. Rather than bumbling ahead and
dodging this question at public forums, it’s time to develop proactive,
sustainable and equitable policies for moving people out of harm’s way.”
— Yuliya Panfil, Politico