Rising sea levels are going to mess with the internet

Thu Jul 26 20:07:56 UTC 2018

On 7/26/2018 3:49 PM, valdis.kletnieks at vt.edu wrote:
> On Thu, 26 Jul 2018 15:39:51 -0400, Rob McEwen said:
>
>> JUST BARELY curve upwards. So I dug into THEIR actual data - and even
>> THEIR data shows something like a cumulative 1mm/year increase - and -
>> it took ~40 years or so to get to that 1mm increase (to be extra clear,
>> this is a reported increase over how much oceans are rising now compared
>> to ~40 years ago. But I'm not even sure this added up to even a full 1 mm.)
> Compound interest is a bitch.

But NOT so much when the rate of increase is THIS tiny. Yes, if the rate 
of the increase holds steady, then this could start causing a lot of 
problems EVENTUALLY. But this still only adds up to an ADDITIONAL 4 
inches (total!) per century (over what would have happened). That is an 
amount and time-scale that warrants concern and long-range planning. 
However, extreme measures that would harm our economy in the short term 
(and in many cases wouldn't have helped anyways) are counter productive 
because they then put us on a long-term less healthy economic trajectory 
that would make us less able to afford the future changes that would be 
needed to deal with this extremely long-term problem.

ANALOGY: Freshman college kid becomes a health nut and spends all his 
money on only the best specialized organic foods, exotic vitamins, and a 
membership at the best health club, even paying extra for a personalized 
trainer. Then he has to drop out of college because he can't afford it. 
Then he runs out of money and can't get a decent paying job because he 
doesn't have a college education. Now he eats horrible cheap food and 
works long hours at a low paying job that leaves him little time to 
properly exercise. (in general - solving a SMALL problem with a BIG 
solution - like this - causes problems)

-- 
Rob McEwen