That's a drop in the bucket compared to Amtrak's $38 billion maintenance backlog or the $13 billion Hudson tunnel project.
Out of all the potential effects of climate change, this seems like one of the least worrisome -- we even know how to fix it already!
The biggest struggle with climate change (in the US at least) is trying to convince businesses that they're going to be impacted financially. If anything we need more industry-specific reporting to try to show companies how ignoring climate change will impact their bottom line.
Yes and no. My take is this: there's too much time and energy being put into why and who does or doesn't believe (it's human-made), and not enough focus is on "solutions" (to the higher waters). Often this distraction seems to be generated by politicians.
I wish I had $10 for every time I've seen an article misuse the phrase "climate-change deniers" My sense those people are very few. That is, flat out deniers are few. Most everyone else sees it coming. The debate is why it's happening (human vs natural).
Even if we settle on why (which we won't), it seems to me Amtrak, etc. are still going to be impacted. At some point we need to focus on the ends, and let the means go.
Note: I realize that __if__ we settle on human-made there is, at least in theory, opportunity to slow the change. I understand that. My faith breaks down on ever being able to agree on why. It's as if the building is on fire and we're so busy debating why the fire started that we've forgotten we still need to do something about the fire.
If there is no impact or very little for the person/people currently running the business, then there is no reason to make a move to prevent/mitigate the problem.
Industries that see ever more profit in fields with high externalities won't have direct a motivation to address those externalities even if they're aware of them - assuming they're unaware in any way.
(aside, coal isn't actually that terrible in terms of contribution to climate change, but reliance on it is definitely contributing, there may be bigger fish but this one has a good bit of meat on it)
You also need to convince them that any local mitigation action (maintenance, waters management, etc.) will impact them financially more than a global concerted effort to stop co2 emissions. Which seems a very difficult argument to make.
The life span of the average business is about 10 years. The median employment tenure (years that wage and salary workers had been with their current employer) in 4.2 years. It's awefully tough to get anyone today to care about the bottom line in Q3 2068.
It’s going to be a positive thing for many companies. Defences need to be engineered, built and maintained. It isnt bad for everyone.
Change needs to happen at the government level and be imposed on businesses in spite of what they think. It needs to happen at the alliance level (UN) because governments don't want to act against their economic interests unless they have to, even if their economic foresight is short (a presidential term, maximum).
That they (people with short term economic advantage) have succeeded in making climate change an optional belief is the biggest worry of all. Now we have sheeple (half the general population) blindly running to the precipice while loudly proclaiming anyone that can see it coming as stupid/liar/hands in ears/la la la.
I'm curious. I've been hearing about the expected effects of climate change for many years. At least since ~2005 or 2006. Are there any predictions of conditions in 2000, or 2020, which have panned out as predicted?
https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-how-well-have-climate-m...
The Independent finally deleted the article but here’s a summary of it:
http://www.globalwarming.org/2010/12/27/headline-2000-snowfa...
PS: It’s all’s up 18 cm from 1897 but recent rise has been much more obvious.
But yes, that does seem like a low figure.
2 feet is the median!? And things continue to accelerate?
I thought I followed climate change issues but somehow did not know that in most people's lifetimes sea levels will rise multiple feet. I would've thought folks would be more... concerned? The maps of New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut look like they are going to cost us billions to trillions to mitigate between now and 2100.
A shallow bay in the tropics that is right in the way of ocean currents, for example, can see an order of magnitude more change in high tide than the global sea level, let alone during surges and swells.
Anyone with a child born this year can expect that child to live past 2100. A future grandchild will live well past 2100. Even most people reading this can probably expect to live past 2050.
It's not an abstract issue that will affect future generations. It will affect us and our direct descendants.
The science says that sea levels will rise by a meter or so over the next hundred years. That won't end the world.
The science says that climate change will cause trillions of dollars of damages, over the next hundred years.
Trillions of dollars in damages is bad. But it is on the same scale of "badness" as another iraq war.
I'd want to prevent a third Iraq war, but I am not going to pretend that it would put billions of lives in danger.
Overall life expectancy at birth is not greater than 81 in the US, though it is at 81 for females.
According to Sir David King (head U.K. climate scientist) in 2004, all continents other than Antarctica will be uninhabitable by 2100 due to manmade global warming.[1]
I wouldn't be worried about New York. I'd be on the next ship down to Antarctica to go stake my land claim right now before it all gets gobbled up.
I mean, if this manmade global warming stuff is real, and it's as bad as they say it is.
[1] http://web.archive.org/web/20100817023019/http://www.indepen...
https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-sd-del-mar-bluf...
And SD will still have the trolley from TJ at least.
When part of the Greenland ice sheet melts the global mean sea level rises, but it is likely to cause sea level drops in some places around the northern Atlantic. How and where is going to be almost impossible to model and we will just have to wait and see how it plays out. Journal articles here [1,2]
[1] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10584-010-9935-... [2] https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/201...
So, _not_ a private company.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/2015/03/0...
(From 2015 – Supreme Court says Amtrak is more like a public entity than a private firm)
"" All the justices agreed to overturn the lower-court ruling in which the Association of American Railroads had prevailed at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit: that Amtrak was a strictly private entity and as such Congress was wrong in 2008 to set up a system that allowed it to issue regulations.
The lower court had based the decision on Congress’s command that Amtrak “is not a department, agency or instrumentality of the United States Government.”
But Justice Anthony M. Kennedy said saying so does not necessarily make it so.
The government puts all sorts of demands on Amtrak — maintaining service between Louisiana and Florida, for instance, or offering reduced fares for elderly or disabled passengers — not to mention giving it subsidies of about $1 billion a year, Kennedy said.
“Amtrak was created by the Government, is controlled by the Government, and operates for the Government’s benefit,” Kennedy wrote. Thus, in working with the Federal Railroad Administration to issue the “metrics and standards” for performance, “Amtrak acted as a governmental entity for purposes of the Constitution’s separation of powers provisions.” ""
In Ireland we call entities like this semi-state companies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State-sponsored_bodies_of_the_...
Could be a global warming thing, could be a seasonal thing, could be anything really.
While we’re at it, make the elevated passenger trackage be serious high-speed rail, instead of the max. 125mph (~200kph) it is now.
If Amtrack pauses its service segment-by-segment so they get to focus on re-building infrastructure then I believe It will not have that much of a negative impact on travelers, at least. People can always resort to other traveling alternatives(buses, cars, planes). Heck, it is economical to travel from NYC to DC by bus vs train. Train gets you in 3 hours for $200 and bus gets you in 4 hours for $19. For me, $200 is worth paying if I get to DC in an hour!
Yes there will be job displacements while the overhaul is underway. But for numbers sake, more job will be created as part of the overhaul.
By politics I assume you meant unions. It is a rabbit-hole debate but I will say this that unions have done more damage to the infrastructure progress than any other political entity in northeast USA.
I say "did", because politicians from eastern Connecticut and Rhode Island were understandably not thrilled about losing their existing high-ish speed services.
Although if climate inaction generally prevails, eventually the area won't be viable for that many people to live, work and commute. Problem solved.
Why?
On the NE Regional, I'm delayed 1/3 trips at least.
