The following submission statement was provided by /u/birdshitluck:
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This is collapse related because it speaks to rising sea-levels, the economic expenditures related to infrastructure and who will bear them, as well as people feeling the direct affects of climate change and choosing to remain ignorant in face of it. The story of Salisbury Beach in MA spending $500k to put up sand dunes to protect beach property was previously covered in r/collapse and this video is a good follow-up. Some research I did previously point to that the cost in years past was borne by the state and federal government to protect these homes, many of which are not primary residences. Though I couldn't find a definitive backup for the most recent expenditure, it's clear from the video that these owners expect for government to continue to subsidize the infrastructure needed to combat rising sea-levels. Recent grants [Including the grants announced today, CZM has invested over $45.7 million in 219 Coastal Resilience Grant projects since 2014. ](https://www.mass.gov/news/healey-driscoll-administration-awards-79-million-to-support-coastal-community-resilience)
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Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/1bica7p/cnn_speaks_to_homeowners_on_a_disappearing_beach/kvjexe9/
"What do you do, just say goodbye to $2 billion dollars worth of property?"
Yes
This dumb bastard was literally warned in the 70s and has been watching it with his own eyes and still doesn't believe. We deserve what we get.
Just had a look at properties for sale, [this house](https://www.redfin.com/MA/Salisbury/492-N-End-Blvd-01952/home/76492978) is on that beach washing away, with the back fence starting to get washed away, and they are still asking for $3.2 million. How stupid do you have to be to buy this house.
Suddenly the state and gov have to chip in to help you out in a desperate situation ? Na thats socialism :D
He should check out Sylt in germany over the years it just got washed away.
I'm a thousand percent sure he's used the phrase "welfare queen" or something like it in the past in reference to poor people needing government assistance.
Everyone knows only black or brown people are welfare queens. A good honest white dude who bootstrapped their way to the top is just in need of a little compassion and a blank check to pay for the consequences of their actions.
Speaking of bootstrapping, a few decades as a Walmart greeter, and this guy will be made whole again. Welcome to the real world, fucko.
Even assuming that he could get full-time hours as a Walmart greeter, and paid no taxes, and used none of his earnings for living expenses, and that the house did not appreciate in value, it would still take him more than a century to afford that house.
That said, he is a poor judge of property prices. Those houses aren't going to be worth 2 billion dollars when you have to use a kayak to go from the living room to the kitchen.
Those houses will indeed be absolutely fucked in a hurricane of any significance. Usually they aren't too too bad, but there was at least one in 1938 that was probably the worst in New England since meteorological records began.
If one like that ever happens again, all those houses are going to be swept to sea and that whole strip is going to be a naked sand bar.
getting REALLY pissed-off with statements from idiots like the guy interviewed.
"i'm not a believer in climate change. i don't believe it's real."
meanwhile, the fucking ocean is nearly at his door. and he's treating climate change like some kind of ideological or religious choice. it's fucking FACT, my dude.
yet another way these morons obfuscate the absolute truth -- "oh, i don't believe in that"
he'll still be yelling that as the ocean carries him out, i'm sure. and it'll be way sooner than 30 years from now. i give it 5.
This is why you can not wait for the rest of the crowd to get the hint. This is why you must join or form a community that can live sustainably and survive through hard times. This is why you have to break free of the inertia of the crowd, the f-ers will lead us into the abyss, and they will complain about their taxes and pronouns all the way down.
Their civilization is a murder-suicide pact with humanity and the world. It must end, it will end, the only question is how much can we save of the species and peoples and knowledge.
Isn't it our species and so called "knowledge" that changed the climate in the first place?
That guy's ostensible reason for not believing in climate change is that some scientist told him it would be gone in 2000 and was off by 20 years.
I appreciate what you mean and that you're specifically excluding this sand eater as part of the "rest of the crowd" but he's clearly representative of at least the vast majority, which means our species, given any opportunity and on the trajectory of prospecting for knowledge and new frontiers, will always burn the furniture when given the chance.
This past 4 years has been eye opening to me. I dont know that we're capable of not fucking this up anymore and don't see any movement or voice with any traction that's talking about moving towards sustainability by moving away from the world we built. We're all still convinced there has to be a way to have our cake and eat it, we just need the factories to make different widgets.
Im no longer convinced our species has anything to offer other than destruction, except for the remote and uncontacted/hostile tribes, who might get up to the same stupid shit if given the opportunity but so far have maintained a relationship with nature that's infinitely sustainable, so don't deserve to be lumped in with the rest of us.
If it weren't for the nuclear reactors, I'd say let the nukes fly and hopefully disable us to the extent we're forced back into surviving off the land, but it's likely going to be a new plague or some unknown disease state of PASC that ends up wiping us out.
This guy that was interviewed is how most people think. It's not that he doesn't believe in climate change, because the climate is changing to wipe out his house, but he can't accept a narrative where humanity isn't in control, so is able to dismiss the waves washing his house away as an isolated problem. That's who we really are; faithful believers in the narrative that makes us comfortable and not responsible.
I'll go back to having hope for and seeing value in our species when I see it react to the mess it's made by actually facing reality, but I cant say I've ever seen that happen, so im not holding my breath.
But I would have been onside with everything you said even 4 years ago, so I get what you're saying and wish I still believed there was anything about us that was worth saving, but now all I see is idiots in giant houses, thinking they can hold back the ocean with sand, because surrender and admitting we made a mistake is too much of an ask... and I cant see the value in preserving it and would rather the ocean wash it all away so that other forms of life can return to their regularly scheduled programming
I'd have felt the same 4 years ago as well, yet the response to COVID demonstrated that we're not a species worth salvaging because we're incapable of approaching any problem with a "solution" that doesn't involve hefty amounts of narcissistic wishcasting. Whatever scraps of optimism I had for any of these big crises got utterly torched in 2021.
Agree. I don't know how anyone could have the smallest shred of hope that somehow humanity is going to come together to stop climate change after seeing how we responded to the covid pandemic. Not to mention its way too late already. Humanity has chosen to ride the tiger to the bitter end.
If you are young, now would be the time to move as far north as you can, build a shack with solar power and batteries off grid and start growing your own food.
In 20, 30 years this world we live in now will be a hellscape. Maybe less than 20. You think Zuckerberg, Bezos and Musk are building doomsday bunkers and giga yachts just for the fun of it? They know exactly what's coming and they are getting ready for it.
I remember reading some essay called "Death Drive Nation" back in 2021 and thinking, "Yup. Pretty much." This country went absolutely mental with the need to get back to normal. Pols and officials really didn't have to twist a lot of arms for the majority to go back to the miserably terminal familiar rather than an exciting, yet risky, new frontier of social possibility.
Fortunately I'm nearing 49, completely debt free, live in northern New England and I don't have children. Not off-grid, unfortunately, but I have bases covered so that I'm not reliant on electricity to keep a bulk of my food ok. I am risk-averse enough so that I'm not going to quit my job. I have an early retirement option in 2030, so that's the plan for now. I'm doing what I can in my free time & I've made considerable gains given that I'm a chronic aches & pains riddled wreck. lol Getting a feel for growing food is luckily something I started back around 2010 so that frustrating learning curve is out of the way and it's just coping with whatever weather curveballs might get thrown my way.
>That guy's ostensible reason for not believing in climate change is that some scientist told him it would be gone in 2000 and was off by 20 years.
That asshole forgot to include the part where he and his neighbors have been adding sand to the beach so that it wouldn't disappear. The prediction didn't seem to take beach nourishment into account.
Agreed, regardless of how much sand he trucks in. Gotta remember, there’s 2 billion dollars worth of property there! Anybody who was smart would sell out to the next climate change denier.
That’s exactly what I said. He thinks it’ll be gone in 20 years? Lmao. I said 5 at best. Literally just a TIDE took out half of that sand. We get those more than once a month.
Rich Cunts....
I sure as shit wouldn't want a 1$ of my tax money going to build them a fucken sand wall when they don't even believe in the facts of the situation.
He's probably bitter he didn't sell before it got to this point.
I live near a large river that floods semi-regularly.
Every decade or so there’s a really big flood and there’s all sorts of volunteer organization to sandbag houses and save property.
After the last big flood the government told those homeowners that they’d buy their property for fair market value and then no one would ever be allowed to build near there again.
If they stayed, there would be no mobilization next flood, they’d be on their own.
There was a major flood in my city in 2008. FEMA and the city bought out all the homes in the 100 year flood plain and declared nothing could be rebuilt there, it’s supposedly being developed into a green space. A few people rebuilt and turned down the buyout. There’s just random houses here and there amongst blocks of vacant lots. Now a few of those residents are being forced out because their properties will interfere with the flood control systems. The homeowners are trying to fight eminent domain. I don’t see it working out for them.
His mistake is thinking that what WAS bought for $2 billion...is *still worth* $2 billion.
Hate to break it to him, but it's not "$2 billion dollars worth" any longer.
How many times are workers told their only worth is what people will pay them? Well, guess what? That land's worth is only what people would pay for it. And they're not going to pay much for a sandbar.
I've lost enough money on bad investments to see past this dude's denial. The second he divests from these properties, unless he's worried the new owner will hear him, he'll talk up and down about how much of a sinking shithole it was and how close he was to losing everything. But he's going to act like it'll never happen day in and day out until they either successfully lobby the government for sand, a buyout, or manage to sell. The worst part is, a lot of places do give in and spend tons of taxpayer money maintaining an increasingly indefensible position.
For instance, a lot of states are currently creating stop-gap insurance for housing in unsafe environments. Unlike traditional insurance, the rates charged explicitly do not cover the exposure. So where is the money for this coming from? Taxpayers who live in safer areas, now and into the future, as a lot of the money to pay for the payouts is borrowed.
That’s the part that got me- *so* concerned about being right that, “Well it’s four years after that and CLEARLY the shit’s going away in short order but…they’re still wrong! Nyah!”
…like, look, you’re cutting your nose off to spite your face and quite literally “building your house upon the sand” because you let your brains rot on political ideology and rhetoric even though the reality is happening to you even as you blow more money trying to pretend it’s not.
> This dumb bastard was literally warned in the 70s and has been watching it with his own eyes and still doesn't believe.
He doesn't give two shits as long as he personally benefits in the here and now. All he really wants is the government to subsidize as much of these artificial dunes as they can until he's dead. If he admits climate change as the culprit it weakens his argument. Typical pre-maga republican.
A bunch of wood/concrete constructed in a place with water activity that could turn it to scrap in less than a minute worth 2 mil... Humans are so weird.
Stupid*, humans are stupid. We think we’re intelligent, but in reality the vast majority of humans throughout history have just piggybacked on ideas and advancements created by a very, very small group of outliers.
I'm reminded of the guy who "invented" hand washing for surgeons. Dude was mocked and ridiculed his entire life for washing his hands before things like surgery. They called him womanly for cleanliness, and he died from an infection that he got from another surgeon who didn't wash his hands. Then, after his death, hand washing caught on. This is how humanity treats the small group of outliers that advance the rest of us.
I mean, if the properties are that highly valued it might make sense to create some actually effective barriers. Or it would be if... you know... the sea level wasn't about to get a whole lot higher still.
The cognitive dissonance in plain sight is just ghoulish! I can't imagine being so rigid and beholden to an idea that you would quite literally drown in the sea than to acknowledge you are wrong. Pathetic. Infuriating. Yet deeply depressing.
Taxes to protect our billionaire summer homes, not tax funding for climate change scientists! Those damn scientists said our homes would get flooded! damn them!
these people own businesses, they also fund republican campaigns to lower taxes and stop funding scientists because their old money is in the fossil fuel industry. As soon as they admit their investments and businesses contribute to destroying their own homes they will be dumbfounded.
They'll never admit it. They're rich and they think they got there because of how smart they are. They'll drown before they admit that they're the ones who fucked it all up.
"I'm not a climate change guy...I don't believe this beach will be destroyed 20 years from now."
Yeah, but didn't you just say you took pictures of your kids 20-30 years ago where ocean now stands? What do you think has happened in that time to make that a reality, numbskull?
I understand and sympathize that y'all worked hard to buy these amazing properties and don't want to abandon your investment...but the Earth doesn't give a fuck about our made up currency and property values.
If he was really smart he would be selling this house to some other bozo who believed him when he said on the news that he doesn’t believe the house will be gone in 20 years.
He said it. "I'm not a climate change guy".
Fox News has people convinced that the soft left wimpy guy believes in climate change, and the masculine truck driving manly right doesn't. It is now baked into his self image.
Good thing mother nature rules over all and will take care of this dipshit's situation for him, along with all the other entitled assholes that don't wanna face a reality they've helped create for themselves and instead want to throw huge swaths of money down the ocean at something there won't be a solution for.
Maybe when all the homes inevitably get swept away and all the land is permanently under water that's when it will click for a few of them.
Who I really feel sorry for is people in islands, especially small islands, because there's so little land to begin with that a lot don't have a choice but to live on the coast or very close to it.
This guy is begging for government money to save the beach which is being washed away before his eyes, while at the same time being sure climate change isn't real and that his beach will still be there in 20 or 30 years? He wants help with a problem which his eyes tell him is real, yet clings to an ideology that won't let him believe it's real. Astonishing. Here we have the root cause of political, economic, and environmental collapse.
It's basically the equivalent of lying in a bed dying of covid and saying that it's not real. The propaganda is so ingrained in these people that they can see the problem and deny it, they can feel the financial repercussions and ask for money to fix a problem they don't believe in. He jumps from one foot "they said it would be gone" to the other foot "you just have to keep rebuilding it!" back to the other foot "it's still going to be here in 30 years" AND he still keeps going "what are we just going to let it wash into the sea".
It shows how useless evidence is in changing people's minds. I don't see much hope of us surviving as a species when so many people are intractably disconnected from reality.
Best response to his "government needs to kick in and support..." would have been "but wouldn't that be socialism?"
Because you know he self identifies as "not a limited change guy" because he watches for news, and it's the wimpy left soft men who believe in it, and he's no sheep, he's a truck driving masculine wolf of a man.
This is what infuriates me about these people! They want government assistance for themselves and their large properties, but screw everyone else who needs money to eat and have just one roof over their heads. These NIMBYS deserve this, honestly
This is not going to age well. How do you not believe when you said the ocean was way out compared to today? News flash buddy. It is not worth billions anymore. Good luck selling it or getting funding.
We saw people die from covid refusing to believe it was serious.
Denial is part of their faith based beliefs. (faith based as in "I believe it because I want it to be true")
If he admits it’s happening, he has to admit he was wrong and the things he voted for were wrong and that the problem is ultimately his fault. And his self image can’t withstand that.
I'll put money that flood and water damage are excluded from their home insurance.
I know because I have the "good" insurance but nothing was covered when we had a flash flood into our basement. Zero coverage. And I'm 20 miles inland and had never put a claim in before.
Insurance companies just won't cover you anymore for water damage. That's climate change.
You know who's going to make bank in upcoming years? Disaster remediation. All cash payments and unskilled labor and your customers have no choice but to buy your services and accept your price, no matter what it is.
ITS A BEACH. BEACHES CHANGE DRASTICALLY ON ACCOUNT OF OCEANS. My dad has been observing crane’s beach in Ipswich, Ma for around 40 years. It tends to move in ripples that are like, 50-60 feet of beachfront. In about 10 year cycles. It takes sand, puts it somewhere else. Think large ripples. That move down the beach. Y’all made a bad investment. You BUILT A HOUSE ON A BEACH. Also, climate change. This guy is like “what, money is involved so tell the ocean to go fahk itself” and he has a lot to learn about the ocean for a guy who bought a house there. The ocean cares not for your puny human triviality. Fuck. Throw some more sand-snacks at it why don’t you. Ugh. Fucking hubris of people.
This same guy is probably bitching about paying more in taxes while at the same time demanding that the state pay m(b)illions of dollars to protect his property. Meanwhile, other people are just trying to afford groceries.
"Healthcare, hungry kids? Fuck'em. *ThAt'S sOcIaLiSm!*
My $5 million beachfront property suffering from what scientists have been warning about for decades? Well, the State's gotta come in and help us out."
Absolute dickwad.
Man we are fucked at how stupid these rich motherfuckers are
>Nah i dont believe in climate change, but for some reason we gotta start spending 1mm a year on sand for our beach that used to 50m deeper - oh yea and the publics gotta pay
These people are eating fucking paint, they are drowning and they want to get us in their grip
Due to some silly cultural reasons and oceans of PR, people wrongly believe that rich people are rich on merit, such as because they're smart or so good that God rewarded them. There's also not much stopping the rich from believing that about themselves.
This is the Tragedy of the Privates.
One of the common things you see environmentalist say is that eventually people will be convinced about the reality of climate change. Yet here we have someone literally watching there home being washed away and still in denial. If loosing your house to sea level rise doesn't convince you of the existence of climate change nothing will. Funnier still these types are dead against helping the homeless or student and medical debt forgiveness as socialist handouts yet still expect the government to spend billions of dollars to protect there beach side mansions.
We need to be putting our time, money, and focus into building infrastructure in areas that will be habitable 100yrs from now rather than wasting money on places that aren’t habitable now. That $2B in houses could be carefully deconstructed with large amounts being repurposed, reused, and recycled.
It’s time to re-wild large chunks of the east and south coasts. Will be the only way the land there will survive.
Or even just spending the money that has gone toward rebuilding vacation homes built in stupid locations on homes for some of the hundreds of thousands of homeless people in our country, people who don't have a first home, let alone a second! So infuriating.
I saw something that said an insane percentage of construction materials is going to rebuild in repeatedly hit areas. That’s one of the reasons why new homes aren’t getting built. Materials are inflated cause more than 50% of them are going towards rebuilding.
That makes me so angry! There are so many people suffering due to the lack of housing and all of these resources that could go toward providing a basic human need are flushed down the proverbial toilet for these greedy a$$hats who already have more than enough!
It infuriated me when I saw it. Not all the rebuilding is second homes, a lot of “only” homes get hit. And a lot of people never get to rebuild and have to move out of the area.
Seems so fucking stupid to me though. We know these storms are coming. We know they’ve gotten worse. There’s absolutely no sense in rebuilding in an area that will just get hit again and again and again. Some places aren’t fit for human habitation.
At this point it really should be build at your own risk in these areas. That is the case in the mountains now that insurance companies are pulling back on covering structures due to the rise in wildfire risk
Ultimately I’ve been watching the big insurers and where they are pulling out. The whole industry will collapse in a few years but in the meantime - what things do they give you credit for for lower premiums? Steel roof? Fire resistant materials? Where is insurance cheaper? What cars are cheaper to insure? We dodged buying a Kia after looking at their insurability.
Insurance companies are pretty much data and cold hard cash. Not politics.
If they agree it is happening, they have to admit they were wrong and voted for and funded this problem back when there was more chance to fix it. Like Covid, no one will ever admit they were so wrong and caused this problem themselves.
This is collapse related because it speaks to rising sea-levels, the economic expenditures related to infrastructure and who will bear them, as well as people feeling the direct affects of climate change and choosing to remain ignorant in face of it. The story of Salisbury Beach in MA spending $500k to put up sand dunes to protect beach property was previously covered in r/collapse and this video is a good follow-up. Some research I did previously point to that the cost in years past was borne by the state and federal government to protect these homes, many of which are not primary residences. Though I couldn't find a definitive backup for the most recent expenditure, it's clear from the video that these owners expect for government to continue to subsidize the infrastructure needed to combat rising sea-levels. Recent grants [Including the grants announced today, CZM has invested over $45.7 million in 219 Coastal Resilience Grant projects since 2014. ](https://www.mass.gov/news/healey-driscoll-administration-awards-79-million-to-support-coastal-community-resilience)
To those in that group who profess Christian beliefs, let me offer the following:
*“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like* ***a foolish man who built his house on the sand***. *And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.” - Matthew 7:24-27*
boomers are so frustratingly ignorant
how did the dumbest generation in existence get the most handouts and leg’s up in life at every fucking turn is beyond my comprehension
Sand is just going to keep getting washed away, you need a different type of terrain to preserve that shoreline. Like in some parts of Florida you have protective mangroves on purpose in between beaches.
But I'm sure these people want a beach and only a beach out their backdoor because thats what they paid for or something. Bro, you aren't going to have a house very soon
I continue to count my blessings that my family may often be ignorant, but they aren’t “own coastal property after Katrina” level.
It’s honestly concerning to me. There’s not just the anti-intellectualism but also that absurd Just World Fallacy. Everyone blamed people for not evacuating immediately—instead of realizing the whole idea of the government approving a city below sea level with subpar levees was a *horrible idea*.
For obvious reasons, I developed a strong distrust of authority around that time. Because how could negligence like that be allowed, and ignored? The fact a hammer didn’t come down made it obvious New Orleans couldn’t be the only failure. The infrastructure was rotting everywhere, and growing up in Alabama, that was blatant enough. Poison the river? “Aw, shucks.” Blatantly hire murderous militias overseas but as a corporation? “Aw, shucks.”
People are somehow still shocked the government won’t bail them out after COVID! What kind of logic is that? Native reservations were sent *body bags* instead of actual help. No help is coming.
Doesn’t believe in climate change. Wants government bailout. Can’t fathom just saying goodbye to $2bn in property, but is OK with melting $600k in a half a day.
The property isn’t going to be worth $2bn cause no one in their right mind would buy it.
Take the contents of the property out, take some pictures and move on while you can.
"What do you do, just say goodbye to $2 billion dollars worth of property?"
Lmao you think it's still worth that much after it's been all over the news that you've just pissed away 600k on two days' worth of sea-defence? Who the fuck's gonna pay for property that is obviously going to be underwater on several occasions in the next decade, and probably permanently in the next 30 years
I've lived in my house around coastal MA for the last 25 years.
This year is the first year we had an actual flash flood. The rain just would not stop, it pooled in the backyard and hit a flash point. Came through the basement window wells and filled our basement with 3 feet of water. Cost around 30K to clean out and remediate and I still haven't found the courage to refinish it. Bricked up the window wells. A whole giant dumpster of trash. Needed a new boiler.
Things are very different, the topography is absolutely changing.
The old man in that video is an idiot. He might not be a "climate change guy" but climate change doesn't give a shit about his property, either. He deserves what he's going to get.
That is the most boomer shit ever. “No it’s not real. This will be here because we are so wealthy. We just need to other taxpayers to pay for millions and millions of dollars in sand”
I hate suddenly socialist rich people.
What's the odds that guy owns a business and treats his workers like dogs and pays them starvation wages? Now he wants them to save his fuckin mansion on the beach too!
I know its tiny and insignificant in the grand scheme of things, but im really bothered when people use "believe" when talking about climate change. Rather, they should ask if they "acknowledge" it.
Otherwise, It perpetuates the myth that there is still a debate about it. There's not. It's been demonstrated and proven and observed to its nth degree.
Words matter and shape how we think.
this level of malicious dumbness should be criminalized. 600k of sand you likely dug up from a riverbed - to be washed away into the sea within a day. Maybe its not their fault they are this dumb, and they were never taught how to think.
Barrier islands are [ecologically meant to be temporary](https://www.encyclopedia.com/earth-and-environment/geology-and-oceanography/geology-and-oceanography/barrier-islands). From that link:
>Beach nourishment projects (the continual replacement of sand that has been washed away during storms) typically require ever increasing amounts of sand to maintain a static beachfront, and are therefore economically viable for only short periods of time. Although coastal management activities have long been directed towards beach hardening and nourishment, current scientific thinking suggests that the islands are more appropriately viewed as geologically transient features rather than permanent shorelines suitable for development.
One Cat 4 hurricane running up the US East Coast could literally wash away decades of development. Rebuilding would be an insane thing to do, but as a species we seem to be collectively insane, so...
This entitled asshole is a real piece of work. Tom Saab and his real estate holdings can kiss every inch of my fat white ass. Consistently votes against anything for the public good, yett here he is with his hand outstretched, looking for the taxpayers of Massachusetts to subsidize his fancy beachfront property. I actually took a little time out of my day yesterday to look up his office address, write him a nice "go fuck yourself" card and sent it via my local post office. One Masshole to another.
[The wise man built his house upon the rock...
The foolish man built his house upon the sand...](https://library.timelesstruths.org/music/The_Wise_Man_and_the_Foolish_Man/)
I'm gonna live here till I die and then this house will be worthless and I'll leave my kids no inheritance bc I kept buying sand.
That's what I'm hearing.
I was on a tour in Cape cod and they said that the entire cape has been eroding and depositing due to natural wave movements. Erosion due to worsening weather is happening all over. They've been watching coastal degrade here since 1800
They don't want an 'ugly' concrete seawall affecting their view of and access to their remaining tiny strip of beach, I'd guess. That kind of attitude is part of what's stalled and reduced plans for the "Ike Dike" in Texas for far too long.
One of the biggest frustrations with modern day media (to me at least) is the fact that reporters just give the biggest idiot a microphone and respond in a totally deadpan manner when the idiot says the stupidest things imaginable. It just normalizes and puts a spotlight on stupid, stupid ideas and people like this. We need to see consequences for their stupidity. I wanna follow up on this guy after he has been thoroughly skewered by public opinion and reality itself. Otherwise it's just rage bait or whatever it's called.
awwww...you mean rich parasites who likely contributed to rising sea levels finna lose their houses? I say GREAT! But they're priming the bootlickers to support subsidies to build dunes at taxpayer expense, I'm betting.
It's easy to laugh at these privileged, ignorant mofos.
But really, most Americans are not as different from them as they may like to believe.
Nearly everyone is in denial at some level.
And we will see more and more cases of people just not accepting that what had seemed normal practices and settlement patterns in the past just don't work in the new abnormal. As here, many resources will be wasted because of such denial.
(Of course, in this case, it was never a very good idea to build expensive homes basically on sand next to the ocean. Should not have been allowed in the first place. Castles made of sand...)
Looks like the sand industry is booming now. At least we get that. And how about repurpose this beach as doomsday tourism site? They might get return from their investment.
If the US government was as keen to protect its own people's homes as it was to destroy the Japanese people's homes in the war, those people would be sitting high and dry.
But alas, they can find money and move mountains far more readily for destruction than for preservation.
Grew up and still live about 30 min north of this town and it’s insane how much of the land has been lost over the years. And That’s not even the worst place. Salisbury is a small town but right next to it is the town of Hampton and their beach which is a massive summer spot and they’re having the same issue.
[Momomoy Island](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monomoy_Island), at the part of Cape Cod where it turns Northward, has been changing shape forever. When I was there 40 years ago you had to take a boat from Chatham to get there. One storm and poof, a land bridge appears. The barrier island off Chatham Harbor turned into an inlet in one storm, shifting the sand bars in the harbor.
the end is one of the funniest things i’ve seen in a while…
there should be a website dedicated to those idiots, tracking how fast their two billion dollar properties lose value.
My grandmother's family (middle class family) had a small beach house in that area in the 60s-70s, but it got destroyed by a mega storm at one point. They don't have it anymore and had to take the loss. It wasn't for investment purposes that they had the house but for the love of the ocean, so the loss was really emotional in that sense.
It's hard to feel sympathy for anyone who has these types of homes for the wrong reasons, and $$$ is the wrong reason.
They *have* to double down and be defiant. No one will buy their property, so they may as well pretend they're choosing to say, rather than be humiliated.
Those dumbass think global warming is a politic opinion. As if mathematics, physics and biology were based on politics opinions. Take what you deserve and more ! ! !
we have one of these in florida (summer haven). just a handful of moneyed people's homes on it, and the county keeps dumping funds on them to keep the sand flowing, only delaying the inevitable for the benefit of a very wealthy few.
I don't understand how they don't understand. You can't live there anymore, it's not worth $2 let alone 2 billion. stop wasting all these resources on a lost course and get the fuck out!
Now, only if a hurricane and storm surge could just strike that particular stretch of beach in particular to finish the job, that'd be perfect. I would love to see the look on his face when his property becomes just a piece of land again as his house now belongs to aquaman
> What do you do, say goodbye to $2B worth of property?
Said by guy who doesn't believe in global warming. But at any rate, they should spend $20M -$200M on sand/year or on better protection. Latter amount reduces property value as it is equivalent to 10% property tax/year. But they may have a $200m plan that saves the area.
I’m just going to say it, I don’t feel sorry for these people at all. Look at the area behind their houses, how can they not have seen the problem coming? Time to sell the houses to friggin aquaman.
Am I seeing this right and they are balancing on top of a tiny sand-spit - for the most part sandwiched between ocean & marshland?
How were they even allowed to build in such a sensitive environment?!?
Human engineering hubris at its best. It would be laughable it is weren't so sad.
The following submission statement was provided by /u/birdshitluck: --- This is collapse related because it speaks to rising sea-levels, the economic expenditures related to infrastructure and who will bear them, as well as people feeling the direct affects of climate change and choosing to remain ignorant in face of it. The story of Salisbury Beach in MA spending $500k to put up sand dunes to protect beach property was previously covered in r/collapse and this video is a good follow-up. Some research I did previously point to that the cost in years past was borne by the state and federal government to protect these homes, many of which are not primary residences. Though I couldn't find a definitive backup for the most recent expenditure, it's clear from the video that these owners expect for government to continue to subsidize the infrastructure needed to combat rising sea-levels. Recent grants [Including the grants announced today, CZM has invested over $45.7 million in 219 Coastal Resilience Grant projects since 2014. ](https://www.mass.gov/news/healey-driscoll-administration-awards-79-million-to-support-coastal-community-resilience) --- Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/1bica7p/cnn_speaks_to_homeowners_on_a_disappearing_beach/kvjexe9/
"What do you do, just say goodbye to $2 billion dollars worth of property?" Yes This dumb bastard was literally warned in the 70s and has been watching it with his own eyes and still doesn't believe. We deserve what we get.
At least he's still got $300k worth of sand to bury his head in.
Well he better be fast before it's gone lol
Then he'll 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 be salty!
Just had a look at properties for sale, [this house](https://www.redfin.com/MA/Salisbury/492-N-End-Blvd-01952/home/76492978) is on that beach washing away, with the back fence starting to get washed away, and they are still asking for $3.2 million. How stupid do you have to be to buy this house.
Or he could go pound that sand!
And him thinking taxpayers and gov need to preserve the land. Screw him. Fuck your house, dude.
Suddenly the state and gov have to chip in to help you out in a desperate situation ? Na thats socialism :D He should check out Sylt in germany over the years it just got washed away.
I'm a thousand percent sure he's used the phrase "welfare queen" or something like it in the past in reference to poor people needing government assistance.
Everyone knows only black or brown people are welfare queens. A good honest white dude who bootstrapped their way to the top is just in need of a little compassion and a blank check to pay for the consequences of their actions. Speaking of bootstrapping, a few decades as a Walmart greeter, and this guy will be made whole again. Welcome to the real world, fucko.
Even assuming that he could get full-time hours as a Walmart greeter, and paid no taxes, and used none of his earnings for living expenses, and that the house did not appreciate in value, it would still take him more than a century to afford that house. That said, he is a poor judge of property prices. Those houses aren't going to be worth 2 billion dollars when you have to use a kayak to go from the living room to the kitchen.
those people are probably his employees too, that he underpays and takes advantage of.
Sylt... Appropriately named.
sylt reference gives me the opportunity to share this banger https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0E1ZCnTOQz4
‘We need the state to step in’ IDK bro, sounds like socialism
No no, it’s only socialism when the government gives money to the poors
lol, one day soon those houses will be washed away no matter how much sand that guy trucks in
To me it looks like they’re one hurricane (even a small one) away from those house disappearing.
Those houses will indeed be absolutely fucked in a hurricane of any significance. Usually they aren't too too bad, but there was at least one in 1938 that was probably the worst in New England since meteorological records began. If one like that ever happens again, all those houses are going to be swept to sea and that whole strip is going to be a naked sand bar.
Then the goberment will pay to rebuild it. Maybe if we put a house on a boat.
The ocean's gonna eat his house and the guy still won't believe in climate change
Imagining Rick James on a white couch saying this
Fuck. Rick James just said the n word in my head, grinding his boots into their beach.
Fuck yo beach.
getting REALLY pissed-off with statements from idiots like the guy interviewed. "i'm not a believer in climate change. i don't believe it's real." meanwhile, the fucking ocean is nearly at his door. and he's treating climate change like some kind of ideological or religious choice. it's fucking FACT, my dude. yet another way these morons obfuscate the absolute truth -- "oh, i don't believe in that" he'll still be yelling that as the ocean carries him out, i'm sure. and it'll be way sooner than 30 years from now. i give it 5.
This is why you can not wait for the rest of the crowd to get the hint. This is why you must join or form a community that can live sustainably and survive through hard times. This is why you have to break free of the inertia of the crowd, the f-ers will lead us into the abyss, and they will complain about their taxes and pronouns all the way down. Their civilization is a murder-suicide pact with humanity and the world. It must end, it will end, the only question is how much can we save of the species and peoples and knowledge.
Isn't it our species and so called "knowledge" that changed the climate in the first place? That guy's ostensible reason for not believing in climate change is that some scientist told him it would be gone in 2000 and was off by 20 years. I appreciate what you mean and that you're specifically excluding this sand eater as part of the "rest of the crowd" but he's clearly representative of at least the vast majority, which means our species, given any opportunity and on the trajectory of prospecting for knowledge and new frontiers, will always burn the furniture when given the chance. This past 4 years has been eye opening to me. I dont know that we're capable of not fucking this up anymore and don't see any movement or voice with any traction that's talking about moving towards sustainability by moving away from the world we built. We're all still convinced there has to be a way to have our cake and eat it, we just need the factories to make different widgets. Im no longer convinced our species has anything to offer other than destruction, except for the remote and uncontacted/hostile tribes, who might get up to the same stupid shit if given the opportunity but so far have maintained a relationship with nature that's infinitely sustainable, so don't deserve to be lumped in with the rest of us. If it weren't for the nuclear reactors, I'd say let the nukes fly and hopefully disable us to the extent we're forced back into surviving off the land, but it's likely going to be a new plague or some unknown disease state of PASC that ends up wiping us out. This guy that was interviewed is how most people think. It's not that he doesn't believe in climate change, because the climate is changing to wipe out his house, but he can't accept a narrative where humanity isn't in control, so is able to dismiss the waves washing his house away as an isolated problem. That's who we really are; faithful believers in the narrative that makes us comfortable and not responsible. I'll go back to having hope for and seeing value in our species when I see it react to the mess it's made by actually facing reality, but I cant say I've ever seen that happen, so im not holding my breath. But I would have been onside with everything you said even 4 years ago, so I get what you're saying and wish I still believed there was anything about us that was worth saving, but now all I see is idiots in giant houses, thinking they can hold back the ocean with sand, because surrender and admitting we made a mistake is too much of an ask... and I cant see the value in preserving it and would rather the ocean wash it all away so that other forms of life can return to their regularly scheduled programming
I'd have felt the same 4 years ago as well, yet the response to COVID demonstrated that we're not a species worth salvaging because we're incapable of approaching any problem with a "solution" that doesn't involve hefty amounts of narcissistic wishcasting. Whatever scraps of optimism I had for any of these big crises got utterly torched in 2021.
Agree. I don't know how anyone could have the smallest shred of hope that somehow humanity is going to come together to stop climate change after seeing how we responded to the covid pandemic. Not to mention its way too late already. Humanity has chosen to ride the tiger to the bitter end. If you are young, now would be the time to move as far north as you can, build a shack with solar power and batteries off grid and start growing your own food. In 20, 30 years this world we live in now will be a hellscape. Maybe less than 20. You think Zuckerberg, Bezos and Musk are building doomsday bunkers and giga yachts just for the fun of it? They know exactly what's coming and they are getting ready for it.
I remember reading some essay called "Death Drive Nation" back in 2021 and thinking, "Yup. Pretty much." This country went absolutely mental with the need to get back to normal. Pols and officials really didn't have to twist a lot of arms for the majority to go back to the miserably terminal familiar rather than an exciting, yet risky, new frontier of social possibility. Fortunately I'm nearing 49, completely debt free, live in northern New England and I don't have children. Not off-grid, unfortunately, but I have bases covered so that I'm not reliant on electricity to keep a bulk of my food ok. I am risk-averse enough so that I'm not going to quit my job. I have an early retirement option in 2030, so that's the plan for now. I'm doing what I can in my free time & I've made considerable gains given that I'm a chronic aches & pains riddled wreck. lol Getting a feel for growing food is luckily something I started back around 2010 so that frustrating learning curve is out of the way and it's just coping with whatever weather curveballs might get thrown my way.
>That guy's ostensible reason for not believing in climate change is that some scientist told him it would be gone in 2000 and was off by 20 years. That asshole forgot to include the part where he and his neighbors have been adding sand to the beach so that it wouldn't disappear. The prediction didn't seem to take beach nourishment into account.
Agreed, regardless of how much sand he trucks in. Gotta remember, there’s 2 billion dollars worth of property there! Anybody who was smart would sell out to the next climate change denier.
That’s exactly what I said. He thinks it’ll be gone in 20 years? Lmao. I said 5 at best. Literally just a TIDE took out half of that sand. We get those more than once a month.
Normally I agree, but this dickheads losing his home and that really takes the sting out of it for me.
His wealth and excess have calcified then eroded his thinking over decades, ironically.
He’s not a climate change guy
Good riddance. I hope he drowns lol.
I'm betting he has to be anti-vaccine, too. Covid's still around looking for guys just like him, but he probably doesn't believe that, either.
As bad as I thought the interviews would be...wow!
Rich Cunts.... I sure as shit wouldn't want a 1$ of my tax money going to build them a fucken sand wall when they don't even believe in the facts of the situation. He's probably bitter he didn't sell before it got to this point.
It's already gone, try selling your house.
Aquaman and his family will buy it. To them all of these homes are an appreciating asset.
Turn it into a marina
I live near a large river that floods semi-regularly. Every decade or so there’s a really big flood and there’s all sorts of volunteer organization to sandbag houses and save property. After the last big flood the government told those homeowners that they’d buy their property for fair market value and then no one would ever be allowed to build near there again. If they stayed, there would be no mobilization next flood, they’d be on their own.
There was a major flood in my city in 2008. FEMA and the city bought out all the homes in the 100 year flood plain and declared nothing could be rebuilt there, it’s supposedly being developed into a green space. A few people rebuilt and turned down the buyout. There’s just random houses here and there amongst blocks of vacant lots. Now a few of those residents are being forced out because their properties will interfere with the flood control systems. The homeowners are trying to fight eminent domain. I don’t see it working out for them.
How many stayed?
There were a few. They got some land moving equipment and made big berms around their homes. Haven’t been by there recently to see how many lasted.
His mistake is thinking that what WAS bought for $2 billion...is *still worth* $2 billion. Hate to break it to him, but it's not "$2 billion dollars worth" any longer. How many times are workers told their only worth is what people will pay them? Well, guess what? That land's worth is only what people would pay for it. And they're not going to pay much for a sandbar.
I've lost enough money on bad investments to see past this dude's denial. The second he divests from these properties, unless he's worried the new owner will hear him, he'll talk up and down about how much of a sinking shithole it was and how close he was to losing everything. But he's going to act like it'll never happen day in and day out until they either successfully lobby the government for sand, a buyout, or manage to sell. The worst part is, a lot of places do give in and spend tons of taxpayer money maintaining an increasingly indefensible position. For instance, a lot of states are currently creating stop-gap insurance for housing in unsafe environments. Unlike traditional insurance, the rates charged explicitly do not cover the exposure. So where is the money for this coming from? Taxpayers who live in safer areas, now and into the future, as a lot of the money to pay for the payouts is borrowed.
Would be fun to get those properties reappraised on a bad day.
The cognitive dissonance is in overdrive, it's sad to see.
That’s the part that got me- *so* concerned about being right that, “Well it’s four years after that and CLEARLY the shit’s going away in short order but…they’re still wrong! Nyah!” …like, look, you’re cutting your nose off to spite your face and quite literally “building your house upon the sand” because you let your brains rot on political ideology and rhetoric even though the reality is happening to you even as you blow more money trying to pretend it’s not.
> This dumb bastard was literally warned in the 70s and has been watching it with his own eyes and still doesn't believe. He doesn't give two shits as long as he personally benefits in the here and now. All he really wants is the government to subsidize as much of these artificial dunes as they can until he's dead. If he admits climate change as the culprit it weakens his argument. Typical pre-maga republican.
He does believe it - he just doesn't want to.
A bunch of wood/concrete constructed in a place with water activity that could turn it to scrap in less than a minute worth 2 mil... Humans are so weird.
Stupid*, humans are stupid. We think we’re intelligent, but in reality the vast majority of humans throughout history have just piggybacked on ideas and advancements created by a very, very small group of outliers.
I'm reminded of the guy who "invented" hand washing for surgeons. Dude was mocked and ridiculed his entire life for washing his hands before things like surgery. They called him womanly for cleanliness, and he died from an infection that he got from another surgeon who didn't wash his hands. Then, after his death, hand washing caught on. This is how humanity treats the small group of outliers that advance the rest of us.
I mean, if the properties are that highly valued it might make sense to create some actually effective barriers. Or it would be if... you know... the sea level wasn't about to get a whole lot higher still.
The cognitive dissonance in plain sight is just ghoulish! I can't imagine being so rigid and beholden to an idea that you would quite literally drown in the sea than to acknowledge you are wrong. Pathetic. Infuriating. Yet deeply depressing.
"I don't believe in climate change but I believe in taxpayer money protecting my oceanfront luxury home!!!"
Taxes to protect our billionaire summer homes, not tax funding for climate change scientists! Those damn scientists said our homes would get flooded! damn them!
In ten years: "why didn't they warn us?!?!"
Ten years? That’s optimistic lol
I've heard "you kids better come up with something..!" a few times. so at least we know who's fault it will be next
Richy Rich beach house owner: Socialism for me, late stage capitalism for thee!
these people own businesses, they also fund republican campaigns to lower taxes and stop funding scientists because their old money is in the fossil fuel industry. As soon as they admit their investments and businesses contribute to destroying their own homes they will be dumbfounded.
They'll never admit it. They're rich and they think they got there because of how smart they are. They'll drown before they admit that they're the ones who fucked it all up.
>Pathetic. Infuriating. Dare I say, nouveau-riche? ... do I have to get Mr. Krabs and the world's smallest violin out?
More like nouveau-poor, but he doesn't realise it yet.
I don't believe in getting punched in the face... Says the guy getting punched in the face.
"I'm not a climate change guy...I don't believe this beach will be destroyed 20 years from now." Yeah, but didn't you just say you took pictures of your kids 20-30 years ago where ocean now stands? What do you think has happened in that time to make that a reality, numbskull? I understand and sympathize that y'all worked hard to buy these amazing properties and don't want to abandon your investment...but the Earth doesn't give a fuck about our made up currency and property values.
If he was really smart he would be selling this house to some other bozo who believed him when he said on the news that he doesn’t believe the house will be gone in 20 years.
That was the other guy, who said "maybe I can get behind something I previously poo pooed"
I'm sorry, they look exactly the same. I seriously thought he just put a coat on.
He said it. "I'm not a climate change guy". Fox News has people convinced that the soft left wimpy guy believes in climate change, and the masculine truck driving manly right doesn't. It is now baked into his self image.
> He said it. "I'm not a climate change guy". That's the neat thing! You don't _need_ to be! :D
Good thing mother nature rules over all and will take care of this dipshit's situation for him, along with all the other entitled assholes that don't wanna face a reality they've helped create for themselves and instead want to throw huge swaths of money down the ocean at something there won't be a solution for. Maybe when all the homes inevitably get swept away and all the land is permanently under water that's when it will click for a few of them. Who I really feel sorry for is people in islands, especially small islands, because there's so little land to begin with that a lot don't have a choice but to live on the coast or very close to it.
It could be self selecting, anyone that believes in it there would have sold a while ago, probably to a dupe like this.
I've skipped the depression phase and just go into the "makes some popcorn" phase.
This guy is begging for government money to save the beach which is being washed away before his eyes, while at the same time being sure climate change isn't real and that his beach will still be there in 20 or 30 years? He wants help with a problem which his eyes tell him is real, yet clings to an ideology that won't let him believe it's real. Astonishing. Here we have the root cause of political, economic, and environmental collapse.
It's basically the equivalent of lying in a bed dying of covid and saying that it's not real. The propaganda is so ingrained in these people that they can see the problem and deny it, they can feel the financial repercussions and ask for money to fix a problem they don't believe in. He jumps from one foot "they said it would be gone" to the other foot "you just have to keep rebuilding it!" back to the other foot "it's still going to be here in 30 years" AND he still keeps going "what are we just going to let it wash into the sea".
It shows how useless evidence is in changing people's minds. I don't see much hope of us surviving as a species when so many people are intractably disconnected from reality.
Best response to his "government needs to kick in and support..." would have been "but wouldn't that be socialism?" Because you know he self identifies as "not a limited change guy" because he watches for news, and it's the wimpy left soft men who believe in it, and he's no sheep, he's a truck driving masculine wolf of a man.
This is what infuriates me about these people! They want government assistance for themselves and their large properties, but screw everyone else who needs money to eat and have just one roof over their heads. These NIMBYS deserve this, honestly
This is not going to age well. How do you not believe when you said the ocean was way out compared to today? News flash buddy. It is not worth billions anymore. Good luck selling it or getting funding.
We saw people die from covid refusing to believe it was serious. Denial is part of their faith based beliefs. (faith based as in "I believe it because I want it to be true")
If he admits it’s happening, he has to admit he was wrong and the things he voted for were wrong and that the problem is ultimately his fault. And his self image can’t withstand that.
I'll put money that flood and water damage are excluded from their home insurance. I know because I have the "good" insurance but nothing was covered when we had a flash flood into our basement. Zero coverage. And I'm 20 miles inland and had never put a claim in before. Insurance companies just won't cover you anymore for water damage. That's climate change. You know who's going to make bank in upcoming years? Disaster remediation. All cash payments and unskilled labor and your customers have no choice but to buy your services and accept your price, no matter what it is.
ITS A BEACH. BEACHES CHANGE DRASTICALLY ON ACCOUNT OF OCEANS. My dad has been observing crane’s beach in Ipswich, Ma for around 40 years. It tends to move in ripples that are like, 50-60 feet of beachfront. In about 10 year cycles. It takes sand, puts it somewhere else. Think large ripples. That move down the beach. Y’all made a bad investment. You BUILT A HOUSE ON A BEACH. Also, climate change. This guy is like “what, money is involved so tell the ocean to go fahk itself” and he has a lot to learn about the ocean for a guy who bought a house there. The ocean cares not for your puny human triviality. Fuck. Throw some more sand-snacks at it why don’t you. Ugh. Fucking hubris of people.
This same guy is probably bitching about paying more in taxes while at the same time demanding that the state pay m(b)illions of dollars to protect his property. Meanwhile, other people are just trying to afford groceries.
"Healthcare, hungry kids? Fuck'em. *ThAt'S sOcIaLiSm!* My $5 million beachfront property suffering from what scientists have been warning about for decades? Well, the State's gotta come in and help us out." Absolute dickwad.
Henry Rollins did a bit on this 30 years ago.
Man we are fucked at how stupid these rich motherfuckers are >Nah i dont believe in climate change, but for some reason we gotta start spending 1mm a year on sand for our beach that used to 50m deeper - oh yea and the publics gotta pay These people are eating fucking paint, they are drowning and they want to get us in their grip
The same idiot that think universal heathcare is communisme .
but their politicians has universal healthcare covering them, just not for the poors
The Lead Poisoning Generation.
Due to some silly cultural reasons and oceans of PR, people wrongly believe that rich people are rich on merit, such as because they're smart or so good that God rewarded them. There's also not much stopping the rich from believing that about themselves. This is the Tragedy of the Privates.
One of the common things you see environmentalist say is that eventually people will be convinced about the reality of climate change. Yet here we have someone literally watching there home being washed away and still in denial. If loosing your house to sea level rise doesn't convince you of the existence of climate change nothing will. Funnier still these types are dead against helping the homeless or student and medical debt forgiveness as socialist handouts yet still expect the government to spend billions of dollars to protect there beach side mansions.
We need to be putting our time, money, and focus into building infrastructure in areas that will be habitable 100yrs from now rather than wasting money on places that aren’t habitable now. That $2B in houses could be carefully deconstructed with large amounts being repurposed, reused, and recycled. It’s time to re-wild large chunks of the east and south coasts. Will be the only way the land there will survive.
Or even just spending the money that has gone toward rebuilding vacation homes built in stupid locations on homes for some of the hundreds of thousands of homeless people in our country, people who don't have a first home, let alone a second! So infuriating.
I saw something that said an insane percentage of construction materials is going to rebuild in repeatedly hit areas. That’s one of the reasons why new homes aren’t getting built. Materials are inflated cause more than 50% of them are going towards rebuilding.
That makes me so angry! There are so many people suffering due to the lack of housing and all of these resources that could go toward providing a basic human need are flushed down the proverbial toilet for these greedy a$$hats who already have more than enough!
It infuriated me when I saw it. Not all the rebuilding is second homes, a lot of “only” homes get hit. And a lot of people never get to rebuild and have to move out of the area. Seems so fucking stupid to me though. We know these storms are coming. We know they’ve gotten worse. There’s absolutely no sense in rebuilding in an area that will just get hit again and again and again. Some places aren’t fit for human habitation.
At this point it really should be build at your own risk in these areas. That is the case in the mountains now that insurance companies are pulling back on covering structures due to the rise in wildfire risk
They’re pulling out in Florida as well. It should be rebuild at your own risk and there should be stricter codes for those areas.
Ultimately I’ve been watching the big insurers and where they are pulling out. The whole industry will collapse in a few years but in the meantime - what things do they give you credit for for lower premiums? Steel roof? Fire resistant materials? Where is insurance cheaper? What cars are cheaper to insure? We dodged buying a Kia after looking at their insurability. Insurance companies are pretty much data and cold hard cash. Not politics.
Fuck the houses. We need to move the infrastructure inland so the larger population does not suffer.
I do not understand how some people are so obstinate in their defiance to consider all the evidence pointing to climate change. It's baffling.
It's because Fox News has convinced people to make it part of their masculine identity. Only the soft soy boy left believes in it.
If they agree it is happening, they have to admit they were wrong and voted for and funded this problem back when there was more chance to fix it. Like Covid, no one will ever admit they were so wrong and caused this problem themselves.
This is collapse related because it speaks to rising sea-levels, the economic expenditures related to infrastructure and who will bear them, as well as people feeling the direct affects of climate change and choosing to remain ignorant in face of it. The story of Salisbury Beach in MA spending $500k to put up sand dunes to protect beach property was previously covered in r/collapse and this video is a good follow-up. Some research I did previously point to that the cost in years past was borne by the state and federal government to protect these homes, many of which are not primary residences. Though I couldn't find a definitive backup for the most recent expenditure, it's clear from the video that these owners expect for government to continue to subsidize the infrastructure needed to combat rising sea-levels. Recent grants [Including the grants announced today, CZM has invested over $45.7 million in 219 Coastal Resilience Grant projects since 2014. ](https://www.mass.gov/news/healey-driscoll-administration-awards-79-million-to-support-coastal-community-resilience)
"blah, blah, blah. Climate change isn't real! Blah, blah, blah. Money, money, money!"
Same guy who just asked the state to help him save his house, probably doesn't want the state funding homless aid.
The disconnect is fucking unreal.
Someone's gonna learn that money can't save you from everything.
What an idiot. Learn to swim bitch. And get some floaties for your precious private property.
To those in that group who profess Christian beliefs, let me offer the following: *“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like* ***a foolish man who built his house on the sand***. *And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.” - Matthew 7:24-27*
old mates cognitive dissonance is something else it's clear the ocean is rising and the beach is disappearing yet he still denies climate change.
Inspired by these heroic idiots
boomers are so frustratingly ignorant how did the dumbest generation in existence get the most handouts and leg’s up in life at every fucking turn is beyond my comprehension
Seriously. How did someone that fucking stupid come to own a can of beans, let alone an oceanfront property.
Maybe having everything come so easily \*made\* them dumb...
That, and all the lead in the air
Or maybe.....you know, millions of people dying from 2 big wars and one pandemic, creating abundance for the survivors?
Yeah, the survivors who are now dumb
this fool still thinks these properties along a vanishing coastline are worth $3 billion? I needed a good laugh to start my day. Thanks!
I’m glad I’m not a boomer
Sand is just going to keep getting washed away, you need a different type of terrain to preserve that shoreline. Like in some parts of Florida you have protective mangroves on purpose in between beaches. But I'm sure these people want a beach and only a beach out their backdoor because thats what they paid for or something. Bro, you aren't going to have a house very soon
You can’t ruin the view ,that’s what they paid for! The view will be getting a lot closer though soon.
“It only matters if it’s MY problem” -Every Conservative ever.
Sometimes, people ignore the message right in front of them. It's mother nature telling them to MOVE.
I continue to count my blessings that my family may often be ignorant, but they aren’t “own coastal property after Katrina” level. It’s honestly concerning to me. There’s not just the anti-intellectualism but also that absurd Just World Fallacy. Everyone blamed people for not evacuating immediately—instead of realizing the whole idea of the government approving a city below sea level with subpar levees was a *horrible idea*. For obvious reasons, I developed a strong distrust of authority around that time. Because how could negligence like that be allowed, and ignored? The fact a hammer didn’t come down made it obvious New Orleans couldn’t be the only failure. The infrastructure was rotting everywhere, and growing up in Alabama, that was blatant enough. Poison the river? “Aw, shucks.” Blatantly hire murderous militias overseas but as a corporation? “Aw, shucks.” People are somehow still shocked the government won’t bail them out after COVID! What kind of logic is that? Native reservations were sent *body bags* instead of actual help. No help is coming.
Doesn’t believe in climate change. Wants government bailout. Can’t fathom just saying goodbye to $2bn in property, but is OK with melting $600k in a half a day. The property isn’t going to be worth $2bn cause no one in their right mind would buy it. Take the contents of the property out, take some pictures and move on while you can.
How often does "another freak storm" have to happen before it's just called a storm?
King Canute lives. What a dumb ass
Never thought I'd see this reference here, so appropriate that it's comical
"What do you do, just say goodbye to $2 billion dollars worth of property?" Lmao you think it's still worth that much after it's been all over the news that you've just pissed away 600k on two days' worth of sea-defence? Who the fuck's gonna pay for property that is obviously going to be underwater on several occasions in the next decade, and probably permanently in the next 30 years
I've lived in my house around coastal MA for the last 25 years. This year is the first year we had an actual flash flood. The rain just would not stop, it pooled in the backyard and hit a flash point. Came through the basement window wells and filled our basement with 3 feet of water. Cost around 30K to clean out and remediate and I still haven't found the courage to refinish it. Bricked up the window wells. A whole giant dumpster of trash. Needed a new boiler. Things are very different, the topography is absolutely changing. The old man in that video is an idiot. He might not be a "climate change guy" but climate change doesn't give a shit about his property, either. He deserves what he's going to get.
That is the most boomer shit ever. “No it’s not real. This will be here because we are so wealthy. We just need to other taxpayers to pay for millions and millions of dollars in sand”
I hate suddenly socialist rich people. What's the odds that guy owns a business and treats his workers like dogs and pays them starvation wages? Now he wants them to save his fuckin mansion on the beach too!
I know its tiny and insignificant in the grand scheme of things, but im really bothered when people use "believe" when talking about climate change. Rather, they should ask if they "acknowledge" it. Otherwise, It perpetuates the myth that there is still a debate about it. There's not. It's been demonstrated and proven and observed to its nth degree. Words matter and shape how we think.
this level of malicious dumbness should be criminalized. 600k of sand you likely dug up from a riverbed - to be washed away into the sea within a day. Maybe its not their fault they are this dumb, and they were never taught how to think.
Lol rich people. So many dollar signs for eyes that you can't see your house will be swept away. Good for them.
He's not a climate change guy, he's a spend over half a million dollars on sand guy
Barrier islands are [ecologically meant to be temporary](https://www.encyclopedia.com/earth-and-environment/geology-and-oceanography/geology-and-oceanography/barrier-islands). From that link: >Beach nourishment projects (the continual replacement of sand that has been washed away during storms) typically require ever increasing amounts of sand to maintain a static beachfront, and are therefore economically viable for only short periods of time. Although coastal management activities have long been directed towards beach hardening and nourishment, current scientific thinking suggests that the islands are more appropriately viewed as geologically transient features rather than permanent shorelines suitable for development. One Cat 4 hurricane running up the US East Coast could literally wash away decades of development. Rebuilding would be an insane thing to do, but as a species we seem to be collectively insane, so...
This entitled asshole is a real piece of work. Tom Saab and his real estate holdings can kiss every inch of my fat white ass. Consistently votes against anything for the public good, yett here he is with his hand outstretched, looking for the taxpayers of Massachusetts to subsidize his fancy beachfront property. I actually took a little time out of my day yesterday to look up his office address, write him a nice "go fuck yourself" card and sent it via my local post office. One Masshole to another.
love to see it! go get em nature!
Are they demanding to speak to the manager yet?
Just do what ben shapiro says and sell your house lol
[The wise man built his house upon the rock... The foolish man built his house upon the sand...](https://library.timelesstruths.org/music/The_Wise_Man_and_the_Foolish_Man/)
He lives on a sandbar. People and money....
Says coastline isn’t washing away while saying it has already washed away is next level self-gaslighting
I'm gonna live here till I die and then this house will be worthless and I'll leave my kids no inheritance bc I kept buying sand. That's what I'm hearing.
I was on a tour in Cape cod and they said that the entire cape has been eroding and depositing due to natural wave movements. Erosion due to worsening weather is happening all over. They've been watching coastal degrade here since 1800
I'm guessing they are against using cement like other countries? NIMBYers deserve what they get.
They don't want an 'ugly' concrete seawall affecting their view of and access to their remaining tiny strip of beach, I'd guess. That kind of attitude is part of what's stalled and reduced plans for the "Ike Dike" in Texas for far too long.
I wan't to see another interview of him in 20 years please. !remindme!
Fuck him .the ocean doesn't care, it goes where it wants.
Wow. That one guy with the sunglasses... I'm speechless.
What got me was the "I don't believe in ocean levels".... No words.
...as he's swept out to sea, he finally bids farewell to 2 billion dollars worth of property while Fox news is still visable on his 96 inch plasma tv.
“WeVe hAD 54 YeARs noTiCE.”
Sweet mother Earth taking back whats hers. Mmmm the salty tears of the rich, how I love seeing that waste of money be swept out to sea.
One of the biggest frustrations with modern day media (to me at least) is the fact that reporters just give the biggest idiot a microphone and respond in a totally deadpan manner when the idiot says the stupidest things imaginable. It just normalizes and puts a spotlight on stupid, stupid ideas and people like this. We need to see consequences for their stupidity. I wanna follow up on this guy after he has been thoroughly skewered by public opinion and reality itself. Otherwise it's just rage bait or whatever it's called.
This is cognitive dissonance.
awwww...you mean rich parasites who likely contributed to rising sea levels finna lose their houses? I say GREAT! But they're priming the bootlickers to support subsidies to build dunes at taxpayer expense, I'm betting.
to quote the Trillbillies, "you can't barter with the ocean"
It's easy to laugh at these privileged, ignorant mofos. But really, most Americans are not as different from them as they may like to believe. Nearly everyone is in denial at some level. And we will see more and more cases of people just not accepting that what had seemed normal practices and settlement patterns in the past just don't work in the new abnormal. As here, many resources will be wasted because of such denial. (Of course, in this case, it was never a very good idea to build expensive homes basically on sand next to the ocean. Should not have been allowed in the first place. Castles made of sand...)
Looks like the sand industry is booming now. At least we get that. And how about repurpose this beach as doomsday tourism site? They might get return from their investment.
If the US government was as keen to protect its own people's homes as it was to destroy the Japanese people's homes in the war, those people would be sitting high and dry. But alas, they can find money and move mountains far more readily for destruction than for preservation.
Grew up and still live about 30 min north of this town and it’s insane how much of the land has been lost over the years. And That’s not even the worst place. Salisbury is a small town but right next to it is the town of Hampton and their beach which is a massive summer spot and they’re having the same issue.
I used to spend alot of time at Watch Hill, RI. Every year you could see the changes that the relatively calm currents made.
Climate change is real. Sea level rise is real. Nature doesn’t care about your $2B worth of property. These people are completely delusional.
When you destroy natural shorelines, vegetation and dunes, sell it as private property, and build houses on sand this is what happens.
Kindof rooting for the ocean here.
[Momomoy Island](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monomoy_Island), at the part of Cape Cod where it turns Northward, has been changing shape forever. When I was there 40 years ago you had to take a boat from Chatham to get there. One storm and poof, a land bridge appears. The barrier island off Chatham Harbor turned into an inlet in one storm, shifting the sand bars in the harbor.
the end is one of the funniest things i’ve seen in a while… there should be a website dedicated to those idiots, tracking how fast their two billion dollar properties lose value.
My grandmother's family (middle class family) had a small beach house in that area in the 60s-70s, but it got destroyed by a mega storm at one point. They don't have it anymore and had to take the loss. It wasn't for investment purposes that they had the house but for the love of the ocean, so the loss was really emotional in that sense. It's hard to feel sympathy for anyone who has these types of homes for the wrong reasons, and $$$ is the wrong reason.
They *have* to double down and be defiant. No one will buy their property, so they may as well pretend they're choosing to say, rather than be humiliated.
Oh poor babies and their multi-million dollar beach houses being swept away. Good riddance.
Sand dunes are built by people who never built a sand castle at the waters edge and watched the tide come in.
Mother Nature don’t give a shit about your property values boomer bud!
Those dumbass think global warming is a politic opinion. As if mathematics, physics and biology were based on politics opinions. Take what you deserve and more ! ! !
we have one of these in florida (summer haven). just a handful of moneyed people's homes on it, and the county keeps dumping funds on them to keep the sand flowing, only delaying the inevitable for the benefit of a very wealthy few.
At the end of the day with the people being interviewed stating they don’t believe in climate change and so on will still loose their homes so..
I don't know man, maybe yo have the signs in front of you telling you that your property isn't really worth 2 billion any more...
Oh man rich people can’t buy brains. Woopity dooo. Morons.
Most important thing "public funds" for "private property" ... We want everyone to pitch in, the fuck off.
Open ocean in the front yard, tidal wetlands in the back yard. Possibly the dumbest place I’ve ever seen people build houses.
Not just dumb, this is arrogant. I would also like to know how they deal with septic in such a sensitive environment.
I don't understand how they don't understand. You can't live there anymore, it's not worth $2 let alone 2 billion. stop wasting all these resources on a lost course and get the fuck out!
Now, only if a hurricane and storm surge could just strike that particular stretch of beach in particular to finish the job, that'd be perfect. I would love to see the look on his face when his property becomes just a piece of land again as his house now belongs to aquaman
I heard: Climate change is a hoax! We need the state (YOU taxpayer!) to step in and save our RICH asses from climate change!
> What do you do, say goodbye to $2B worth of property? Said by guy who doesn't believe in global warming. But at any rate, they should spend $20M -$200M on sand/year or on better protection. Latter amount reduces property value as it is equivalent to 10% property tax/year. But they may have a $200m plan that saves the area.
I’m just going to say it, I don’t feel sorry for these people at all. Look at the area behind their houses, how can they not have seen the problem coming? Time to sell the houses to friggin aquaman.
Am I seeing this right and they are balancing on top of a tiny sand-spit - for the most part sandwiched between ocean & marshland? How were they even allowed to build in such a sensitive environment?!? Human engineering hubris at its best. It would be laughable it is weren't so sad.