this post was submitted on 19 May 2024
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Looks like bad engineering to me.
A lot of engineering was done assuming that rainfall behaved the way it did in the past. That's not a valid assumption anymore.
Those "once in a lifetime" or "once in a decade" weather events seem to be quite common these days
"Another 100 year flood" seems like a ridiculous headline at this point. Denial is everywhere.
"sure, the forest I played in as a kid is silent, the trees are dying, insects are sparse, we go back and forth between buried in 10ft of snow and heat wave drought inside a month, the river is low enough that it exposed carvings of 1,000 year old famine warnings, but we keep getting flooded every year with once in a lifetime storms, but there's NO EVIDENCE of climate change and I can prove it because [politician/company] said so"
Somewhat off topic but just some trivia from a geology weather class I took
100 year flood does not mean it happens every 100 years but there’s a 1/100 chance for it to happen annually
Putting climate change aside for a second for consistency sake, you could go for 150 or 200 years without a 100 year flood or on the other side only a 5 year gap for that 100 year flood if you’re unlucky
That's correct, it's about probability based on past known history. An area could get unlucky and have repeat conditions sooner than normal. When many areas appear to be having this same bad luck, it's time to reevaluate the probabilities. It's also why regular weather forecasts haven't seemed to get things as right as they used to...using the past percent chance probabilities in a changing environment doesn't hit as well as it used to.
Thanks for the input it never crossed my mind that weather (the thing that we can only predict) changes when the past data is no longer relevant
And a big problem we're having is that due to climate change those 1/100 chance events are changing for the worst.
Oh 10000% it’s why I said ignoring climate change. Weather events are getting more frequent and more extreme
As well as "once in a lifetime" financial crisis in the US.
At some point even the best plans aren't going to be enough, and the more we built the worse it gets. When an area gets water amounts in a day that it used to get in a year, that water simply isn't going anywhere fast. You know how evolution is about adaptation? I don't think we're adapting all that well or fast enough. (Yes, it's not quite the same thing, but the same point. Don't change, don't expect to survive)
B-b-but climate change isn't happening? - Republicans then
B-b-but think of the eCoNoMy!? - Republicans now
Climate change is happening and we should do something about it! - Bernie Sanders, always
Where did all these weird weather events come from? - centrists
If we ever do get the point of starting to actually fix climate change, those same Republicans will be whining that we should keep things the way they are (because by that point the rich will have figured out some way to profit from it).
Trump pulled out of the Paris Climate Accord, citing how Obama was being too radical about it all, so what you said literally has already happened!
Edit: but since you asked, they indeed do keep giving! https://programming.dev/post/14301895
When people talk about the cost of climate change, the updated/improved replacement engineering and construction are some of those costs. And the same exact people who initially denied climate change even existed and who are now downplaying its effects are the exact same people who will complain about the additional costs caused by the consequence of inaction.
Corporate spin: Climate change is creating more engineering jobs! We should keep at it!