Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2024/06/03/panama-evacuating-densely-populated-islands-as-sea-levels-rise.html
…
10 Likes
Do you think that will include removing all the buildings instead of letting them wash away, threatening other shores?
5 Likes
Coming soon to a low-lying coastal area in your advanced economy.
6 Likes
Unfortunately, I don’t think so. The price tag seems way too low for that to be included.
5 Likes
The economics of it are stark - the article itself isn’t linked, but the AP article states that the government plans to move 38,000 people in the short and mid-term at a cost of 1.2 billion (about $32,000/person). This particular island is being evacuated to a development of concrete houses built on a grid system that is 2 km inland from the port. The indigenous community that has been there for centuries developed a subsistence economy centered around fishing and more recently cruise-ship tourism:
Leaving the island is “a great challenge, because more than 200 years of our culture is from the sea, so leaving this island means a lot of things,” López said. “Leaving the sea, the economic activities that we have there on the island, and now we’re going to be on solid ground, in the forest. We’re going to see what the result is in the long run.”
9 Likes
They’ve been planning this move for over 15 years, but it sounds like the recent problems caused by loss of coral reef more than sea level rise. Climate change contributes the reef destruction, but pollution and physical damage by humans (intentional and unintentional) will do it faster.
5 Likes
They should have offered it them on Hacker News. They could have had seasteading anarchocapitalist techbros bidding against each other, each sure only they are the genius to solve the intractible problems in the physical system.
3 Likes
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
