swampman posted:

i really dislike this new american liberal narrative of "hey guess what conservatives, this is what life is going to be like from now on thanks to global warming." for several reasons. but most prominent is that, yes, severe weather is increasing in strength and frequency, but severe weather events also simply happen, and the extent of the damage should be used as the primary evidence of how crappy we're doing. look at the category three that struck new england directly in 1938, it caused identical forms of mayhem in new york city. but there were only 100 deaths outside of rhode island.

seeing pictures of the flooded brooklyn battery tunnel made me wonder why that tunnel isnt able to withstand a 13.5' storm surge when nyc has been hit about that hard at least once every eighty years since franking forever ago

back in the 90s someone from new orleans quite proudly told a young me that it didnt matter how low their city was because their levees were designed to withstand a direct hit from a category 3 hurricane. no one ever had an answer when i asked if they knew the scale went up to 5.

however, the problem with trying to engineer safety systems is that you always have to have a stopping point, some level of acceptable risk. every minute of every day that you don't hit that limit everyone will hate you because the safeties were a waste of money, and on the 1 in 100 years event that was outside your design range everyone will hate you because why didnt you know that was coming???

that's not a good answer and it doesnt excuse NYC for failing to prep for a sneeze with an attitude problem but especially in the public sector it's hard to get shit done when building city-scale protective systems requires a massive construction undertaking that costs a fuckload of money and can severely change the character of the cities and inconvenience lots of people who will piss and cry about traffic reroutes or noise so cheap hack politicians start slashing the budget you had to work with.

the reason the nyc subway tunnel wasnt prepared for a minor hurricane is the same reason it was reported after the bridge collapse in minneapolis that we need to spend a trillion dollars just to bring the bridges in the US up to marginal condition. public works dont benefit the people who pay off public officials.

discipline posted:

they should get something like the thames barrier for the harbor imo

sandy hook and rockaway are pretty far apart, like at least five miles

Groulxsmith posted:

discipline posted:

they should get something like the thames barrier for the harbor imo

sandy hook and rockaway are pretty far apart, like at least five miles

thats no problem, they're proposing a 10km long barrier for the thames estuary. also this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oosterscheldekering

discipline posted:

there was this awesome freakout story on the local NBC affiliate about people in the village EATING... OUT.... OF .... DUMPSTERS and my friend and I laughed so hard

the eternal menace of freeganism

tpaine posted:

discipline posted:

I lived in another country so I know what a kilometer AND a kilogram is

you come from a place where kilometer signs were routinely peppered with shotguns when they tried to put them up here so this is actually pretty impressive

lol

tpaine posted:

*iwc laughs at the homespun wisdom and quirky anecdotes in prairie home companion as his 4-wheel vehicle tears through the outback*

Nah all things considered is bad enough I literally can’t stomach that garrison Keilor shit at all.

Speaking of driving around laughing though next you see a fire truck with it’s sirens blazing, hurtling down the road, have a close look inside the cabin and they’re nearly always laughing their heads off, it’s weird

tpaine posted:

fringus why

it's good wholesome pop music?

getfiscal posted:

taylor swift's new album is really good

AGREED