<story><title>Rising groundwater caused by climate change could devastate coastal communities</title><url>https://thinknewsmedia.com/2021/12/13/how-rising-groundwater-caused-by-climate-change-could-devastate-coastal-communities/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>deltree7</author><text>Capitalism and Free Market.&lt;p&gt;On an individual basis, apart from zero-cost sustainable habits, if you are capable, become a master of science, attempting to solve energy, material, carbon and climate issue at a physics level. If you are a craftsman, observe all the day-to-day activities of humans, tinker&amp;#x2F;hack and attempt to solve the same workflows more sustainably.&lt;p&gt;If you have a solution either through hacks or science, you&amp;#x27;ll have unbelievable amount of capital coming to you to scale your solution. Capitalists will be tripping over themselves to hand you money.&lt;p&gt;Here&amp;#x27;s what will 100% not work -- Activism or Trying to &amp;#x27;Policy&amp;#x27; out of your way of Climate Change problems.&lt;p&gt;Also, no government will ever fund your crazy little idea that has 0.0001% chance of succeeding with 10000x impact. Here&amp;#x27;s who may fund it -- your favorite evil Billionaire.</text></item><item><author>_Microft</author><text>Someone submitted this a few posts earlier: &amp;quot;The Amazon is turning into savannah – we have 5 years to save it&amp;quot;, &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=29540946&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=29540946&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Two sides of the same coin but the groundwater problem seems easier to solve. Not because it is technically easier but because the incentives for (rich countries) seem to be a lot stronger. Preventing the own area from flooding is way less abstract than indirectly caused deforestation somewhere in the world, with effects that will be felt only years or decades into the future.&lt;p&gt;Without wanting to highjack this submission (the Amazon submission didn&amp;#x27;t gain traction, unfortunately) but any ideas how this problem could be solved and how one could contribute to a solution?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>NationalPark</author><text>How does this solve the problem of externalities that exists today? And what do you do if no genius ever comes along with such a &amp;quot;silver bullet&amp;quot; solution to invite venture funding? Keep waiting and hope they are born before the externalities catch up and it&amp;#x27;s too late?</text></comment>
<story><title>Rising groundwater caused by climate change could devastate coastal communities</title><url>https://thinknewsmedia.com/2021/12/13/how-rising-groundwater-caused-by-climate-change-could-devastate-coastal-communities/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>deltree7</author><text>Capitalism and Free Market.&lt;p&gt;On an individual basis, apart from zero-cost sustainable habits, if you are capable, become a master of science, attempting to solve energy, material, carbon and climate issue at a physics level. If you are a craftsman, observe all the day-to-day activities of humans, tinker&amp;#x2F;hack and attempt to solve the same workflows more sustainably.&lt;p&gt;If you have a solution either through hacks or science, you&amp;#x27;ll have unbelievable amount of capital coming to you to scale your solution. Capitalists will be tripping over themselves to hand you money.&lt;p&gt;Here&amp;#x27;s what will 100% not work -- Activism or Trying to &amp;#x27;Policy&amp;#x27; out of your way of Climate Change problems.&lt;p&gt;Also, no government will ever fund your crazy little idea that has 0.0001% chance of succeeding with 10000x impact. Here&amp;#x27;s who may fund it -- your favorite evil Billionaire.</text></item><item><author>_Microft</author><text>Someone submitted this a few posts earlier: &amp;quot;The Amazon is turning into savannah – we have 5 years to save it&amp;quot;, &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=29540946&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=29540946&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Two sides of the same coin but the groundwater problem seems easier to solve. Not because it is technically easier but because the incentives for (rich countries) seem to be a lot stronger. Preventing the own area from flooding is way less abstract than indirectly caused deforestation somewhere in the world, with effects that will be felt only years or decades into the future.&lt;p&gt;Without wanting to highjack this submission (the Amazon submission didn&amp;#x27;t gain traction, unfortunately) but any ideas how this problem could be solved and how one could contribute to a solution?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>davidw</author><text>Markets and capitalism are part of the solution, of course, but you absolutely do need policies to direct all that energy, at a high level.&lt;p&gt;Absent &amp;quot;policies&amp;quot; and enforcement, the cheapest way for a factory to dispose of waste is to dump it in the river. Same thing applies to CO2: dumping it in the atmosphere is cheap right now because the policies to deal with that externality aren&amp;#x27;t quite there.&lt;p&gt;An obvious example of a policy that might help would be a carbon tax that makes more carbon-efficient things more economically appealing.</text></comment>