i wish you and your folks a pleasant reminder of the weekend
Thanks!
Oren brings up the important role that wealth, both individually and nationally, will have as things continue to break. With no one willing, or perhaps able, to pay for the repairs or simply required maintenance, the future can look bleak.
When North Americans bemoan the loss Miami's white beaches, the Vietnamese may well hunger for delta grown rice. SLR is final, with Bangladesh, the Maldives ,and others set to lose so much of the land they need, that migration or genocide are the only alternatives available.
Under ASLR conditions the wealthy countries will need whatever resources they still possess to prop up their own failing infrastructure, just at the time that the have nots will require a massive influx of food and money just to stay afloat. (unintended) If Trump's followers consider today's levels of immigration to be problematical, wait until peoples land is literally washing out from beneath their feet.
Debt forgiveness now, while there is still some fluidity in the vaults of the wealthy, is essential. Squeezing those who will soon need these same resources for their own survival is neither morally correct nor fiscally sound. The moral argument seems self evident, while the fiscal imperative to either feed starving neighbors, or spend more trying to keep them out, indicates that early intervention might prove less expensive.
Three years ago Cuba had a $32B debt to Russia. Today that debt is gone. Cuba had been unable to make payments for years and Russia had a claim on whatever future assets Cuba might amass. Cuba, looking forward, will probably have more need of these Billions than a resurgent Russia.
If Germany, France, in fact the whole of industrialized Europe, would forgive Greece, Italy and other southern European states their debt, these states might have more of the resiliency needed in the coming decades. Similar arrangements are needed between the US and some central and south American nations. With the Monroe Doctrine the US took responsibility for all of the Americas, yet at present many are finding themselves insolvent and with huge debts to American banks.
Walls, fences, and coastal defenses, are expensive, inhumane, and ineffective. Historically only small island nations have had short lived success at keeping the barbarian's from the gate.
While the billions extant will never attain European or North American lifestyles, the excesses we waste could maintain many in livable conditions.
Had anyone thought to provide sufficient bread to those starving in Syria, perhaps millions would not now be banging on European doors. Had much of the middle east not suddenly lost it's infrastructure, their citizens would still be at home plotting football strategies. If NAFTA had not beggared Mexican corn farmers, their sons and daughters would be taking siesta under the tropical sun, rather than huddling in cold Chicago alleyways.
Wow, sorry for my extended revelry. The point I was trying to make is that it might prove less expensive to forgive debt at a national level, than to fight to "preserve our way of life" when starving people head in our direction.
Sea Level Rise is coming, and it won't be pretty whether viewed from under tattered tarpaulins or silver chandeliers.
Terry