There is a $20 billion plan to protect New York from rising sea levels.
Are these examples of wealthier areas being able to afford local and regional mitigation while not being willing to act on the global problems ?
The city and regional level solutions have a clearer connection between the mitigation and the problem to be mitigated. Paying a tax for the $20 billion plan for New York protection is clearly beneficial to people near the water with multimillion dollar homes. $20,000 from one million people or $200,000 from one hundred thousand people can make sense if they are clearly preventing losses that are greater than those amounts.
The politics and self interest for global solutions are more problematic.
Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong and other wealthy places can get organized to pay and prevent threats. New Orleans and coastal cities in Africa may be able to pay for regional mitigation and may not be able to convince others in their nation to help them pay for it.
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Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
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