Despite this comment being an ignorant throwaway, the irony is that markets can sometimes force the price of scarce natural resources up, which attracts investments because the goods are becoming scarce. In the short term, it could cause a spike in coastal property prices that would cause superficial analyses to conclude that there is no problem whatsoever, further fueling an exploitative short term bubble.
What will definitely be affected is insurance prices. Those are a better gauge of what the actuaries think is going to happen. We are already seeing that in Florida today and on the eastern seaboard, as insurance prices have skyrocketed. Some places are not even insurable.
I think you might have overlooked the point they were making.
Whether or not the market price is properly pricing in future risk is irrelevant. What OP is implying is that activists are engaged in cognitive dissonance, similar to what you commonly find in religious people. They say they 'believe' in something but you would not find any evidence of that 'belief' revealed in their behavior.
For example: believing that the world will end tomorrow, posting to social media that the world is going to end tomorrow, and then checking your work email at 8pm.
Yes, you can probably make a just-so story where they are buying beachfront property based on a belief they can unload it, or they will die, before it becomes worthless due to being underwater or destroyed by storms. I think the point stands however, and it underlines the importance of looking at revealed beliefs rather than simply stated beliefs.
(To be clear, the point depends on climate activists actually buying beachfront property, which I doubt is very common at all, so I don't actually think it's a good argument at all. However your response still misses the point.)
I believe that world ocean level will be catastrophic by 2100. I do not plan on living until anywhere near 2100. In fact, 2050 would be pushing it. If I wanted to have a nice seaside house *now*, why is that cognitive dissonance? Sure, it is likely that I'd have to give it up in 15-20 years, but I might not make it that long myself.
This is a great argument for renting. As the world updates it's estimate of the value of this property based on the fact it will have 0 value in the next 25-50 years your rent will keep going down, and you will preserve the massive investment you would have otherwise had to make, possibly by buying land 1-2 meters higher up that is currently undervalued.
But if someone has and enjoys beachfront property, that might actually be a motivation for wanting to protect it, and thus be an activist. That relationship is not so clearly hypocritical.
This is true, but I think a rational person would rent in this scenario?
The key thing is whether their belief that this property will be under water in 50 years is their actual belief, or if it's performative, or if they are experiencing cognitive dissonance where they 'believe' it in one context (what they say) but don't believe it in other contexts (like managing their finances). Again this is extremely common, people 'believe' that prayer works but also only rely on it when they lack practical solutions like taking Motrin, and the few people who really believe in the power of prayer are treated like they are mentally ill (for example when they refuse medical treatment for their children) by the very people who claim to 100% believe in the effectiveness of prayer.
This is just cope to try to find some coherent position to avoid dissonance collapse. If prayer works you should just use it exclusively.
The funny implication of this stupid parable is that God has become more effective at answering prayers exactly at the rate and in exactly the ways that humans have no longer need him Him to be. The ancient god of the bible had was powerless to cure cancer, but in 2025 he cures cancer all the time - via chemotherapy.
I wonder how many activists own ocean front properties? Not of course counting wealthy people who are concerned about climate change but are not activists.
But you should start worrying now. As someone who has been exposed to the environment all over the United States the change is here. And farmers are already adapting to it, they just do not believe it is caused from humans.
This is one of those comments that evokes an emotional response, but is devoid of actual content.
Is there some sinister plot involving activist beachgoers!?
What kind of data would anyone even have on whether or not climate change activists own oceanfront property and what percentage they own?
What would it even matter?
If anything, one would imagine that oceanfront property owners would in fact care more about the effects of climate change because they are most impacted, lol.
