This stems from the situation that reminds us that it is not just a new environment of expressive instrumentality (the vast changes in media, information, and the ways that they can now affect our physical reality), but also the accumulated effects of centuries of commercialized, industrial throughput (encompassing all of the production, and consumption) on our planet's many natural systems (which would include social systems, as well as the various physical process systems).
I make this claim for liability based off of the linked Bloomberg article below. In it do we see the coming absurdity of a new legal doctrine concerning the "Takings Clause" of the Constitution's Fifth Amendment; articulated by Justice Ginsburg that (quoting from the article J.V.):
...the government should compensate a property owner for a taking if it has interfered with a “reasonable, investment-backed expectation.” That is, if it was reasonable to expect that a home you invested in wouldn’t flood, but it does, and a court finds the government responsible, then compensation could be due...
Whereupon, of course, it becomes a question of what is "reasonable" if so many systems may be sliding, or are near sliding, into various forms of cascade effect, as one sustaining process after another alters profoundly, or ceases to exist altogether, under the onslaught of accumulated human endeavor. Whereupon as well change begins to accelerate far beyond any system to handle; prepared or not.
As the article reiterates, it is a flood zone, bayou area to begin with. One that reasonable people decided the government had to take a role in managing (back in the sixties). This in turn leads to certain assumptions being made on old weather data, so that insurance norms could be put down, so as to not make them be mandatory. These people were told a certain set of odds and then made investments based on those odds. If the odds are always going to be changing, however, who's fault is it?
What is especially interesting here, for someone with my perspective, is that what we ought to have here is at the basic foundation of enlightened self interest that should guide a Libertarian, Socialist form of government (at least as I see it): that these people should be helped regardless of fault. And, in fact, if you got rid of Capitalism, a tremendous portion of why you would want to spend so much time, and effort, in the first place to figure such things out (where it is usually only the lawyers who make out), would just vanish. The union of communities, as well as the individual communities involved themselves, would automatically be the unified payers, as well as joint holders of all liability. This would be, in fact, an essential aspect of the new social contract (hammered out through, no doubt, tough negotiations within the redefinition of the Constitution).
And let me be clear here. This sense of "enlightened self interest" stems from what ought to be the obvious fact now that everything affects everything else. It is so precisely because of so much change in the scope and power of our new forms of instrumentality. It is, in every sense of the phrase, a new fact of life; unless, of course, we fall back to some dark age, apocalyptic fantasy; where most, if not all, technology is lost. A horrible fate indeed, but one, given how severe climate change might get without correction, that might still qualify for the "we should be so lucky" type of assessment.
Instability is our common enemy now exactly because things have already become, and are likely to continue to become, more unstable. As such we must do everything we can, within the guidelines of a thoughtful, and caring balance, to alleviate such instability. In this poverty, and deprivation of whatever form, is just as important as too much carbon in the atmosphere; too much competition for markets and resources just as poisonous as the chemicals used to do fracking. And the more we can find ways to tolerate others (even if their beliefs are onerous) and cooperate (where the rule is every individual has the right to vote with their feet, just as every community as a right to live as it sees fit, just as long as it is a case of no specific harm, no foul) to the greatest degree possible.
Make no mistake. This will require an arduous rework of our constitution. That's just the way it has to be. Get that through your heads. It is absolutely mandatory. Just as we must mobilize ourselves to the maximum degree any other grave threat might require. We must do this because we must all be involved in working to redefine, and reorganize, every community that exists in this nation. Just as the Federal Government itself must be redefined, and reorganized.
This is what you must do if you want to have any hope of surviving what is likely to come; or of being able to do so in something that still qualifies as a decent standard of living. Wait too long and events will simply dictate what we collapse into, when the truly serious feces starts hitting us in about ten to twenty years from now (or sooner). Given the trends so far the likelihood is that it will be one hell of a authoritarian nightmare. It will have to be in order to force order of some form or another; and even that won't be able to survive the dire rise of oceans, or the creation of vast swaths of completely uninhabitable land, or water; as well as the many social dislocations, and bloody armed conflicts, indefinitely.
Better think long and hard on this one before you decide to continue doing nothing.
The U.S. Flooded One of Houston’s Richest Neighborhoods to Save Everyone Else
See Also:
Experts worry that if insurers start to pull out of full-prone seaside communities, it could cause a crisis worse than 2008.
See Also:
As climate liability lawsuits rise, industry forces are fighting back.
