After reading chapter 30, “Storm of the Century”, the author brings up the point about the government becoming engaged in the relocation of citizens away from the rising shoreline. As Mark FIschetti points out that “buyouts epitomize the ultimate solution to storm protection: retreat from the shore”. The current option is to use federal subsidize programs to motivate people to move to higher locations. Both of these options are monetary motivation to move enforced by the governments. THe problem with these solutions is that they only work in places with enough money to subsidize such things and have a government to actually enforce them.
Alternate solutions can include leaving it up to the people themselves to make the decisions on where they want to live. If the facts are placed in front of future homeowners they can make individual decisions and leave the government out of it. Maybe the family isn’t planning on living there very long so having a home on the beach front makes sense. Higher insurance will obviously be a part of the decision making processes, but I do not think that the government should be subsidizing and funding relocation policies.
-September 5, 2014
