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This is a very good essay, thank you. As is my habit, I have some questions.

Who bears the liability for these projections? For example, if study X says 2 meters of rise, and the state spends billions of dollar building seawalls, relocating residents, etc., and SLR comes in a 0.8 meters? Do the authors of study X (if they are still alive) just shrug and say, "oops, my bad?" Does the state then reimburse taxpayers for its poor investment?

What if the opposite happens, study Y says 0.2 M and SLR comes in at 2.0 M? Are the authors for study Y liable for damages?

I raise these questions to lead to a more general question: of all of the "effects" of climate change, SLR seems to be the most innocuous. Groundwater moves faster! why are millions being spent trying to predict something that is decades away, instead of identifying vulnerable areas and measures that might be available to reduce vulnerability, SHOULD THE LAND OWNER DETERMINE THE RISK OF LOSS IS TOO GREAT.

Beaches come and go due to erosion, sea level rise, sea level drop (glaciers). Nothing is permanent; why are we so concerned about keeping it so?

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Hi Jessica, have emailed you as well. Would love to have you on Reality Check Radio NZ as we have a national framework for Coastal Adaptation (!!) becoming paw soon based in RCP 8.5!

Could you please contact us at

Jaspreet@realitycheck.radio

More details on the Coastal Adaptation at

https://kapiticalm.com/media/

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Great piece. The first tables showing the three reports' scenarios was hard for me to read. The left section for the 2012 report contained no fewer than four very obvious typos:"Llowest", "scneario", "sotrylines", "acceleartion"

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ack! I can't make it more legible because of the dimensions. But I will fix the typos

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Ah, I thought the typos were in the original. Legibility is fine in the blown up version.

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They were. I just fixed them and replaced the image. Thanks for pointing these out!

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Preparedness $cience at work

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