Shoreline Gentry Are Fake Climate Victims

[WhiteTara]

http://www.wsj.com/articles/shoreline-gentry-are-fake-climate-victims-1480111739

The fake news problem is getting serious. An example appeared on the front page of the New York Times on Friday, under the headline “Rising Seas Turn Coastal Houses Into a Gamble.”

Supposedly elevated sea levels caused by global warming have homeowners and developers worried about the value of their coastal properties.

Supposedly their concern has been heightened by the election of Donald Trump, “who has long been a skeptic of global warming.”

Supposedly the Trump selection of Myron Ebell, a policy specialist who challenges the media consensus on global warming, to head the EPA transition has “intensified these worries in Florida and among many climate scientists.”

The emphasis is ours—though, of course, it’s probably true that somebody “in Florida” buys the thesis of this story, even if it’s just a Times reporter passing through.

Only in the second half of a 3,099-word opus is the truth not so much revealed as hinted. Halting and piecemeal reform of the federal flood-insurance subsidy program that has so benefited wealthy seaside homeowners is why beach-front housing prices are being reset.

[HassleCat]

1. Insurance scam

Wealthy people get new houses every 15 or 20 years. They build in a hurricane zone, a hurricane totals the house, and we pay to replace it.