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Warren Linney

Jun 24, 2013
04:44

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This database could be used to collect a voluntary tax from landowners and insurance companies to save their investments/ premiums. I envision an email campaign writing to the landowners asking them to pledge $$ in relation to the valuation of their properties and only collecting the pledge if some percent of the total valuations (10%?) is pledged to reduce sea level and hurricanes, etc. Our Carbon-Council is working on a nature based solution to reduce CO2 in the air and would cost $10-100 billion to return the air to 350ppm. This is a small price to pay for saving trillions in property. Warren@broadlink.com

Ben Lear

Jun 28, 2013
11:35

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I think this is a brilliant idea. Finally someone's using basic psychology in positioning climate change. Melting glaciers and sea water projections affect me sure, but bringing the risks to my front door changes everything. Also tapping into "big data" feels right to me. It's a knowledge source with unlimited growth potential, like the Internet at its beginning, that will continue providing data as the project grows. Basically this project has "common sense" stamped on its forehead.

2013shiftingculturesjudges 2013shiftingculturesjudges

Jul 2, 2013
01:46

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This is an interesting idea that could build on other recent initiatives, like FEMA's new flood plain maps or Climate Central's sea-level rise maps) and devise a platform in which these tools will actually be put to use in strategic planning decisions. The proposal could be improved by detailing how this would be accomplished and how potential users of the application would be recruited. Also, the term "sunk costs" could be problematic, given its meaning in economist as existing costs that cannot be recouped and this should be ignored in subsequent decisions.

Jun N

Jul 4, 2013
01:30

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A fresh approach, I hope it works!

Brent Schulkin

Jul 4, 2013
07:52

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To make the message hit home, it seems like a great idea to make the message LITERALLY hit home. Would love to see this happen!

Alfred Twu

Jul 18, 2013
02:36

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Can you partner with a real estate website so that when searching for homes, it's possible to filter not just by price and location, but by climate risk as well?

Keith Brower Brown

Jul 18, 2013
02:12

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Great suggestion, Alfred. We've learned that some staff at one of the major real estate websites has already expressed interest to climate researchers over incorporating a kind of climate risk evaluation into their housing search tool, for a limited area. We are looking into mitigation of the significant legal risks involved in such a direct engagement with real estate valuation, but suffice to say that is definitely an application of the tool that is of major interest to us.

2013shiftingculturesjudges 2013shiftingculturesjudges

Jul 18, 2013
04:10

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The team followed previous set of suggestions very well.

Rachel Barge

Jul 19, 2013
12:38

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This project has the potential to change everyday people's attitudes about climate change, by tying the impacts to their personal bottom line. It could do the same for two major sectors of the economy: real estate and insurance. If these industries came out in favor of significant climate solutions, we could see a major shift in the political landscape. This project is helping people realize they are on the front lines and will give them tools to advocate for themselves.

2013shiftingculturesjudges 2013shiftingculturesjudges

Jul 29, 2013
03:28

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Team followed previous set of suggestions very well

Kristen Schlott

Aug 22, 2013
08:52

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Not only would this shine the spotlight one some very important climate data in an accessible and graphically compelling way, it makes the much needed connection between projected changes in the environment and how that will impact people on an individual[, personal,] level.

David Camp

Aug 26, 2013
06:45

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Nice idea, but two cautions: 1) This map must be hyperlocal, very current and very accurate to have real credibility. 2) This may interfere with the important message that climate damage is costly no matter where we live, i.e. all Americans will pay heavily when Miami submerges or the Nebraska corn crop fails, even if we live thousands of miles from those places. It's not all about physical impacts to one's own land. Possible solution: estimate those overall costs and add them to the individual property effects.

Keith Brower Brown

Aug 27, 2013
12:29

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@davidcamp, thank you for the highly thoughtful responses. 1) Hyperlocality and accuracy are among our top goals for this project. We expect that the maximum culture-shifting impacts from this approach will come from showing specific projected climate impacts on a neighborhood block-scale, if not smaller. As for "current", by constructing a powerful front-end visualization and an open data standard back-end, we aim to become a depot for all the best and most current climate impact data available from academic and government studies. 2) You raise an excellent point about how many of the most profound costs of climate damage will be shouldered generally, rather than solely by property owners. Flood insurance and crop insurance are some of the clearest general costs, but far more unpredictable costs loom as well. We've been in conversation with former professors on a responsible way to roughly estimate these kind of common costs. For a start, we intend to include projected growth of liabilities in federal crop, flood, and disaster insurance programs.

Klaus Wahmann

Aug 28, 2013
05:39

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great idea. I hope it materializes.

Kelly H

Aug 28, 2013
01:09

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Trulia has released an application similar to this concept for current natural hazards, might be useful for comparison/ideas: http://www.trulia.com/real_estate/San_Francisco-California/ (Natural Hazards layer)

Keith Brower Brown

Aug 31, 2013
11:26

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With just an hour left in the voting period, we'd like to say we've been very grateful for the terrific feedback and support we've received from members of the Climate CoLab community. It's been an honor to be a finalist alongside such a creative set of teams. The feedback we've received has already been useful to us in our work to shift perceptions among home- and business-owners by mapping the personal projected impacts of climate change. Thank you, The team of Sunk Investment