BETTING POOLS RE: SEA LEVEL RISE:
THE MAR-A-LAGO POOL POOL
In view of the nine facts set forth in this section, I have made fully-confident predictions that: (i) the entire state of Florida is going to be "catastrophically damaged", by a combination of sea level, and limestone collapse, over the coming decades; and, (ii) it will happen much faster than any politicians (especially Republican politicians) are willing to admit.
Therefore, on the NEXT page, I ask and plead with climate experts, young people, and any candidates for Congress who are willing to actually face up to the challenges of global warming, to join in a set of calls, pleas, and demands, for Congress to hold a set of hearings, DURING 2022, to help voters develop and establish a higher and better level of awareness, about what is truly going to happen to the U.S. over the coming decades, because of global warming and sea-level rise. And, at least some of those hearings should begin to seriously ask two deadly serious questions:
(1) What should America do, AFTER an entire state has been lost, and destroyed, and no longer has any functioning government? (2) What should America (and Congress, and the federal government) do, during the period when it realizes that we are indeed losing and destroying an entire state, but the worst catastrophes have not yet happened, and there is still time to take various steps which, in medicine, are called `palliative' or `ameliorative' (usually, by making a patient more comfortable, and giving him/her the time, setting, and support to help him/her come to terms with death, while it is still approaching, before it arrives)?
Meanwhile, instead of just waiting for Congress to do something, private citizens can begin creating their own events, to call attention to the problems that too many members of Congress are determined to ignore. And, here is a proposal which – if it gets started – might end up getting serious attention and publicity, and might turn into an ideal fund-raising opportunity, for environmentally-oriented not-for-profit organizations.
The proposal is to invite and encourage people to begin creating Mar-A-Lago Pool Pools among themselves. These would be betting pools, modeled after the betting pools that pop up in offices and other places, inviting people to place bets of a few dollars each, on things like the NCAA basketball tournament, or the likely score of an upcoming Super Bowl. In any such pool, the people running the pool can set any rules they want, and anyone who joins will wager some fixed amount, to “buy” some particular square, in an array which shows numerous possible outcomes. The “kitty” (or pot, award money, or whatever the organizers choose to call it) goes to whoever was smart or lucky enough to buy the square with the winning guess/prediction.
In a “Mar-A-Lago Pool Pool” (as envisioned herein) anyone can buy a ticket which will correspond to a particular calendar year, starting about 3 years out, and going out as far as the members of that “Mar-A-Lago Pool Pool” wish to extend it (I would recommend limiting it to perhaps 30, 35, or 40 years, and allow any Trump supporters or climate deniers who want to claim and argue that the whole thing is bogus, to buy the entire block of years after the last year covered by some particular pool, for a price such as 3x or 5x the cost of any single year).
The question, which will determine the winner of any particular Mar-A-Lago Pool Pool, will be:
“In which calendar year will the swimming pool at Trump’s Mar-A-Lago resort, on the Florida coast, be submerged by salt water, either `continuously’ (defined below), or on three or more occasions during a single calendar year?”
So . . . if you want to get into some local version of THAT pool, choose a year, and place a bet on it. My preference would be to require bets of at least $10 each, and no more than $10,000 each (among the wealthy).
The terms of any such “betting pool” will need to be defined better, to make them clear enough to be enforceable. I would propose that a “continuous” submergence be defined as, “for at least 30 consecutive calendar days and nights, without interruption”. And, if Trump (or his “successor”, and, yes, I notice and appreciate the irony in that word, since we are talking about someone who might buy or inherit a bunch of coastal properties, just in time to watch them be flooded and destroyed) builds any levees, walls or other water-retaining devices around the Mar-A-Lago pool – or, if he either closes it, or moves it to a different location, to try to minimize the embarrassment of having a high-profile event prove him wrong – then any submergence event(s) will be deemed to occur, if they would have occurred except for the attempted evasion (i.e., if the Mar-A-Lago pool had been left in the same location and condition that existed in 2022). And, if the pool (or some portion of it, large enough to drain the water out of it) is swallowed up or severely damaged by a sinkhole, then THAT will become the `winning' year.
If anyone gets that type of betting pool up and running – with a total time span of at least 25 years, to make the amount of award money at least somewhat interesting and appealing – I would be willing to bet up to $1000, if I can choose one of the years 2029, 2030, or 2031, because that time span is my best guess as to when it will actually happen. I will not choose more than one of those years; I will accept any one of those three years, if the other two are already taken; and, I think no one should be allowed to place bets on two or more years, unless the chosen years are separated by at least 3 or 4 years between them.
So . . . the real point of that type of betting pool, is to get people to begin thinking and talking about, “Do you think it could happen, within just the next 3 or 4 years? Or, do you think it’s likely to take something like 20 to 30 years?”
To me, that does indeed seem to be the REAL question. THAT is the very real question that people (including voters, and Congressmen) should begin focusing on, and wrestling with. So, I would love to see several hundred “betting pools” as described above, pop up, around the country, and perhaps in Congress, as well. In addition, rather than excluding any experts or agencies (such as NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Admin.), I think we should, instead, encourage them to get actively involved, and give the people employed at any such agencies a chance to express their opinions, by making their own bets.
I am entirely willing to join the first Mar-A-Lago Pool Pool that anyone gets started with 10 or more bettors, with $1000 for each bet, if I can have a year in the range of 2029-2031, as stated above. In addition, I’m entirely willing to join up to 10 more betting pools as well, with $100 in each, so long as I can choose, and bet on, a year in the range from 2029 through 2033.
And, to help get them started, I would propose that if a pool is organized by some charitable organization, the amount of award money will be only some fixed percentage (such as 50%, 60%, or 70%) of the total money that is wagered, while the sponsoring charitable organization gets to keep the remainder (and, it can take its portion, as soon as the betting money arrives, in cash). That could turn these betting pools into fund-raisers, and could help get more attention and publicity, for those organizations.
I’m not trying to organize these pools, and I will not take any money from any of them (as a “founder’s fee” or whatever) unless I place a valid wager which wins some particular pool, fair and square.
In complete seriousness, the goal of what might look like a light-hearted proposal (at least to some; to others, it might look mean-spirited, and if they come at me with complaints, I will respond with a few well-chosen questions, for them), is to encourage more people to begin thinking – seriously – about a huge and horrible question: “What is really going to happen, in Florida, over the coming years?”
If dozens or hundreds (or even thousands) of “Mar-A-Lago Pool Pools” can get more people thinking seriously about THAT question, they might be able to do some genuine and actual good.
In complete seriousness, it is NOT a question of WHETHER America is going to watch the state of Florida wrecked, destroyed, and submerged, by rising oceans. It is only a question of WHEN.
To some, one of the more interesting corollary questions will become, “Will Donald Trump, Jeb Bush, and George Bush Junior, still be around, long enough to have to watch it actually happen?”
And, to still others, another question which may be worth asking, in advance, is this:
Jared and Ivanka (Trump) Kushner have invested millions of dollars to build a home in a hyper-exclusive gated enclave, on an island called Indian Creek Island, which is in the northern part of Biscayne Bay, across from Miami. What are they going to say – PUBLICLY – when that expensive home of theirs gets so badly damaged that they must move out of it, to somewhere on higher ground (which, by then, likely will not be in Florida)?
In complete seriousness . . . they are public personas, and any really good PR firm should be able to “game out” the five or ten most likely things that Ivanka and Jared will say to the public, when THEY lose THEIR expensive new home, because they were so foolish, and so short-sighted, that they ignored ALL the warnings, and moved to . . . MIAMI (!!!), of all places!!
When their new home in Miami gets destroyed, will they apologize, for doing so little to help deal with global warming and sea level rise, when THEY were in the White House? And, if so, will it be a sincere apology, with genuine sorrow and regret? Or, will it be a dismissive, turn-away apology, which more-or-less says and means, `I already said I’m sorry, so just leave me alone, and go to hell . . .'’?
Or, as a third alternative, will they be stubborn, and defiant, and begin lashing out at others? And, if so, in which ways and directions, and against whom?
In complete seriousness, I would genuinely like to hear what any PR firms, and any political insiders, advisers, and commentators might offer up, as their genuine best guesses and predictions, as to what Jared and Ivanka will actually say, in any public announcements or answers to interview questions, when THEY get hammered and hurt, and have to watch THEIR home being destroyed, the same way so many OTHER people also are going to get hammered and hurt, and have to watch THEIR homes being destroyed.