I'm wondering what people think should be done about US coastal cities as the seemingly inevitable global warming continues to melt polar ice and raise sea levels.

The options would seem to me to be abandon the areas as the seas encroach, subsidizing property owners or not, or build dikes. If it were up to me New Orleans would history. It's a losing proposition. Wouldn't sign a 99 year lease on anything there. But what about Miami, parts of New York, parts of Los Angeles?

Is it a property owners issue, a local problem, a state problem or a federal problem? Should the property owners be compensated by some taxing agency? Are they guaranteed by the government against predictable acts of Mother Nature?

I believe that since the sea level will rise gradually the politicians will build a patchwork of dikes and pumps and more dikes and more pumps. And again, maybe not, because they would have to be so very long.

I don't know the answer, my temptation would be to suggest let Nature run her course, and have everyone responsible for their own property. Many jurisdictions won't allow building in the 100 year flood plain. Is that an option?

I don't think dikes or pumps are properly a government issue, especially since it's so easily predicted and apparently inevitable. But then again the Corps of Engineers has undertaken the defense of New Orleans.

Arf