{"id":9204,"date":"2012-07-16T23:42:12","date_gmt":"2012-07-17T03:42:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/?p=9204"},"modified":"2012-07-16T23:42:12","modified_gmt":"2012-07-17T03:42:12","slug":"climate-change-denial-as-real-estate-ploy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2012\/07\/16\/climate-change-denial-as-real-estate-ploy\/","title":{"rendered":"Climate change denial as real estate ploy?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

What is John Droz\u2019s end-game?<\/p>\n

I\u2019m assuming he has one. I\u2019m assuming here that Droz \u2014 \u201ca real estate investor who owns properties along the North Carolina coast\u201d \u2014 has some kind of long-term plan in mind.<\/p>\n

Apart from being a wealthy coastal developer, Droz is also involved in the lucrative business of climate-change denialism. As the Institute for Southern Studies reports<\/a>:<\/p>\n

He is a senior fellow at the American Tradition Institute, a conservative think tank with ties to fossil fuel interests that promotes skepticism about global warming and renewable energy and has targeted a leading climate scientist with a controversial lawsuit.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Droz also served as the \u201cscientific advisor\u201d for the North Carolina anti-regulation lobby NC-20, \u201cwhich is comprised of development interests in the state\u2019s 20 coastal counties.\u201d That\u2019s the group behind the now-infamous bill \u201cthat would block North Carolina agencies from considering the latest science of sea-level rise in making planning decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n

That bill has been widely mocked because it is so utterly mockable. Confronted with scientific evidence of increased flooding due, in part, to rising sea levels and climate change, the bill addresses the problem by forbidding discussion of it<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Which brings us back to John Droz. He\u2019s both the \u201cscientific advisor\u201d behind this head-in-the-sand approach and<\/em> an investor with a great deal to lose once chronic flooding starts to wash away the value of his coastal property.<\/p>\n

So one possibility is that John Droz is a staggeringly cynical and dishonest man currently pushing climate change denialism in order to preserve the short-term value of his properties in the hopes that he can sell them for more money before they eventually get swamped into worthlessness.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also possible that Droz is acting both morally and rationally, but also arrogantly and ignorantly. In this scenario, Droz really believes the \u201ccontrarian\u201d denialism promoted by his fossil-fuel industry supporters. And for whatever reason \u2014 defiant stubbornness, laziness, naivet\u00e9 \u2014 he hasn\u2019t bothered to do his homework or to check their assertions against the available facts. So due to his utter certainty \u2014 and maybe also due to his pride at being one of the very few people who \u201csees through\u201d the scientific hoax \u2014 Droz invests everything he owns in coastal properties that those foolish, Al-Gore-loving scientists claim are in jeopardy.<\/p>\n

The latter scenario is harder to believe because, as far as I know, John Droz has not tried suing the companies that insure all of his coastal properties. His insurance costs for this properties have gone up quite a bit over the past 15 years \u2014 in large part due to the increased risks of extreme weather and flooding due to climate change. If he really believes the gospel he\u2019s preaching through the \u201cAmerican Tradition Institute,\u201d then he ought to believe he has a solid case against those rate increases and he ought to be taking those insurance companies to court.<\/p>\n

So it seems more likely that Droz is just desperately denying that the millions he has invested in vulnerable coastal properties are really at risk. He doesn\u2019t have to fool everyone<\/em> \u2014 just enough people to find buyers for those properties before the next extreme weather event or before the full cost of increased coastal flooding becomes undeniable.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What is John Droz\u2019s end-game? I\u2019m assuming he has one. I\u2019m assuming here that Droz \u2014 \u201ca real estate investor who owns properties along the North Carolina coast\u201d \u2014 has some kind of long-term plan in mind. Apart from being a wealthy coastal developer, Droz is also involved in the lucrative business of climate-change denialism. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":141,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[15,58],"class_list":["post-9204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-class-warfare","tag-environment","tag-greed"],"yoast_head":"\nClimate change denial as real estate ploy?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"What is John Droz's end-game? I'm assuming he has one. 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Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. You can reach him via email at slacktivist at hotmail dot com.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/author\/fredclark1\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Climate change denial as real estate ploy?","description":"What is John Droz's end-game? I'm assuming he has one. 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Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. 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