Is all coastal property “lease-hold” ?
In some locations you do not “buy” land to own it, but rather lease it. Just as one example, a lot of property owned by the British Government or “Crown” is offered for lease, typically 99 years.
In most countries in the world today land ownership is a fundamental premise of our economy and society. In turn it forms the basis for much of the world of finance, insurance, commerce, and wealth building. The owned property can be for personal residence, corporate use, public utilities, or community assets.
It is time to begin re-thinking our concept of coastal real estate and assets. And coastal in this sense does not just refer to the land on the coast. Low lying land behind the coast should be included as well. In places with low elevation, that may extend many miles inland.
As my readers will likely realize by now I am referring to the somewhat new awareness that sea level is rising for the first time in thousands of years. As sea level rises the shoreline moves inland. There is already enough extra heat stored in the ocean to assure that the ice sheets will melt for centuries, raising sea level substantially. The shoreline will move far inland, with tremendous disruption to our global economy that built right up to the coast over many centuries.
We were simply fooled by the very stable sea level and shoreline of the last six thousand years. That era is now over. We have entered a new era with rising seas that will continue decade after decade after decade. It is a new reality. It is wrenching and will take a while to fully accept.
One way to start is to think of all coastal assets as effectively being on lease-hold land. At some point the ocean is going to cancel our “lease” and reclaim that land. When it does it will disappear for thousands of years. The last time this happened was a hundred and twenty thousand years ago — explaining why we don’t believe it will happen. But it has happened before and is happening again. Though this time, the trend is opposite the natural direction.
By the natural cycle of the ice ages, following the last five million years, we should now be entering the 80,000 cooling period, heading towards the next ice age. That pattern should see cooling temperature, expanding ice sheets, and falling ocean. All of those are now moving in the wrong direction. Basic physics rather plainly indicates that the excess heat in the ocean means the direction will not change soon, meaning centuries.
So while we can debate how quickly the ice sheets will melt, moving the shoreline inland, perhaps we should just start thinking of our leased coastal property. We just don’t know if the lease has another fifty years or one hundred fifty years, possibly longer. Regardless, thinking of it as “lease-hold” brings a different attitude than thinking of it as owned land there for perpetuity.