Climate Adaptation

GOP Mayor: “Let’s Talk About the Octopus in the Room”

http://www.zastavki.com/eng/Animals/Under_water/wallpaper-92725.htm

An octopus in a parking garage? It’s a sign of the times.

Jim Cason, the GOP mayor of Coral Gables, Florida, wants us to talk about climate change: “‘We’re looking to a future where we’re going to be underwater, a great portion of South Florida,’” Cason said. ‘For all of us down here, this is really not a partisan issue. We see it. We see the octopus in …

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A Thanksgiving Day Reflection

Thoughts about the impacts of extreme events and climate change on food security, and hopes for the Paris negotiations

Thanksgiving is a time of gratitude for the food and community we share. But as many of us feast with loved ones today, our gratitude might also prompt reflection about the sources of our food and, more generally, the fragility of the environment. This seems especially appropriate, as Native American tribes are among those most …

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Of Corn and Climate

Trouble may be brewing in the corn belt.

We continue to gain a better understanding of the impacts of climate change, which are sometimes subtle and unexpected.  Two articles in Science report significant new research. The first report comes from two researchers at the University of Illinois.  Corn, like other plants, needs to pull CO2 from the air for photosynthesis.  But the same tiny …

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An Opening for Climate Adaptation?

Marco Rubio seems willing to admit that climate change exists and is causing real problems. That’s a start.

During an interview with ABC’s Jonathan Kent, Marco Rubio made a very interesting statement about climate change.  He took the standard anti-science position about the causes of climate change.   “I do not believe that human activity is causing these dramatic changes to our climate the way these scientists are portraying it,” he said.  He went on …

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Sea Level Rises, Premiums Not So Much

Congress apparently just couldn’t resist restoring subsidies for coastal homeowners.

The President has now signed an important modification of the flood insurance program.  The changes are hard to understand, in part because the bill changed an earlier 2013 law that itself amended the basic statute.  So you have to work through the whole sequence to see what is going on. Before I go into more …

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Is Climate Change a Bulldozer or Bullet Train?

How fast will climate change happen? Maybe faster than we expect, according to the National Academy of Sciences.

We’re in the early stages of climate change — just how much depending in large part on whether we control our emissions.  But how quickly will this happen?  Is it a bulldozer we can dodge or a bullet train that’s too fast to avoid?  That makes a lot of difference in terms of our ability …

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Private Flood Protection

Private flood control is no substitute for government action.

Last week, the NY Times had a story about Verizon’s new flood barrier for its Wall Street building, which is a designated landmark. On one level, it’s a pretty cool project — a portable barrier designed to keep out the water during a hundred-year storm (plus  2-feet for storm surge plus an extra foot to …

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Poll Shows Vast Majority of Americans Favor Sea-Level Rise Adaptation. Now, Time to Start Planning.

Stanford University’s Woods Institute for the Environment and the Center for Ocean Solutions recently released the results of a survey finding that the majority of Americans favor proactive sea-level rise adaptation actions. According to the survey results (margin of error: +/- 4.9% at the 95 percent confidence level), 82 percent of the Americans surveyed said …

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Rewarding Climate Adaptation Heroes

Earlier this week, Mother Jones posted a piece on how the public rewards politicians for disaster response instead of disaster prevention: Politicians get much more credit for their reaction to disasters like Sandy than they do for trying to ensure disasters don’t cause so much damage in the first place. The post cites a 2009 …

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EPA Tackles Climate Adaptation

For the first time, EPA has addressed the issue of climate change adaptation in a letter from Administrator Lisa Jackson.  The contents of the letter are not startling: mostly instructions to carry out existing policies or government recommendations on climate change.  Two points are worth noting, however.  First, the Administrator directs the agency to produce …

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