From the Christian Science Monitor: Climate change crusade goes local. While US leaders remain bogged down in debate over global warming, local communities are acting on their own to hold back rising seas. Witness Miami Beach’s elevated streets.
From the Washington Post, see: Earth is on the brink of a sixth mass extinction, scientists say, and it’s humans’ fault
The full study, done by team at Stanford University: Accelerated modern human–induced species losses: Entering the sixth mass extinction
From Nature.com, an article by Susan Cutter et al: Global risks: Pool knowledge to stem losses from disasters. Public awareness, rigorous risk research and aligned targets will help policy-makers to increase resilience against natural hazards, say Susan L. Cutter and colleagues.
Interesting article that is well-worth reading.
The Washington Post reports on a leaked version of the Pope’s Thursday speech: See Pope Francis blasts global warming deniers in leaked draft of encyclical
A draft of a major environmental document by Pope Francis says “the bulk of global warming” is caused by human activity and calls on people — especially the world’s rich — to take steps to mitigate the damage by reducing consumption and reliance on fossil fuels.
In words likely to anger some of his conservative critics, the pope backs the science of climate change, saying “plenty of scientific studies point out that the last decades of global warming have been mostly caused by the great concentration of greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide, methane, nitrogen oxide and others) especially generated by human action.”
Update: article about scientists hoping the Pope’s words will help the cause: http://in.reuters.com/article/2015/06/17/us-pope-environment-usa-scientists-idINKBN0OX17W20150617
Secretive donors gave US climate denial groups $125m over three years
Funds allocated to organisations lobbying against Obama’s climate bill and working to undermine rules to reduce carbon pollution, tax records show
Article re the President’s speech last week. See:
Climate Change an Immediate Risk to National Security
Blog Posting on the speech by the Homeland Security Digital Library.
Include Climate Change in Disaster Planning, FEMA Says.
Federal funds that help communities brace for emergencies will stop being provided to states if they ignore threats posed by climate change in their disaster planning.
From the Guardian magazine ( U.K.) Pope Francis’s edict on climate change will anger deniers and US churches. Pontiff hopes to inspire action at next year’s UN meeting in Paris in December after visits to Philippines and New York. A couple of excerpts:
According to Neil Thorns, head of advocacy at Cafod, said: “The anticipation around Pope Francis’s forthcoming encyclical is unprecedented. We have seen thousands of our supporters commit to making sure their MPs know climate change is affecting the poorest communities.”
However, Francis’s environmental radicalism is likely to attract resistance from Vatican conservatives and in rightwing church circles, particularly in the US – where Catholic climate sceptics also include John Boehner, Republican leader of the House of Representatives and Rick Santorum, the former Republican presidential candidate.
Restored Forests Breathe Life Into Efforts Against Climate Change. Some excerpts:
In the battle to limit the risks of climate change, it has been clear for decades that focusing on the world’s immense tropical forests — saving the ones that are left, and perhaps letting new ones grow — is the single most promising near-term strategy.
That is because of the large role that forests play in what is called the carbon cycle of the planet. Trees pull the main greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, out of the air and lock the carbon away in their wood and in the soil beneath them. Destroying them, typically by burning, pumps much of the carbon back into the air, contributing to climate change.
From the WashPost, this article about the cost of climate change: Miami’s climate catch-22: Building waterfront condos to pay for protection against the rising sea. In one of cities most vulnerable to climate change, a high-stakes bet to out-build the sea. Two of my regular readers provided some insightful comments. They follow:
From Don Watson: Most of the condos of Miami Beach are going up with monies from overseas investors, who think that Miami Beach is a safer place to put their money (rather than in their own countries). Many apartments in the new buildings are not occupied much of the year (but with air conditioning running to control mold).
There are many other situations like this, essentially based on short term view and developer ability to get in and out of an investment (profitably they hope) before the end game. The city sets up the land development game rules to attract players to the table, with house rules to be sure, but not entirely of their making. Nature is the dealer and ultimate collector of debts.
From Ed Thomas, President of NHMA: Don is quite correct in saying ” Nature deals the cards and collects the debts.” But this is far from the whole story. When developers and local folk can externalize the costs of errors and poor design and construction to others — like the federal taxpayer, disaster victims/ survivors, especially the most disadvantaged and underrepresented — but then the environment others suffer. The developers reap a windfall of profits and local taxes — so we have business as usual.
This article really can help us all understand how we need to transform community development so that we do not have the exact externalizations of costs so prevalent now. The US Supreme Court indicated in the Koontz case that the prevention of externalizations of costs was fundamental to proper land use and had long been sustained against constitutional challenge. [ See Lynesy Rae Johnson & Ed Thomas’ article for the Environmental Law Institute available on the NHMA website.
Coastal, and other hazardous location development is a cash cow for many local governments, who in turn influence where and how development takes place. There are lots of ways to turn around this situation and NHMA is working on several.
Recovery Diva 