Tuesday, March 10th, 2015
Stephan: Here is a blue value state rationally planning how to deal with the impact of climate change on Boston. As you can see in the picture that accompanies the report you can see that the impact is very severe. But I think Boston will work out a viable solution because they are dealing with it based on facts, and have enough lead time to actually accomplish changes.
Detail of “The Omega Chain,” a finalist selected in the infrastructure category.
Credit: Howard & Cavaluzzi Architects Int. LLC.
In one vision of Boston, a network of canals fills and empties with tides and storm surges. Water is drawn through sluices with embedded, hydroelectric turbines, generating power.
In another, an aquatic park snakes around an urban island fortified with terraced steps that keep the ocean in sight but out of reach.
These are two of the nine finalists in Living With Water, a competition to redesign Boston for the year 2100, with the assumption that sea levels are 5 feet higher than today. For many coast-dwellers, that prospect is an existential threat so serious that it’s better not to think of it at all.
Collectively, the ideas from Living With Water try to make a counterpoint: That realism and optimism, when it comes to sea level rise, are not incompatible. On the one hand, the water is rising. On the […]
No Comments
Tuesday, March 10th, 2015
Katie Valentine, - Think Progress
Stephan: In contrast to the rational policies of Blue value Boston here is the approach of Red value Florida, under a Republican legislature and governor. Florida, one of the states most vulnerable to the effects of climate change, particularly extreme weather and sea rise. Bone ignorance? Low IQ? Cynical hypocrisy? Or some combination of them all? I don't know, but the voters of Florida are about to reap what they sowed, and it is not going to be pleasant, and an awful lot of them are going to be financially devastated.
Florida’s Department of Environmental Protection is tasked with protecting the state’s “air, water and land.” But there’s one environmental threat you won’t hear DEP officials talking about.
Officials at Florida’s DEP have banned the words “climate change” and “global warming” from all official communications, including reports and emails, according to an investigation published Sunday by the Florida Center for Investigative Reporting (FCIR).
Four former DEP employees told FCIR that they had been instructed not to use the terms during their time at the state’s DEP.
“We were told not to use the terms ‘climate change,’ ‘global warming’ or ‘sustainability,’” Christopher Byrd, who served as an attorney with the DEP’s Office of General Counsel from 2008 to 2013, told FCIR. “That message was communicated to me and my colleagues by our superiors in the Office of General Counsel.”
The DEP’s press secretary Tiffany Cowie disagreed with these reports, however, saying that her department “does not have a policy on this.” But according to the former employees’ accounts, the unofficial policy went into place after Gov. Rick Scott (R) took office in 2011 and appointed a new DEP director. Over the last year, Scott has skirted answering questions on his views on […]
1 Comment
Tuesday, March 10th, 2015
Naomi Klein, - The Guardian (U.K.)
Stephan: Here is another excellent essay from Naomi Klein. In it she makes the the point I have been hammering on for over a decade. A civilization that makes profit its only priority ultimately is doomed. Only by making wellness the top priority can we survive, let alone prosper.
I don't consider myself sufficiently knowledgeable to speak about the entire world, but I do feel competent to speak about my own country, the United States. At this point I would say the chance of America surviving in anything like its current configuration is slightly less than a coin flip. I'm not sure America is up to the task of surviving. The death cult of the Theocratic Right may just be too powerful. The only thing that is going to stop it is if you and I and all our friends, and their friends, and their friends vote for those people who are the most life-affirming options.
Credit: abc.net
The alarm bells of the climate crisis have been ringing in our ears for years and are getting louder all the time – yet humanity has failed to change course. What is wrong with us?
Many answers to that question have been offered, ranging from the extreme difficulty of getting all the governments in the world to agree on anything, to an absence of real technological solutions, to something deep in our human nature that keeps us from acting in the face of seemingly remote threats, to – more recently – the claim that we have blown it anyway and there is no point in even trying to do much more than enjoy the scenery on the way down.
Some of these explanations are valid, but all are ultimately inadequate. Take the claim that it’s just too hard for so many countries to agree on a course of action. It is hard. But many times in the past, the United Nations has helped governments to come together to tackle tough cross-border challenges, from […]
1 Comment
Tuesday, March 10th, 2015
Stephan: Ronlyn and I carefully segregate plastic, glass, paper, and metal, so this was a rather disheartening news, at least in the short term. Long term I think local recycling is essential. Shipping waste plastic across the world is environmentally crazy if one thinks about it. And I think local recycling will be very profitable. It is also the life-affirming option.
Bails of Plastic
Credit: Michal Maňas
Think those plastic items you carefully separate from the rest of your trash are being responsibly recycled? Think again. U.S. recycling companies have largely stayed away from recycling plastic and most of it has been shipped to China where it can be processed cheaper. Not anymore. This year China announced a Green Fence Policy, prohibiting much of the plastic recycling they once imported:
For many environmentally conscious Americans, there’s a deep satisfaction to chucking anything and everything plasticky into the recycling bin—from shampoo bottles to butter tubs—the types of plastics in the plastic categories #3 through #7. Little do they know that, even if their local trash collector says it recycles that waste, they might as well be chucking those plastics in the trash bin.“[Plastics] 3-7 are absolutely going to a landfill—[China’s] not taking that any more… because of Green Fence,” David Kaplan, CEO of Maine Plastics, a post-industrial recycler, tells Quartz. “This will continue until we can do it in the United […]
No Comments
Zaid Jilani, - Alternet (U.S.)
Stephan: The difference between Fascists and Social Progressives often is that Fascists make long range multi-decade plans, and Social Progressives respond to what they perceive as immediate injustice. People like the Koch brothers are investing in distorting American higher education so that it reflects their values, and trains generations of students in them. Here is an example of what I mean. Do I need to say that the long term effect is the degradation of high quality thinking, and the rise of willful ignorance.
George Mason University
Credit: www.thea-blast.org
By now, it’s common knowledge that the Koch Brothers more or less own the Republican Party – having spent twice as much in election 2012 as the top ten unions combined.
But a lesser-known aspect of Koch influence is their spending on ideological warfare. The Kochs not only spend big in our elections, but they also finance a network of think tanks, advocacy campaigns, and even educational curricula in order to spread their message.
One example is George Mason University (GMU). Last year, a group of students protested the fact that the Charles Koch Foundation, which is the university’s single largest donor, has given at least $23 million to the school since 2005. (emphasis added)
This week, a GMU professor gave a speech on a topic that could’ve come right out of the Kochs’ ideology – why we need “less democracy.”
Dr. Garett Jones, professor of Economics and BB&T Professor for the Study of Capitalism at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, gave a lecture […]
No Comments
