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<p><i><font size="+1"><b>April 23, 2021</b></font></i></p>
[ROMGF = reassess our messaging going forward] <br>
<b>Boston Logan Airport Deletes Earth Day Tweet After Ridicule</b><br>
<p>The Associated Press - April 21, 2021</p>
In response to public ridicule, Boston's Logan International Airport
deleted a Tweet that encouraged travelers to use the airport parking
garage under the guise that it helped the environment.<br>
<br>
The post on Monday from the airport read: <b>“For those traveling,
parking at the airport brings you close to your terminal and
reduces the impact on the environment,</b>” and used the hashtag
Earth Day, the Boston Globe reported...<br>
- -<br>
The Massachusetts Sierra Club called the post “ridiculous
greenwashing,” and said Massport, the independent state agency that
operates the airport, should do more to reduce traffic, emissions
and air pollution.<br>
<br>
Others argued the airport should promote the use of public
transportation, including the Blue and Silver lines, and questioned
if the airport was trying to increase revenue from onsite parking,
the newspaper reported...<br>
- -<br>
The airport decided to delete the tweet after seeing the reaction,
Massport spokesperson Jennifer Mehigan said in a statement Tuesday.<br>
<br>
“It was clear the post lacked context. We decided to remove it so we
could reassess our messaging going forward,” she said, adding that
Massport has “a positive record when it comes to sustainability and
reducing our environmental impact.”<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.wbur.org/earthwhile/2021/04/21/boston-logan-parking-tweet-environment-backlash">https://www.wbur.org/earthwhile/2021/04/21/boston-logan-parking-tweet-environment-backlash</a><br>
<br>
<p><br>
</p>
[following the money]<br>
<b>Climate Change Could Cut World Economy by $23 Trillion in 2050,
Insurance Giant Warns</b><br>
Poor nations would be particularly hard hit, but few would escape,
Swiss Re said. The findings could influence how the industry prices
insurance and invests its mammoth portfolios.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/22/climate/climate-change-economy.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/22/climate/climate-change-economy.html</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[Reuters]<br>
<b>2020 was Europe’s hottest year on record - EU scientists</b><br>
Europe experienced its hottest year on record last year, while the
Arctic suffered a summer of extreme wildfires partly due to low snow
cover as climate change impacts intensified, the European Union’s
observation service said on Thursday.<br>
<br>
As world leaders prepared to brandish their plans to fight climate
change at a U.S.-led summit on Thursday, EU scientists issued a
stark reminder that the impacts of a warmer world are already here.<br>
<br>
Europe's average annual temperature in 2020 was the highest on
record and at least 0.4 degrees Celsius above the next five warmest
years -- all of which took place in the last decade, the Copernicus
Earth observation service said.<br>
<br>
"Temperatures are increasing in all seasons in Europe," said Freja
Vamborg, senior scientist at Copernicus...<br>
- -<br>
Globally, Copernicus Earth said 2020 was one of the world’s three
hottest years on record, confirming findings released this week by
the World Meteorological Organization.<br>
<br>
The EU on Wednesday set a target to slash emissions faster this
decade, and the United States is expected to do the same on
Thursday, hiking the pressure on countries including China and
India.<br>
<br>
Currently, countries’ combined pledges fall far short of the rapid
emissions cuts scientists say are needed to limit warming to 1.5
degrees above pre-industrial levels and stave off the most severe
impacts of climate change.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/2020-was-europes-hottest-year-record-eu-scientists-2021-04-22/">https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/2020-was-europes-hottest-year-record-eu-scientists-2021-04-22/</a>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><b><br>
</b></p>
[Go North Young Man]<b><br>
</b><b>Shelter From The Climate Storm? Experts Say Vermont Needs To
Prepare For 'Climigration'</b><br>
April 21, 2021 John Dillon, Vermont Public Radio<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.wbur.org/earthwhile/2021/04/21/climate-change-vermont-migration-population-influx">https://www.wbur.org/earthwhile/2021/04/21/climate-change-vermont-migration-population-influx</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<br>
[Politics and Prose Bookstore]<br>
<b>P&P Live! Kate Aronoff — OVERHEATED: How Capitalism Broke the
Planet and How We Fight Back - with Jane Fonda</b><br>
Friday, April 23, 2021 - 6 p.m.<br>
This event is presented in partnership with our friends at The New
Republic.<br>
<br>
It has become impossible to deny that the planet is warming, and
that governments must act. But a new denialism is taking root in the
halls of power, shaped by decades of neoliberal policies and
centuries of anti-democratic thinking. Since the 1980s, Democrats
and Republicans have each granted enormous concessions to industries
hell bent on maintaining business as usual. What’s worse,
policymakers have given oil and gas executives a seat at the table
designing policies that should euthanize their business model.<br>
<br>
This approach, journalist Kate Aronoff makes clear, will only drive
the planet further into emergency. In Overheated, Aronoff lays out
an alternative vision, detailing how democratic majorities can curb
polluters’ power; create millions of well-paid, union jobs; enact
climate reparations; and transform the economy into a more leisurely
and sustainable one. Our future will require a radical reimagining
of politics—with the world at stake.<br>
<br>
Aronoff will be in conversation with Jane Fonda, two-time Academy
Award winner and an Emmy award–winning American actor and activist.
She founded Fire Drill Fridays in October 2019 in partnership with
Greenpeace USA and sits on the boards of V-Day: Until the Violence
Stops, the Women’s Media Center (which she cofounded in 2004), the
Georgia Campaign for Adolescent Power & Potential, and Homeboy
Industries. Her book, What Can I Do? My Path from Climate Despair to
Action, is on sale now.<br>
<br>
CLICK HERE
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.eventbrite.com/e/pp-live-kate-aronoff-overheated-with-jane-fonda-tickets-144042367599">https://www.eventbrite.com/e/pp-live-kate-aronoff-overheated-with-jane-fonda-tickets-144042367599</a>
to register for this virtual event! <br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.politics-prose.com/event/book/pp-live-kate-aronoff-overheated-how-capitalism-broke-planet-and-how-we-fight-back-jane">https://www.politics-prose.com/event/book/pp-live-kate-aronoff-overheated-how-capitalism-broke-planet-and-how-we-fight-back-jane</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[Elon Musk offers a $100M prize for the best lifeboat]<br>
<b>$100M PRIZE FOR CARBON REMOVAL PHASE</b><br>
Registration<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.xprize.org/prizes/elonmusk">https://www.xprize.org/prizes/elonmusk</a><br>
<p>- -<br>
</p>
[hey kids, earn millions just by thinking]<br>
<b>All you need to know about Elon Musk’s Carbon Capture Prize</b><br>
Apr 20, 2021<br>
Sabine Hossenfelder<br>
Check out the physics courses that I mentioned (many of which are
free!) and support this channel by going to <a
class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://brilliant.org/Sabine/">https://brilliant.org/Sabine/</a>
where you can create your Brilliant account. The first 200 will get
20% off the annual premium subscription.<br>
<br>
Entries for Elon Musk's Carbon xPrize will open on Earth day, April
22nd. In this video, I tell you all you need to know about carbon
capture and the entry requirements that you need to know to
understand the challenges ahead. <br>
<br>
Website of the prize is here: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.xprize.org/prizes/elonmusk">https://www.xprize.org/prizes/elonmusk</a><br>
<br>
Addendum to what I say at 2 mins 15 seconds. In the long run, we
have to get to net zero emissions if we are to keep warming to 1.5
C.<br>
0:00 Intro<br>
0:26 The Challenge<br>
2:37 Competition Entry Requirements<br>
3:07 Trees<br>
4:24 Cremation Digression<br>
5:04 Ocean Fertilization<br>
5:52 Biochar<br>
6:40 Plastic Digression<br>
7:01 Weathering<br>
7:42 Direct Air Capture<br>
8:36 Seawater Extraction<br>
9:36 Capture and Storage<br>
10:18 Summary<br>
10:37 Sponsor Message<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmWpFCjh0Fk">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmWpFCjh0Fk</a><br>
<br>
<br>
[New book publication]<br>
“Fire in Paradise has the narrative propulsion and granular detail
of the best breaking-news disaster journalism."<br>
—NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW<br>
<b>FIRE IN PARADISE - </b><b>AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY</b><br>
There is no precedent in postwar American history for the
destruction of the town of Paradise, California. On November 8,
2018, the community of 27,000 people was swallowed by the ferocious
Camp Fire, which razed virtually every home and killed at least 85
people. The catastrophe seared the American imagination, taking the
front page of every major national newspaper and top billing on the
news networks. It displaced tens of thousands of people, yielding a
refugee crisis that continues to unfold.<br>
<br>
PRAISE<br>
"Drawing heavily on the powerful interviews they conducted at the
time and in the stunned aftermath, [Alastair Gee and Dani Anguiano]
have created a gripping account of the fire and how it affected the
community."<br>
—BOOKLIST<br>
<br>
“A tense and detailed account…Gee and Anguiano vividly describe the
conflagration without sensationalizing it…This impressive report
makes a convincing case that such tragedies as the Camp Fire are not
a freak occurrence, but a glimpse of the future.” <br>
—PUBLISHERS WEEKLY<br>
<br>
"Powerful. . . A riveting narrative that provides further compelling
evidence for the urgency of environmental stewardship."<br>
—KIRKUS REVIEWS, STARRED REVIEW<br>
<br>
“A gripping and meticulously reported account of how one California
community was wiped from the map, and a terrifying bellwether of the
mounting personal costs of the world’s climate emergency.”<br>
—ADAM HIGGINBOTHAM, AUTHOR OF MIDNIGHT IN CHERNOBYL<br>
<br>
"Gee and Anguiano’s on-the-ground reporting from California’s
deadliest wildfire is so riveting and evocative that you can almost
smell the smoke―not just from the oaks and pines, but from all the
scorched vinyl-sided homes, melted car tires, and exploding propane
tanks."<br>
—DAN EGAN, AUTHOR OF THE DEATH AND LIFE OF THE GREAT LAKES<br>
<br>
"This remarkable account will remind you of the power of the human
spirit, even or especially, in a crisis."<br>
—BILL McKIBBEN, AUTHOR OF FALTER<br>
<br>
"A frightening book that will make readers take stock of their own
home surroundings, regional infrastructure, and the values of our
times."<br>
—ANNIE PROULX, AUTHOR OF BARKSKINS<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://fireinparadisebook.com/">http://fireinparadisebook.com/</a><br>
<br>
<br>
<p><br>
</p>
[Beware the over-enthusiastic]<br>
<b>Is 30 percent land converted to protected areas the biggest land
grab in history?</b><br>
BINAYAK DAS on 4/22/2021 <br>
THREE HUNDRED MILLION PEOPLE STAND TO LOSE THEIR LAND AND
LIVELIHOOD, MOST OF THEM TRIBAL AND INDIGENOUS PEOPLES, ACCORDING TO
SURVIVAL INTERNATIONAL<br>
World leaders and global conservation organizations are expected to
discuss a proposal under the Post 2020 Global Biodiversity Framework
to convert 30% of the planet into a protected zone at President
Biden’s Leaders’ Summit on Climate from April 22-23, which is
subsequently planned to be agreed at the COP15 summit in China in
October.<br>
<br>
But Survival International has warned that it would constitute “the
biggest land grab in history.” Three hundred million people stand to
lose their land and livelihood, most of them tribal and indigenous
peoples.<br>
<br>
Survival International has labelled the plan the #BigGreenLie.<br>
<br>
Fiore Longo, head of Survival’s conservation campaign, said “It is a
plan without scientific basis, that will do nothing to combat
climate change or the loss of biodiversity, but will increase human
suffering and the destruction of nature. It is a deadly distraction
from what is urgently needed to secure human diversity and all
biodiversity and the recognition of indigenous peoples’ rights to
their land.”<br>
<br>
Among the Action Targets of the Framework, Target 2 states that: By
2030, protect and conserve through well connected and effective
system of protected areas and other effective area-based
conservation measures at least 30 per cent of the planet with the
focus on areas particularly important for biodiversity.<br>
<br>
Campaign launched against the landgrab<br>
<br>
More than 230 organizations and experts have signed a letter
addressing Boris Johnson expressing concerns over the 30% target.
The letter stated that evidence shows that when tribal and
indigenous peoples’ rights to their ancestral territories are
guaranteed, they are the best guardians of nature, yet the current
plan does not provide any guarantee for the rights of tribal and
indigenous peoples or for local communities. Their territorial
rights and their rights to self determination and to free, prior and
informed consent, which are enshrined in international law, must be
guaranteed and respected.<br>
<br>
Main Concerns to the 30% protected areas proposal<br>
<br>
Among the key objections raised by Survival, and other NGOs like
Rainforest Foundation and Minority Rights Group International to the
plan include:<br>
<br>
<b>- Land-grabbing:</b> if the plan goes ahead, 300 million people
stand to lose their lands, which will be turned into Protected
Areas. The creation of almost every Protected Area in Africa and
Asia has involved the theft of people’s land without their Free,
Prior and Informed Consent. Dozens more stand to be created if
30×30 goes ahead.<br>
<b>- Abuses:</b> Tribal and indigenous peoples whose lands have
already been turned into Protected Areas have been the subject of
appalling abuses going back decades, including rape, torture and
murder. Most of these abuses have been committed by rangers backed
and funded by big conservation organizations including WWF and WCS.<br>
<b>- A false “wilderness” solution:</b> The 30×30 plan is just the
latest plan produced by Western conservationists that erroneously
sees tribal peoples’ lands as “wilderness” to be preserved for the
common good, rather than as land they have managed and protected
over time. Tribal peoples stand to be evicted and dispossessed to
provide the comforting – but false – illusion of a solution to a
problem they didn’t create.<br>
Longo added, “This is a critical moment. If world leaders discuss
business as usual, the outcome will be more false, unscientific,
racist and colonial proposals, such as the 30% project and
nature-based solutions.<br>
<br>
What is happening in current Protected areas<br>
<br>
In many parts of the world a Protected Area is where the local
people who called the land home for generations are no longer
allowed to live or use the natural environment to feed their
families, gather medicinal plants or visit their sacred sites. It is
estimated that indigenous peoples and local communities number 2.5
billion people who customarily manage over 50 percent of the global
land mass. They legally own just 10 percent.<br>
<br>
This protected areas concept follows the model of the United States’
nineteenth century creation of the world’s first national parks on
lands stolen from Native Americans. Many US national parks forced
the peoples who had created the wildlife-rich “wilderness”
landscapes into landlessness and poverty.<br>
<br>
Jenu Kuruba community protesting at the Nagarhole National Park,
India/© Survival International<br>
This is still happening to indigenous peoples and other communities
in Africa and parts of Asia. Local people are pushed out by force,
coercion or bribery. They are beaten, tortured and abused by park
rangers when they try to hunt to feed their families or just to
access their ancestral lands. The best guardians of the land, once
self-sufficient and with the lowest carbon footprint of any of us,
are reduced to landless impoverishment and often end up adding to
urban overcrowding. Once the locals are gone, tourists, extractive
industries and others are welcomed in. For these reasons, local
opposition to Protected Areas is growing.<br>
<br>
The campaigners state that outside the corridors of power, criticism
is building. More and more people agree that this will be a
catastrophe from a human rights perspective, especially for
indigenous and other local people in the Global South and will pay
the price for environmental destruction they didn’t cause. From an
environmental perspective, it simply won’t work: kicking indigenous
people off their land to create Protected Areas won’t help the
climate. On the contrary, indigenous peoples are the best guardians
of the natural world and an essential part of human diversity that
is a key to protecting biodiversity.<br>
<p><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.sixdegreesnews.org/archives/30117/is-30-percent-land-converted-to-protected-areas-the-biggest-land-grab-in-history">https://www.sixdegreesnews.org/archives/30117/is-30-percent-land-converted-to-protected-areas-the-biggest-land-grab-in-history</a><br>
</p>
<p>- - <br>
</p>
<p>[poem video]</p>
The Big Green Lie<br>
Premiered 4-22-21<br>
<b>Survival International</b><br>
If you support the plan to turn 30% of Earth into protected areas,
you’re supporting the biggest land grab in history. It’ll be a
disaster for people & planet. If you care about Earth, watch
& share!<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRc7Ez8uY7A">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRc7Ez8uY7A</a><br>
<br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p>[Trouble in NYC]<br>
<b>Here’s How NYC Transit System Is Prepping For Sea Level
Rise—And Why It May Not Be Enough</b><br>
NATHAN KENSINGER - APRIL 22, 2021<br>
New York City is surrounded by water, with over 130 neighborhoods
situated along 520 miles of coastline. Its populace of 8.3 million
residents—the largest metro area in the United States—relies
heavily on its vast transportation system. And as sea levels
continue to rise, the future of both the city and its
transportation network are in jeopardy.<br>
<br>
Coney Island is an ideal place to view this present-day peril.
Start on a dead-end stretch of Shore Parkway. The road here floods
with even a light rain, covering the broken concrete in thick mud.
On one side of the street is Coney Island Creek, where Hurricane
Sandy’s surge pushed ashore and inundated this Brooklyn
neighborhood in 2012.<br>
<br>
Coney Island Yard Complex, one of the largest rapid transit train
yards in the world, sits on the other side. This 74-acre facility
was flooded with 27 million gallons of seawater during the
hurricane, leaving the train yard crippled.<br>
<br>
“Coinciding with the high tide, the storm washed in water and
debris which quickly inundated the tracks, switches, motors and
signal equipment. In Sandy's wake, the yard more closely resembled
a lake than a storage area for subway trains,” New York’s
Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) wrote in a 2013
synopsis. “The storm left the track-switching operation at the
world's largest rapid transit maintenance and storage facility
unable to be controlled remotely.”<br>
<br>
Since 2018, the MTA has been working on a project to protect the
Coney Island Yard from future storms and sea level rise. The
authority built 21,000 feet of new drainage, nine flood gates, two
pumping stations and a 4,280-foot-long bridge above the yard,
elevating third-rail power lines and communications cables out of
the flood zone. They are also erecting a 12,000-foot-long
floodwall around the perimeter of the yard.<br>
This enormous flood barrier is not yet finished, but several
pieces can be seen along the muddy edge of Shore Parkway. It is a
brutal, utilitarian piece of work, made of metal sheets driven 30
feet underground that then stretch 8 to 14 feet toward the sky.
The wall currently ends at a porous metal fence lined with burst
sandbags, providing a stark reminder of what previously protected
the yard.<br>
<br>
Similar rebuilding and mitigation efforts are taking place around
the city. When Hurricane Sandy overwhelmed New York City, it
damaged almost every part of the transit system. Boats were pushed
onto train tracks, tunnels and subway stations flooded, and bus
depots and train yards were filled with corrosive saltwater.
During the storm, some of the MTA’s flood barriers were little
more than plywood and piles of sandbags.<br>
<br>
Once complete, these upgrades are intended to protect the yard and
the five boroughs from future cyclones and torrential
downpours—calamities whose rains, surges, and winds are being
boosted by the climate crisis. For those who have assessed the
threat of sea level rise in New York City, even this may not be
enough.<br>
<br>
One Enormous Challenge, Many Little Fixes<br>
After Superstorm Sandy, the MTA committed $7.7 billion toward
rebuilding and making its system more resilient. It also created a
Climate Adaptation Task Force to evaluate the threats facing the
transportation system and recommend solutions. One of its first
tasks was to determine what level of flooding to actually plan
for.<br>
<br>
“For the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), climate
change is not only an urgent reality, it is a reality to which all
six MTA agencies are already devoting extensive financial,
planning, and engineering resources,” the task force wrote in its
2017 report. “There is no responsible alternative,”<br>
<br>
Four of the MTA’s six branches adopted different Design Flood
Elevations, but the water rise they anticipate is sobering.<br>
<br>
MTA Bridges and Tunnels, which operates seven bridges and two
tunnels in New York City, is preparing for a 500-year storm akin
to Hurricane Harvey. The Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North
Railroad systems manage 1,381 miles of tracks and 247 train
stations. They are preparing for flooding four feet above FEMA’s
Advisory Base Flood Elevations (ABFE). And New York City Transit,
the regulators of all subways and buses, is designing for three
feet above a Category 2 hurricane.<br>
<br>
“The challenges that come from climate change are much greater
today than they were when many of the MTA’s features were designed
and created,” Projjal Dutta, the task force chair and the MTA’s
Director of Sustainability Initiatives, told Gothamist/WNYC in a
recent interview. The task force is currently tracking a dozen
projects. “Our interventions are rarely of a grand scale. They are
not storm surge barriers. But, they are small, they are numerous.”<br>
<br>
The finished projects include waterproofing Staten Island’s St.
George Terminal with a new drainage system, floodwalls, and
water-resistant plastic track ties. The authority built a seawall
along the Harlem River at the 207th Street Yard and installed
thousands of smaller barriers across Manhattan, including flood
doors and flex barriers at subway entrances.<br>
<br>
“A lot of the flooding happened through these very small things
that you would not think of as grand at all. But when there is 10
or 11 feet of standing water above these openings, that can amount
to a lot,” said Dutta. “In Lower Manhattan alone, there are
approximately 500 of them, from manhole covers to where the grates
equalize the air pressure.”<br>
<br>
Mission accomplished...for now<br>
In March, the MTA marked a major milestone in its rebuilding
efforts, completing repairs and upgrades on the last of its 11
tunnels that Sandy damaged. Inside the Rutgers Tube, where the F
line travels underneath the East River, they replaced 4,635 feet
of subway track, repaired 250 feet of tunnel wall and installed
hundreds of thousands of feet of signal and communications cables.<br>
<br>
“We are nearing the completion of all the Sandy-related resilience
work,” Janno Lieber, the President of MTA Construction &
Development, recently told Gothamist/WNYC. “This is huge stuff. I
mean the whole system, we needed to move the controls out of the
flood zone. We’ve needed to harden a ton of infrastructure to keep
water out. We’ve needed to increase pumping capacity in 11 tunnels
that were deluged.”<br>
<br>
Ultimately, the MTA’s investment will only protect the transit
system for a limited period of time. In its March 2019 report, the
New York City Panel on Climate Change projected that the city is
facing between 1.25 and 9.5 feet of sea level rise by the end of
the century. This will permanently flood some neighborhoods,
augmenting tidal flooding and storm surges along the way.
According to one of the report’s authors, a large-scale managed
retreat from the waterfront seems inevitable.<br>
<br>
“It will be a city at higher elevations,” said Dr. Klaus Jacob, a
geophysicist at Columbia University’s Earth Institute, who served
on the city’s climate panel from 2008 to 2019. He anticipates that
residents in dozens of coastal neighborhoods will need to relocate
to higher ground as sea levels rise.<br>
<br>
“This will cost at least in the hundreds of billions as a project
because it’s not just the housing,” Jacob added. “If you move
around hundreds of thousands of people, it will [mean] changes for
school capacity, for medical facilities, parks, libraries, you
name it. The whole infrastructure of the city will have to adapt
to this migration.”<br>
<br>
A managed retreat of this scale would influence the MTA’s
infrastructure, especially its coastal train routes, which would
have to be moved inland, according to Jacob. This would be
extremely difficult, given the density of the region’s buildings
and other infrastructure.<br>
<br>
“Many of them are at such low lying places,” said Jacob. “The only
opportunity I see, if we want to modernize and stabilize our train
connections in the Atlantic coastal areas, is to go to elevated
tracks.”<br>
<br>
Jacob has worked on several assessments of how sea level rise will
impact the MTA, including a pre-Sandy evaluation that predicted
some of the storm damage. In a more recent analysis, he and a team
of Columbia engineering graduate students evaluated how the MTA’s
new network of approximately 4,000 flood measures in Manhattan
would fare during another Sandy.<br>
<br>
“It was amazing how much the leakage rate or the flooding of the
subway had gone down. It was essentially eliminated,” said Jacob.
“That would get you way beyond the year 2050 and maybe even later,
depending on the rate of sea level rise.”<br>
<br>
But that is if the system performs precisely as designed. The team
tested what would happen if certain singular failures occur. They
found that if just one barrier at a subway entrance were to fail,
it would be almost like the other 3,999 odd barriers weren’t
there.<br>
<br>
“There’s no redundancy in the system,” said Jacob, who recommended
that the MTA create an entirely new set of backups for its
Manhattan flood protection. “It’s the famous weakest link in the
chain.”<br>
<br>
With many pieces of its infrastructure at or below sea level, the
MTA is painfully aware of the threats posed by the climate crisis.
The Metro-North’s Hudson line is located at the edge of the Hudson
River. The A train barely skims above Jamaica Bay. Elevating or
relocating train lines and moving facilities to higher ground may
eventually become necessary, but the MTA is saving those decisions
for a later date.<br>
<br>
“Right now, we are not retreating, we are battening down the
hatches and making sure that all of our systems can manage the
risk that has been created by climate change,” said Lieber from
MTA Construction & Development. “We learned a lot from the
Sandy experience. No part of the city was hit harder than the MTA,
so we are trying to put all those lessons into effect. So, I am
going to leave [it] to wiser heads, the question of retreat.”<br>
<br>
Columbia University’s Earth Institute will convene a conference
this June to investigate the question At What Point Managed
Retreat? It is a conundrum facing cities around the world. For
Jacob, the answer is clear.<br>
<br>
“Why don’t we start to plan for that now. That means our land use
and zoning will have to be updated now,” said Jacob. “New York
City better adapt. Because if it’s not adapting, it’s doomed.”<br>
<br>
Full disclosure: Nathan Kensinger will be an unpaid panelist at
the Columbia University academic conference on managed retreat
mentioned in this article.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://gothamist.com/news/heres-how-nyc-transit-system-is-prepping-for-sea-level-riseand-why-it-may-not-be-enough">https://gothamist.com/news/heres-how-nyc-transit-system-is-prepping-for-sea-level-riseand-why-it-may-not-be-enough</a><br>
</p>
<br>
<p><br>
</p>
[Digging back into the internet news archive]<br>
<font size="+1"><b>On this day in the history of global warming -
April 23, 2007 </b></font><br>
<p>April 23, 2007: <br>
In a speech on climate change and energy at the Center for
Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C., Senator
John McCain (R-AZ) notes:<br>
<br>
"The burning of oil and other fossil fuels is contributing to the
dangerous accumulation of greenhouse gases in the earth's
atmosphere, altering our climate with the potential for major
social, economic and political upheaval. The world is already
feeling the powerful effects of global warming, and far more dire
consequences are predicted if we let the growing deluge of
greenhouse gas emissions continue, and wreak havoc with God's
creation. A group of senior retired military officers recently
warned about the potential upheaval caused by conflicts over
water, arable land and other natural resources under strain from a
warming planet. The problem isn't a Hollywood invention nor is
doing something about it a vanity of Cassandra like hysterics. It
is a serious and urgent economic, environmental and national
security challenge. <br>
<br>
"National security depends on energy security, which we cannot
achieve if we remain dependent on imported oil from Middle Eastern
governments who support or foment by their own inattention and
inequities the rise of terrorists or on swaggering demagogues and
would be dictators in our hemisphere. <br>
<br>
"There's no doubt it's an enormous challenge. But is it too big a
challenge for America to tackle; this great country that has never
before confronted a problem it couldn't solve? No, it is not. No
people have ever been better innovators and problem solvers than
Americans. It is in our national DNA to see challenges as
opportunities; to conquer problems beyond the expectation of an
admiring world. America, relying as always on the industry and
imagination of a free people, and the power and innovation of free
markets, is capable of overcoming any challenge from within and
without our borders. Our enemies believe we're too weak to
overcome our dependence on foreign oil. Even some of our allies
think we're no longer the world's most visionary, most capable
country or committed to the advancement of mankind. I think we
know better than that. I think we know who we are and what we can
do. Now, let's remind the world."<br>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ca-82G-mEvs">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ca-82G-mEvs</a><br>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=77106">http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=77106</a><br>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/23/AR2007042301763.html">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/23/AR2007042301763.html</a><br>
<br>
• Katie Couric's CBSNews.com "Notebook" segment covers the
calamity of climate change.<br>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://youtu.be/CGJMyei2iQM">http://youtu.be/CGJMyei2iQM</a><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
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