The first annual National Adaptation Forum was held in Denver this past April. Organizers expected around 150 attendees, but over 500 signed-up. They had to shut down the registration desk and turn people away (I had to beg to get in!).
The speaker presentations are now online for you to download. Great information (and contacts if you’re job searching) covering a variety of adaptation topics - cities, ecosystems, adaptation law, conservation, animal protection, forests, sea level rise, Native American issues - tons of case studies, examples, and science of adaptation! The presentations are hosted by California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Climate Science Division - get them while they last. You can get PPTs by heavies Vicki Arroyo, Susanne Moser, Roger Pulwarty, Gwen Shaughnessy and many other climate adaptation specialists. Great stuff!
Post Hurricane Sandy beach erosion “repairs,” Singer Island, Florida. Via.
Dramatic video by NYTimes on Chinese government’s heavy handed plan to move 250,000,000 people to cities. That’s pretty close to the size of the entire population of the United States.
Floods in Europe. From In Focus - The Atlantic:
The historic flooding throughout central Europe continues, as the Elbe River has broken through several dikes in northern Germany, and the crest of the swollen Danube River has reached southern Hungary, and threatens Serbia.
Parts of Austria and the Czech Republic are now in recovery mode, as thousands of residents return home to recover what they can. Gathered here are images from the past several days of those affected by these continuing floods.
See earlier entry: Flooding Across Central Europe. [24 photos]
First photo: A Super Puma [helicopter] of the German Federal Police Bundespolizei carries sandbags to fix a broken dam built to contain the swollen Elbe River during floods near the village of Fischbeck, on June 10, 2013. (Reuters/Tobias Schwarz)
Second photo: Budapest. The flooded River Danube, with a city view of the parliament building in downtown Budapest, on June 10, 2013. The Danube peaked at 891 cm, 31 cm higher than the record levels of 2006. (Attila Kisbenedek/AFP/Getty Images) Via
Images of the Black Forest fire near Colorado Springs show how devastating a wildfire can be. Why are more homes being built in these kinds of areas?
What a great exploration of how our communities are built. Click through and press “listen” if you can. The answers are surprising, especially if you’re new to urban planning, disaster management, and land use development.
Hundreds of heat related deaths since May.
Recent extreme temperatures that are commonly followed by floods can largely be attributed to climatic warming.
In 2010, the May temperature in Mohenjo-daro, a semi-ruined city in Sindh province, reached 53.5C (128F), the fourth highest temperature ever recorded in the world and the highest ever in Asia.
Click through for the Denver Post’s coverage of the Black Forest Fire, the worst in the state’s history. The cause of the fire is unknown, but the severity is traced to persistent drought, massive tree deaths by bark beetles, dry soils, and budget cuts.
More than 800,000 New York City residents will live in flood zones by the 2050s, according to warnings issued by the Bloomberg administration, which hopes to encourage better preparation for climate change.
Other states are hiding this data from the public (glaring at you, North Carolina).
Thousands of people have been evacuated from their homes in a region of eastern Germany where the Elbe river has flooded and burst through a dam, while swollen Danube was approaching Budapest where soldiers and volunteers are building flood walls, officials said Sunday.
Existing flood walls and barriers are holding up, though.
Disasters make for sexy headlines, but the real stories are in the clean up. Also, often times politicians use disasters to push through tough land-use regulations (such as no-rebuild zones or requiring homes on stilts) after a big storm. These regulations would get little-to-no support without a big storm or disaster.
Politicians uninterested in helping fix the situation, leaving repairs to emergency funds. And endangering the public…
NPR’S Scott Simon introduces the topic (on the audio version) with this somber revelation: “[C]hances are 1 in 9 that a bridge you drive over has been deemed structurally deficient, or basically in bad shape, by the federal government.” Worse yet, “there is no consensus on how to tackle the problem or pay for proposed solutions”.
In the aftermath of the collapse of the Skagit River Bridge, NPR’s Brian Naylor interviews Barry LePatner, a New York real estate and construction lawyer and author of Too Big to Fall: America’s Failing Infrastructure and the Way Forward, that analyzed the collapse of the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis, Minn. in August, 2007.
Excellent progress out of NYC. This clicks through to the NYC Govt tumblr!
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg today released the 2013 PlaNYC progress report and announced that the City is on track to meet all of its ambitious sustainability targets.
The report – an annual benchmarking of the City’s work toward its PlaNYC goals – measures progress on more than 100 initiatives that the City has launched to meet its targets for cleaner air and water, more housing and park space, and enhanced quality of life for all New Yorkers.
In the last year, the City built on the achievements made since PlaNYC first launched in 2007 by:
- planting 65,000 trees;
- breaking ground on a new project at High Bridge Park;
- launching Citi Bike, the city’s newest public transportation option and nation’s largest bike share program;
- undertaking the largest expansion of the recycling system in 25 years;
- and reaching a 16 percent greenhouse gas reduction – more than halfway to the goal of 30 percent by 2030.
