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Adapting to climate change?
I took these pictures a couple of days ago along the seawall in downtown Vancouver. Every month there are a few high tides that flood the sidewalk, not always completely like this, but sometimes a good 20 cm (8 inches) over. How many cities will lose similar attractions with, say, a meter more of sea level rise?
Former musician, turned tree planter, turned software engineer. Same old story…
I have been blogging about climate change since 2006 at A Few Things Ill Considered.
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New interactive map shows devastating effects of global temperature rise
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caniscandida Posted 7:40 pm
30 Dec 2006
Vancouver is a remarkably pleasant, comfortable, humane city. Surely, few cities can match it.
But Venice, la Repubblica Serenissima, is a treasure, part of all humanity's patrimony. And it seems ever more clear that we are going to lose her, if nothing is done.
On "global weirding": here in NYC, we have had a record-challenging snowless December. Meanwhile, in Denver, they have had rather more snow than they can handle.
On regular serious flooding: so far that has not been a problem, here in NYC. But I wonder why Mayor Bloomberg has been advocating big new building projects, and why there is an impressive amount of new fancy-schmancy residences along the Hudson River in lower Manhattan. How confident can those developers and buyers be? What do their insurance agents tell them?
Chickens are our cousins!
So are other sensitive animals!
Enough is enough!
No more factory farms!
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amazingdrx Posted 12:53 am
31 Dec 2006
But the good folk have spent 10s of thousands on all that stuff, so they are damn well going to get their money's worth! A few beers and they don't notice the brown "snow".
Ahh the smell of internal combustion in the morning! Nothing smells better to real americans.
A local theater is advertising an ice-fishing comedy show, they mention laughter at "40 below".
It hasn't even gone to 20 below here for 10 years. And we are supposed to debate very politely with global climate change deniers?
Meanwhile lake levels keep dropping and invasive insect species thrive on decimated tree species.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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Laurence Aurbach Posted 3:19 am
31 Dec 2006
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KathyF Posted 3:44 am
31 Dec 2006
Incredible.
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willa Posted 9:58 am
31 Dec 2006
The 2' of snow at home in NM, though, seems like the one normal thing that's happened this winter. I mean, I get that that's not necessarily the norm historically, but within my lifetime, it is. When I was a kid I went sledding all the time at my house in Santa Fe, skied from Thanksgiving till Easter on a fully-open ski mountain (recently, they've struggled to open at all before Christmas, and closed early a lot, though it used to be that they complained about the Forest Service not letting them open early and close late).
So, in the midst of all this warm, wet gloom, I am happy to hear that our monsoons came back somewhat over the summer and our snow came back at least somewhat this winter. It feels normal to me, anyway.
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SMLowry Posted 10:03 am
31 Dec 2006
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SMLowry Posted 10:08 am
31 Dec 2006
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atreyger Posted 12:23 pm
31 Dec 2006
Al Gore is personally responsible for the different weather patterns across the United States with his pompous ego!
Lib media made up all these stories to ramp up the destruction of the US economy!
Hear more about this in Fox News (the only real and unbiased news channel)!!!
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Jason D Scorse Posted 1:38 pm
31 Dec 2006
J.S.
J.S. teaches environmental economics and blogs at http://www.voicesofreason.info.
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atreyger Posted 6:08 pm
31 Dec 2006
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KathyF Posted 11:20 pm
31 Dec 2006
And Jason, I for one am not saying any of this proves anything, except that extreme climate can take many different forms all over the globe. One day I suspect the UK and northern Europe may face freezing weather again while the rest of the world bakes.
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willa Posted 11:48 pm
31 Dec 2006
I must also say I despise the weather we're having here in the Boston area today--wet and chilly and rainy, too warm to really put my horses' winter blankets on but too cold and wet to leave them "naked". If it would just get cold, they'd actually be able to stay much warmer, because the snow doesn't soak them like rain does. How anyone--even someone who doesn't understand climate change--can think this is better than multiple feet of snow is completely beyond me...
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willa Posted 11:52 pm
31 Dec 2006
http://cartoonbox.slate.com/hottopic/?image=2&topicid...
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amazingdrx Posted 1:38 am
01 Jan 2007
Only read the title, hehey.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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SMLowry Posted 2:17 am
01 Jan 2007
Re: facts: Facts are great but personal experience helps makes those facts real, visceral, and more meaningful. In my opinion, linking the many instances of weird weather currently happening around the globe (I get a regular e-newsletter from http://www.climatecrisiscoalition.org that provides links to articles around the world in various categories) to climate change is essential. Otherwise people will find a way to dismiss what they learn is going on elsewhere (like the UK, Siberia, France, . . .) as well as the strangenesses they are experiencing where they live. Fact is, these events are all connected, as is everything and everyone on Earth.
And anyway, as has been pointed out, strange weather is no longer an isolated experience but has become a trend: the warmest years on record have occurred in last ten years, I believe; consistently below normal snow here in the northeast for several years now; snow by christmas no longer assured and (I intuit) no longer the norm; melting permafrost, glaciers, and all happening faster than scientists had thought; islands already lost to rising seas, most recently the inhabited island of Lohachara in the Bay of Bengal; bears no longer hibernating in Spain; bears here in the northeast didn't take to their dens until a couple of weeks ago, much later than normal; I could go on but you get the idea.
People need to hear these things. They need to understand that what is happening is major, isn't going to go away, and isn't going to be solved by by simple, painless means. In fact, I've begun to think that perhaps the most I can do is to bear witness to what I see and experience, to not keep my mouth (and keyboard) shut, and instead of moving to be closer to my son and new inlaws I should, instead, be looking to move to a community that takes the issues facing us seriously enough to be planning for that uncertain future we all face. Finding such a place, however, may be difficult as I bring with me a disabled, brain injured younger sister and all her attendant issues. Anyway . . .
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Fishmarket Posted 3:25 am
01 Jan 2007
You have the same problem as a whole bunch of good ol' boys n gals. You don't have your head stuck in the sand man!
Now before you go out and start shooting anyone who owns a private jet or luxury yacht just hold on.
Even if there was a shred of truth in such a ridiculous idea as global change:
a) what are you going to do to stop it?
and
b) Mr Joe Average in every place from Carmel to Timbuctoo is the cause and he ain't
planning to do nothin different unless and until he's flooded out or fried crisp.
So, do be sure to find sand on high ground to bury your head in - otherwise you could end up all a splutter in the flood water!!!!
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amazingdrx Posted 3:55 am
01 Jan 2007
The latest recycled one? It's just a natural cycle.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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caniscandida Posted 4:51 am
01 Jan 2007
I agree that the unusually heavy snowfalls in Denver and Albuquerque are not the weirdest of weather phenomena. The back-to-back blizzards in Denver received so much news coverage apparently because of their effect on air travel. I only mentioned the Denver snow because it was a very unusual event, at the same time as we in the Northeast are experiencing very unusual conditions of a different sort.
KathyF, I was told during my year in Santa Fe that they rarely get much snow during the winter, usually no more than a light dusting. Up on the Sangre de Cristos, though, where the skiing is, is another matter.
SMLowry, thanks for mentioning climatecrisiscoalition.org. As was pointed out by a recent letter-writer from Greece, Grist tends to be rather US-focused, hence of less interest to readers elsewhere. And that particular focus is not unreasonable, for a couple of different reasons; and they do provide links to a wide array of environment-related blogs. But they themselves can do only so much, and that does not include your fascinating item about the bears in Spain no longer hibernating.
I wonder where there are bears in Spain: surely along the Cantabrian coast in the north, e.g. in the Picos de Europa in Asturias? That is a remarkably green and well-watered region, and it would be a pity if it dries out, from too little cold weather.
Just to the south, the Castilian plateau has always had a brutal climate. In the historic northern Castilian city of Burgos, birthplace of El Cid, the climate is proverbially described as "nueve meses de invierno, y tres meses de infierno," "nine months of winter, and three months of hell." But it seems that the plateau is getting warmer at a surprising rate, and Hell is extending its reach. A short distance east-northeast of Burgos is the Rioja valley, where some of the best wine in Spain is made. Let us hope that those vineyards can hold on for a while longer. Ditto, for the vineyards in California.
Chickens are our cousins!
So are other sensitive animals!
Enough is enough!
No more factory farms!
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KathyF Posted 5:30 am
01 Jan 2007
Meanwhile 2006 is the warmest year on record for Great Britain. I'm sure both phenomena have something to do with the fact that I'm here now and not in NM. I am some sort of warm weather angel.
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Fishmarket Posted 2:42 am
02 Jan 2007
Let us suppose each of us can reduce our energy use by 50%. How precisely does this help if at the same time the world population increases by 50%?
The idea that we can somehow ease our way out of climate change by conserving energy is unconvincing.
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amazingdrx Posted 2:53 am
02 Jan 2007
That will reverse global climate change within a decade as the developed world follows the most cost effective competitive solution once its is embraced by the worlds largest consumer nation, US.
The developing world will follow along, and as standards of living increase they too will embrace reproductive rights for women, halting the exponential poulation growth.
Leadership, you don't get it from a shaved ape though. You gotta have an actual human as prez of the US. We will try again to convince you all to embrace actual human leadership in '08. please consider it!
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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willa Posted 3:10 pm
02 Jan 2007
I used to go to races at Sandia every year. I'm 27 now and was on the Santa Fe ski team starting when I was 6 and ending when I was 18; we used to have no problem with having enough snow throughout NM, and in my early teens I remember training with the Sandia kids who had to come up to Santa Fe because Sandia never opened. It was only in my late teens that I started having to do crazy shit like driving to Steamboat to train for two weeks because Santa Fe and Sandia were both closed.
Canis,
Anyone who told you the city of Santa Fe doesn't normally get more than a dusting was either crazy or lying. Where I grew up in Tesuque is a few miles north of the city but at about the same elevation as the northeast side of town, and I have many pictures of myself sledding, of the trees and trucks and houses buried under more than a foot of snow, of the horses with thick blankets of snow on their backs (they love it!), etc. It's been a while, but I ask the older folks I know who have been around SF longer than I have, and they all tell me the 80's and early 90's were more "normal" to them than the last ten years have been.
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caniscandida Posted 6:32 pm
02 Jan 2007
The anecdotal evidence about the last ten years in SF is interesting. I assume that means: the climate is warmer, there is less precipitation, including snowfall, and water conservation has become a serious concern? That is the way people were talking when we were in NM a couple of years ago.
Chickens are our cousins!
So are other sensitive animals!
Enough is enough!
No more factory farms!
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willa Posted 10:29 pm
02 Jan 2007
So, I'm also keenly aware that what I see as "normal," and what seems so within living memory, has to be compared to the geological record.
I still think several feet of snow is the default for this time of year, though...
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Fishmarket Posted 4:33 am
03 Jan 2007
For a real wow take on the subject go to
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/aod/mainframe.shtml?http://www...
Be sure to listen to episode 6 where Jim Kennet talks about methane hydrate reservoirs.
Regards
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Delay And Deny Posted 4:53 am
03 Jan 2007
http://www.physorg.com/news86585073.html
This work...
The Texeme Construct offers international text memetics construction and textcasting services.
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wacki Posted 8:37 am
06 Jan 2007
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Coby Beck Posted 4:28 pm
06 Jan 2007
Here's my tentative hypothesis:
- the city has guidelines for minimum elevation
of public areas by the sea
- this minimum is written down in some dusty book
in cityhall
- it was established a long time ago when the
downtown first started to develope rapidly
- maybe when first established it was based on
decades old standards
no one is adjusting it or thinking about it
the ocean has quietly risen ~15cm in the
last 100 years
- architects/civil engineers copy it without
question into plans for new construction.
I hope to investigate this at some point in the near future, it doesn't strike me as too far fetched. The alternatives would seem to be:
no city guideline to keep things above high tide
a screw up by someone somewhere
intentionally left below the really high tide
line to periodically inconvenience people
(and dogs - mine BTW!)
What do you think?
Invent a clever saying, and your name will live forever!
-- Anonymous
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Coby Beck Posted 4:29 pm
06 Jan 2007
Invent a clever saying, and your name will live forever!
-- Anonymous
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bookerly Posted 7:43 pm
07 Jan 2007
Hi Coby,
I am not sure, but I always thought that the idea was that the benches were sturdy enough to be used when the area wasn't flooded, which was most of the time.
And that of course, it was cute and confusing the rest of the time.
It always struck me as part of the Vancouver style of humor, but maybe I'm wrong.
patrick
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wacki Posted 4:22 pm
08 Jan 2007
You should add to your list "is the park sinking?"
Yellowstone park has shifted tremendous amounts in a very short time. All of this is due to the rather scary caldera or "super-volcano". There could be some geological mechanism playing a hidden roll under your park.
Good to see your blog exploding with comments, you deserve the attention!
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