#climate mitigation

From the article:

Excerpt from this Grist story:

Deep in the bowels of .gov web addresses sits a site that houses the climate adaptation plans for more than two dozen federal agencies. They outline everything from the Smithsonian protecting the National Museum of American History from flooding to the Department of Defense “incorporat[ing] climate considerations into wargames.”

The fact that these documents remain available — including on the recently updated Environmental Protection Agency site — stands in stark contrast to President Donald Trump’s broader purge of climate-related programming from the federal government. Even the rest of the sustainability.gov website where they reside has largely been wiped clean since Trump’s inauguration.

“I don’t know if leaving [them] up was intentional,” said Elizabeth Losos, an executive in residence at Duke University, who provided technical support for the plans. She said it could be an oversight and the plans will be taken down eventually. Or it could be a sign that some within the administration want to tackle issues related to natural disaster and climate preparedness.

“There are folks there who know that if you screw this up too much it comes back and bites you,” Losos said. She also said she believes that “they aren’t nearly as hostile to climate adaptation and resiliency as they are climate mitigation.”

The White House did not respond to multiple requests for comment, including one sent to the Council on Environmental Quality, which spearheaded the plans. Grist also reached out to all 30 government entities that produced the documents. Only a handful responded, though they avoided referencing “climate change.”

“The [State] Department will continue to plan for and seek to mitigate disruptions to its critical operations from a range of possible disruptions, including natural hazards,” said one agency spokesperson in an email. Another wrote that the “EPA takes very seriously how natural hazards and disasters can affect human health and the environment.” Neither agency responded to follow up questions.

Nearly five years after the City of Vancouver declared a climate emergency, projections show the municipality falling short of its climate target. The update came in an annual report on the city’s efforts to tackle climate change presented to council on Wednesday. “It’s obviously not a problem Vancouver is going to be solving alone, it’s a global problem that demands a global solution, but we do have an important role in that,” said Matt Horne, the city’s manager of climate mitigation.

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Vienna

I had a wonderful time in Vienna with the crew from Gartenpolylog. It started with a berry planting session at a fabulous garden in front of some new apartment buildings where green space and community growing has been incorporated into the design. Well done to the developers for recognising the importance of including such important green spaces into their plans.

I then went on to visit a couple of fabulous gardens the following day. One on an old coal train line and the other was a very large garden by Australian standards who were celebrating their 10 year anniversary. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many people having so much fun in a community garden before! It was a wonderful celebration which I was honoured to be invited to. Thank you to both gardens for inviting me.

Hope in a Changing Climate Youtube

by John D Liu

This film was first broadcast on the BBC World in 2009 the day before the Copenhagen COP 15 of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. It discusses a viable solution to human induced climate change. Nothing in the years since it was first broadcast has changed this. It is more important now than when it was first broadcast. The Sponsorship was arrange by IUCN and the financial sponsors had no input in the content and did not see the film until it was broadcast.    

“If people were the problem, they could also be the solution.”

Rising seas give Marshall Island nationals a stark choice: relocate or elevate

Climate change means the low-lying Marshall Islands must consider drastic measures, including building new artificial islands.

BY JON LETMAN

The navigational prowess of Marshall Islanders is legendary. For thousands of years, Marshallese have embraced their watery environment, building a culture on more than 1,200 islands scattered across 750,000 square miles of ocean.

But powerful tropical cyclones, damaged reefs and fisheries, worsening droughts, and sea-level rise threaten the coral reef atolls of this large ocean state, forcing the Marshallese to navigate a new reality.

In a moment of reckoning, Marshall Islanders face a stark choice: relocate or elevate. One idea being considered is the construction of a new island or raising an existing one.

With 600 billion tons of melting iceflowing into oceans that are absorbing heat twice as fast as 18 years ago, the Marshallese will need to move fast.

A report published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in October highlighted different projected outcomes from a temperature rise of 1.5°C versus 2°C.

In the report, small-island developing states are identified as being at disproportionately higher risk of adverse consequences of global warming. Among them, four atoll nations: Kiribati, Tuvalu, the Maldives, and the Marshall Islands, are at greatest risk.