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Boston to order builders to adapt to climate change

by Felixqq9pd Posted on October 30, 2013

Boston to order builders to adapt to climate change

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Buildahs in Beantown will need to adapt to global wahming.

As the climate changes, the coastal city has decided that it won’t put up with any more buildings that are prone to flood or overheat. From The Boston Globe:

City officials proposed new zoning rules Tuesday that would require developers of large new buildings in Boston to submit plans to deal with flooding, heat waves, and other potential complications of climate change as sea levels and temperatures are projected to rise.

The rules, which will be presented to the Boston Redevelopment Authority board next month, are among a number of steps city officials said they have taken since Hurricane Sandy last year demonstrated the dangers posed by a changing climate and increasingly potent storms along the East Coast.

City officials also said they have identified municipal buildings, tunnels, MBTA stations, roads, and other low-lying areas that are most vulnerable to flooding and should be the focus of efforts to lessen the damage from floods.

“Climate change is rapidly and drastically altering the world in which we live, and Boston, like many other coastal cities, will suffer if we don’t take action,” Brian Swett, the city’s chief of environment and energy, said at a press conference at the New England Aquarium. “We cannot and will not kick the can down the road for someone else to deal with, because this issue is not generations away; it’s right on our doorstep.”

The city isn’t just adapting to global warming; it’s also taking steps to reduce its climate-changing emissions. It has installed LEDs in street lights, switched from oil to natural gas where it can, and reduced energy consumption by schools, public libraries, and other city buildings.

Still, environmentalists warn that a lot more needs to be done. “We need to work harder,” said George Bachrach, president of the Environmental League of Massachusetts.


Source
New city zoning plans tied to changes in climate, The Boston Globe

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Boston to order builders to adapt to climate change

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Why Air Strikes Against Syria Probably Won’t Work

by Felixqq9pd Posted on August 26, 2013

Mother Jones

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Over at WorldViews, Max Fisher provides the nickel arguments for and against air strikes against Syria. The case against is pretty straightforward: Air strikes won’t change much of anything; there will be civilian casualties; and it’s almost certain to lead to escalation. That’s a pretty good case! So what’s the case for strikes? Here it is:

1) A “punishment” strike against Assad’s forces for this month’s suspected chemical weapons attack would make him think twice before doing it again….2) The international norm against chemical weapons matters for more than just Syria….When the next civilian or military leader locked in a difficult war looks back on what happened in Syria, we want him to conclude that using chemical weapons would not be worth the risk. 3) Even just the (apparently earnest) threat of U.S. strikes could change Assad’s behavior.

This is basically a single argument dressed up three different ways: air strikes will deter future chemical attacks. The problem is that I don’t believe it unless the strikes are absolutely devastating. Assad is plainly in a fight for his existence, and under circumstances like that nothing is likely to stop him except the certain knowledge that US retaliation would make his position worse than if he had done nothing in the first place. Air strikes might be defensible if we’re willing to act on a scale that large, but make no mistake: we’d basically be committing ourselves to full-scale war against Assad.

It’s possible that enforcing international norms against chemical attacks is important enough to make that worth it. But that’s the question we should be asking ourselves. A “punishment” air strike is a joke, little more than a symbol of helplessness to be laughed off as the nuisance it is. If we want to change Assad’s behavior, we’ll have to declare war against him.

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Why Air Strikes Against Syria Probably Won’t Work

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The Peculiar Anti-PC Case for Larry Summers as Fed Chairman

by Felixqq9pd Posted on July 31, 2013

Mother Jones

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Who do you support to replace Ben Bernanke as chairman of the Fed? Janet Yellen or Larry Summers? Ezra Klein reports today that Yellen supporters are blanketing the airwaves with endorsements, but Summers supporters are oddly reticent to speak publicly. Nonetheless, he figures it’s worthwhile to pass along the (anonymous) pro-Summers case that’s making the rounds of the White House.

The argument comes in five parts, and for what it’s worth, I consider #1 ridiculous, #2 doubtful, and #3 and #4 perfectly reasonable. You can read them and decide for yourself. But I was pretty taken aback by #5:

Backlash to the gender issue. This isn’t part of the case for Summers, exactly, but it’s part of the psychology of his supporters right now. People involved in the White House’s Fed search really, really don’t like the implication that they’re sexists. They see the allegation that gender is playing a role here as absurd and offensive and an effort to back them into making a choice based on political correctness rather than the merits. It’s a bit hard to gauge this, but my sense is the intense anger over the allegations is hardening people’s positions, as they don’t want to submit to a pressure campaign they consider deeply unfair.

I don’t get this. What I’ve seen are lots of gender-coded complaints coming from conservatives about how Yellen would be little more than a PC diversity choice. This is ridiculous and has gotten lots of pushback. I’ve also seen lots of liberals saying that it would be great to break one of the last glass ceilings in Washington and have a woman in the top spot at the Fed.

But what I haven’t seen are arguments that Team Obama would be outing themselves as sexists if they chose Summers. Have I just missed them? Maybe. But if Ezra is right about this, it sure seems as if the Obama folks are being a little hypersensitive.

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The Peculiar Anti-PC Case for Larry Summers as Fed Chairman

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Good news for penguins: World’s largest marine reserve could be established around Antarctica

by Felixqq9pd Posted on July 15, 2013

Good news for penguins: World’s largest marine reserve could be established around Antarctica

By John Upton

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Antarctica’s penguins could benefit from proposals to create huge international marine preserves in their ‘hood.

Plans to protect more than 1.5 million square miles of ocean around Antarctica are getting serious consideration this week — and that could be a big benefit for whales, seals, birds, fish, krill, and other wildlife in the region.

The idea is akin to creating a vast national park, except that it would be an international park. And it would be larger than most nations. And it would be entirely soggy.

From USA Today:

On July 16, the members of the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) — 24 nations and the European Union — will vote on two proposals for marine reserves, each one bigger in size than the state of Alaska. A U.S.-New Zealand one would set aside roughly 876,000 square miles in and around the frozen Ross Sea, a home for penguin nurseries and source of nutrients throughout the Pacific Ocean. A second European and Australian one would set aside a more than 700,000-square-mile string of protected marine reserves around Eastern Antarctica.

NPR has more, including a comparison to another big U.S. state:

“The total size of the marine protected area we are proposing is roughly 3 1/2 times the size of Texas,” says Ambassador Mike Moore, the former prime minister of New Zealand, who was talking up the joint U.S.-New Zealand proposal in Washington this spring. “So to misquote the vice president of the United States, ‘this is a big deal.’” …

But because these two areas are in international waters, creating marine preserves will require consensus from all of the nations in the pact known as CCAMLR …

When the group met to discuss the issue last fall, it couldn’t reach agreement. Russia, China and Ukraine were concerned about losing fishing rights in these seas. But they agreed to [a] meeting in Germany to try again.

That meeting is happening today and tomorrow in Bremerhaven, Germany.

The New York Times weighed in with an editorial over the weekend, urging the commission members to support the conservation proposals:

The biggest obstacle is Russia, which has expressed resistance to these reserves. It is joined by Ukraine, China, Japan and South Korea. Their hope is to manage fishing in the Antarctic much as it is managed elsewhere, with limits and restrictions. But the state of fisheries around the globe makes it clear that the most effective antidote to declining fish populations is the creation of totally protected marine reserves.

The Obama administration has expressed strong support for the idea of such protections in Antarctica, and many delegates to the Bremerhaven meeting are hopeful that sooner or later the Russians and other opponents can be brought on board. But when it comes to protecting ecosystems, sooner or later often means later, which often means too late. The time to protect the Antarctic Ocean is now.

Here’s hoping that these five reluctant countries, all of which are located in the Northern Hemisphere, don’t continue to pour cold water over proposals that could help stabilize the world’s fish stocks — and protect one of the world’s last big wild areas.

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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After Protest, China Cancels Plans for Uranium Plant

by Felixqq9pd Posted on July 12, 2013

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After Protest, China Cancels Plans for Uranium Plant

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