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Sea-level rise threatens 13 million Americans. Can FEMA help?

Entrepreneur and presidential hopeful Andrew Yang caught flak at the second Democratic debate in July for saying that the time has come to move Americans living in the path of sea-level rise to higher ground. “You can run but you can’t hide” doesn’t make a particularly good presidential slogan. After all, admitting defeat and letting nature take its course isn’t exactly our first instinct as human beings.

Managed retreat — abandoning areas that become so threatened by sea-level rise that they are, for whatever reason, considered not worth saving — has been a far less popular idea than adaptation strategies like flood gates, levees, and pumps. (Just look at Miami.)

But in many respects Yang’s realism is spot on. If the world keeps burning fossil fuels as usual, between four and 13 million Americans will see their homes inundated by sea-level rise this century. In the future, managed retreat will become unavoidable.

Don’t take Yang’s word for it. That’s one of the conclusions of a new study in Science Advances — the first to evaluate how managed retreat is functioning in the United States on a national scale. The study’s authors analyzed the Federal Emergency Management Administration’s voluntary buyout program — an initiative that allows owners of flood-prone properties to sell their homes and land to local governments, usually in the aftermath of a disaster. The aim of the program is to get vulnerable people and assets out of flood plains and to ensure that at-risk property doesn’t go back on the market so some other unfortunate soul ends up buying a house that floods once a year. So far, a little more than 40,000 people in 49 states have taken advantage of the program. That’s not a lot of households, and the study found that the number of buyouts overseen by FEMA has actually gone down over the past three decades.

By looking at buyouts that occurred between 1989 and 2017, the study’s authors were able to evaluate the way communities are utilizing (or not utilizing) FEMA’s buyout program, what demographics are benefiting from the program, and how retreat fits into a wider climate strategy.

The study took FEMA’s publicly available buyout data, compared it to other data sets, and found that the counties that take advantage of the program on average have higher income and population density than those that don’t. Within those counties, however, the neighborhoods where the buyouts took place were actually lower-income, denser, and more racially diverse. To the authors of the study, these trends signal that not all local governments have equal access to the program. For example, in Harris County, which includes Houston, there have been more than 2,000 buyouts since 1989. But Louisiana, Florida, and Mississippi — the three states that have had the highest levels of property damage from flooding — rank lowest in the nation in state-wide property buyouts.

The study also found that counties are, for the most part, buying up a few properties at a time with FEMA funds, instead of entire swaths — a predictable outcome when buyouts are voluntary. That’s a missed opportunity to restore flood plains and reduce overall risk to the community. To compound the complexity of the issue, FEMA hasn’t done a good job of documenting its own progress — when logging buyouts in its system, the administration neglected to fill out nearly half of the entries. That means that in many cases researchers don’t know what type of residence was bought out, including whether it was a rental or mobile home.

Millions of Americans may have to contend with managed retreat; why have so few taken advantage of FEMA’s program? Part of the reason may be due to the fact that retreating to higher ground hasn’t really been a central part of states’ flood risk mitigation plans thus far. Local governments have long prioritized approaches like disaster assistance and improved engineering. That could change, though, thanks to a perfect storm of factors. “Even places that have not done buyouts to date are increasingly thinking about the combination of hazards,” Katherine Mach, the lead author of the study, said in a conference call with reporters. “In Louisiana, for example, it’s the combination of oil extraction plus reduced sediment supply plus sea-level rise in normal circumstances versus disaster circumstances.” Buyouts will likely be part of the state’s “full suite of responses,” Mach said.

So what happens if Yang’s prediction of devastating sea-level rise comes true? There are 49 million housing units on the U.S. coast and over $1 trillion worth of infrastructure within 700 feet of the coast, says study author A.R. Sider. “If even one-tenth of that needed to relocate, we’d be talking about orders of magnitude larger than we’ve ever done before with buyouts,” she said.

The study’s authors hope their work lays the groundwork for more research on this topic. “One of the questions we’re trying to answer is what the impacts of buyouts are for the households that participate in them,” said Caroline Kraan, another of the study’s authors. “Where do these households move to? Are they better or worse off in the long term?” We know at least one presidential candidate who’s probably very interested in the answer.

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Sea-level rise threatens 13 million Americans. Can FEMA help?

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How to Green the Marijuana Industry

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From the outside looking in, the marijuana industry might appear very eco-friendly. After all, it involves harvesting plants — what could be greener than that? But there’s a darker environmental underbelly to many cannabis operations and, in a time where legalization is sweeping the nation, something has to be done.

Confronting the Problem

The problem with marijuana production is that most growing is done inside warehouses, greenhouses and other carefully monitored environments. As such, growers have very specific light and temperature requirements. Paul Isenbergh, who owns three cannabis-growing facilities in the hotbed market of Denver, Colo., told The Guardian he pays at least $4,000 per month for electricity. And when you consider that there are thousands of people just like Isenbergh, it’s not hard to believe a New Frontier study that says 1 percent of all U.S. energy is used to grow cannabis.

When it comes to outdoor growing, the situation isn’t much better. The pesticides used to protect the crops often pollute bodies of water and kill creatures.

“A bunch of fish may turn up dead in a creek, so we’ll go look, walk upstream and inevitably run into a marijuana growth site,” Patrick Foy from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife told the International Business Times.

3 Things Industry Leaders Can Do

Clearly there’s a problem. While making the public aware of the issue is one thing that can be done, it’s ultimately up to the leaders of the industry to take charge — and many of them are doing so.

Here are a few specific things that are being done, or can be done, to make the cannabis industry greener.

1. Improve Supply Chain Visibility

For cannabis dispensaries, marijuana growers, and manufacturing and sales operations, visibility is an absolute must. It’s impossible to run a profitable and sustainable business without having a clear understanding of what’s happening within the business. Thankfully, progress is being made here.

Agrisoft Seed to Sale software is one product leading the way. Developed specifically for the cannabis industry, Agrisoft makes cannabis compliance a breeze and ensures businesses can track inventory and remain 100 percent accountable to regulators and lawmakers.

2. Dial Back Energy Usage

Energy consumption is obviously a big deal. In order for growers and harvesters to do their part, they’ll have to discover what it looks like to dial back energy usage without compromising the quality of their product.

According to Amy Andrle, who runs the only cannabis retail store in Denver with official sustainability certification, there are some specific things cannabis-related businesses must do. She encourages the use of LED lighting and avoiding peak demand by staggering when lights are turned on and off. She also suggests hand-watering plants and limiting gray water productions.

3. Enhance Packaging

Did you know that 300 million tons of plastic are produced every year — and that half of it is intended for single use? This might seem like an unrelated problem, but the reality is that almost all cannabis products use plastic in packaging. (In a recent list of approved cannabis packaging types that the Oregon Liquor Control Commission put out, 28 out of 29 options included plastic.)

Believe it or not, the cannabis industry can have a very real impact on the reduction of single-use plastic packaging consumption. Many companies are already working hard to do their part, but it’s important that more join the fold.

Make Marijuana Green Again

As the decriminalization of marijuana continues to happen in more and more states around the nation, it’s important for marijuana growing, packaging and sales to become greener.

Sustainability is what will allow the industry to move forward.

Feature image courtesy of Shutterstock

Read More:
Study Finds Medical Pot Farms Draining Streams Dry
Hempcrete: A New Brick in the Wall
How Medicine Makes the Environment Sick

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Anna Johansson

Anna is a freelance writer, researcher and business consultant. A columnist for Entrepreneur.com, HuffingtonPost.com and more, Anna loves enjoying the great outdoors with her family. Follow her on

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How to Green the Marijuana Industry – September 8, 2017
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Cultivating Mindfulness Helps You Care for the Earth – July 17, 2017

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How to Green the Marijuana Industry

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McDonald’s Is 60 Years Old. On Its "Opening Day" It Bragged About Having Served 15 Million Burgers.

Mother Jones

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Here is a hilarious thing that I find hilarious. The first McDonald’s franchise opened its doors 60 years ago today in Des Plaines, Illinois. This is the day McDonald’s Corporation celebrates as its birthday. When you dive into Google to find the opening day menu for the McDonald’s that opened in Des Plaines, Illinois, on April 15, 1955, this is what you find:

source: kottke.com

Notice anything funny? On its opening day menu, McDonald’s bragged about having already served “over 15 million burgers.” So what’s going on? Is this just a hilariously transparent case of false advertising or something else?

It turns out something else. Though McDonald’s as we know it traces its origins to April 15, 1955, in Des Plaines, Illinois, that was actually just the first franchise. McDonald’s had actually already existed for years in California. It was founded by brothers Dick and Mac McDonald in the 1940s. The site’s official history explains:

Entrepreneur Ray Kroc pitched his vision of creating McDonald’s restaurants all over the U.S. to the brothers. In 1955, he founded McDonald’s System, Inc., a predecessor of the McDonald’s Corporation, and six years later bought the exclusive rights to the McDonald’s name. By 1958, McDonald’s had sold its 100 millionth hamburger.

So there was nothing nefarious about this claim, but it is still pretty amusing.

Correction: This post originally said Des Plaines was in Iowa. It is in Illinois. I’m dumb.

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McDonald’s Is 60 Years Old. On Its "Opening Day" It Bragged About Having Served 15 Million Burgers.

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Skinnygirl Solutions – Bethenny Frankel

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Skinnygirl Solutions

Your Straight-Up Guide to Home, Health, Family, Career, Style, and Sex

Bethenny Frankel

Genre: Health, Mind & Body

Price: $12.99

Publish Date: August 6, 2013

Publisher: Touchstone

Seller: Simon and Schuster Digital Sales Inc.


BETHENNY FRANKEL, FOUR-TIME NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR, ON-THE-GO WORKING MOM, SELF-MADE BUSINESSWOMAN, AND DAYTIME’S NEWEST TALK SHOW HOST, SHARES HER SKINNYGIRL GUIDE TO LIFE: SIMPLE IDEAS, EXTRAORDINARY RESULTS. SKINNYGIRL SOLUTIONS is your guide to having it all without getting overwhelmed. Bethenny’s nononsense advice extends beyond the first adult steps and well into real relationships, established careers, and mommyhood, including: • Living Naturally Thin • Making fresh, healthy food for the table and on the go • Organizing your kitchen, your closet, and even your bathroom • Finding great fashion without breaking the bank • Beauty care essentials • Creating a home that’s a haven • Effortless entertaining • Career planning • Entrepreneur advice • And how to create work-life balance In SKINNYGIRL SOLUTIONS, Bethenny offers hard-won advice on how to maintain a wellbalanced life. In Skinnygirl Wellness, Bethenny updates her advice on how to be Naturally Thin with an all new Quick-Start Plan and tips for getting kids (and the whole family) to eat better without complaints! The Skinnygirl Solutions for Daily Life section reveals Bethenny’s keys to managing a hectic schedule, keeping a beautiful home, and finding time for love, family, and yourself. Lastly, in Skinnygirl on the Job, Bethenny addresses such issues as launching a career that fits with all the other important components of your life, knowing if you’re ready to have your own business, the pros and cons of working from home, the 101 on finance, and what to do when things go wrong. In SKINNYGIRL SOLUTIONS Bethenny gives her always honest take on how to make smart, everyday choices that will lead to a fabulous Skinnygirl life.

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Skinnygirl Solutions – Bethenny Frankel

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