Reject Proposal to Expand the UDB

submitted by Albert Gomez

miamiherald.com - by Julie Dick - December 14, 2015

Miami-Dade County leaders have a number of decisions to make in the coming days, months and years that will define how we prepare for a changing Miami. If unsustainable developments are approved and move forward — be it a landfill expansion, a highway running through the Everglades ecosystem or new commercial and industrial development in currently undeveloped low-lying areas — they will create future liabilities and sprawling urban areas that will require expensive, though not necessarily effective, flood control. This will put the region’s water resources at risk.

On Tuesday, the County Commission is scheduled to consider whether to approve an application from the Neighborhood Planning Company for an industrial and commercial development on more than 60 acres of agricultural land and wetlands outside of the Urban Development Boundary (UDB).

The development would sit entirely on top of the West Wellfield Protection Area, in which certain land uses and activities are regulated or prohibited to protect the potable water supply from contamination and to provide recharge of the aquifer. Industrial development on this site puts our drinking-water supply at risk. This proposal should not move forward.

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Final Draft of Climate Deal Formally Accepted in Paris

             

French foreign minister and president of the talks Laurent Fabius brings down the gavel to mark the adoption of the agreement. Photograph: Francois Mori/AP

CLICK HERE - Adoption of the Paris Agreement

CLICK HERE - Information - United Nations Conference on Climate Change - COP21

cnn.com - by John D. Sutter and Joshua Berlinger - December 12, 2015

After years of buildup and weeks of negotiations, world leaders accepted the final draft of an ambitious, global climate change agreement Saturday in Paris.

Though hailed as a milestone in the battle to keep Earth hospitable to human life, the plan is short on specifics. It doesn't say how much each country must reduce greenhouse gas emissions or how nations will be punished if they violate the agreement.

The accord sets a goal of limiting average warming to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial temperatures -- and of striving for a limit of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) if possible.

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Why we should care about the United Nations’ COP21


From Nov. 30 — Dec. 11, delegates from 194 countries throughout the world will convene in France for the 21st Conference of the Parties (COP21) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. This conference on climate change is expected to culminate with a new international agreement to mitigate climate change. FIU Law Senior Scholar Ryan Stoa and Journalism and Broadcasting Professor Juliet Pinto will be in attendance at the conference. In this op-ed, Tiffany Troxler, director of the FIU Sea Level Solutions Center, explains the importance of the international gathering.

Tiffany Troxler, director of the FIU Sea Level Solutions Center

Tiffany Troxler, director of the FIU Sea Level Solutions Center

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Tropical Weather Outlook

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Historic High Tides from Supermoon and Sea Level Rise Flood the Southeast Coast

      

The scene in Charleston, S.C., on Tuesday morning during high tide. (Jessica Hofford)

washingtonpost.com - by Angela Fritz - October 27, 2015

Ocean water surged into neighborhoods on the Southeast coast on Tuesday morning during high tide, pushing gauges well beyond predicted levels. Seemingly overnight, spurred by sea level rise, we’ve entered an era where king tides compete with hurricanes in the water level record books . . .

. . . Residents are saying Tuesday’s high tide was worse than South Carolina’s “1,000-year flood” in early October.

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Our plastic paradise

Products containing plastic microbeads that wash into our rivers and lakes. (Courtesy of Marcus Eriksen)

Image: Products containing plastic microbeads that wash into our rivers and lakes. (Courtesy of Marcus Eriksen)

thenewtropic.com - September 29th, 2015 - Roshan Nebhrajani

I was in Seattle recently talking with an old friend about my move back to Miami. “That place is so plastic,” she said to me. Defend Miami mode instantly activated.

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People's Climate March - South Florida - Downtown Miami

Date: 
Wednesday, October 14, 2015 - 05:00 to 08:00

Location

United States
31° 43' 41.4012" N, 148° 32' 6.5616" W

Resilience in the SDGs: Developing an Indicator for Target 1.5 that is Fit for Purpose

                            

odi.org - Aditya Bahadur, Emma Lovell, Emily Wilkinson, Thomas Tanner - August 2015

CLICK HERE - Resilience in the SDGs - Developing an indicator for Target 1.5 that is fit for purpose (7 page .PDF file)

We outline a comprehensive approach for developing a cross-sectoral, multi-dimensional and dynamic understanding of resilience. This underpins the core message of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that development is multi-faceted and the achievement of many of the individual development goals is dependent on the accomplishment of other goals. It also acknowledges that shocks and stresses can reverse years of development gains and efforts to eradicate poverty by 2030. Crucially, this approach to understanding resilience draws on data that countries will collect for the SDGs anyway and entails only a small additional burden in this regard.

(CLICK HERE FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION)

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Fossil Fuels Losing Cost Advantage Over Solar, Wind, IEA Says

      

Photographer - Andrew Harrer / Bloomberg

bloomberg.com - by Tara Patel - August 31, 2015

  • Renewable technologies no longer cost outliers, report says
  • No single technology is cheapest under all circumstances

The cost of producing electricity from renewable sources such as solar and wind has dropped significantly over the past five years, narrowing the gap with power generated from fossil fuels and nuclear reactors, according to the International Energy Agency.

“The costs of renewable technologies -- in particular solar photovoltaic -- have declined significantly over the past five years,” the Paris-based IEA said in a report called Projected Costs of Generating Electricity. “These technologies are no longer cost outliers.”

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NASA: On the U.S. East Coast, Sea Level is Rising Two or Three Times Faster Than Average

Glacial Rebound: The Not So Solid Earth

nasa.gov - August 26, 2015

When you fill a sink, the water rises at the same rate to the same height in every corner. That's not the way it works with our rising seas.

According to the 23-year record of satellite data from NASA and its partners, the sea level is rising a few millimeters a year -- a fraction of an inch. If you live on the U.S. East Coast, though, your sea level is rising two or three times faster than average. If you live in Scandinavia, it's falling. Residents of China's Yellow River delta are swamped by sea level rise of more than nine inches (25 centimeters) a year.

These regional differences in sea level change will become even more apparent in the future, as ice sheets melt. For instance, when the Amundsen Sea sector of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is totally gone, the average global sea level will rise four feet. But the East Coast of the United States will see an additional 14 to 15 inches above that average.

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Tropical Storm ERIKA- Coastal Watches/Warnings and 5-Day Forecast Cone for Storm Center

Tropical Storm ERIKA


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Hurricane DANNY Interactive Map Coastal Watches/Warnings and 5-Day Track Forecast Cone Advisory #013 11:00 AM EDT Fri August 21, 2015

Hurricane DANNY


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Disastrous Sea Level Rise Is an Issue for Today's Public - Not Next Millennium's

             

huffingtonpost.com - by Dr. James Hansen - July 27, 2015

. . . 2°C global warming, rather than being a safe "guardrail," is highly dangerous. . . .

. . . My conclusion, based on the total information available, is that continued high emissions would result in multi-meter sea level rise this century and lock in continued ice sheet disintegration such that building cities or rebuilding cities on coast lines would become foolish. . . .

. . . A startling conclusion of our paper is that effects of freshwater release onto the Southern Ocean and North Atlantic are already underway and 1-2 decades sooner in the real world than in the model (Fig. 2). 

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CLICK HERE - Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics - Earth's energy imbalance and implications

CLICK HERE - Ice Melt, Sea Level Rise and Superstorms: Evidence from Paleoclimate Data, Climate Modeling, and Modern Observations that 2°C Global Warming is Highly Dangerous

OR

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EPA Report Cites Benefits of Limiting Emissions, Climate change

By William Yardley, LA Times, June 23, 2015 | Photo: Jim Cole, Associated Press

coal-fired plant is Merrimack Station in Bow, N.H.  (Jim Cole / Associated Press)

EPA report cites benefits of reducing emissions, including at power plants, and of limiting climate change. This coal-fired plant is Merrimack Station in Bow, N.H.  (Jim Cole / Associated Press)

Reducing the greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change could prevent tens of thousands of deaths and hundreds of billions in economic losses in the United States, according to a new study by the Environmental Protection Agency.

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