[GWSG] US at Bonn; Jax's drainage; 19 nations Past Coal; Kolbert on CCS

[Tilley, Al]

1. As the US presentation by fossil fuel interests at the Bonn conference was generally greeted with scorn, Canada and Mexico joined with 15 US governors in a pact to promote the transition to renewable energy. Canada and the UK are joining to encourage other countries to renounce the use of coal.  http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-coal-mckenna-trump-bonn-1.4399956  Michael Bloomberg observed that "Promoting coal at a climate summit is like promoting tobacco at a cancer summit." https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/nov/13/bonn-climate-summit-trump-fossil-fuels-protest



2. Jacksonville provides an example of how lack of planning and sometimes intricate politics can leave poor areas with the worst drainage problems.   https://www.citylab.com/environment/2017/11/jacksonvilles-poorest-residents-live-in-the-worst-flood-zones/545873/?utm_source=feedburner%26utm_medium=feed%26utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheAtlanticCities+%28CityLab%29%26utm_content=FeedBurner

Hurricane Irma demonstrated that large areas of Jacksonville are subject to flooding and drainage problems. Yet Tom Larson, who worked with Hurricane Katrina survivors as an emergency manager, was unable to turn up a map from the city showing Jacksonville's experience of flooding in Irma. Steve Patterson's November 4 article on the attempt to return the South Shores neighborhood to wetland shows that the FL Times-Union is willing to deal with the issue. Today's editorial is quite strong on the issue. http://jacksonville.com/opinion/editorials/2017-11-16/friday-editorial-jacksonville-woefully-behind-dealing-drainage-issues  However, the city leadership seems as ready to ignore the present as they are the future.



Eventually many neighborhoods in Jacksonville will need to relocate.  Luckily, we have high ground available. Unlike the communities south of Lake Okeechobee, we have someplace to go. The first article above indicates why we cannot leave it to private developers to provide those new communities. To see what affordable, efficient, safe housing for this area could look like, try the Florida/Singapore design for the 2015 Solar Decathlon. https://www.solardecathlon.gov/2015/competition-team-florida-singapore.html Whether our future is to build sustainable communities or to store people in trailers depends on the planning we do now.



I know many list members live elsewhere. I trust we are all facing similar issues.



3. The nineteen nations of the Powering Past Coal Alliance, led by Canada and the UK, are committed to phasing out coal quickly. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/nov/16/political-watershed-as-19-countries-pledge-to-phase-out-coal



4. Elizabeth Kolbert's Can Carbon-Dioxide Removal Save the World? in the New Yorker lays out the necessity for mounting a successful program of carbon capture and sequestration, and describes several entrepreneurial projects. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/11/20/can-carbon-dioxide-removal-save-the-world  As always, I find Kolbert too pessimistic. The energy transition is arguably proceeding much more rapidly than she imagines. Why does she omit biochar and kelp farming as sequestration procedures (even if they are unlikely to make Bill Gates any money)?  As always, I find her worth reading anyway.                                                                         ?

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