[GWSG] SLR planning; Ireland to divest; kelp for ccs etc.; Sunlight and Seaweed; C tax passes model test; FL sustainable community

[Tilley, Al]

1. Sea level rise projections keep increasing and cities are having trouble keeping pace in their adaptation planning.  Boston, Imperial Beach, and San Francisco are profiled as areas which will probably need to step up their effort to cope with the news that Antarctic ice loss has tripled in the past five years. https://www.climateliabilitynews.org/2018/07/11/sea-level-rise-climate-adaptation/



2. The lower house of the Irish parliament has voted that they become the first country to divest from fossil fuels. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jul/12/ireland-becomes-worlds-first-country-to-divest-from-fossil-fuels



3. Kelp and other seaweeds could be sequestering more carbon than all other aquatic plants combined. https://oceana.org/blog/seaweed-could-be-scrubbing-way-more-carbon-atmosphere-we-expected


Brian Von Herzen has designed a form of marine permaculture which uses wave power to pump nutrient-rich cooler water from lower to the upper layers where it feeds kelp in an open framework. The seaweed provides a nursery for fish and shellfish, and when it dies sequesters carbon on the sea floor. By absorbing carbon, it neutralizes acidification so that creatures can form shells. Because it is placed at least 25 meters deep it will not interfere with surface shipping. https://www.drawdown.org/solutions/coming-attractions/marine-permaculture


Von Herzen's Climate Foundation at Woods Hole has been piloting his marine permaculture systems for the past few years. http://www.climatefoundation.org/marine-permaculture.html


4. In his 2017 book Sunlight and Seaweed: An Argument for How to Feed, Power, and Clean Up the World, Tim Flannery describes the enormous potential of kelp farming to capture and sequester carbon (perhaps in the form of biochar) and to provide food and even fuel from healthy oceans. https://theconversation.com/how-farming-giant-seaweed-can-feed-fish-and-fix-the-climate-81761

Flannery's book describes several developments which could deliver a more livable world in 2050 than we had expected: the energy transition, a leveling and then a decrease in global population, and concentrating solar with heat storage as a means not only of producing steady power but clean water and less polluted soil.


5.  In a Stanford study, eleven teams modeling the impact of a carbon tax found that it would indeed cut carbon emissions and have little impact on the economy (though the global warming it would avoid would have done great damage). https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2018/jul/16/comprehensive-study-carbon-taxes-wont-hamper-the-economy



6. Babcock Ranch in SW Florida near Fort Myers is an experiment in building a sustainable community. https://cleantechnica.com/2018/07/15/babcock-ranch-in-florida-is-to-sustainable-living-what-tesla-is-to-sustainable-transportation/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+IM-cleantechnica+%28CleanTechnica%29 ?

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