31 August 2017, Bloomberg Business Week, Harvey Wasn’t Just Bad Weather. It Was Bad City Planning. Houston exulted in sprawling, hands-off growth. That’s no way to prepare for natural catastrophes. Houston has been wet since birth. In the 1840s, the German explorer Ferdinand von Roemer described the Brazos River prairie just outside the young town as an “endless swamp” that mired the wheels of his wagons. He reported that some people who’d intended to settle in Texas turned around and left after seeing the “sad picture.” But Houston never let itself be hampered by its hydrology. It spent billions patching together a mess of dams and drainage projects as it grew and grew. It’s the fourth-biggest city in the U.S., boasting one of the world’s largest medical centers, oil refineries, a stupendous livestock show and rodeo, highbrow culture, vibrant economic growth, and speakers of 145 languages. The consolidated metropolitan statistical area surrounding Houston and extending to Galveston is larger than the state of New Jersey. Read More here also here
Category Archives: People Stress
28 August 2017, NewSecurityBeat, Flooding in Bangladesh: Calling Out Climate Change From the High Ground. Floods have taken the lives of more than 100 people in northern Bangladesh over the last two weeks. Fully one third of the country has been flooded and some 600,000 people have been displaced in the riverine nation as a result of monsoons in India and Nepal. At international climate forums, Bangladeshi diplomats consistently decry such disasters as part of their urgent calls for action to mitigate changing weather patterns worldwide. But here in the country’s Rangpur-Kurigam region, both authorities and citizens have been reluctant to attribute these deadly disasters to the effects of climate change. Views From the Flood Zone As part of a team of social scientists from American University (Washington, DC,) and North South University (Dhaka, Bangladesh), we have been traveling the country to find out why. Authorities, already taxed by emergency relief expenditures to help citizens recover from July’s floods, do not seem eager to acknowledge yet another crisis (especially when Bangladesh’s government and its Supreme Court are embroiled in a battle for authority). The government may also be trying to avoid drawing attention to the fact that much of the flooding has come from the opening of a dam upstream on the Teesta River in India, as the two nations currently enjoy strong bilateral relations. In addition, government officials may be hesitant to label the current crisis with an abstract, diffuse concept that is more of a long-term issue, said North South University researcher Salahuddin M. Aminuzzaman. Government officials are extremely willing to “call out” natural disasters like cyclones, monsoons, floods and drought, he said; governments can provide short-term relief for concrete, short-term problems like disasters, and, if they are organized, they can improve their stock among voters. But climate change is an amorphous, distant, and foreboding challenge. Read More here
28 August 2017, Climate Home, Link between Hurricane Harvey and climate change is unclear. Reports the devastating storm was made worse by humanity’s carbon emissions fail to grasp climate change is not just about warming. The unprecedented amount of rainfall accompanying Hurricane Harvey immediately raised the question whether and to what extent climate change is to blame. In a warming world the vapour capacity of the atmosphere increases, and more extreme rainfall, like Texas is witnessing right now, is to be expected as a result. This leads many to conclude that climate change exacerbated the impacts of hurricane Harvey. It is very appropriate to highlight that this is the kind of event we expect to see more of in a warming world. However, to apply this argument directly and attribute (and quantify) the impacts from Harvey itself to human-induced climate change, neglects that climate change is not just about warming. In a changing climate, two effects come together: not only does the atmosphere warm up (thermodynamic effect) but the atmospheric circulation, which determine where, when, and how weather systems develop, can change as well (dynamic effect). Read More here
28 August 2017, Desmog, 12 Years After Katrina, Hurricane Harvey Pummels Gulf Coast and Its Climate Science-Denying Politicians. As the remnants of Hurricane Harvey (now a tropical storm) continue to flood Houston — just days before the 12th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina — I visited Shannon Rainey, whose house was built on top of a Superfund site in the Upper Ninth Ward of New Orleans. Rainey is worried about family members in Houston. She knows all too well how long it can take to get back what is lost in a storm. “I still live with Katrina every day,” she told me. New Orleans remains threatened by bands of rain extending from Harvey, causing many residents with fierce memories of Katrina to remain on edge. Earlier this month, the city proved it was ill-prepared for hurricane season nearly a year after Baton Rouge’s 1,000-year flood. Rain inundated New Orleans, with more than nine inches falling in only three hours, exposing that the city’s pump system could not operate at full capacity. The city is still scrambling to make the needed repairs and clean the sewer system’s catch basins, which remain clogged in many places. Read More here