Via Noema, commentary on society’s tendency to keep rebuilding (and subsidizing) areas that are all but certain to flood again, to burn again, to fall into the ocean? It’s time to rethink climate adaptation, with retreat as the first step: In the months after Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans proposed a flood control program unlike any […]
Read more »Via Canada’s National Observer, an article on the outcry in Toronto that reached such a crescendo last week that the city canceled public hearings on the tax, which is intended to help offset the hundreds of millions spent managing stormwater and basement flooding: A plan to charge Toronto homeowners and businesses for paved surfaces on […]
Read more »Via The Guardian, a look at urban flooding: After epic floods in India, South Africa, Germany, New York and Canada killed hundreds in the past year, droughts are now parching landscapes and wilting crops across the western US, the Horn of Africa and Iraq. The responses have included calls for higher levees, bigger drains and longer aqueducts. But these concrete interventions aimed at controlling water are […]
Read more »Via The Economist, a report on climate change’s impact on housing: Think about the places vulnerable to climate change, and you might picture rice paddies in Bangladesh or low-lying islands in the Pacific. But another, more surprising answer ought to be your own house. About a tenth of the world’s residential property by value is under threat from global […]
Read more »Courtesy of Inside Climate News, an article on new research showing the soaring costs hint at widespread, unpriced risk as the global climate warms, with states like California, Florida and Louisiana hit hardest: For most of his life, Cory Infinger has lived down a hill and along a bend in the Little Wekiva River, a […]
Read more »Courtesy of the New York Times, an article on one Chinese landscape architect in China who has a surprising strategy to help manage surges of water from storms supercharged by climate change: Cities around the world face a daunting challenge in the era of climate change: Supercharged rainstorms are turning streets into rivers, flooding subway […]
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