After Sandy: Why We Can’t Keep Rebuilding on the Water’s Edg

For those who say that the cost of government subsidizing of renewable energy is too high I ask, how about this? The federal government is bound by law to pay to rebuild whether the state should or should not, subsidizes flood insurance in high-risk areas (and regular insurance companies rates are only going to go up in response to increasing disasters, and you know that gov't insurance subsidies aren't going to end, they're political suicide to anyone who proposes it), and we keep rebuilding in the same areas that keep getting hit, or will get hit more as the sea levels rise and storms get more intense. When do those costs outweigh getting off the fossil fuel poisoning our atmosphere and switching over to renewables?

After Sandy: Why We Can’t Keep Rebuilding on the Water’s Edge
By Bryan WalshNov. 20, 2012

It’s so obvious we forget it: an extreme weather event becomes a disaster only if it hits where people and their possessions are. Storm + people equals natural disaster.

That’s why, as the Northeast begins the long process of rebuilding, we need to think about about what we can do to minimize the number of people and the value of the property that might be in the way of the next storm. So far, most of that discussion has settled around the possibility of building multi-billion dollar sea walls and barriers that might be able to shield Manhattan and other vulnerable places from the kind of storm surges that caused so much destruction during Sandy. Sea walls do have their place—the Connecticut town of Stamford escaped major damage in part thanks to its own barrier—especially as the climate warms and seas rise. But if people didn’t live in so many high-risk places, we wouldn’t have to put any protective infrastructure there at all.

The reason so many Americans make their homes on in storm and flood zones is partly because we simply like living along the water. But the other part is that government-subsidized flood insurance essentially eliminates the financial risk. The question now, after Sandy, is whether we’ll keep making the same circular mistake, paying billions to put people back in harm’s way or whether we’ll instead say build if you want, but the risk is all yours.

As Coasts Rebuild and U.S. Pays, Repeatedly, the Critics Ask Why
By JUSTIN GILLIS and FELICITY BARRINGER
Published: November 18, 2012

Across the nation, tens of billions of tax dollars have been spent on subsidizing coastal reconstruction in the aftermath of storms, usually with little consideration of whether it actually makes sense to keep rebuilding in disaster-prone areas. If history is any guide, a large fraction of the federal money allotted to New York, New Jersey and other states recovering from Hurricane Sandy — an amount that could exceed $30 billion — will be used the same way.

Tax money will go toward putting things back as they were, essentially duplicating the vulnerability that existed before the hurricane.

A coalition in Washington called SmarterSafer.org, made up of environmentalists, libertarians and budget watchdogs, contends that the subsidies have essentially become a destructive, unaffordable entitlement.

Less widely known about than flood insurance are the subsidies from the Stafford Act, the federal law governing the response to emergencies like hurricanes, wildfires and tornadoes. It kicks in when the president declares a federal disaster that exceeds the response capacity of state and local governments. In the same way flood insurance shields families from the financial consequences of rebuilding in risky areas, the Stafford Act shields local and state governments from the full implications of their decisions on land use.

Under the law, the federal government committed more than $80 billion to disaster recovery from 2004 to 2011, according to a report from the Government Accountability Office.

If private property owners want to assume the risks, “that’s one thing,” he said. “But if we find that we as taxpayers are assuming that risk without benefit, then we need to rethink that.”

I agree, but again, the law is already in place that we taxpayers on are on the hoof for it and it will take a miracle for it to be repealed. So now what?

NYC will become NO, and we taxpayers will pay trillions for the sea walls and rebuilding that will eventually fail regardless of our efforts. And yes, I think rebuilding in drought-plagued, high-fire-risk areas should be on the table as well. It should be at the home-owners risk solely, not the public's.

We can't continue with our current lifestyle - it will bankrupt us. We need to start building smarter, and living smarter (ie more sustainably) with lower risk, and stop subsidizing waste, corruption, and greed.

And the path that we are on is not changing...

Burning issues for the world's future
by Douglas Fraser
18 November 2012

The International Energy Agency (IEA) has published its annual World Energy Outlook ... The element that caught a few headlines was the forecast that the US is on course to replace Saudi Arabia as the biggest producer of oil by 2020.

Among the other prospects set out by the IEA:

● Cheap US gas is already driving down the price of the biggest substitute for generating electricity, coal, freeing it up for export to Europe, where it is displacing Europe's relatively highly-priced gas.

● By 2030, the US will depend more on gas than on oil. while China is growing its use of natural gas from 130 billion cubic metres last year to 545 bcm in 2035.

● Coal has been vital to meeting demand for energy over the past decade, growing even faster than renewable power.

On the back burner
The development of cheap gas, particularly in the US and at a time of economic hardship, has radically turned around perceptions of energy markets and the drive for cheaper fuel. The IEA has looked at the attempt to limit global warming to an average 2 degrees Celsius, noting that each year, it looks more difficult and more costly to do so.

And here's an astonishing fact: four-fifths of the allowable carbon dioxide emissions by 2035 are already locked in by existing power plants, factories and buildings. If action isn't taken by 2017, all the allowable emissions for 18 years after that will be accounted for. "Rapid deployment of energy-efficient technologies would postpone this complete lock-in to 2022, buying time to secure a much-needed global agreement to cut greenhouse-gas emissions," says the IEA outlook. (Note: RAPID deployment of energy-efficient technologies would only POSTPONE this complete lock-in by 5 YEARS)

And unless carbon capture can work on a very large scale to bury emissions under ground and under the seabed, the 2 degree target means that no more than one third of proven reserves of fossil fuels can be consumed before 2050.

Ain't happenin' - I would bet you my house, cars, children, internal organs, and all future wages on that. For every country to get on board, and to completely overhaul energy production and use, with the idiots with money who continue to push denialism...it's a pipe dream.

PriceWaterhouseCoopers report: PwC Low Carbon Economy Index 2012
Too late for two degrees?

The annual PwC Low Carbon Economy Index centres on one core statistic: the rate of change of global carbon intensity. This year we estimated that the required improvement in global carbon intensity to meet a 2ºC warming target has risen to 5.1% a year, from now to 2050.

We have passed a critical threshold – not once since 1950 has the world achieved that rate of decarbonisation in a single year, but the task now confronting us is to achieve it for 39 consecutive years.

The 2011 rate of improvement in carbon intensity was 0.8%. Even doubling our rate of decarbonisation, would still lead to emissions consistent with six degrees of warming. To give ourselves a more than 50% chance of avoiding two degrees will require a six-fold improvement in our rate of decarbonisation.

Business leaders have been asking for clarity in political ambition on climate change. Now one thing is clear: businesses, governments and communities across the world need to plan for a warming world – not just 2ºC, but 4ºC and, at our current rates, 6ºC.

We. Are. F****d.

World Bank Report: Turn Down the Heat: Why a 4° C Warmer World Must Be Avoided