CLICK HERE - whitehouse.gov
State, Local, and Tribal Leaders Task Force

CLICK HERE - whitehouse.gov
Climate Change Resilience

Local leaders planning for climate effects

news.yahoo.com - by Matthew Daly - December 10, 2013

WASHINGTON (AP) — When it comes to climate change, local officials have a message for Washington: Lead or get out of the way.

Local governments have long acted as first responders in emergencies and now are working to plan for sea level rise, floods, hurricanes and other extreme events associated with climate change.

As a presidential task force prepares for its first meeting Tuesday, local officials say they want and need federal support, but they worry that congressional gridlock and balky bureaucratic rules too often get in the way.

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(CLICK HERE - STUDY - ABRUPT IMPACTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE - Anticipating Surprises)

National Academy of Sciences

ap.org - by Seth Borenstein - December 3, 2013

WASHINGTON (AP) — Hard-to-predict sudden changes to Earth's environment are more worrisome than climate change's bigger but more gradual impacts, a panel of scientists advising the federal government concluded Tuesday.

The 200-page report by the National Academy of Sciences looked at warming problems that can occur in years instead of centuries. The report repeatedly warns of potential "tipping points" where the climate passes thresholds, beyond which "major and rapid changes occur." And some of these quick changes are happening now, said study chairman James White of the University of Colorado.

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Flooding in Red Hook, Brooklyn after Sandy (Flickr/gunnicool)

The agency ignored state and city officials' appeals to update the maps with better data until it was too late.

wnyc.org - December 6, 2013
by Al Shaw : ProPublica / Theodoric Meyer : ProPublica / Christie Thompson : ProPublica

When Patrice and Philip Morgan bought a house near the ocean in Brooklyn, they were not particularly worried about the threat of flooding.

Federal maps showed their home was outside the area at a high risk of flood damage. . .

. . . But the maps drawn up by the Federal Emergency Management Agency were wrong. And government officials knew it.

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100resilientcities.rockefellerfoundation.org - by Judith Rodin - December 2, 2013

Today, we are excited to name the first group of cities selected through the Rockefeller Foundation’s 100 Resilient Cities Centennial Challenge – cities who have demonstrated a dedicated commitment to building their own capacities to prepare for, withstand, and bounce back rapidly from shocks and stresses.

Since we announced the challenge on our 100th birthday, May 14, 2013, the response has been enormous, with more than 1,000 registrations and nearly 400 formal applications from cities around the world. Each city was asked to present a clear and compelling description of how they are approaching and planning for resilience to decrease vulnerabilities, and after careful review of the applications, a panel of esteemed judges, including former presidents Bill Clinton and Olosegun Obasanjo, recommended the first set of 33 cities for the 100 Resilient Cities Network.

CREDIT: SHUTTERSTOCK

thinkprogress.org - By Katie Valentine - December 6, 2013

Researchers at Southern Methodist University have linked a string of 2009 and 2010 earthquakes in Texas to the injection of fracking wastewater into the ground, according to a new study.

The researchers examined the group of more than 50 earthquakes that hit the area of Cleburne, Texas in 2009 and 2010, and found that they could have happened because of wastewater injection wells associated with fracking operations. Before 2008, the Fort Worth Basin of Texas had never experienced an earthquake.

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STUDY - Analysis of the Cleburne, Texas, Earthquake Sequence from June 2009 to June 2010

voltaicsystems.com

Voltaic Systems makes products that produce and store their own power to run your electronics anywhere. We are based in New York City and ship directly to customers and our partners worldwide from warehouses in New Jersey and the Netherlands.

http://www.voltaicsystems.com/

About - Voltaic Systems

submitted by Margery Schab

thehill.com - by Pete Kasperowicz - November 20, 2013

The House passed legislation Wednesday evening that would block the Department of the Interior from regulating hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, in states that already have their own regulations in place.

Members passed the bill 235-187 with the help of 12 Democrats; two Republicans voted against it.

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govtrack.us - H.R. 2728

rules.house.gov - H.R. 2728

Emotional Speech by Philippine Delegate: Excerpts from a statement about Typhoon Haiyan by Naderev Saño, the chief representative of the Philippines at the Warsaw Climate Change Conference. Radek Pietruszka/European Pressphoto Agency

nytimes.com - by Henry Fountain and Justin Gillis - November 11, 2013

The typhoon that struck the Philippines produced an outpouring of emotion on Monday at United Nations talks on a global climate treaty in Warsaw, where delegates were quick to suggest that a warming planet had turned the storm into a lethal monster.

Olai Ngedikes, the lead negotiator for an alliance of small island nations, said in a statement that the typhoon, named Haiyan, which by some estimates killed 10,000 people in one city alone, “serves as a stark reminder of the cost of inaction on climate change and should serve to motivate our work in Warsaw.” . . .

. . . “What my country is going through as a result of this extreme climate event is madness; the climate crisis is madness,” Mr. Saño said. “We can stop this madness right here in Warsaw.”

The White House

Office of the Press Secretary

whitehouse.gov - November 1, 2013

PREPARING THE UNITED STATES FOR THE IMPACTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, and in order to prepare the Nation for the impacts of climate change by undertaking actions to enhance climate preparedness and resilience, it is hereby ordered as follows:

abcnews.go.com - October 24th, 2013 - Kevin Begos

Some of the largest pension funds in the U.S. and the world are worried that major fossil fuel companies may not be as profitable in the future because of efforts to limit climate change, and they want details on how the firms will manage a long-term shift to cleaner energy sources.

In a statement released Thursday, leaders of 70 funds said they're asking 45 of the world's top oil, gas, coal and electric power companies to do detailed assessments of how efforts to control climate change could impact their businesses.

"Institutional investors must think over the long term, which means that we must take environmental risks into consideration when we make investments," New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli told The Associated Press in a statement.

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Image: 7th Annual TIDES TechnologyField Demonstration

flickr.com - October 1-4th, 2013

In the link below are images from the 7th Annual TIDES Technology Field Demonstration.

(VIEW IMAGES)

A man walks through flooded streets in Hoboken, New Jersey, after Superstorm Sandy | Emile Wamsteker/Bloomberg via Getty Images

As subsidized rates of federal flood insurance rise, property owners along the coasts get angry. But we need insurance that reflects the risks of a changing planet

time.com - by Bryan Walsh - October 1, 2013

Thousands of homeowners in flood-prone parts of the country are going to be in for a rude awakening.  On Oct. 1, new changes to the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), which offers government-subsidized policies for households and businesses threatened by floods, mean that businesses in flood zones and homes that have been severely or repeatedly flooded will start going up 25% a year until rates reach levels that would reflect the actual risk from flooding. (Higher rates for second or vacation homes went into effect at the start of 2013.) That means that property owners in flood-prone areas who might have once been paying around $500 a year—rates that were well below what the market would charge, given the threat from flooding—will go up by thousands of dollars over the next decade.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0-J8NGM_v4

http://climaterealityproject.org

Climate Reality Project Chairman Al Gore explores successful social movements though history.

The Climate Reality Project, founded and chaired by former Vice President and Nobel Laureate Al Gore, is dedicated to unleashing a global cultural movement demanding action on the climate crisis. Despite overwhelming international scientific consensus on climate change, the global community still lacks the resolve to implement meaningful solutions. The Climate Reality Project exists to forge an unwavering bedrock of impassioned support necessary for urgent action. With that foundation, together we will ignite the moral courage in our leaders to solve the climate crisis.

submitted by Albert Gomez

realclimate.org

RealClimate is a commentary site on climate science by working climate scientists for the interested public and journalists. We aim to provide a quick response to developing stories and provide the context sometimes missing in mainstream commentary. The discussion here is restricted to scientific topics and will not get involved in any political or economic implications of the science. All posts are signed by the author(s), except ‘group’ posts which are collective efforts from the whole team. This is a moderated forum.

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smithsonianmag.com - nationalgeographic.com - October 9, 2013

Climate change is a global problem, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to hit us all the same time.

If you live in Moscow, scientists estimate that your local climate will depart from the historical norm in the year 2063. In New York, that date is the year 2047. And if you happen to reside in Mexico City or Jakarta, those numbers are 2031 and 2029, respectively.

See a pattern here? These estimates, which all come from a new study published today in Nature by scientists from the University of Hawaii, reflect a concerning trend that some scientists believe will define the arrival of climate change’s effects on the planet: It’ll arrive in tropical, biodiverse areas first.

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