Coastal Policy and Politics

Read this or Else! 

If you don't read anything else this year you MUST read the New York City report on Mayor Bloomberg's proposal to armor and protect the city against new threats from climate change and future "Superstorms."

Do it NOW.

Download it and put it on a very special place for your coastal policy resources.

It is good enough that I'm considering developing a new course around the report called "Climate risks and their Solutions for Supercities like New York."  Or maybe I'll just add to to "Coastal Futurology"


Steffen Schmidt


http://www.nyc.gov/html/planyc2030/downloads/pdf/npcc_climate_risk_information_2013_report.pdf

This report is titled:

Of course Bloomberg is an unusual person. Most mayors, governors, and legislatures would do the opposite - ban any discussion of "climate change" and global warming and other "left wing, radical environmentalist theories." I saw an article "State Laws Ignore Science." I also read a daunting column in Forbes magazine "Ignore Evidence. Deny Science. Minimize Problems. Then Cry 'Freedom!" Mayor Bloomberg was actually also part of that article in which food industry executives and otehrs accused him of creating a nanny state around the ban on large and very BAD sugary beverages. http://www.forbes.com/sites/robwaters/2013/05/22/ignore-evidence-deny-science-minimize-problems-then-cry-freedomand-invoke-the-nanny-state/

No one has gone further than the North Carolina legislature which wanted to prohibit the use of  sea level rise, climate change information in official documents. The reason? People might stop buying property and condo's in high risk beach areas of the state. Wow! Good idea! Then when their property gets damaged or wiped out run like little cry baby's to the state and the taxpayers and ask for others to pay for their risky building decision.

The trashing of "Big Government" is legitimate for many reasons. Yet government is the port of last refuge in a storm (do you like that weather analogy?!) when big trouble hits we all need help and government, the National Guard, the Reserves, the police and fire rescue, the Coast Guard, FEMA, the Federal Housing Agency (FHA) and others are critical resources even for small government types. 

Have you downloaded the NYC report yet? Why NOT!?