lightblueline

In today's Independent, Nick Welsh covers the anticipated City Council vote next week:

In Sunday's New York Times (June 16, 2007, Art & Design Section) Randy Kennedy wrote about Eve Mosher's efforts to "draw the line" in NYC.

Eve is the creative force behind HighWaterLine. In partnership with the Canary Project (which is also partnering with lightblueline on the Santa Barbara City Hall exhibit), Eve is out in the streets of New York, chalking the 10 foot elevation line as this runs through the buroughs.

May 15, 2007
A team of NASA and university scientists has found clear evidence that extensive areas of snow melted in west Antarctica in January 2005 in response to warm temperatures. This was the first widespread Antarctic melting ever detected with NASA's QuikScat satellite and the most significant melt observed using satellites during the past three decades. Combined, the affected regions encompassed an area as big as California.

Scientists from Rutgers University recently explored the options available to respond to expected sea-level rise. As reported in the Asbury Park Press (May 15, 2007) they stressed the vulnerability of the Jersey shore, and the need to build natural defenses, not walls, against the rising seas.

"About 30 percent of New Jersey's bayshore can't retreat naturally before rising waters without running into manmade barriers such as roads or buildings, said Michael Kennish, a Rutgers research professor.

Climate modelers at NASA Goddard Institute for Space Science at Columbia University have recently reports the results of a study based on their latest models. This study indicates that the Eastern US, from Chicago to Atlanta to Washington, may experience summer temperature extremes several degrees hotter than current conditions by the year 2080, due to the impacts of greenhouse gas emissions.

Mike Taber and Mike Urban have created a great course for teachers to learn about global change (not just climate change!). This is also a great undergrad course in Earth Science on the topic of change.
Global Change: A Data Driven Approach to Learning
You can also email Mike Taber at: mike.taber AT coloradocollege.edu

We have already looked at the Guardian review of Six Degrees Two Degrees.... Here is another perspective from an Australian Blog: Webdiary

"We can skip past the one and two degree steps fairly quickly since these outcomes are essentially inevitable: this is what happens even if governments everywhere start concerted action as soon as possible.
A few highlights from the inevitable are worth noting:

Here is a news release from the Agence France-Presse, reporting on a meeting in Vancouver, BC, Canada [from Yahoo! News]

Wed May 2, 8:14 AM
VANCOUVER, Canada (AFP) - The world's oceans could rise by up to seven meters if Greenland's ice cap entirely melts because of global warming, climate scientists said Tuesday.

Thousands of scientists and a hundred governments yesterday agreed, at least in outline, on plans to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, in an effort to avoid the worst scenarios for climate change. Meeting in Bangkok, a city vulnerable to even modest sea-level rise, the IPCC's third report of the year offered new insights and a perspective of hope for nations looking to cut their greenhouse emissions. [There is a link to the actual report the end of this blog.] The good news is that the effort's near-term cost is less than three-percent of global GDP.

In today's WIRED website (April 24, 2007) you will find an article on a proposed new city on the outskirts of Shanghai, China. This city is built on the tip of a nearby island at the mouth of the Yangtze River. What the authors don't say is that building an entire city on land less than two meters in elevation makes no allowance for future sea-level rise. In fact, they chose to build very close to the ocean.
In an email response to this blog, the article's author, Douglas McGray, added that the architects are mindful of the potential for sea-level issues, but felt that Shanghai is going to expand, and that the Dongtan project provides an opportunity to try out solutions to building near the ocean; solutions that might be of value to other coastal cities that might not be able to move their infrastructure out of the zone of vulnerability.
You can read the whole article here: Pop-Up Cities: China Builds a Bright Green Metropolis.
Rejecting previous plans that pulled the built environment back from the sea coast, the architects decided to create a new Venice: "Arup had to figure out how to keep Dongtan above water. Chongming Island is flat and barely higher than sea level. The previous planners, thinking defensively, had pulled development back to the middle of the site, imagining Dongtan as an island city with no harbor, no waterfront caf s, no ocean-view condos. Gutierrez thought that was kind of a waste.