The best that any of us can do about climate as individuals is to prepare for the coming catastrophe. We live on the Central Florida coast. 10 years ago we gradually began to hardened our house. We bought a house with steel-reinforced concrete walls and a heavy tile roof strapped to the walls for added protection against being blown off. We chose an area along the coast over 4 meters above high tide. Our neighborhood lot design was engineered to handle torrential rain runoff including several catchment fields to hold water the sewers cannot manage.
We replaced most windows with hurricane-resistant glass - others with rolldown shutters. We replaced the garage door with a hurricane-proof one with rails connected to the walls with 8-inch bolts. We protected the roofed back porch furniture and windows with hurricane-proof Teflon rolldown screens. Our final act was to install a 24KW natural gas generator able to keep everything running when, not if, the power fails.
Our county is not asleep either. It has replaced all the 30 foot rotting wood power poles with 60-foot tall aluminum and concrete units impervious to wind and rot. Their wires go underground to each house in the area so houses are immune from smashed roofs from fallen power poles. All the once-dangling traffic lights over A1A are now bolted to aluminum arms reaching over the highway as winds cause the old lights to twist around their support cables and smash to the road creating traffic problems. The county also replenishes the beach sand every 3 years. Roads are maintained in top condition, and there are ample causeways and highways to enable safe mass evacuations inland.
Of course, most US houses (even luxury homes selling for over $1 million) are predominantly wood-frame which easily catch fire in wildfires as most have flammable asphalt shingle roofs. Wood homes also float in floods and blow apart in category 4 windstorms. Recent tornados have demonstrated that wood homes with brick veneers are more weather resistant than those with aluminum or wood siding. Sadly, it appears that only a small percentage of US homes are climate hardened, and that will spell avoidable catastrophe if people do not get climate woke.
Forever. When is our species going to get together to really fight climate change? Because if we don’t, if the deniers, the greedy corporations, the countries playing geopolitics, the wishful thinkers, the sleeping bystanders stop us, we are going to lose everything. Life on Earth will be a blighted remnant.
Thank you as always Bill. Since coming on Substack, you are my GoTo read for news - good, bad and the various stop-off points inbetween - about the climate crisis.
"The previous estimate of a 75% world air traffic reduction is a reasonable starting point for human intervention in the world CO2 increase situation."
You inspired me, Bill, all those years ago with your 350.org crew and all your books. I've been aware since... well decades.
And we're still fighting Enbridge here in northern Minnesota as we document and share out to the public (as the state stays largely silent) the ongoing damages we discover along their new Line 3/93 corridor.
We know they've breached aquifers across the state as DNR & MN Pollution Control Agency have now admitted 4. There's a fifth they know about but won't publicly disclose and about 40 more they have yet to reveal. We keep pushing them for more transparency.
Waadookawaad Amikwag (Those Who Help Beaver) will continue to share truth, forcing Enbridge and the state to come clean about the lies Enbridge told to get their permits, the deception they used to get a 10-fold increase in their water appropriation permit (requested 5 days after their first aquifer breach on Clearbrook 1-26-21 and approved June 4, 2021, not two weeks before the DNR 'discovered' Enbridge had breached the aquifer in Clearbrook), and their ongoing efforts to pretend they can do better on Line 5 projects in WI and MI.
We cannot let them keep destroying our remaining fresh water places. Please protect the Great Lakes and stand against Enbridge's plans to encroach on Treaty-protected lands.
Bill - VA at WRJ appointment is at 9 am Tuesday. I could come by the house for the sign, only 3 hours out of my way, but delighted to do it. I'll leave a voice message at Sue's I'm also at 603-823-5480 (land line with message machine) Peace, John Vail
Great news about the new-record white pine—though it's 16 feet in circumference, not in 16' diameter. -Alex
OMG! I sat in that exact spot at that very restaurant in Athens almost a year ago.
The best that any of us can do about climate as individuals is to prepare for the coming catastrophe. We live on the Central Florida coast. 10 years ago we gradually began to hardened our house. We bought a house with steel-reinforced concrete walls and a heavy tile roof strapped to the walls for added protection against being blown off. We chose an area along the coast over 4 meters above high tide. Our neighborhood lot design was engineered to handle torrential rain runoff including several catchment fields to hold water the sewers cannot manage.
We replaced most windows with hurricane-resistant glass - others with rolldown shutters. We replaced the garage door with a hurricane-proof one with rails connected to the walls with 8-inch bolts. We protected the roofed back porch furniture and windows with hurricane-proof Teflon rolldown screens. Our final act was to install a 24KW natural gas generator able to keep everything running when, not if, the power fails.
Our county is not asleep either. It has replaced all the 30 foot rotting wood power poles with 60-foot tall aluminum and concrete units impervious to wind and rot. Their wires go underground to each house in the area so houses are immune from smashed roofs from fallen power poles. All the once-dangling traffic lights over A1A are now bolted to aluminum arms reaching over the highway as winds cause the old lights to twist around their support cables and smash to the road creating traffic problems. The county also replenishes the beach sand every 3 years. Roads are maintained in top condition, and there are ample causeways and highways to enable safe mass evacuations inland.
Of course, most US houses (even luxury homes selling for over $1 million) are predominantly wood-frame which easily catch fire in wildfires as most have flammable asphalt shingle roofs. Wood homes also float in floods and blow apart in category 4 windstorms. Recent tornados have demonstrated that wood homes with brick veneers are more weather resistant than those with aluminum or wood siding. Sadly, it appears that only a small percentage of US homes are climate hardened, and that will spell avoidable catastrophe if people do not get climate woke.
Normal Is Gone
Forever. When is our species going to get together to really fight climate change? Because if we don’t, if the deniers, the greedy corporations, the countries playing geopolitics, the wishful thinkers, the sleeping bystanders stop us, we are going to lose everything. Life on Earth will be a blighted remnant.
I do neither Tik Tok nor Twitter, so I am glad that you described the flood with text!
Good luck with your work.
Thank you as always Bill. Since coming on Substack, you are my GoTo read for news - good, bad and the various stop-off points inbetween - about the climate crisis.
It's almost like it's The End Of Nature.
"The previous estimate of a 75% world air traffic reduction is a reasonable starting point for human intervention in the world CO2 increase situation."
Quoted from:
https://www.lowco2america.com/2023/09/airplaneco2reductionbarelymeasurable.html
You inspired me, Bill, all those years ago with your 350.org crew and all your books. I've been aware since... well decades.
And we're still fighting Enbridge here in northern Minnesota as we document and share out to the public (as the state stays largely silent) the ongoing damages we discover along their new Line 3/93 corridor.
We know they've breached aquifers across the state as DNR & MN Pollution Control Agency have now admitted 4. There's a fifth they know about but won't publicly disclose and about 40 more they have yet to reveal. We keep pushing them for more transparency.
Waadookawaad Amikwag (Those Who Help Beaver) will continue to share truth, forcing Enbridge and the state to come clean about the lies Enbridge told to get their permits, the deception they used to get a 10-fold increase in their water appropriation permit (requested 5 days after their first aquifer breach on Clearbrook 1-26-21 and approved June 4, 2021, not two weeks before the DNR 'discovered' Enbridge had breached the aquifer in Clearbrook), and their ongoing efforts to pretend they can do better on Line 5 projects in WI and MI.
We cannot let them keep destroying our remaining fresh water places. Please protect the Great Lakes and stand against Enbridge's plans to encroach on Treaty-protected lands.
Learn more here https://youtube.com/@waadookawaad_amikwag?si=C0qMyM62F1tTdgHe
Miigwech to you, Bill, and all those who read your words and step into action.
Like I did.🩷💧💪
Bill - VA at WRJ appointment is at 9 am Tuesday. I could come by the house for the sign, only 3 hours out of my way, but delighted to do it. I'll leave a voice message at Sue's I'm also at 603-823-5480 (land line with message machine) Peace, John Vail