Global warming and urban planning – or lack thereof

I don’t have time to write up my thoughts, but this San Francisco Bay Guardian article talks about the complete lack of planning around rising waters.

As temperatures rise, snow packs vanish, and sea levels surge, San Francisco is waking up to its own inconvenient truth: surrounded on three sides by water, paved with concrete throughout, and erecting condo towers faster than you can say “bamboo,” the city by the bay is particularly vulnerable to climate change.

With a recent California Climate Change Center report predicting sea levels will rise between four inches and three feet by 2100, San Francisco can expect increased flooding and damage to vital infrastructure and the destruction of fragile ecosystems and low-lying neighborhoods.

The evidence of impending doom is already there.

Addressing a climate change summit last month, Tom Franza, assistant general manager of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, revealed that seawater already tops the city’s weirs for about an hour during very high tides. Franza expects this salt water intrusion, which threatens to kill helpful microbes that digest our solid waste, to get worse as sea levels continue to rise.

So what steps is the city taking to combat climate change?

The SFPUC is already building safety valves on floodgates and pushing for environmentally friendly development toward a future where green roofs, grassy swales, and permeable sidewalks will help stop rainwater from inundating already stressed sewers. It’s also working with the Departments of Planning and Public Works to map blocks and lots that are already sinking — known officially as subsidence — and therefore especially vulnerable to flooding from rising seas.

It comes as a shock to learn that the Planning Department doesn’t already have maps of areas that are prone to floods, but zoning administrator Larry Badiner told the Guardian, “In the past, floods were related to free-running streams, and since there aren’t any in San Francisco anymore, it wasn’t an issue.”

If liberal SF is in denial, how many other port cities as well? Fascinating article. Might be a good time to invest in gondolas.

More later.

Reggae Redux

Well, I’ve received e-mails and telephone calls about my call for the Mateel to take the step to end the conflict. I’ve been treated to all sorts of “background information,” much of which is contradictory. I’m hearing differing accounts of the mediation from both sides (and all of of second-hand).

Again, my concern is that we’re watching a game of chicken in which neither side is going to move before the head-on. I called upon the Mateel to play the grown-up role. My plea extends also to People Productions/Tom Dimmick. I had figured that somebody would make the petition for a preliminary injunction based upon a specific performance claim of action. One side would win, the other would lose, and everybody would move on. Again, the complaint as summarized by Bob Doran looks like a fight for the long haul. I don’t think that would be in the best interests of the community. But hey, it’s not my fight.

I’ve also been informed that the court did not make any judgment about the injunction petition when setting the matter weeks down the road. Fine. We’ll see what happens on March 5. But whatever the outcome, I doubt the fight will end there.

Meanwhile, I’m neither going to break my egg from the big side nor the little side. I’ll just stick with toast this morning. Then I’m going to be in court for the rest of the day. Carry on.

Update: There’s all kinds of new stuff over at Bob Doran’s Reggae blog, including Tom Dimmick’s opposition to the Mateel’s petition for injunction and a letter to the community for Mateel supporters to show up at the March 1 Planning Commission meeting.

CNN poll re surge spending

Apparently, 60 percent want Congress to block spending that would support the escalation.

So why is Congress debating non-binding resolutions?