The authors of the book The Rising Sea summarizes their conclusion that prudent planning for waterfront communities assumes a sea level rise of seven feet in a post on the Yale environment 360 website. Chilling stuff, especially for those of us who remember when early iterations of this work nearly ten years ago labeled New Orleans as the American community most vulnerable to sea level rise and catastrophic storms. They identify Florida as the most vulnerable place in the United States to sea level rise and aggressively argue that building new high rise developments on the waterfront is a big mistake.

Who would have thought that Wearing Blue would turn out to be such a huge national event?  The interest in today’s Wear Blue for Oceans events is proliferating like so many amphipods. There are 13 “formal” events including the CLF and Ocean River Institute event in Cambridge. I’ll be with a hundred or so blue attired folks at Lafayette Park (in front of the White House) in Washington, DC. The public interest is coming from all over the country in about as many ways as people can express their love and desire for a healthy living ocean. One of my fave’s is the Beach Chair Scientist’s rendition of ”Love me Blue.” Meanwhile, friend and colleague Sarah Chasis of NRDC has this to say in the HuffingtonPost. And, the Wear Blue Facebook friends group is now over 1500 and Sherman’s Lagoon read more…

In a web video interview (transcript) Rob Bradley, Director of International Climate Policy at the World Resources Institute, makes the following observation about the difficulties and challenges around the international climate negotiation process: Well, some of the problems that occur are down to the sheer complexity of climate change as an issue. It’s too politically charged for the technocrats, but it’s way too technical for the politicians. You know, very often ministers come in and they’re handed, by their subordinates, simply too long and difficult a list of questions to get to grips with. But it’s true that the U.N. as a process offers a lot of challenges of its own and we saw some fairly ugly scenes really towards the end of Copenhagen. It operates by consensus. You’ve got read more…

Happy Blue Year! With all the great progress we are making CLF is expecting 2010 to be one of the best years for America’s oceans and coasts yet. Earlier this week we declared a pretty major victory in Massachusetts with the completion of the much anticipated Mass Ocean Plan.  Not to be outdone, President Obama’s hardworking Ocean Policy Task Force is driving towards the finish line on the nation’s first ever comprehensive policy for oceans, coasts and Great Lakes. Part of the effort is to include a vital framework for coastal and marine spatial planning so we can finally stop managing our oceans with a single issue by issue approach. Poor management leads to more environmental impacts whether the cause is overfishing, drilling for oil, pollution or badly planned coastal development.  One of the most stylish things you can do to kick read more…

Yesterday the Commonwealth of Massachusetts released the final management for all of the state’s ocean waters. Despite centuries of land use planning experience in the US, this is the first time in history that a state has developed such a comprehensive approach to planning uses of the ocean. This is a true victory for our oceans and all who use them. Much congratulations to Gov. Patrick and the hard working people in the Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs who were working on the details through the holidays. Read the joint release CLF and Mass Audubon issued yesterday. What does it mean for the economy? A study by the Massachusetts Office of Coastal Zone Management estimates the annual output of the state’s marine economy at $14.8 billion a year. The results of better planning will help read more…

Determined journalist from Renewable Energy World takes the time in a long form NPR/radio style podcast to dig into this important topic.   If you are deeply ideologically committed to either “cap and trade” or to a carbon tax you should not listen to the last 5 or 10 minutes – or maybe you should . . .

Former NY Times Reporter Andrew Revkin – now Senior Fellow at the Pace University Center for Applied Environmental Studies while still writing and moderating the NY Times Dot Earth blog – provides a good overview of how the media has fundamentally under reported the climate story drawing upon this cool diagram. This is the challenge of addressing such a large and systemic problem – how do we sustain focus, interest and energy around an issue that by definition is global, long term, pervasive and does not have a signal moment of crisis.

As the dust settles after the turbulent outcome of the COP-15 climate summit in Copenhagen a few things are clear: No one is completely happy with the outcome.  Even President Obama described what he hammered out as being a “first step” and “not enough” to avoid disaster describing the Accord he worked out as the beginning of a process. The climate change denier community (and people playing that role in the US, Europe, Israel, etc… should be very nervous about the fact they are in close alliance with Saudia Arabia) must be upset at the reaffirmation  that greenhouse gas emissions must be reduced in order to avoid  dangerous global warming – a conclusion that relies upon the mountain of science showing that global warming is very real and very dangerous. read more…

News flash:  The Vermont legislative committee reviewing the Douglas Administration’s 11th-hour proposal to open state parks, forests, and wildlife management and natural areas to ATV use voted unanimously to object to the rule.  The bi-partisan vote 7-0 signals major legislative concern about the policy change the agency is proposing–currently state lands are closed to ATVs except to enable handicap access in limited circumstances–and the manner in which the agency tried to make this change. Though this vote presents a major potential obstacle to the Agency’s plan to open state lands to this high-risk, high-impact activity, I’ve written before on this blog about how the Agency could still choose to move forward despite the objection.  For the full story read my “Riding Roughshod Part 2” post or check out the press read more…

So, what do we do? There’s no simple solution, but in Massachusetts the DEP is close to finalizing the revision for the Solid Waste Master Plan, with the intention of increasing the amount of waste diverted from landfills through more recycling and composting, and better all around materials management. The discussion also included the possibility of lifting a 20-year old moratorium on waste-to-energy facilities. Today the Patrick Administration signaled a strong commitment to responsible resource management by announcing that the incinerator moratorium will stand and resources will begin to be managed more thoughtfully. This is exciting news, because there are a lot of good options for responsible resource management that don’t involve traditional waste incineration. These include: Developing markets for recycled and reused materials, including building materials and asphalt as read more…