As we come out of the latest heat wave with wildfires and smoky air, last week the NY Times had a piece about "how climate change is reshaping daily life in ways Americans may not realize."
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| Yesterday |
Its particular focus was on the ways extreme weather accelerated bridge ageing, leading to decay or collapse.
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| NY Times, last week |
Last month they had a piece on extreme heat and medicine.
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| NY Times, August 2024 |
Here, the Oregonian wrote about our Kelp forests along the coast.
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| Oregonian, August 2024 |
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| Oregonian, August 2024 |
And a piece on increased prospects for giant hail.
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| SJ, August 2024 |
Climate is a story with big impacts in so many ways.
Our Climate Action Plan subcommittee has cancelled the September meeting for Monday. It seems impossible they don't have things they could be working on! They'll meet next in November.
Meanwhile, the Scenario Planning project finally published something. They've been very quiet. The new document is the "Spring 2024 Outreach Summary."
It is hard to understand why they were doing yet another survey on mostly known knowns, asking the same old questions, instead of formulating specific plans to accomplish goals and targets.
We know we need less parking and we know MOAR PARKING and FREE PARKING remain very popular.
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| Parking is at the center of "least popular options" |
How is it at all helpful to dwell on all the ways people cling to parking? This is almost like concern trolling: "Are you sure you want more ways to get around without driving? Why don't you think about it more..."
Too much of the survey looks backwards, reinforcing 20th century autoism. There is too much of a defensive, asking-for-permission frame that tends to the status quo.
Supposedly the project is near the finish line, but from this survey it's really hard to see what all it will accomplish. There may be much more restating the obvious and making vague, aspirational goals than developing more detailed and actionable plans for how we are actually going to reduce emissions.
Previously:
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