This is definitely climate progress. Next up: urban rickshaws to reduce emissions?
From a Newcastle University press release:
Growth versus global warming
A three-year project led by Newcastle University for the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research has outlined how our major cities must respond if they are to continue to grow in the face of climate change.
Using the new UK Climate Predictions ’09 data for weather patterns over the next century, the research looks at the impact of predicted rises in temperature – particularly in urban areas – increased flooding in winter and less water availability in summer.
The report “How can cities grow whilst reducing emissions and vulnerability” focuses on the particular challenges facing London but can be used as a model for other UK cities on how policy-makers, businesses and the public must work together to prepare for climate change.
As well as protecting our homes and buildings against the increased threat of flooding from rising sea levels, the report emphasizes the need to reduce our carbon emissions, reduce our water usage and move towards cleaner, greener transport.
Newcastle University’s Dr Richard Dawson, one of the report’s authors, said: “There’s not one simple solution to this problem. Instead we need a portfolio of measures that work together to minimize the impact of climate change while allowing for our cities to grow.
“Most importantly we have to cut our carbon dioxide emissions but at the same time we need to prepare for the extremes of weather – heat waves, droughts and flooding – which we are already starting to experience.
“The difficulty is balancing one risk against another while allowing for the expected population and employment growth and that is what our work attempts to address.”
Led by Newcastle University’s Professor Jim Hall, the project is the result of three years’ work to decide how our cities should respond to the threats of climate change.
Promoting the development of cycleways and public transport, low-carbon energy and water recycling it also shows how solving one problem can exacerbate another.
Dr Dawson explains: “Heat waves like the ones being predicted to occur more frequently in future are extremely serious, particularly for the eldest members of our population.
“To combat the problem we often resort to switching on the air conditioning. This is not only energy intensive (and therefore has potential to raise carbon dioxide emissions that drive climate change) but works by cooling the inside of the building and expelling hot air outside, raising the overall air temperature in the city as well.
“This can amplify what is known as the ‘urban heat island’.”
To reduce this problem, the authors show that one option might be to stimulate growth along the Thames flood plain as the water helps to keep the overall temperature lower.
“The problem then is that you are building in the flood plain so you have to prepare for a whole different set of challenges,” explains Dr Dawson. “Houses built on stilts, flood resilient wiring where the sockets and wires are raised above flood level, and water resistant building materials are going to have to be incorporated into our building plans.
“Good planning is the key – we have shown that land use planning influences how much people travel and how they heat and cool their buildings, and hence the carbon dioxide emissions.
“Land use also determines how vulnerable people will be to the impacts of climate change. Our research enables policy makers to explore these many issues on the basis of evidence about the possible future changes and to analyse the effectiveness of a range of innovative responses, so they can better understand and prepare for climate change.”
The Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research is funded by the Natural Environment Research Council, Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and Economic and Social Research Council.
If Al Gore believes in seas´ level rise why has he bought a beach house?. Followers and believers should know this.
Simple: He knows which way the sea is heading, and it’s not what he’s expounding.
Jack Simmons (03:32:25) :
Its funny to see references to a world blessed with eugenics:
http://paleo-future.blogspot.com/2008/07/family-plane-of-2030-ad-1930.html
Ah ha! Just what I was looking for. Guesses about the future forom ‘experts’ . Hopefully I can work out some sort of success ratio and then apply that to our current guesses about future climate.
Miond you, its not all BS.
For example the item linked above.
Flying from New York (Breakfast) to London (Lunch). Hmm. Concorde I suppose was close, but now gone. How would one score that?
And over on the right hand side – using radio to remotely control tanks in a battle from some distance away. Well, there are certainly remote controlled military devices these days and whilst most are not tanks (if you discount small bomb investigating robots) the effects of some of the predator type flying machines are equivalent. And of course control can certainly be very remote from operational theatre.
That’s interesting I think. Must find time to read more of the contents.
“Houses built on stilts, flood resilient wiring where the sockets and wires are raised above flood level, and water resistant building materials are going to have to be incorporated into our building plans.”
Look at that! They are already drooling over all the new global warming building codes they can kill construction with!
A drive down the Umqua river or the Rogue in SW Oregon-you can see homes on
high foundations.Ditto other places where River and Sea can have an influence.
What is amazing is that logic would dictate:_DO_not build there!” Sort of like
looking up at driftwood above your million dollar home, or building a similar home
in the middle of a 40 acre fire ecology woodland-out of log,with a shake roof.
Then expect someone to protect you….
The correct way to deal with this kind of public policy idiocy is to take it seriously. Conduct a discussion which evaluates systematically the risks of building mass housing on stilts in the flood plain in a warming environment.
Are they, for instance going to be susceptible to mosquito borne disease? How is sewage going to work? What about stability of the seabed? How much is it going to cost? How is mass transit going to work? How much of such housing do we need to reduce global temps by x degrees? How much energy and CO2 does it take to build them? What will the accident rate be – living in them, working in them, building them?
Make people get out there and do the work – the same level of work as for any other mass housing project or development scheme, including evironmental damage assessment. This is the way to deal with it.
We must remember that this kind of non sense discourse “To combat the problem we often resort to switching on the air conditioning. This is not only energy intensive (and therefore has potential to raise carbon dioxide emissions that drive climate change) but works by cooling the inside of the building and expelling hot air outside, raising the overall air temperature in the city as well.
Is based on Svante Arrhenius theory of the “Hot house”: thought that the atmosphere acted after the manner of the glass panes of hot-houses
The problem with this is that being the concentration of CO2 only 3.8 parts per ten thousand, that “hot house” would only have 3.8 “glass panes” and 9996.2 empty holes.
BTW, the AP is just now getting word of the Catlin survey: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091014/ap_on_re_eu/eu_britain_arctic_expedition
Perhaps Anthony needs an updated entry on all the issues they had…
RE: urban rickshaws:
Yep, Denver has its own rickshaw / pedicab businesses which seem to be thriving on the 16th Street Mall.
http://www.coloradorickshaw.com/services/services.shtml
Firstly there is no proof whatsover that carbon dioxide emissions are driving climate change.
One hundred year temperature/climate predictions? I hesitate to ask but are these people on drugs or something? The models never saw the cooling phase coming at all did they? and that was only a few years down the line from the IPPCC reports.
How long did it take to come up with this utter trash I wonder? Ill thought out and lazy rubbish thrown together from childrens school books and the lack of imagination just shines through, its as though they saw £££$$$ on the table thats freely available to anyone who sticks to the AGW narrative and they took the cash and just knocked up a bogus bag of tripe!
I think the term ‘laughing all the way to the bank’ applies here.
I wonder if the paper about the houses on stilts shown in the picture has been PIER revewied?
Ahem, ill get my coat!
Oh look, it’s time for another scary bedtime story:
Explorers: North Pole summers ice free in 10 years
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091014/ap_on_re_eu/eu_britain_arctic_expedition
0.000385″ glass panes, or poly panes.
That’s .3 mils. Your visquine doesn’t come that thin.
Glad wrap territory.
And C02 is a gas, not plastic.
Mighty thin bag. Now what happens when it gets really hot or cold?
Since the end of the last glaciation period, sea level has risen by about 120 meters. The next 10-20 feet is just margin of error.
So as it gets colder, look how much new beachfront will be developed.
My back door is a few feet above high tide, so I guess I will need stilts soon.
When will the nonsense stop?
NOBEL PEACE PRIZE ALERT:
The Catlin Expedition (that got stuck in the Arctic ice) is predicting ice-free summers for the North Pole in 10 years.
Dr Richard Dawson
“…we need to prepare for the extremes of weather – heat waves, droughts and flooding – which we are already starting to experience.”
He’s right. I can’t find anything in the bible about floods, droughts or even things like seven years of famine.
Don’t they know how dangerous these houses are for sleep walkers!
Can’t see Prince Charles approving such a ‘Carbuncle on the Thames’. Maybe he’ll make a personal appeal to Imelda Marcos to develop her new shoe floating market complex in a style more appropriate to its surroundings.
Adolfo Giurfa (07:26:49) :
The problem with this is that being the concentration of CO2 only 3.8 parts per ten thousand, that “hot house” would only have 3.8 “glass panes” and 9996.2 empty holes.
Quite. And I would imagine if you insulated your house to the same measure you would be laughed at if you wanted any kind of energy efficiency certificate.
Well then, who wants to go in with me and corner the jet-ski market? SHOULD this happen, it COULD be an economic windfall. And we MIGHT end up laughing at everyone from our moutain chalets. 😉
Alan M writes:
“A recent (quoted in Parliament) GCSE biology exam question (for 16 year olds):
Do you breathe through;
a. your liver
b. your skin
c. your stomach
d. your lungs?
And even this has to be multiple choice.”
——————————-
I agree that this is a pathetic exam question, especially given the fact that there is more than one correct answer. Respiration through the skin is quite significant:
http://www.springerlink.com/content/k112t5377665371m/
OT: Catlin is preparing their media blitz…
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LONDON – A team of British explorers says that within a decade the North Pole will be virtually ice-free during the summer.
The Catlin Arctic Survey trekked an average of about 11 kilometers (six miles) per day and swam in freezing water to take measurements of the ice and snow.
Measurements during the three month research project showed that most of the ice is first year ice that measures about 1.8 meters (six feet) thick. Peter Wadhams with the University of Cambridge said Wednesday the ice is too thin to survive next summer’s ice melt.
The results come ahead of the UN climate Summit in Copenhagen this December
Build houses on stilts? OK. Obviously you can’t park a car near them, so you park on higher ground? But you can’t build there. Or take public transportation. Which has to run on something. Maybe build roads on stilts as well? Keeping the house out of the water doesn’t do a lot of good when you have to get to work. Unless your business is on stilts.
If the economy crashes, we won’t need to go to work. Just fish from the front porch. Cook in solar oven. Right. The late Art Buchwald said it was hard to write good satire as reality had become too strange.
As I have noted in the past, if you build on a flood plain, or below sea level, sooner or later, you will get wet.
3 years worth of research grants for this “project led by Newcatle Uni”. How many millions will that be? I wonder if grants are available for anybody wanting to study what would happen if the universe’s phlogiston turned green?
Douglas DC (07:04:58) :
A drive down the Umqua river or the Rogue in SW Oregon-you can see homes on
high foundations.Ditto other places where River and Sea can have an influence.
What is amazing is that logic would dictate:_DO_not build there!” Sort of like
looking up at driftwood above your million dollar home, or building a similar home
in the middle of a 40 acre fire ecology woodland-out of log,with a shake roof.
Then expect someone to protect you….
It’s not clear where you are laying ‘blame’, but I hope you are being sarcastic.
Consider this: should people assume responsibility for the risk they take, or should the government assume that risk?
If the former, then why impose ludicrous government policies forcing the latter, then complain when people try to take advantage of this government ‘protection’?
While there are nuances to the risks of building close to the coast, the unintended consequences of government assumed risk – not imposed, requested or required by those ‘rich’ people – is that those very same ‘rich’ people will take advantage of it. This generates a lot of chagrin for those who ‘think’ the benefit should be used to help some people but not others.
This is essentially the result of taxation to control behavior: it doesn’t work. In the first iteration those who can ill afford the tax are penalized the most, while those that can, can continue the behavior the tax is designed to control. The second iteration is to give a break to those who cannot afford it, passing on those costs to the ‘rich’. This second iteration means that the ‘poor’ can continue the harmful behavior while the rich must earn more to combat the increase in taxes and maintain their lifestyle. In both cases neither the poor or the rich have changed their behavior, while giving both a free pass to continue said behavior and also increasing the wealth gap between the rich and the poor.
Further, and government cost which is expected to be majority paid by the rich (they can afford it), is actually assumed by the middle class: the more money you have, the more tools you have at your disposal to diminish your tax liability. Indeed, if *I* had the money, I would rather pay a greedy evil lawyer tens of thousands of dollars to find these tax ‘loop holes’ rather than pay that money to the government.
So, pray tell, we have a situation: ‘everyone’ knows that The Big Plan is a good idea to save our planet, but no one wants to go first and pay for it. Actually, we have moved on from that: the situation is that the big evil corporations must pay because of all the iPods they make, the food they bring to the masses, the energy they impose on us poor innocent souls and force us to consume. Yes, make *them* pay. They are evil, I tell you, evil!
The eggs have been scrambled.
The crow has been stewed.
The guest are arriving
to get their just due.
Soon very many will try to recant
but will they give back
those government grants?
Science, oh science
will you live down this shame:
the lies that were spoken
in your noble name?