NEW YORK (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Protecting the infrastructure of American cities from the effects of climate change is rising on the agenda of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, according to a top agency official.
“Increasingly, we’ve moved not only from a security focus to a resiliency focus,” said Caitlin Durkovich, assistant secretary for infrastructure protection at Homeland Security, an agency better known for its fight to curb terrorist threats.
Durkovich spoke Thursday on a panel at the Rising Seas Summit, a three-day conference organized by the U.S.-based Association of Climate Change Officers to discuss tools and ideas on building resiliency, particularly against rising sea levels.
In the aftermath of 2012’s Hurricane Sandy, which devastated large swathes of the Northeastern U.S and caused over $60 billion in damages, Durkovich said her department reviewed the task of rebuilding with a new focus on “how to think about baking in resilience from the get-go.”
To that end, she said, she has assembled a team of specialists, including city planners, in conjunction with the National Academy of Science to develop better tools for planning. The Department of Homeland Security already has launched regional efforts to assess resilience of infrastruction and judge where gaps in adaptation and preparedness may be, she said.
Full story here: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/09/25/us-foundation-climate-security-idUSKCN0HK2PW20140925
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Josh seems to have homed in on Homeland Securities concerns with this cartoon.
http://climateequilibrium.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/josh-knobs.jpg
What if it falls into the wrong hands?
It’s ironic that DHS is proposing just the kind of infrastructure improvements that the current congress has steadfastly refused to fund on their own merits – $40 billion for bridge repairs? No way Jose. Oh wait, bombing Syria? We’ll just go on vacation, don’t worry about the money.
This move by DHS is not much different than Mussolini “making the trains run on time.”
The U.S. is being drained by the twin cancers of the military industrial complex and the health industrial complex. Modern bridges, roads, sea walls, nuclear power plants and such are the ugly stepchildren ignored in favor of glittery baubles like a trillion dollar F-35 fighter program.
The 800 pound infrastructure gorilla in the room is the decrepit electric grid. If DHS wanted to do something useful to protect “the homeland” from natural disaster, they could undertake the job of planning resilience from the inevitable arrival of the next Carrington Event, which could cause more damage in a few hours than climate change ever will, at least within our lifetimes.
Markopanama, you’re making the assumption that $40 billion for bridge repairs would actually go to bridge repairs. Congress gave Obama an $800 billion stimulus, a large part of which was supposed to go to things like infrastructure repair to create jobs. In 2010 President Obama claimed that he had used the stimulus money to make needed upgrades to our national infrastructure:
“Now, let me tell you, another thing we’ve done is to make long-overdue investments in upgrading our outdated, our inefficient national infrastructure. We’re talking roads. We’re talking bridges. We’re talking dams, levees. …”
But after his re-election, Obama contradicted himself by demanding another stimulus to make long overdue repairs to the country’s “neglected” infrastructure. That’s the problem. The money gets diverted elsewhere. The stimulus money was used to shore up union pension funds and enrich Democrat cronies rather than make much if any needed infrastructure improvements. The stimulus also became part of the baseline budget for all future years, so it should have provided plenty of money for continued upgrading of infrastructure. But it’s being spend elsewhere. Please explain why you think increasing the deficit to spend additional money would change any of that.
Bigger budgets.
Precisely. More money wasted beyond the $800 billion mostly wasted thus far.
“To help communities develop resilience, Alex said, California is part of a pilot program under which AmeriCorps, the Corporation for National and Community Service, will dispatch 50 young people to educate local communities about climate adaptation and resilience. If successful, he said, the program could become national.”
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Really? Local communities are going to listen to young people from AmeriCorps educate them on climate adaptation and resilience? What makes these “young people” climate experts? What could they actually teach anyone, other than the political propaganda they memorize just before being dispatched? I have a feeling climate is just being used as an excuse for Pres. Obama to create his “army” of volunteers to go out and organize communities. It’s really about politics, not climate.
I’m British so feel free to ignore me but
HAVE YOU LOST YOUR MINDS???
If the defence of the free world is now in the hands of arsewits who refuse to see that the world is cooling, then we’re screwed.
Goodbye, and thanks for all the fish.
LOL from Canada. Yes, Mark, THEY HAVE LOST THEIR MINDS. We ARE screwed.
Our ONLY HOPE is that they display enough sanity in November 2014 and again in November 2016 to remove the arsewits from the levers of power. I used to have faith in the common sense of the American electorate – until 2006, 2008 and 2012. Now, not so much.
The degree of polarization in USA politics is extreme and destructive – it appears both the far-left and far-right are insane.
In Canada we have a far-left that is as crazy as the US version – Thomas Mulcair and Justin Trudeau are doctrinaire imbeciles that have a reasonable chance of seizing power from the first competent government we’ve had in generations. Mulcair and Trudeau rely upon the George Carlin principle: “You know how stupid the average person is, right? Well half of them are stupider than that.”
Our Canadian government is centre-right and our Prime Minister actually puts the country first. Amazing, and rare.
As I see it, the USA has an opportunity to revitalize its economy through cheap energy from shale fracking, but Obama is so beholden to global warming fanatics and other imbeciles that he is incapable of leading this initiative. Better luck next time, my American friends…
Regards to all, Allan
I have an idea: don’t rebuild New Orleans or only allow construction 2 meters above the height of the high tide.
The power companies are already using “Homeland Security” to bully their way through legitimate disputes about easements for their power lines. Locally we had a farmer who was questioning the work done on some power lines crossing his land. When he tried to tell the crew that they were encroaching he was told that he was making “terroristic threats” and that he was subject criminal prosecution if he didn’t back down.
Homeland Security merely an incipient Gestapo that should be abolished.
Tell that to the relatives of the people killed in the Twin Towers.Then try telling them that Climate Change is more dangerous than terrorism.
meanwhile… DHS ignores the Islam and Muslims in general even though the normal doctrine of Islam is perpetual Jihad.
This is beyond stupidity having bureaucratic agencies like DHS (or its incompetent cousin FEMA) that have no understanding of Global Climate be put in charge of directive that the legitimate branch of Government (US Congress) refuses to pass? Never mind that it is now a proven Myth. I blame Congress for failing to restore proper role of President & Admin and ending backdoor legal maneuver that is illegal.
How can a discredited myth like (Man caused) Global Warming which morphed to Climate Change (caused by man) and still got its Liberal butt kicked by true Climatologist who proved the temperature hasn’t changed in 20 years (as predicted by GW/CC models – made by Mathematician in NASA masquerading as climatologist & whose model no one else can duplicate results because they wont make such stupid assumptions). Now since Climate-gate showed/proved the level of data cherry-picking, false assumptions and outright lies it took to propose this nonsense – Countries have Canceled the UN Kyoto treaty in 2012 (except for exempt nations like China and other 200 developing countries that got pollute unfettered and are now the world leaders like China/India/Russia). UN sees Carbon Tax/Climate Change as path to World governance and increased revenue, Liberals see it as path to Wealth Re-Distribution and Conservatives see it for nonsense it is. Premier of Australia has ended Carbon Tax in his country (some $248Billion/yr over $1 trillion year-to-date) which put Europe Carbon traders & EU program in tailspin (half Carbon traders already left their jobs) – just like with Kyoto the countries like Canada/Japan/Uk are lined up like planes on runway to cancel this stupidity. Only Obama and his Liberal Dictatorship is forcing this failed program forward despite that US is now only 6% of Global emissions while China/India are some 47% of them). They refuse to even go to WTO discussions on emission reductions and even the Obama’s UN talks on them.
It is a great wonder that so many people on our planet imagined myself freaking out, thinking that climate change is a consequence of abnormal human behavior. It is true that increasing concentrations of CO2 cause pollution of the atmosphere, but in any case it does not affect climate change. Climate change is caused by many factors, the nature stronger than many people think. Should be lowered to a much lower altitude observations of the behavior of nature and everything will be clear. The whole world science stupefy themselves, thinking that the various models on the PC, to discover the secrets of nature, like the PC, a huge pile of hidden data to which we have come. All the data from these models have brought people and “polluted” in them a sense of nature and its laws.
The time will come soon, and you get real familiar with the laws of nature, and they will give you the real cause of all these phenomena related to climate change as well as any changes in the sun, which are indicators of the first changes. I’m working on it and see if it all went in the wrong direction. Trillions of dollars are spent in vain, without any effect.
How is it true that increasing concentrations of CO2 cause pollution of the atmosphere?,
Try it in your room to kindle charcoal or wood, but without the chimney, you’ll probably feel the difference when breathing air and one in the second figure!
The question was about the atmosphere, not an enclosed space. Where is there any evidence that 400 ppm, or several times that, is pollution?
You are confusing carbon MONOxide with carbon DIoxide. First is BAD, second is GOOD.
If they would only do reasonable things, this would be good.
If NY City had possessed accurate GPS altitudes for tunnel and subway entrances (and entrances for vents etc), the National Guard could have sandbagged these adequately to prevent flooding. Low lying neighborhoods could have been alerted well in advance — they knew the storm would hit at a peak high tide and would be pushing a huge storm surge. Flood controls devices could have been opened to allow floodwater to harmlessly enter the great marshlands of NJ.
Why Homeland Security should be involved, I don’t know. You’d think that cities like NY would move on this on their own.
This is simply about control and that’s it!!. control of the weather, control what you eat, control on how you travel from a to b etc etc etc. Every aspect of your life… and it was all made possible because they kept you scared and dumb the whole time.
they figure, hey what are you going to do about… right? go home pay your bills, tax what have you and curl up into a ball and wish things were better.