With the threat of man made global warming vanishing under an avalanche of real science and the fraud revealed at East Anglia, it is funny to see the global warming crowd now rushing around trying to find work. The latest scam, helping people prepare for the more generic CLIMATE CHANGE.
So what are these bright stars going to do in Massachusetts?
Teach us how to deal with blizzards? After 2 generations living in New England most of us are all set, thank you.
Teach us to deal with 90-degree heat waves? Been there, done that several times in the past 40 years. Thank you.
Hurricanes? Covered. I doubt that these guys will be able to help us deal with much.
The soft liberals in Cambridge are another story. They love their nanny state telling them what to do.
6 inches of snow shuts down their life for days if they do not have a government program to tell them what to do and help them to do it.
The non-profit organization ICLEI-Local Governments for Sustainability USA has developed a set of tools and best practices for for towns and local governments that might be paralyzed by the daunting process of planning strategies to combat potential climate changes. And, frankly, that probably have a lot of other worries — like the economy — aside from the environment.
The framework, called the Climate Resilient Communities Program, includes what is called the Adaptation and Database Planning Tool (ADAPT). ADAPT provides a series of questions and assessments that help a city or community identify its unique risks, set goals and develop strategies to meet there. The framework is available to all 600 or so ICLEI member communities. There are 8 communities that will receive extra guidance to accelerate their efforts. That’s because they have stepped forward to get started. They are:
- Boston
- Cambridge, Mass.
- Flagstaff, Ariz.
- Grand Rapids, Mich.
- Lee County, Fla.
- Miami-Dade County, Fla.
- San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission
- Tucson, Ariz.
Martin Chavez, ICLEI USA Executive Director (and the former three-term mayor of Albuquerque, N.M.) says in the press release:
“Local governments have a responsibility to protect people, property, and natural resources, and these leading communities wisely recognize that climate change is happening now, and that they must begin planning for impacts that will only become more severe in the coming decades.”
ICLEI is also involved with another initiative emerging over the weekend, called the carbonn Cities Climate Registry. The registry will allow cities to compare their actions, performance and commitments relate to the climate. It will be the official reporting platform for the Global Cities Covenant on Climate (aka the Mexico City Pact), which is supported by cities including Bogota, Johannesburg, Buenos Aires, Istanbul, Rio de Janeiro, Barcelona, Jakarta, Sao Paola, Nagoya, Montreal, Curitiba, Dakar, Los Angeles, Quito and Nagpur. The data will be used to produce a public gauge of progress called the Climate 100 in about a year’s time. Other organizations backing this initiative include the United Nations Environment Programme and the World Mayors Council on Climate Change.
I don’t know about you, but I’m getting kind of confused about the number of initiatives that are taking a stab at helping communities and cities measure their environmental impact. This one seems like a main alternative to the Carbon Disclosure Project Cities initiative, on a potentially much larger scale.
