Often when people talk about “Climate Change Adaption”, they open discuss mega-projects that prevent theorical stresses that face our cities and urbanized areas. They often discuss large flood walls and other reduncency that would not exist if not for climate modeling.
Yet, there is a more sensible alternative. It’s the minor project and tweaks that can help societies adapt to climate change, that cost far less. Rather then looking at the worst case scenario, planners and engineers can consider likely threats using climate models, and when building new infrastrucuture make tweaks to make them more resilant to weather and flooding that might not have existed even a generation before.
A lot of climate change adaption will happen quietly without much public notice. Simply said, engineers are already that taking notice of recent events, and have to consider future models. Many of the changes, such as bridges designed for greater stream flow, are occuring quietly, without much public consideration.
As get we farther down the path of the changing climate, more infrastructure will fail. Settlement patterns will quietly change, as will land use. But there will be no press release or global stragety. People will adapt to what is right for them, just as infrastructure quietly adapts to a changing climate.
One of my favorite fall hikes when I am out in Syracuse is to hike Jones Hill, which is about 10 miles east of Tully. It’s a quick hop down I-81, as you climb into the mountains, and then take NY 80 through some farm land, and south past Labrador Hollow and Labrador Pond.
You should probably do the hike in the morning, for the best views of country east of here. The fall leaves up here turn earler then in Syracuse.
What makes Jones Hill so unique is what you see in the vista. Below you is Labrador Pond, a 101 acre lake with many unique and endangered species. Across the way is Labrador Hill, and to the north to the farm country around Tully.
The leaves are always quite spectulator up here, especially if you catch them at peak, which is usually a week prior to Columbus Day Weekend. On Columbus Day Weekend, in contrast, you should go to Green Lake State Park — preferably at sunrise, before the crowds arrive.
Jones Pond has 5 drive-in campsites on Jones Pond, a small public-private lake a little ways from Paul Smiths. A popular area on weekends, on weeknights, it is little used, but right on this beautiful lake.
All of the campsites have “filtered” views of Jones Pond with tall white pines growing throughout the campground. The sun, year round sets on the lake, with views of Saint Regis Mountain te background. There is much beauty at all of campsites, with high sand dunes a little ways behind campsites, and sand dunes providing sound and light barriers between campsites.
Part of the generalized St Regis Canoe Area, it one of many nearby lakes. It provides a great place to make the night after a long day paddling, after watching the sunset, and the fire burn as the night progresses. Walk down to the shoreline, and look at the stars sparkle in the sky.
It’s not perfect. There is some road noise from Jones Pond Road, and certainly part of lake shore is privately owned, so there are some power boats occassionally on the lake. But still, it’s a wonderful experience.
Pennsylvania has some of the loosest restrictions on open burning in most of it’s rural communities in the Northeastern states. People can and do have fires, and burn brush, trash, and all matters of things on their rural acerage.
Most folks down there heat with wood or coal. They burn there trash daily — and all of it including plastics — and dump out the unburnable bottles and cans in woods. Life is a non-stop opporunity to play with fire.
From the blackened trash burning barrels, to the black smoke rising behind the houses, to the flicker of flames, the smell of burnt plastic rising in air. Good ol’ fire.
I wish I could burn things like they do get to down in rural PA…
I got this book out of the library the other day titled, “The Best of Tent Camping: A guide for car campers who hate RVs, Concrete Slabs, and Loud Portable Stereos” and thought it was a perfect read until I actually opened the book and found out it was a book expounding the virtues of state campgrounds, rather then back country and roadside locations for camping.
I once stayed in a state campground. It had to be the most miserable day in my life. I really don’t need to be told by some jackbooted thug how to operate my campsite, when I must turn down the music or dim the camp lights, or otherwise restrict what I want to do. I want shoot guns at midnight, then that should be my right.
Campgrounds are tightly packed locations, versus the typical 1/4 mile plus spacing between most roadside and backcountry campsites, where you are out of eyeshot and earshot of other campers, so you are pretty much free to do what you want without restriction of the government or annoyance of others.
If you need the kind of services that campgrounds you probably shouldn’t go up to woods. Especially if your tent camping, a developed campground just seems kind of silly and wasteful. You can always burn and pack out your garbage, and there are creeks to swim in to clean yourself out.
Several years ago, I got a set of LED Christmas lights that I bring almost every time I am roadside camping. I actually have several of the strings now, plus a LED rope light string that I bought this summer, that I don’t like as much although I still use it, because I paid for it, and does put out a bit of bright light.
LED Christmas light strings are great, because they put out a fair amount of direct light, yet consume minimal power. A typical string of LED Christmas lights consumes 4.5 watts, so you can pear together several strings, yet have minimal consumption of electricity — which is a big deal if your camping in woods, using a battery.
LED Christmas lights are just bright enough to keep one from tripping on various things in on the campsite, but not to take away from the campfire or darkness of woods. They give just the right light. One does not necessarily want their campsite lit up brighter then bright all evening long, while sitting next to campfire, enjoying a cold beer.
Like most Americans, I believe strongly we should do something about Climate Change, to limit it’s most severe impacts. Yet at the same time, I am fully aware of our needs for energy services – the stuff that energy provides for us like lighting, transportation, powering electronics and motors, heating, and cooling. We need a lot of energy too – as I noted when the BP Oil Spill occurred – all the oil that spoiled the ocean could only fuel America for about 45 seconds. Turns out the oil spill severity was much worst then originally predicted, but still it was only one and half minutes worth of petroleum consumption for the United States.
So how do we get there from here? I do not advocate a “crash” diet on petroleum and other fossil fuels. People really like the energy services that fossil fuels provide, and most people aren’t give up their vacations using their petroleum fueled automobiles, or heat and air conditioning in their houses – especially for a “projected” future problem. Electric lighting and computers are essentials of modern life that most people aren’t going to want to give up either. Cities – particularly large cities – have such intense energy needs, that fully substituting with renewables isn’t going to be practical, much less cost effective.
What needs to happen is a big compromise. We need reasonable but strong energy standards that promote and preferable renewables and energy efficiency. Those standards can’t compromise the core things that make up the necessities modern life – including reliable and affordable energy and products. We have to continue to develop fossil energy sources responsibility. At the same time, we need to choose a realistic climate goal that matches our need for energy.
There are those out there that say we can’t afford that much Climate Change destruction. Essentially slaughtering millions of people and destroying billions in property to ensure our society has the energy it needs, really isn’t a pretty choice. But it’s a realistic choice. There is no free lunch on climate change – and protecting all the energy services provides for our society is important. America needs services that energy provides, and it has to be balanced against the painful consequences of consuming that energy.
Today’s debate needs not be whether we will need fossil energy to provide for energy services we all depend on and deeply enjoy. We will need fossil energy for the foreseeable future – and probably more of it in coming years. The question is can we burn it cleanly, and efficiently so it provides the most energy services for the least amount of actual fossil energy consumed. We got to take the oldest and dirtiest power plants and replace them with modern technology. We also got to boost renewable energy to be the preferred source of energy whenever it’s reasonably cost effective.
