The Mississippi River diversions are intended to build new land by diverting floodwaters from the river into open water, wetlands there. Since oyster cultivation depends on the oyster beds seeing a narrow salinity range, there is a concern that the diversion…
Category: Climate Change
Hurricane Harvey: Texas at Risk Page
Hurricane Harvey: Texas at Risk, Texas General Land Office (2018) Recommendation #4 The state legislature should establish by state statute a Regional Building Code District (RBCD) with standard-setting authority in the high-risk hurricane region of Southeast Texas which would replace…
UNDERWATER Podcast – 2016 Louisiana Flood – created by students at the University of Louisiana
https://sites.google.com/view/underwaterpodcast/ Between August 11 and August 15, 2016 more than 3 times the amount of rainfall from Hurricane Katrina fell in a massive rainstorm, mostly over Southern Louisiana and the Gulf of Mexico. Student and Faculty researchers have collaborated to…
OHIO RIVER BASIN– Formulating Climate Change Mitigation/Adaptation Strategies through Regional Collaboration with the ORB Alliance
Generally, modeling results indicate a gradual increase in annual mean temperatures between 2011 and 2040 amounting to one-half degree per decade, with greater increases between 2041 and 2099 of one full degree per decade. Hydrologic flow changes show substantial variability…
Judge Dismisses New York City Climate Lawsuit Against Oil Industry
City of New York v. BP Plc , S.D.N.Y., No. 1:18-cv-182, 7/19/18 .
The Children’s Climate Case – Juliana v. United States
Court Documents Juliana v. United States, No. 6:15-CV-01517-TC – First Amended Complaint Juliana v. United States, No. 6:15-CV-01517-TC – Federal Defendants First Motion to Dismiss Juliana v. United States, No. 6:15-CV-01517-TC, 2016 WL 6661146 (D. Or. Nov. 10, 2016) –…
South Asia’s Hotspots : Impacts of Temperature and Precipitation Changes on Living Standards
The Report – Mani, Muthukumara, Sushenjit Bandyopadhyay, Shun Chonabayashi, Anil Markandya, and Thomas Mosier. “South Asia’s Hotspots.” (2018). From the World Bank site: South Asia is highly vulnerable to climate change. Average temperatures have been rising throughout the region, and rainfall…
Takings Cases Relevant to Climate Change
Miller v. Campbell Cty., 722 F. Supp. 687 (D.Wyo. 1989) – Temporary forced evacuation from home is not a taking for 42 USC 1983 Harris Cty. Flood Control Dist. v. Kerr, 499 S.W.3d 793, 795 (Tex. 2016), reh’g denied (Oct.…
Judge dismisses City of Oakland climate case based on nuisance – 2018
From the Opinion: It may seem peculiar that an earlier order refused to remand this action to state court on the ground that plaintiffs’ claims were necessarily governed by federal law, while the current order concludes that federal common law…
Underwater: Rising Seas, Chronic Floods, and the Implications for US Coastal Real Estate (2018)
This is a report from the Union of Concerned Scientists on the potential impact of various rates of sea level rise on residential and coastal real estate, using data on the coastal real estate from Zillow.
The Public Trust Doctrine and Sea Level Rise
Center for Ocean Solutions, Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, The Public Trust Doctrine: A Guiding Principle for Governing California’s Coast Under Climate Change (2017) This report looks at the legal implications as the mean high tide line – the…
Disaster Tourism: Honest Altruism or Vulgar Voyerism?
(Student post from my coastal law class, 2010) Dark tourism is tourism involving travel to sites associated with death and suffering. Thanatourism, derived from the Ancient Greek word thanatos for the personification of death, is associated with dark tourism but refers more…
Dusky Gopher Frog – Endangered Species Act in the Supreme Court
Ownership of Submerged Lands in Louisiana
INVENTORY OF STATE LANDS OFFICE OF STATE LANDS DIVISION OF ADMINISTRATION (2018) The state does not have clear title to an estimated 286,467 acres of water bottoms, as private parties also claim ownership of these lands. These “dualclaimed” water bottoms…
Louisiana Attorney General Sues the Corps over Intracoastal Canal
Louisiana v. United States – Complaint in Intracoastal Canal Litigation Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry discussion lawsuit and explaining that climate change is a hoax and that sea level is rising. – Facebook video on the AG Facebook page. The AG…
Louisiana Canals and Their Influence on Wetland Development – 1973
Davis, Donald Wayne, “Louisiana Canals and Their Influence on Wetland Development.” (1973). LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses. 2386. http://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses/2386 Coastal Louisiana, according to recent measurements, has 4,572 miles of canals. This network can be divided into five types; drainage and…
Reports of the Louisiana Oyster Commission – 1902 to 1910
These reports are of contemporary interest because they remind us that oysters are not traditionally a major part of the Mississippi Delta Ecosystem. From p.77 of the First Biennial Report 1902-1904: There are vast areas of soft mud bottoms, in your…
National Hurricane Center – Hurricane Harvey Report
National Hurricane Center – Hurricane Harvey Report (2018) Harvey started as a typical weak August tropical storm that affected the Lesser Antilles and dissipated over the central Caribbean Sea. However, after re-forming over the Bay of Campeche, Harvey rapidly intensified…
Assessment of the Potential Health Impacts of Climate Change in Alaska
Alaska Department of Health and Social Services, Assessment of the Potential Health Impacts of Climate Change in Alaska (2018) (This is an excellent, detailed report of the present and potential impacts of climate change on health in Alaska.) Over the…
California Communities Confronting Rising Sea Levels Sue Fossil Fuel Companies
Breaking News! Oakland and San Francisco climate cases removed to federal court and held there. People of the State of California v. BP P.L.C. et al., San Francisco Superior Court Case No. CGC 17-561370 People of the State of California v.…
ARkStorm – The weather equivalent of the Big One for California
California – The Flood that Could Change Everything California is spending billions to protect the millions at risk of a megaflood, but thanks to climate change, it’s too little too late. ARkStorm@SierraFront 2.0 This updates the USGS analysis below.
What would happen if the Mississippi River changed its course to the Atchafalaya?
PDF – What would happen if the Mississippi River changed its course to the Atchafalaya?
GAO – DOD Needs to Better Incorporate Adaptation into Planning and Collaboration at Overseas Installations
The expected impacts of weather effects associated with climate change pose operational and budgetary risks to overseas infrastructure according to the Department of Defense (DOD), but DOD does not consistently track the impacts’ estimated costs. Operational risks (including interruptions to…
Arctic Report Card 2017
Arctic shows no sign of returning to reliably frozen region of recent past decades Despite relatively cool summer temperatures, observations in 2017 continue to indicate that the Arctic environmental system has reached a ‘new normal’, characterized by long-term losses in…
Category 6 Blog – Why Is It So Hard to Fix the National Flood Insurance Program?
A tangle of politics and problems may force yet another delay in long-sought updates to the broke, beleaguered U.S. National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP). Congress has the unenviable task of putting NFIP back in the black without raising rates too quickly on…
Climate Science Special Report: Fourth National Climate Assessment
Highlights of the U.S. Global Change Research Program Climate Science Special Report The climate of the United States is strongly connected to the changing global climate. The statements below highlight past, current, and projected climate changes for the United States…
From Bali To Marrakech: A Decade Of International Climate Negotiations
From Bali To Marrakech: A Decade Of International Climate Negotiations (2017) MESSAGE FROM THE EXECUTIVE SECRETARY Since its entry into force in 1994, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change has been at the centre of international efforts to…
Chesapeake Bay Watershed Map
By Kmusser – Own work, Elevation data from SRTM, hydrologic data from the National Hydrography Dataset, urban areas from Vector Map, all other features from the National Atlas., CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=12520461
EPA – Climate Change in the United States: Benefits of Global Action. United States Environmental Protection Agency – 2015
EPA. 2015. Climate Change in the United States: Benefits of Global Action. United States Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Atmospheric Programs, EPA 430-R-15-001. About this Report This report summarizes and communicates the results of EPA’s ongoing Climate Change Impacts and…
Trump, The Koch Brothers and Their War on Climate Science
TRNN SPECIAL: Trump, The Koch Brothers and Their War on Climate Science