It's early, to be dog days-- but climate change is throwing just about everything we've ever known about predictable seasons to the winds, so here we are. No energy policy and the dawning sense that farm policies meant to grow gasoline from food are a disaster. If we lived in Haiti, Vietnam or India-- or in any of the nations where food rioters have taken to the streets, we'd know that climate change is here, now. Here we are still trying to parse what has happened to us.
This week, the International Coral Reef Symposium is meeting in Fort Lauderdale. Readers of this blog should venture there own opinion: what percentage of the Florida Keys coral reef is alive and well?
I can tell you what is alive and well in Miami-Dade: re-zoning land use for rock mines.
Tomorrow, at 7 PM at Arvida Middle School, Community Council 11 will consider a rock mining request by Krome Gold (click on our archive feature to learn about the power brokers behind Krome Gold, including the chairman of the Florida Wildlife Conservation Commission appointed by Governor Charlie Crist, Rodney Barreto) that is likely related to the massive Development of Regional Impact nearby, Parkland by Lennar and every other land speculator in Miami-Dade.
As a matter of a civics lesson, everyone should descend on Arvida Middle School to watch democracy-in-action: watch, also, what happens next: when these zoning applications land before the Miami-Dade County Commission. And, as Geniusofdespair notes below, watch what happens when the County Commission takes up the recommendations of the Charter Review Commission: NADA.
By the time the land speculators get through chopping up Miami-Dade County, all the so-called live coral reef will be good for is concrete.
Concete: like that described in a recent St. Pete Times editorial from a Florida hero, Lesley Blackner: scourge of the Florida Chamber of Commerce and founder of the citizen's initiative Florida Hometown Democracy that is clawing its way through our "representative democracy" to its way on the November 2008 ballot.
What FHD would do is change the Florida constitution so that dumb-ass projects like Parkland in Miami-Dade County would go to a popular county-wide vote instead of sucking all the oxygen from the processes of government by lobbyists and land speculators. If the St. Pete Times can print a sharp-edged view like this, that reflects the experience of so many readers in their own Miami communities, why can't The Miami Herald?
Road is concrete symbol of problems with sprawl
By Lesley Blackner, guest columnist
Published Sunday, June 29, 2008
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Has anyone thought of renaming the toll road running through the middle of Pasco and Hernando counties the "Cone Porkway?'' You know, the toll road that came online at just the right moment, when cheap gas and easy money converged to unleash a perfect storm of developers and speculators gone wild.
Oh, the bubble was sweet while it lasted; no questions asked, no money down, just hope and hype because the market couldn't be wrong. Don't worry. Be happy. Go shopping. Go out to eat. And you can always refinance!
That big toll road, slicing like a can opener for 42 miles through virgin land, cost about $1-billion. Its official purpose was to alleviate traffic on U.S. 19 and U.S. 41. By the way, how is the traffic there these days?
But you know the real purpose: Build it and they will come.
Every day you now live with what happens when they build it without any thought for the future or the quality of life of the poor suckers already on the ground. Never mind the schools are packed like sardines and there is an unending water crisis. Never mind that impact fees for new construction do not begin to cover the costs of new infrastructure and minimal services. Perhaps, like so many others, you are upside down in your little piece of paradise, owing more on your house than it is worth.
Add to that jobs far from the sprawl frontier and gas surpassing $4 per gallon.
Did anyone have a Plan B?
Which brings me back to the giant toll road, officially called the " Suncoast Parkway ." You probably missed the news that Michael Cone, former head of Cone Constructors, the general contractor for the Suncoast Parkway , is now serving a 20-year sentence for defrauding the Department of Transportation and committing bankruptcy fraud. Even his wife is in federal prison for fraud.
Ten years ago I represented the Sierra Club in an ill-fated lawsuit regarding the toll road, which paved hundreds of acres of wetlands and unleashed a tidal wave of sprawl. The court ruled we waited too late to file the case and that the mitigation for the destruction wrought by the toll road was adequate. That mitigation is the Serenova Preserve, truly a jewel of our ecological heritage, a piece of old Florida supposedly "saved" for generations yet born.
Today, Serenova is fine, if you don't think about the Ridge Road extension, a four-lane highway Pasco County is desperate to run right through the middle of it. Pasco will mitigate the mitigation.
The toll road was my great education in Florida land use. I learned one big thing: Florida land use is just politics. It's the votes of five county commissioners. In most places it takes only a majority to vote "yes'' and change the community forever.
During the bubble, Pasco and Hernando commissioners just wouldn't say no to the endless, shiny development dreams. What were they thinking? Clearly, the power to change the local growth plan is just way too much power concentrated in the hands of five people.
Understanding this inevitably led me to Florida Hometown Democracy, the proposed constitutional amendment that will put comprehensive plan changes approved by a county or city commission to referendum before local voters. Voters should have the final say over changes to their community's growth plan because you are the ones who must live with the consequences.
Someone wise recently observed that the measure of a civilization is not merely what it creates, but also what it refuses to destroy. And we must learn from mistakes and undertake genuine reform. Do you really want more of the past?
Type the rest of the post here
6 comments:
Famed Hurricane Forecaster William Gray Predicts Global Cooling in 10 Years
Expert states ocean cycles will have a more profound effect on climate than CO2; criticizes James Hansen's climate models.
By Jeff Poor
Business & Media Institute
3/4/2008 11:47:32 AM
It turns out Al Gore was wrong. The scientists aren’t all in agreement on global warming; thus there is no “consensus.”
Prominent hurricane forecaster Dr. William M. Gray, a professor at Colorado State University, told the audience at the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change on March 4 in New York that a natural cycle of ocean water temperatures related to the salinity (the amount of salt) in ocean water was responsible for some global warming that has taken place. However, he said that same cycle means a period of cooling would begin within 10 years.
“We should begin to see cooling coming on,” Gray said. “I’m willing to make a big financial bet on it. In 10 years, I expect the globe to be somewhat cooler than it is now, because this ocean effect will dominate over the human-induced CO2 effect and I believe the solar effect and the land-use effect. I think this is likely bigger.”
Gray, 79, wasn’t sure if he’d be around to see his prediction come true.
“I may not be around by that time,” Gray said. “But, I’ve asked some of my students to put dandelions on my grave if that happens.”
Gray criticized NASA scientist and global warming alarmist James Hansen, calling him “the most egregious abuser” of data. According to Gray, Hansen’s alarmism is exaggerated because the models he uses to predict the increase in global warming count on too much water vapor in the atmosphere.
“[S]o he puts that much vapor in his model and of course he gets this,” Gray said. “He must get upper troposphere where the temperature is seven degrees warmer for a doubl[ing of] CO2. Well, the reason he got that was – why this upper-level warming was there – was he put too much water vapor in the model.”
At the same conference March 3, the founder of The Weather Channel advocated suing carbon traders, including former Vice President Al Gore, to expose what he called “the fraud of global warming.”
Moderate
P.S. - Yeah, but what do the guys listed in this article know? They must be quacks.
STOP THE LIES
Go ahead, throw as much poo at it as you want, Moderate. My mother had an old saying, when you hear a rumor, there is always a margin of truth to it. I heard a rumor that the north pole is melting. Has anybody taken a look at that? Oh, they have but they probably don't know what they are talking about either. Cat's out of the bag, Moderate, people are paying attention. Oops, too late for you!
Thanks for the plug about Arvida Middle School Meeting. Just to be clear, it is on Tuesday night, 7/8, at 7:00. There are 3 degrees of separation between this application and other things that developers want to happen in that area. Hold the Line People, come on down!
Let's take the word of the "famed climateologist" William Grey, who's only "fame" is to try to guess how many hurricanes there will be and to get it wrong every year with astounding regularity.
I love any scientist who "predicts" weather, and then "revises" their forecast two or three times during a 6-month weather interval.
I think Dr. Grey needs to go back to throwing bones and getting unwarranted media attention for "predicting" the past.
Moderate - I usually appreciate your attempts at being a contrarian, but you can do better than that. Quoting the Business & Media Institute? C'mon man. Don't pretend you're a moderate when you spout crap "reported" by an organization (the Media Research Center) who's mission is to be the mouthpiece for the Conservative agenda.
Predicting the past, that was funny. I love you guys!
Are we not in a cooling period?
Are you saying this media outlet is the only one claiming that?
Are you claiming that there isn't anyone with any credibility saying we are moving into a cooling decade?
m
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