Author: mjeanlouis

Episodes of severe weather in the United States, such as the present abundance of rainfall in California, are brandished as tangible evidence of the future costs of current climate trends. Hsiang et al. collected national data documenting the responses in six economic sectors to short-term weather fluctuations. These data were integrated with probabilistic distributions from a set of global climate models and used to estimate future costs during the remainder of this century across a range of scenarios. In terms of overall effects on gross domestic product, the authors predict negative impacts in the southern United States and positive impacts in some parts of the Pacific Northwest and New England.Climate change increases the unpredictability and between-county inequality of future economic outcomes, effects that may alter the valuation of climate damages beyond their nationally averaged expected costs (45).

Median damages are systematically larger in low-income counties, increasing by 0.93% of county income (95% confidence interval = 0.85 to 1.01%) on average for each reduction in current income decile. In the richest third of counties, the average very likely range (90% credible interval, determined as the average of 5th and 95th percentile values across counties) for damages is −1.2 to 6.8% of county income (negative damages are benefits), whereas for the poorest third of counties, the average range is 2.0 to 19.6% of county income. These differences are more extreme for the richest 5% and poorest 5% of counties, with average intervals for damage of −1.1 to 4.2% and 5.5 to 27.8%, respectively.Our market estimates are for a 1.0 to 3.0% loss of annual national average GDP under RCP8.5 at the end of the century. Previous top-down county-level analysis of productivity estimates that national output would decline 1.2 to 3.1% after 20 years of exposure to RCP8.5 temperatures at the end of the century.

For the 700 residents of the Solaire, New York high-rise living is providing a green
culture that has set new standards with New York building agencies. It also shows
the importance of recommissioning to fine-tune efficiency.
Located at 20 River Terrace, The Solaire is the country’s first ever LEED-certified residential high-rise. Designed by the Albanese Corporation and completed in 2003, the building stands 27 stories high and has beautiful views overlooking Battery Park City and the Hudson River. With nearly 300 units, the building today provides an amazing opportunity to live green. The building has since earned LEED Platinum certification and continues improving to provide opportunities for their residents to be environmentally friendly!

I visited the Solaire twice, once on a tour and once because I was close by and forgot to take pictures the first time(lol)
The tour began in the building’s lobby, where I learned how The Solaire was designed with a green mission right from the beginning — which started with the building materials. All materials were imported from within a 500-mile radius in order to reduce transport waste, and after the completion the building was able to recycle 85% of the waste produced during construction.

The tour then proceeded to the basement where I was shown the wastewater system. Part of what makes The Solaire unique is that it strives to reuse and recycle wastewater. The wastewater from bathrooms and kitchens goes through a multi-stage filtration process and is cycled back into use to flush toilets and as makeup water for cooling towers. This not only allows The Solaire to use less water, but also to save and reuse about 50% of the total water it uses.

I then traveled to the building’s green roof, where solar panels help to produce about 5% of the energy used throughout the building. In addition, scattered among the planted grass surface are rainwater collection holes, where storm water drains down to a container in the basement to be cleaned, sanitized, and reused. I found it incredible how all the roof’s features were so carefully conceived and designed to add yet another sustainable feature to the building. The view wasn’t too bad, either.

Finally, I explored two of The Solaire’s units where a number of features contribute to helping residents be green. Low-E glass in the units acts to reflect rather than absorb sunlight, in turn helping with insulation and lowering heating and cooling costs. All the faucets installed also work to help save water, lowering the overall usage of the building. Another perk of Solaire living is that building management provides residents with eco-friendly cleaning supplies as well as access to an environmentally-friendly laundromat, helping them be green even at the most basic level.

Suffice it to say, green living is the name of the game at The Solaire, and it served to impress BPC’s commitment to environmental sustainability.

Food deserts often go hand in hand with food insecurity. Food insecurity means people aren’t sure where their food will come from. In addition, they have little-to-no access to nutritious food and are likely to have unbalanced diets and skip meals. There are almost 1 billion food-insecure people in the countries with the lowest incomes levels [source: USDA]. In 2006, 35.5 million people in the United States alone lived in food-insecure homes — especially at risk are people living below the poverty line, Hispanics, African-Americans, households with children and those headed by single women [source: USDA and Food Research and Action Center].

How did it get to be this way? Economics. Fifty years ago, small neighborhood mom-and-pop markets were common in urban neighborhoods and small towns. But today, such markets only make up 17 percent of the grocery landscape in the United States [source: Hirsch]. Store owners want to turn a profit and go where they can serve the most people while meeting their own financial goals.While mainstream grocery stores with an affordable variety of food may be lacking or far away, many communities in food deserts do actually have access to food. It’s just that the buffet includes a selection of unhealthy processed foods — known as fringe foods — from fast-food restaurants, small corner convenience stores and liquor stores. Compare the distance between the closest fast-food restaurant and closest grocery store — this is the food balance factor. When a fast-food restaurant is significantly closer to your home than a grocery store, things are unbalanced. The convenience store at the corner gas station isn’t so convenient if you want to include fruits and vegetables in your diet. Chips may be tasty but they’ve never been part of the USDA’s food pyramid.

Living on fringe food is bad for your wallet and it’s also bad for your health. Obesity is linked to non-nutritious foods, and it’s a drain not only on the body but on the health care industry, employers and the government. The estimated cost to the U.S. health care system due to obesity and obesity-related problems is $100 billion a year [source: Gallagher]. Diet-related health problems are disproportionately higher in food deserts than in regions served by mainstream grocers. You are what you eat, as the saying goes, and poor quality foods are also linked chronic illnesses, cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, hypertension and even premature death. When nutritious foods aren’t available, it’s hard to eat healthily.

The Water and Development Congress is a global event that provides a platform for national, regional and international cooperation on water. It bridges the gap between the science and practice of water management, connecting it with industry, financial institutions, civil society and policy makers, to deliver practical solutions that help achieve the globally agreed 2030 Sustainable Development Goal vision for water. Over four days the Water and Development Congress & Exhibition has brought together over 3,000 professionals from 82 countries of the global water community. New ideas were discussed and shared, new collaborations fostered, and new solutions to some of the greatest water, wastewater and sanitation challenges were identified.

Guangzhe Chen, from the World Bank, argued that business as usual was not an option if we were to achieve universal access to water and sanitation and established the scale of what lies ahead – we need to find US$114 billion per year to reach those goals; Eleanor Allen from Water for All, asked us to explore innovative financing mechanisms to meet the huge investment needed to reach the SDGs, and to seek out non-traditional ways of funding water and sanitation for all; The renowned economist Jeffrey Sachs introduced 3Ts: Trade Resources; Transform Water for Safe Use; and Traits of crops resistant to drought; and 3Fs Finance, Fairness and Funding; And from South Africa, Dhesigen Naidoo highlighted that dealing with climate change and global water risks requires us to relate the SDGs to the global economy, and introduced us to the Climate Change Grief Cycle. We saw a shared vision of the future from three Young Water Leaders who proposed new ways of achieving business and governance resilience: we need forward looking solutions but should also get inspiration from traditional methods, from public-private partnership models to thinking a hundred years ahead our infrastructure finance models. Its always interestng to see what representatives from the United States say about our sustainability practices in global conferences.

New York is a city on the water. For hundreds of years, its rivers and harbor have worked to its advantage, bringing it speedy transportation and pleasant temperatures.
New York City has experienced 7.5-foot floods several times in the past decade. Superstorm Sandy loosed 10- or 11-foot floods on much of Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Staten Island, killing 43 people and inundating more than 88,000 buildings.The next couple hundred years may not be as smooth sailing. Global warming, caused by the release of carbon-dioxide pollution into the atmosphere, will cause the seas to rise and the storms to intensify around the city. A new study from an all-star list of climate scientists attempts to estimate how a few of climate change’s symptoms—higher seas, large storm surge, and more intense hurricanes—will intersect in New York over the next 300 years.It isn’t pretty. Sea-level rise will make every tropical cyclone that hits New York more likely to release damaging floods. For instance, storm floods of nearly seven-and-a-half feet once occurred only a couple times per millennium. In today’s somewhat warmed climate, 7.5-foot floods are projected to happen every 25 years. By 2030, these floods will occur every five years.