Dear friends,
My father was fond of saying,
Don’t prepare for the wrong emergency.
He was an engineer. He would not have been surprised to learn that it was a mistake to build on beachfront property in Florida.
Climate change means we have to stop building on beaches. Babcock Ranch is a Florida community that was built four years ago, 30 miles inland to avoid coastal flooding.
Power lines to homes are all run underground, where they are shielded from high winds. Giant retaining ponds surround the development to protect houses from flooding. As a backup, streets are designed to absorb floodwaters and spare the houses.
One resident noted,
“We have water, electricity, internet — and we may be the only people in Southwest Florida who are that fortunate.”
On a broader scale, expensive upgrades to Florida’s power grid helped the state’s electric system weather Hurricane Ian.
The Cape Romano Domes became uninhabitable within 25 years of their construction. There is more hope for Babcock Ranch, a neighborhood of five thousand people, where the community center was designed as a storm shelter. They have been sheltering folks from outside the community.
President Biden visited Puerto Rico last weekend and announced an addition $60 million in federal funding for infrastructure investments, on top of hundreds of millions that were announced last fall with the passage of the Bipartisan Infrastructure legislation.
Tell Biden Admin to invest in solar power in PR to improve resiliency after storms. This action is ready-made.
Here in New York, National Grid is pursuing rate hikes that may raise your energy bills as much as 40 percent. While there is a Low Income Energy Assistance Program to assist people struggling to pay their bills, there is too little attention on the reasons behind the rate hike.
The rate increase is intended to pay for the construction of new fossil-fuel infrastructure.
Last month, the National Resources Defense Council submitted its analysis of National Grid’s CLCPA study for four of its pending rate cases, including the downstate case that includes the vaporizers.
NRDC found the study “grossly inaccurate,” according to its analysis, which specifically criticizes the company for not including the impacts of recent federal and city climate laws that limit emissions. In January, the DEC also asked that National Grid factor New York City’s ban on new gas hookups into its analysis.
National Grid is preparing for the wrong emergency — a demand forecast that projects how much gas they would need if all of their customers were using gas on the coldest day of the year.
This reminds of when my mother insisted that they make enough brisket for everyone, in case no one chose chicken (she also made enough chicken in case no one chose brisket). Oops, forgot about the vegetarians.
Investing in fossil fuel infrastructure is the wrong move.
Tell the Governor and the Public Service Commission to deny National Grid’s rate hike for two new fracked gas vaporizers. I made it so easy!
The NYPD has to get its priorities right.
It is deeply disturbing that the NYPD has arrested people and delivered them to Rikers Island without taking them before a judge, as required by law. Four people who were held at Rikers without having had court hearings have brought a lawsuit, which
characterizes the practice as “utterly lawless” and “nothing short of an extrajudicial campaign of terror and kidnapping.”
Part of the problem originates with the NYPD Patrol Guide, which states that police can take folks with outstanding bench warrants directly to jail after 5 PM. This is curious for two reasons: the first is that courts are open until 1 AM and the second is that the practice violates state law.
Outdated and previously resolved bench warrants can be quickly identified by the courts, but instead, people are being hauled to jail improperly with no opportunity to see a judge, even if the warrants were previously resolved or were for offenses that would not require them to post bail.
And this is all happening in the context of the dangerous situation at Rikers, which I have written about repeatedly.
Contact the mayor to let him know that the NYPD should not be delivering people to Rikers without a court hearing. This will take 30 seconds!
with love,
L