Ocean State Pushes
Climate-Change Awareness
By TIM
FAULKNER/ecoRI.org News staff
Rhode
Island continues its campaign of climate-change awareness with a new website
and new legislation.
Created
by the University of Rhode Island’s Coastal Institute, the new website, called “Waves of Change,” aims to make
climate change more approachable for the public. The articles are concise and
free of jargon. Videos, cartoons, and even humorous music make the
often-unsettling topic easier to appreciate, according to those behind the
project.
A team
of researchers, scientists and media experts, called the Climate Change
Collaborative, runs the project. The site serves as a resource for the
uninitiated, from the cynical uncle to curious students. It also encourages
readers to discuss their ideas and opinions with climate
experts.
Skeptics,
however, won’t find information on Waves of Change to support their views.
Sen.
Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., said the website helps rebut the pervasive
corporate-funded, climate-denial campaign. “It is an information battle,"
he said. "The battle between the scientists who know what they are talking
about, but aren’t often very good at explaining it to an ordinary person, and
on the other side, very well-trained, very cynical propagandists. We have to
win this information battle."
Legislation expected
A second climate-change website (resilientri.com) is expected to go live once the Climate Resiliency Act is introduced by Rep. Art Handy, D-Cranston. The bill, expected to be submitted the week of March 2, is being sponsored for a third year by Handy, but this year it includes support from Brown University, which paid two consultants to help write the bill. University officials made the offer as a response, in part, due to pressure from students to divest the school’s endowment from the coal industry.
The bill
would create a climate-change science advisory council and designate the state
Department of Environmental Management (DEM) to oversee carbon reduction
efforts. The state Division of Planning would oversee adaptation efforts.
To
address adaptation, the act updates building codes, designates natural areas as
impact buffer zones, and increases safety for the homeless and elderly. It
targets carbon emissions reductions below 1990 levels — 25 percent less by
2025, 50 percent by 2035 and 80 percent by 2050.
The
advisory council would make recommends for achieving carbon reductions.
Market-based incentives, enhanced financing and updating the power grid are
some of the expected options.
Tricia
Jedele, director of the Conservation Law Foundation Rhode Island,
said rebuilding in areas damaged by the 2010 flood show the need to address
climate adaptation. The flooding will happen again, she said. In West Warwick,
several business remain condemned because of a lack of assistance for property
owners. She questioned the rebuilding of washed-out bridges and repaving of the
heavily damaged parking lot at the Warwick Mall.
“Why
weren’t we putting the parking garage in and giving the watershed a chance to
become more resilient to adapt to these types of events?” Jedele said.
Louis
Gritzo, of Johnston-based business insurer FM Global, said decisions to prepare
for climate impacts comes down to convincing the public and decision-makers of
the needs and benefits of adaptation.
Newport’s
director of civic investment, Paul Carroll, compared climate adaptation to the
state’s history of building resilient boats. It was a process that helped build
a profitable maritime industry and grow the economic base, he said. “This is
nothing new. It’s something that we have done for 375 years. And all it is
evolving circumstances and a change," he said.
These
latest climate-change initiatives come a week after Gov. Lincoln Chafee announced the creation of the Executive Climate
Change Council. The new committee, represented by nine state agencies, will
make recommendations annually for new legislation and policies to address
climate-change adaptation and mitigation. It also will consider recommendations
from the Climate Change Commission created by the General Assembly in 2010. Its
29 members include state legislators, environmental groups and state agencies.