Problem

Turns out there’s a lot of latent demand for a quick and cheap way to get around.

vox.com - by Umair Irfan - August 27, 2018

 . . . Amid the feverish passion for and against scooters, there’s a larger reckoning taking place about rapid changes to our cities and public spaces. The scooters are forcing conversations about who is entitled to use sidewalks, streets, and curbs, and who should pay for their upkeep.

They’re also exposing transit deserts, showing who is and isn’t adequately served by the status quo, and even by newer options like bike share. That people have taken so readily to scooters shows just how much latent demand there is for a quick and cheap way to get around cities.

(CLICK HERE - READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

Sea level rise contributions from ice melt in different areas, including Greenland (a), West Antarctica (b), East Antarctica (c) and median of global glaciers (d). Values are ratios of regional sea level change to global mean sea level change. Adapted from Kopp et al. 2015.

axios.com - by Andrew Freedman - June 14, 2018

News of Antarctica's accelerating ice melt garnered worldwide headlines yesterday, as scientists revealed that 3 trillion tons of ice has been lost to the sea since 1992 — mostly from the thawing West Antarctic Ice Sheet and Antarctic Peninsula.

Why it matters: The location of the ice melt is important for determining the future of coastal communities, according to climate scientists. And, due to West Antarctica melting, it turns out that the U.S. coastline will be hit extra hard . . .

(CLICK HERE - READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

A transmission tower and downed lines in the mountainous terrain of eastern Puerto Rico. Workers from the island and throughout the United States have worked to restore power after Hurricanes Irma and Maria last September.

It took months to restore electricity in Puerto Rico after hurricanes dealt a one-two punch. Many homes are still without power, and the system’s future is far from certain.

nytimes.com - by JAMES GLANZ and FRANCES ROBLES - Photographs by TODD HEISLER - May 6, 2018

 . . . After Maria and the hurricane that preceded it, called Irma, Puerto Rico all but slipped from the modern era . . .

 . . . an examination of the power grid’s reconstruction — based on a review of hundreds of documents and interviews with dozens of public officials, utility experts and citizens across the island — shows how a series of decisions by federal and Puerto Rican authorities together sent the effort reeling on a course that would take months to correct. The human and economic damage wrought by all that time without power may be irreparable.

HEAT ISLANDS  Heat claims more lives than floods, hurricanes and other weather-related disasters. How will cities cope as temperatures rise?  ULTRAFORMA/ISTOCKPHOTO

When days and nights get too hot, city dwellers are the first to run into trouble

sciencenews.org - by AIMEE CUNNINGHAM - April 3, 2018

Since 1986, the first year the National Weather Service reported data on heat-related deaths, more people in the United States have died from heat (3,979) than from any other weather-related disaster — more than floods (2,599), tornadoes (2,116) or hurricanes (1,391). Heat’s victim counts would be even higher, but unless the deceased are found with a fatal body temperature or in a hot room, the fact that heat might have been the cause is often left off of the death certificate, says Jonathan Patz, director of the Global Health Institute at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

As greenhouse gases accumulate in the atmosphere, heat’s toll is expected to rise. Temperatures will probably keep smashing records as carbon dioxide, methane and other gases continue warming the planet. Heat waves (unusually hot weather lasting two or more days) will probably be longer, hotter and more frequent in the future.