National Geographic examines the characteristics that make some cities better bets than others for surviving climate change:
Immigrants tend to migrate to neighborhoods that meet their cultural and linguistic needs, but the exodus of climate migrants to Buffalo wasn’t solely due to that established community. Months before Maria struck, the city’s mayor declared Buffalo a “climate refuge city,” noting that Buffalo has, “… a tremendous opportunity as our climate changes.”
Since then, the city has launched a relocation guide advertising the advantages to living in Buffalo, including how its average July temperature is a comfortable 71˚F. Anticipating a possible population uptick, the city revised zoning codes in 2017 to encourage development in existing city corridors and began upgrading its dated sewage infrastructure.
And Buffalo isn’t alone. Planners in cities such as Cleveland, Ohio; Ann Arbor, Michigan; Duluth, Minnesota; and elsewhere are beginning to map out what a future with thousands more residents could—and should—look like.
I'd like to add Chicago to the list. We have nearly-unlimited fresh water, moderating winters and beautiful summers, and non-stop flights to every Western European capital (except Lisbon).
I haven't visited Duluth, but I hear it's lovely—three months of the year. Not to mention, Michelin reviewers don't go up there yet, nor to Cleveland or Ann Arbor.
I have painters painting and I'm coding code today, so I'm just noting a couple of interesting stories for later:
- The New York Times explains how the warming climate could send seven systems over the tipping point into unrecoverable damage.
- Bloomberg CityLab climbs through the $80 million effort to make Chicago's Merchandise Mart last another 90 years.
- National governments trying to protect their own railroads have derailed private cross-EU night-train service, hurting passengers.
- The City of Chicago could have to pay over $100 million to the thieves who stole our parking meters in what continues to be the stupidest, and possibly most corrupt, municipal contract in the city's history.
Finally, a pilot ferried a Cessna 172 from Merced, Calif., to Honolulu in 17½ hours last Tuesday, a feat that I would categorize as "stupid risky" rather than "brave." I have a policy never to fly beyond gliding range in a plane with one engine, which means even around Chicago I don't fly more than a few kilometers off shore. Sure, a Cessna 172 can easily get from Chicago to Grand Rapids on a standard load of fuel, but why on earth would you risk ditching even 10 km offshore. This guy flew over 2,000 km from the nearest shore. And it wasn't his first time.
The hot, humid weather we've had for the past couple of weeks has finally broken. I'm in the Loop today, and spent a good 20 minutes outside reading, and would have stayed longer, except I got a little chilly. I dressed today more for the 24°C at home and less for the cooler, breezier air this close to the lake.
Elsewhere in the world:
- I was waiting for Russia expert Julia Ioffe to weigh in on last week's hostage release.
- The Chicago White Sox failed to set the all-time record for most consecutive losses in the American League yesterday by winning their first game in the last 23.
- Of the $1.2 trillion Carbon Reduction Program funds allocated to reduce fossil-fuel emissions, $130 billion has been spent so far: but only $26 billion on rail, and $70 billion on highways.
- Even though Deutsche Bahn has faster, timelier, more convenient, more comfortable, and just more trains than the US, Germans say their national railroad is on the wrong track.
- Deadhorse, Alaska, which lies at 70° north latitude, set an all-time record yesterday with a high temperature just below 32°C.
- After CrowdStrike told Delta Airlines to go pound sand a couple days ago, Microsoft told the carrier off yesterday.
- Be careful taking dogs to fresh-water swimming holes: warmer weather has made blue-green algae blooms more common.
Finally, today is the 60th anniversary of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. If you don't know what that is, read up. It's probably the most direct cause of most of our military policy since then.
A combination of a mild winter and the decline of natural predators has led to a rabbit explosion in Chicago:
The abundance of rabbits could be due to the milder winter Chicago experienced this year, said Seth Magle, director of the Urban Wildlife Institute at the Lincoln Park Zoo.
The brutality of a cold winter and limited food availability during the snowy, frigid months can take their toll on the rabbit population. But if winters are mild, then with spring comes abnormal population growth, Magle said.
And now, with summer produce season in full swing, the overabundance of rabbits can cause headaches for gardeners, whose crops often fall prey to hungry bunnies, Magle said.
“These are species that are very well-adapted to cities. We’re planting stuff all around that they love to eat. Then you add in these mild winters — I think you have a bit of a perfect storm for rabbits,” Magle said.
As Cassie can tell you, they're everywhere in my neighborhood. I'm a bit disappointed in the local coyote population as well, though they may simply have too much food to eat right now.
One of my co-workers and I got into a good-natured debate about the efficiency of my Prius Prime. In addition to boasting that I used no gasoline at all last month (and only 41.6 L—11 gallons—all year), I pointed out that Illinois gets a majority of its power from nuclear fission, so yes, my car is net-positive on carbon emissions. He challenged me on that, saying that Illinois uses a lot of coal and natural gas, obviating the benefits of my car's electric drive.
Well, the New York Times has a really cool interactive piece today showing how each US state's electricity generation mix has changed this century. And it turns out, I was right:
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Nuclear energy has been Illinois’s top source of power generation for much of the last two decades, accounting for about half of the electricity produced in the state during most years. Coal was long the second-largest power source, briefly surpassing nuclear as the top generation fuel in 2004 and again in 2008. But coal’s role in the state power mix has declined significantly in recent years as older coal-fired power plants have retired or been converted to burn natural gas. Both natural gas and wind generation have grown over the past decade, and last year gas surpassed coal as the second-largest source of power in the state.
So, in fact, Illinois gets 68% of its power from renewables and only 15% from coal—and wind power is going up while coal and gas go down. And down at the bottom there, it looks like solar is finally making a debut, at about 2% but going up.
Vermont's graph, though, surprised me. It turns out that all of Vermont's power generation has been renewable for since 2001. But since the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station closed in 2014, the mix went from 76% nuclear/16% hydro/7% biomass to 51% hydro/19% solar/16% biomass/15% wind today.
We really need to start building more nuclear power plants, though:
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I had a burst of tasks at the end of the workday, so I didn't get a chance to read all of these:
Not to mention, this week we've had some of the stickiest weather I can remember, with dewpoints above 20°C for the past several days. And this sort of thing will only get worse:
Climate change is accumulating humidity in the region — between 1895 and 2019, average precipitation in Illinois increased by 15%. A moist atmosphere ramps up heat indexes, meaning the weather feels worse to the human body than it would during drier conditions.
In Chicago, overall summer average temperatures have warmed by 1.5 degrees between 1970 and 2022, but that’s not the whole story: Average lows on summer nights have increased by 2.2 degrees in that same time.
Warmer nights occur when the atmosphere is waterlogged. Clouds form and reflect incoming heat from the sun back into space during the day, but after the sun sets, clouds absorb heat from the surface and emit it back toward the ground.
Just like greenhouse gases trap heat, moisture holds onto heat in the atmosphere for longer and into the night. Rising temperatures, in turn, lead to rising humidity: For every 1°C increase in temperature, the atmosphere can hold 7% more water. It’s a never-ending loop.
Yeah, even walking Cassie from day care (less than 1.6 km) sucks in this weather. At least I got home before the thunderstorms hit.
The President will go on the air tonight at 8pm EDT to explain why he dropped out of the race, and presumably also to endorse Vice President Harris as his successor. This has the XPOTUS so rattled that a campaign lawyer whined to the television networks that the XPOTUS wants equal time so they can whine to everyone. OK, Boomer.
Meanwhile:
- Hillary Clinton lays out a strategy for Harris to do what she couldn't: become our first female president.
- The European Union's climate-tracking directive reported that Sunday was the hottest day in recorded history, with the average surface temperature of the planet cresting 17.09°C.
- Jennifer Rubin (and a few other writers) believe we'd all be better off with a centrist government. (I'm sure if we explain this to the Republican Party carefully and rationally, they'll tone down their extremism right away.)
- Speaking of centrism, Julia Ioffe digs into what a President Harris foreign policy might look like.
- Because of a confluence of events "that Tolstoy could not have made up," Israel has an opportunity this week to change the Middle East for the better—if only they didn't have a troglodyte for a prime minister.
- Pilot Patrick Smith explains turbulence, and why it has suddenly become so newsworthy.
Finally, the Times examines why some people continue to write negotiable orders of withdrawal (i.e., paper checks) despite their obvious inconveniences and vulnerabilities. I haven't written one in about 18 months, and the last time I used one in any capacity was (with no small irony) to set up automatic billing with my HOA.
Lots of stories in the last day:
Finally, comic genius and Chicago native Bob Newhart has died at age 94. He was a national treasure.
Monday's derecho spawned so many tornados in Northern Illinois that the National Weather Service hasn't yet confirmed the paths they all took. But one of those paths got my attention:
That's, uh...that tornado ended at the front door of the Ogilvie Transportation Center, where I get off my morning commuter train, which is 300 meters from my office. It went straight down Madison Street from Racine to Canal. That does not usually happen.
And yesterday, this one little punk rainstorm dumped almost 10 mm of rain on the North Side in 15 minutes:
Notice the blue dot (i.e., where Cassie and I were caught). I put a video up on social media if you want to see how much fun she and I had at Spiteful last night. Fortunately we got to Spiteful a good minute before it started pouring. Unfortunately I underestimated how much water would descend on us, so we went inside for a bit before returning to the patio with a rag.
Now the NWS predicts "isolated showers" this afternoon as well. I really have had enough of this New Orleans-level heat and moisture. Tomorrow should be cooler and drier, though.
A full-on derecho ploughed through the Chicago area last night, bringing spectacular rainfall and at least 10 tornados—one of which hit the Near North Side:
While few injuries were reported related to the storm, a woman in Northwest Indiana died after a tree fell on her Cedar Lake home. Laura Nagel, 44, was pronounced dead and identified by her family after storms ripped through the area Monday night, the Lake County, Indiana, Coroner’s Office said.
At least 10 tornadoes were reported in the Chicago area Monday night — including two at O’Hare and Midway airports and at least two others in the far western suburbs as severe thunderstorms returned to the Chicago area, knocking out electricity for hundreds of thousands of residents.
“We are seeing power flashes on both the O’Hare and Midway Airport webcams due to likely tornadoes and/or destructive wind gusts near those areas,” the National Weather Service tweeted shortly before 10 p.m. “Continue to take these warnings seriously!!”
Tornado sirens started going off in my neighborhood around 7:30pm and came back several times before the derecho passed around 10:30pm. I took Cassie out at 9:30, and she did not want to linger. I can't blame her; here's the radar picture:
I could totally understand why Cassie, who walks past firecrackers without flinching, did not want to stay outside any longer than it took to do her business. Possibly because the sirens were wailing.
Fortunately, there doesn't seem to be much damage in my neighborhood. Not as much flooding as I expected, either, given that my rain gauge measured 20 mm in half an hour. (Fun fact: 20 mm of rain is 1 tonne of water every 50 square meters. Clouds may look light and fluffy but they mass in the millions of tonnes.)
Today we're back to muggy and sticky, with really high dewpoints, despite the lower temperatures. Thursday, however, looks lovely: 24°C with a 14°C dewpoint and sunny skies.