Harv's Corner

Think it's hot today?  It's going to get hotter.  Here is what Paris is doing to prepare for a future of massive heatwaves.

Paris braces for a future of potentially paralyzing heat
​By CATHERINE PORTER The New York Times

​PARIS - Imagine Paris at 122 degrees Fahrenheit. That's 50 Celsius.
The asphalt streets would melt in spots, making it virtually impossible for ambulances and buses to pass. Lights and fans could cut out in neighborhoods if underground cables burned or junction boxes shifted. Cellphone service might go down as antennas on boiling rooftops stopped working. Trains would halt as outdoor rails swelled, keeping nurses, firefighters, and electricity engineers from reaching their jobs when they were most needed.

Those are situations city officials are already planning for. France has recently experienced its second heat wave of the summer, with temperatures reaching record highs last week in the southwest and heat alerts covering three-quarters of the country. In Paris, this has become the new normal. Eight of the 10 hottest summers recorded in the city since 1900 occurred since 2015.

In 2019, temperatures in Paris hit a record, nearing 109 degrees. Scientists predict that it will worsen, particularly since climate change is warming Europe at more than twice the global average. In 2022, city officials asked climate scientists whether Paris might experience heatwaves that reach 50 degrees Celsius shortly.

Their answer was yes, possibly, by the end of the century, or as soon as 2050 if greenhouse gas emissions increase exponentially. But the scientists' modeling showed that scenario was unlikely if global pledges from the Paris climate accord were met and the rise in warming was kept below 2 degrees Celsius.

"I don't think we should bet on that as a society," said Alexandre Florentin, a green city councilor and environmental engineer who spent more than a decade working at Carbone 4, a leading French climate change mitigation and adaptation firm.

He led a committee of city lawmakers from all political parties to examine the capital's vulnerabilities to extreme heatwaves. They published their report in 2023, which was separate from the crisis simulation. They found that there were temperature thresholds that could cause widespread breakdowns, leading to a cascade of crippling domino effects.

Another important finding was the vulnerability of schools to a heat wave that hits during the school year, such as in late June.

"The classes will close, and that will have rippling consequences all through society," Florentin said. "If their parents work at a hospital or the electricity facility, there will be bigger problems" — meaning understaffing at crucial times.

His strongest recommendation was for the city to invest more in green and shaded yards and to transform schools into "passive" cooling centers with designs that allow for more air circulation or utilize geothermal cooling systems, rather than relying on electricity.

Nearly 15,000 people died from heat-related causes in 2003 during a heat wave that hit France that August. Many were older adults living in apartments with zinc roofs that had no insulation or air conditioning.
In response, the country drafted its first national heatwave plan and introduced a system for registering isolated older or disabled individuals, allowing them to be checked on during heatwaves.

A nonprofit group has organized events across France, featuring chefs who create menus sourced locally, which require no ovens or stovetops, thereby reducing the heat's exacerbation. Another group has been bringing doctors, pharmacists, and medical scientists together to discuss how they can prepare for the health crises and new diseases a hotter climate will bring.

The city government has doubled down on its adaptation plans, pulling up asphalt parking places and the center of roads to plant trees — 15,000 last winter alone, said Dan Lert, deputy mayor in charge of the city's ecological transition and its climate plan.
​
Where the city cannot plant trees, officials are installing more shade structures and water misters to provide relief during hot days. They opened three bathing sites on the Seine River this summer, so people have places to cool down safely.

Another key part of the plan is insulating the city's buildings to resist heat waves better. But the challenge is daunting. There are 1 million private apartments in Paris, few of which have insulation, Lert said.

Harv's Corner

Make no mistake Global Warming is REAL and those who ingnore it do so at their own peril.
​Harv

Coastal areas restoring marshes, reefs to fight rising seas
By TAMMY WEBBER The Associated Press

GODFREDO A. VASQUEZ - The associated press crew members walk on the pond A2W site as part of the south bay Salt Pond Restoration Project  last month in Mountain View California.

In San Francisco Bay, salt ponds created more than a century ago are reverting to marshland. Along the New York and New Jersey coasts, beaches ravaged by superstorm Sandy underwent extensive restoration.

In Alabama, a rebuilt spit of land is shielding a historic town and providing wildlife habitat.

Coastal communities nationwide are ramping up efforts to fend off rising seas, higher tides and stronger storm surges that are chewing away at coastlines, pushing saltwater farther inland and threatening ecosystems and communities.

The need for coastal restoration has been in the spotlight this month after Louisiana officials canceled a $3 billion project because of objections from the fishing industry and concerns about rising costs.

The Mid- Barataria project was projected to rebuild more than 20 square miles of land over about 50 years by diverting sediment-laden water from the Mississippi River.

But work continues on many other projects in Louisiana and around the country, including barrier islands, saltwater marshes, shellfish reefs and other natural features that provided protection before they were destroyed or degraded by development. Communities are also building flood walls, berms and levees to protect areas that lack adequate natural protection.

The work has become more urgent as climate change causes more intense and destructive storms and leads to sea-level rise that puts hundreds of communities and tens of millions of people at risk, scientists say.

Gulf Coast
In the U.S., perhaps nowhere is more vulnerable than the hurricane-prone Gulf Coast. Louisiana alone has lost more than 2,000 square miles of coastline over the past century, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

Historically, sediment deposited by the Mississippi and other rivers rebuilt land and nourished shore-buffering marshes. But that function was disrupted by new channels and levees, along with other development.

The dangers were magnified in 2005 when Hurricane Katrina breached flood walls and levees, submerging 80% of New Orleans and killing almost 1,400 people — followed closely by Hurricane Rita.

Afterward, the state formed the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority to lessen risks from storm surges and stem land loss. Most of the almost $18 billion spent in the past 20 years was to shore up levees, flood walls and other structures, the authority said.

Pacific Coast
On the West Coast, communities vulnerable to sea-level rise also could see more flooding from increasingly intense atmospheric rivers, which carry water vapor from the ocean and dump huge amounts of rain in a short period of time.

So tidal marshes and estuaries drained for agriculture and industry are being restored along the entire coast, both for habitat and coastal protection.

Habitat restoration, not climate change, was the primary consideration when planning began about 20 years ago to restore marshland along the south end of San Francisco Bay, destroyed when ponds were created to harvest sea salt.

But as sediment naturally fills in ponds and marsh plants return, "we're realizing that ... marshes absorb wave energy, storm surge and the force of high tides," said Dave Halsing, executive project manager at the California State Coastal Conservancy.

Atlantic Coast
Thirteen years after Sandy swamped the Atlantic coast, communities still are restoring natural buffers and building other protective structures.

But the threat of future storm surges could be even greater because sea levels in some areas could rise as much as three feet within 50 years, said Donald E. Cresitello, a coastal engineer and senior coastal planner for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

The Corps rebuilt beaches, dunes and human-made structures from Massachusetts to Virginia and now is turning to areas farther inland that are increasingly vulnerable to more powerful storm surges, Cresitello said.

"If there's a river coming to the coast, that storm surge has the potential to just ride up that river," depending on the storm, he said.