Preparing for Climate Change in New Hampshire and Militating the Damage

Preparing for Climate Change in New Hampshire and Militating the Damage

For those who missed it, Laura Knoy's edition of The Exchange today on NH Public Radio, featured a discussion about Climate change that was very interesting and disturbing. Two important points of the many made deserve our attention. The first is that, without naming the Northern Pass Project the two scientists stressed the need for decentralized renewable energy as the pathway to a healthier and safer energy future for New Hampshire. Centralized sources of power - like Northern Pass - are more likely to generate jobs elsewhere instead of here in NH and push NH in the direction of what they termed the "High Emissions Scenario" that will wreak economic and environmental havoc on NH. Centralized sources also make us much more vulnerable to acts of terrorism (my observation not part of the discussion). The second point is that what we can do as individuals matters a great deal. Every step we take to reduce our own personal dependence on carbon generating energy sources is a gift we give to the earth.

Knoy's guests, Cameron Wake from UNH's renowned Institute for Earth Oceans and Space, who co-authored UNH's Report on Climate Change in New Hampshire; and Michael Simpson, climate adaptation scientist and chair of the Environmental Studies Department at Antioch University New England, which just announced establishment of a new Climate Change Preparedness Center at Antioch.

The burial of the power lines of Northern Pass is often mentioned as the resolution of the problem but in truth burial of the power lines is a compromise that fails to tackle the most important policy questions with respect to New Hampshire's energy future. If we have to live with buried power lines, it will be a victory for our "view shed" but the fundamental flaws that should kill Northern Pass altogether will cast a pall on our future in many other ways.


Read: http://nhpr.org/post/adapting-climate-change-flood-insurance

Listen here

UNH Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Spacehttp://www.eos.unh.edu

UNH’s report on climate change in New Hampshire.

Environmental Studies department at Antioch University New England

Antioch Center to study climate change preparedness

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