

Another offshore platform


As Governor Cuomo develops his environmental agenda, he should remember to look offshore – to New York’s ocean and Great Lakes. The 12 Point green agenda sent by a number of environmental groups last week included both strengthening the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative and finishing the state’s Climate Action Plan. The focus on climate and energy is crucial. In doing so, we should remember what’s happening to most of the planet. With higher temperatures, oceans are not only rising due to polar ice and glacier melt, but they are expanding. Species are not only moving to colder water, but the food chain is impacted as phytoplankton decreases in abundance. Perhaps one of the most important, but little regarded facts about our relationship to our oceans is that they are the source of about 20 percent of the protein people eat.

Addressing the threat to the oceans requires a global effort. Protecting the Great Lakes needs cooperation between numerous states and Canadian provinces. New York can, and has, tried to act responsibly. The New York Ocean and Great Lakes Coalition – including many supporters of the 12 Point Green Plan – has recently sent the Governor a proposed Platform that pinpoints the most important steps the state can take now to protect our ocean and Great Lakes resources. These include:
• New York should develop an offshore renewable energy siting and habitat protection plan that will nurture sensitive and economically important habitats, such as the offshore canyons and seamounts, while advancing clean renewable energy.
• New York should build upon and advance key science initiatives that will help protect and restore our ocean, estuaries, bays, and Great Lakes.
• New York should build upon the work of the interagency New York Ocean and Great Lakes Ecosystem Conservation Council.
• New York should support at least a $6 million Ocean and Great Lakes funding category in the FY 2011-2012 Executive Budget as part of an Environmental Protection Fund of at least $222 million.
• New York should create a legislative and regulatory framework that acknowledges and addresses the impacts of climate change, as recommended by the Sea Level Rise Task Force.
• New York should implement the Great Lakes Compact.

Implementation of the above actions will pay off not only in terms of protection for New York’s valuable ocean and Great Lakes resources, and the jobs, food and recreation that depend on them, but as investments that will create new jobs and make the state’s shoreline and watershed communities more attractive to businesses and people. For example, tourism is one of Long Island’s largest industries and visitors to the state’s parks, including beaches, spend more than $615 million annually in the local economy, generating more than $27.3 million in sales tax. In 2003, the Great Lakes supported a nearly $16 billion recreational boating industry and were responsible for more than 107,000 jobs.

Categories: General
Jeff Jones

9 Responses

  1. PooPooChu says:

    The facts and figures supplied in this blog were brought to you by the esteemed and well trusted faculty at EAST ANGLIA UNIVERSITY. That’s right folks, the same university where AL GORE received his SUMMA CUM LAUDE… Oh and if the facts listed above do not seem to go along with the truth,,no worries,,,they will alter them so that it appears that they do…and if for some reason they can’t prove their accuracy, they will be shredded. Have a most wonderful day….

  2. Brian Nearing says:

    A big welcome back to “Tom,” who last year offered a lot of climate contrarianism on the blog under that name, and for some reason, is now chiming back in as “PooPooChu” … Still hitting that old theme, eh?

    But it is not very surprising. When the only tool that someone has is a hammer, everything get treated like a nail.

    Meanwhile … “For 2010, the combined global land and ocean surface temperature tied with 2005 as the warmest such period on record, at 0.62°C (1.12°F) above the 20th century average of 13.9°C (57.0°F). 1998 is the third warmest year-to-date on record, at 0.60°C (1.08°F) above the 20th century average.”

  3. wheninthecourse says:

    NOAA has been fudging data for decades

  4. PooPooChu says:

    Sometimes I guess the truth must hurt! Have a wonderful day…A bit CHILLY though, wouldn’t you agree??

  5. Brian Nearing says:

    NOAA fudging data “for decades?” I, for one, would like to see some proof, or absent that, to have such a claim withdrawn… But no, it will just be the same tired repetition of the ginned-up “Climategate” smear.

    It is sad, as the physical world changes around their ears, that climate contrarians are left only with the paranoid argument that “everyone is a liar.”

    Guess that also applies to the birds and animals that are changing their ranges because of climate change. To the birds in the northeast that are extending their ranges northward … And to the maple surgaring season in the northeast, that is coming earlier and lasting shorter … And to the penguins at the South Pole, that are moving southward to chase their preferred climate.

    And to the navies of Canada, Russia, the U.S., that are maneuvering to gain control of the increasingly-deiced Northwest Passage… And to the oil companies that are eyeing the Arctic ocean bottom where petroleum deposits are gradually and inexorably becoming accessible for drilling.

    And to the Inuit communities that live in the Arctic, watching their ancestral home gradually melt away.

    Liars all, eh?

  6. PooPooChu says:

    Not everyone is a liar. Just those who freely admit to their crimes and to misleading people with claims that were purposely skewed to meet their objective. This is a fact, nothing is ginned up there, except maybe for your staunch defense of them.

    So with that being said I don’t believe that birds, animals, sugaring seasons, penguins,Canadiens, Russians or Americans, as a whole are liars. Some within the natioal realm may be.. Frankly speaking, it’s kind of hard for me to assume, that birds, animals, sugaring seasons, and penguins are capable of lies..but kudos to you for trying to save them from the big evil do-badders out there.

    My suggestion is to take the blinders off and realize that there is some truth to the opposite side

  7. Brian Nearing says:

    Truth as in what?

    Claim that the globe has not been warming the last three decades? No, that is false.

    Claim that the amount of snow and ice, as represented by Arctic ice cap, and glaciers around the world, are not receding? No, that is false.

    Claim that CO2 does not function as a greenhouse gas, without which the planet would be an uninhabitable iceball? No, that is false.

    Claims that natural events, like volcanoes, emit more CO2 that the current rate of fossil fuel burning? No, that is false.

    Claim that there is not a landslide international scientific consensus that fossil fuel emissions of CO2 are responsible for ongoing climate change? No, that is false.

    Claim that every member of that consensus is a mercenary driven by the desire for the “vast riches” of research grants? No, that is false.

    Claim that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration _ and all other researchers _ have been fudging data for decades? No, that is false.

    Claim that the theft of climate records from East Anglia by parties whose associations and motives have yet to be identified disproves any of this? No, that is false.

    Claim that science cannot be trusted, but that rising global temperatures will be an unabashed boon for all humankind? No, that is false.

    Claim that there have been climate changes that predate humanity? True, but irrelevant. This argument is like someone accused of homicide claiming that because there were murders before the suspect existed or came to live in the area, therefore the suspect could not have done it. Try that one in front of a jury sometime…

    I think these represent the major claims of the contrarian movement…

  8. PooPooChu says:

    You certainly stick to your guns. Of course it’s too bad that your so blinded by one side of the argument that you won’t even consider the possibility that there may be untruths and manipulations to get to the results they seek. To completely dismiss the CLIMATEGATE issue as “Ginned Up” charges just proves my point. These people admitted they’re actions and still that doesn’t matter. I do get it though. For you to admit this would be blow a hole right through your SKY IS FALLING blog and then what would you have to blog about? Sports? Politics? Cooking? Stay warm out there.

  9. Brian Nearing says:

    When one side of an arguments keeps raising points that are demonstrably false, I get the sense that repetition of propaganda, not the desire to impart accurate information, is the real motivation.

    And when the last desperate argument is that of character assassination _ to discredit all the science by attacking the moral character of a few of those who perform the science _ it seems clear that the contrarians have no real facts in their quiver.

    So riddle me this… what other areas of scientific enterprise are as riddled with “untruths and manipulations” as the contrarians argue climate science is?

    If scientists are such an easily swayed lot, willing to spin obvious lies in exchange for a few grants, then that kind of corruption ought to extend throughout the entire system that has created our modern industrial world

    So what other fields of scientific inquiry are corrupt? Petroleum engineering? Ethanol? Industrial food design?

    Why do I think that the conservative contrarians have spent exactly zero hours looking for dishonesty in any field that might be viewed as aligned with a certain political party?