WASHINGTON -- Lead or get out the way. That's the message from local officials to our nation's leaders when it comes to climate change.
Local governments have long acted as first responders in emergencies and now are working to plan forsea level rise, floods, hurricanes and other extreme events associated with climate change.
As a presidential task force prepares for its first meeting Tuesday, local officials say they want and need federal support, but they worry that congressional gridlock and balky bureaucratic rules too often get in the way. Some say Washington needs to reconsider national policies that encourage people to build in beautiful but vulnerable areas.
A Sea of Mud
Autoplay
ON
OFF
"The first thing the feds should do is stop making things worse," said Boulder, Colo., Mayor Matthew Appelbaum. Specifically, by subsidizing flood insurance in low-lying areas and paying billions to fight wildfires that destroy property nearnational forests, the federal government is encouraging development "in all the wrong places," Appelbaum said at a recent forum on the impacts of climate change.
http://www.weather.com/news/science/environment/local-leaders-planning-climate-change-20131210
No comments:
Post a Comment