In fact, there seemed to be twice as many machines as they had then. And there were no lines! Gee, I wonder where all those machines came from and why they actually worked. But I guess we will never know. The county is still fighting to keep those records secret.
The lack of major malfunctions seemed to have everyone in courteous and pleasant moods.
I like the new system – which is actually the old system – where elected officials are in charge of elections instead of appointed screwups with no experience.
Let’s hope our luck holds and the next ten days are like today.
For More Information
A wide variety of information about the election can be found at HarrisVotes.com. For instance:
Remember, we have county-wide voting now. So if by chance, you encounter a long line, you can vote at another location.
And remember to breathe when you check in. In the last election, a number of dead people voted. So, breathing is one of the screening tools now.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 10/24/2023
2247 Days since Hurricane Harvey
The thoughts expressed in this post represent opinions on matters of public concern and safety. They are protected by the First Amendment of the US Constitution and the Anti-SLAPP Statute of the Great State of Texas.
https://i0.wp.com/reduceflooding.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Early-Voting-Locations.jpg?fit=1100%2C636&ssl=16361100adminadmin2023-10-24 17:10:162023-10-24 17:37:19Vote: Doors are Unlocked, They Still Have Paper and Machines are Working
FEMA has published two flood-mitigation guides on nature-based solutions showing how communities can develop projects with multiple benefits.
Both are titled “Building Community Resilience with Nature-Based Solutions.” But one focuses on “Strategies for Success.” The other focuses on “A Guide for Local Communities.” Together, they build a case for integrating green and gray solutions to improve resilience.
While geared toward policy makers, planners and flood-mitigation professionals, they will also help community leaders, activists, students and anyone interested in weaving green solutions into flood mitigation, whether on the watershed, community or household level.
These are not technical guides. They focus on high-level benefits and are packed with helpful examples and case studies. The writing is clear, compelling and easy to understand.
“Strategies for Success” Summarized
Strategies for Success is organized around five major themes.
Building strong partnerships
Engaging the whole community
Matching project size with desired goals and benefits.
Maximizing benefits.
Designing for the future.
If you wonder what the term “nature-based solutions” includes, see pages 17-22. They complement gray (engineered) solutions in many ways in many environments.
At the watershed scale, they can include:
Land conservation
Greenways
Wetland restoration and protection
Stormwater parks
Floodplain restoration
Fire management
Bike trails
Setback levees
Habitate management
At the neighborhood or site scale, they include:
Rain gardens
Vegetated swales
Green roofs
Rainwater harvesting
Permeable pavement
Tree canopy
Tree trenches
Green streets
Urban greenspace
In coastal areas, they include:
Wetlands
Oyster reefs
Dunes
Waterfront parks
Living shorelines
Coral reef
Sand trapping
The section about maximizing benefits will help leaders sell such projects to their communities. It contains helpful tips that improve value and case studies that dramatize it.
The guides also come with links to additional resources.
“Guide for Local Communities” Summarized
This guide begins by reprising many of the same solutions mentioned above. Then it quickly moves into three main sections:
Building the business case for nature-based solutions summaries their potential cost savings and non-monetary benefits. They include:
Hazard mitigation benefits in a variety of situations/locations
Community co-benefits, such as ecosystem services, economic benefits, and social benefits
Community cost savings, such as avoided flood losses, reduced stormwater management costs, reduced drinking water treatment costs.
Planning and Policy Making covers:
Land-use planning
Hazard mitigation planning
Stormwater management
Transportation planning
Open-space planning
Implementation includes:
Boosting public investment
Financing through grants and low interest loans
How to incentivize private investment
Federal funding opportunities
Key takeaways include:
Communities that invest in nature-based approaches can save money, lives, and property in the long-term AND improve quality of life in the short term. Other key takeaways are:
The biggest selling point for nature-based solutions is the many ways they can improve a community’s quality of life and make it more attractive to new residents and businesses.
Diverse partners must collaborate.
Scaling up will require communities to align public and private investments.
Many types of grant programs can be leveraged for funding.
I’ll add one more: It’s easier to build these into communities as they are developing rather than retrofit them after the fact.
Local Examples
Regardless, the right combination of green solutions can make a valuable supplement to flood mitigation in every community.
The 5,000 acre Lake Houston Park provides recreational amenities and flood protection to surrounding areas.
Many great examples of a nature-based solutions surround us locally. Look at Lake Houston Park; Kingwood and The Woodlands which have greenbelts and bike trails along creeks; the Spring Creek Greenway; and the Bayou Land Conservancy’s Arrowwood Preserve.
Recreational asset and flood-mitigation project.
Parks like Kingwood’s East End make more great examples. East End preserves wetlands, accommodates tens of thousands of visitors each year, and provides valuable habitat for wildlife.
Interested in getting more projects like this started near you? As a starting point, please share these brochures with leaders in your community. And support local groups seeking to preserve green spaces such as the Bayou Land Conservancy.
Two nights ago I started to hug my wife. “Not tonight,” she said.
“What’s wrong,” I asked. “Headache?”
“No,” she sighed. “Climate change.”
The temperature in the room dropped about 10 degrees.
“I see what you mean,” I said.
Ironically, the next morning, I opened the New York Times to an article by Brooke Jarvis. The title: “Climate Change Is Keeping Therapists Up at Night: How anxiety about the planet’s future is transforming the practice of psychotherapy.”
It began with the experience of one psychotherapist to bring issues into focus. He said that many potential patients are looking for someone to talk to about climate change, only to be told (by others, not him) that they are overreacting.
Climate Psychology Alliance of North America and Eco-Anxiety
Enter stage left a group of about 100 “climate-aware” psychotherapists who call themselves the Climate Psychology Alliance of North America. According to Jarvis, they primarily deal with three types of issues:
Acute trauma of living through climate disasters
Fear of a collapsing future
Psychosocial decay from disruptive changes.
Collectively, they call it “eco-anxiety” or “a chronic fear of environmental doom.”
It’s not clear from the rest of Jarvis’ story whether the psychotherapists have reached any consensus yet about how to treat this emerging malady.
Conflicting Info About Breadth of Concerns
Jarvis cites a nationally representative 2022 survey of more than 1,000 people from Yale and George Mason University. Researchers found that a majority of Americans (64%) say they are at least “somewhat worried” about global warming.
However, Jarvis does not report that the same research also found about 90% of Americans experience no distress at all about global warming.
Should psychotherapists bring climate concerns up even when clients don’t? That’s not clear either.
But the climate psychologists agree that they should validate their clients’ climate-related emotions as “reasonable, not pathological.” The climate shrinks believe they should make clients feel their fear is a “rational response to a world that’s very scary.”
Link between Eco-Reporting and Eco-Anxiety Not Examined
While not denying climate change, I also personally believe the threat may be artificially exaggerated.
The New York Times article does not examine eco-reporting that contributes to eco-anxiety. Some days, I’m afraid to open a newspaper because I may find Republicans can’t elect a speaker…due to climate change. (Just joking.)
Comments on the New York Times article seemed polarized. About half felt eco-anxiety was justified. The other half felt it was manufactured by media.
In that regard, I have previously posted about the Associated Press policy of taking money from foundations with interests in renewable energy to hire 20 reporters who focus on climate change.
Before the Internet undermined local newspapers, news organization sold advertising to generate revenue that paid employees. Ads clearly showed client’s logos. News organizations jealously guarded their editorial integrity; news almost never crossed the line into advertising.
That’s no longer the case. Now, 20 reporters are looking for any way possible to connect random weather events to climate change…using the most tenuous of threads. And if they can’t find one, they say, “So-and-so worries that climate change may make his problem worse in the future.” But they present no real statistical proof.
Not to make light of anyone’s feelings or circumstances, as I scrolled through other headlines this morning, I learned that…
Droughtsmay intensify in the Amazon in the future…due to climate change.
Fewer young peoplemay fish in Alaska in the future…due to climate change.
Such stories are rapidly becoming a parody of themselves. Regardless…
Repetition Makes Claims Rise to Level of Assumed Truth
Through sheer repetition of such claims day after day, people assume their truth. Individual events such as a flood, drought, freeze, heatwave or windstorm may or may not exemplify larger trends. But reports rarely present actual proof they do.
Rather, they quote people who have suffered some kind of weather-related damage and who fear such events may become more common in the future…due to climate change.
Of course, who can disprove the future? That’s pretty safe ground for a reporter.
I asked one of the area’s leading psychotherapists in Houston to review the New York Times article. She replied, “Climate change didn’t come up once in my 40 years of private practice.”
Posted by Bob Rehak on 10/22/23
2245 Days since Hurricane Harvey
https://i0.wp.com/reduceflooding.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/IMG_0205-e1698010167513.jpg?fit=1100%2C825&ssl=18251100adminadmin2023-10-22 16:53:292023-10-22 17:46:12Welcome to Climate Psychotherapy
Vote: Doors are Unlocked, They Still Have Paper and Machines are Working
I just voted in record time. I drove to the polling place, parked, voted, and returned home in 22 minutes – door to door.
The doors to the polling place were actually unlocked when I arrived 4PM. They had plenty of paper. And both the voting machine and scanner worked.
I encountered none of the problems I experienced during the last election.
In fact, there seemed to be twice as many machines as they had then. And there were no lines! Gee, I wonder where all those machines came from and why they actually worked. But I guess we will never know. The county is still fighting to keep those records secret.
The lack of major malfunctions seemed to have everyone in courteous and pleasant moods.
I like the new system – which is actually the old system – where elected officials are in charge of elections instead of appointed screwups with no experience.
Let’s hope our luck holds and the next ten days are like today.
For More Information
A wide variety of information about the election can be found at HarrisVotes.com. For instance:
Here is a map of early voting locations in the northern part of the county.
Remember, we have county-wide voting now. So if by chance, you encounter a long line, you can vote at another location.
And remember to breathe when you check in. In the last election, a number of dead people voted. So, breathing is one of the screening tools now.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 10/24/2023
2247 Days since Hurricane Harvey
The thoughts expressed in this post represent opinions on matters of public concern and safety. They are protected by the First Amendment of the US Constitution and the Anti-SLAPP Statute of the Great State of Texas.
FEMA Publishes Nature-Based Solution Guides, Advice
FEMA has published two flood-mitigation guides on nature-based solutions showing how communities can develop projects with multiple benefits.
Both are titled “Building Community Resilience with Nature-Based Solutions.” But one focuses on “Strategies for Success.” The other focuses on “A Guide for Local Communities.” Together, they build a case for integrating green and gray solutions to improve resilience.
While geared toward policy makers, planners and flood-mitigation professionals, they will also help community leaders, activists, students and anyone interested in weaving green solutions into flood mitigation, whether on the watershed, community or household level.
These are not technical guides. They focus on high-level benefits and are packed with helpful examples and case studies. The writing is clear, compelling and easy to understand.
“Strategies for Success” Summarized
Strategies for Success is organized around five major themes.
If you wonder what the term “nature-based solutions” includes, see pages 17-22. They complement gray (engineered) solutions in many ways in many environments.
At the watershed scale, they can include:
At the neighborhood or site scale, they include:
In coastal areas, they include:
The section about maximizing benefits will help leaders sell such projects to their communities. It contains helpful tips that improve value and case studies that dramatize it.
The guides also come with links to additional resources.
“Guide for Local Communities” Summarized
This guide begins by reprising many of the same solutions mentioned above. Then it quickly moves into three main sections:
Building the business case for nature-based solutions summaries their potential cost savings and non-monetary benefits. They include:
Planning and Policy Making covers:
Implementation includes:
Key takeaways include:
Communities that invest in nature-based approaches can save money, lives, and property in the long-term AND improve quality of life in the short term. Other key takeaways are:
I’ll add one more: It’s easier to build these into communities as they are developing rather than retrofit them after the fact.
Local Examples
Regardless, the right combination of green solutions can make a valuable supplement to flood mitigation in every community.
Many great examples of a nature-based solutions surround us locally. Look at Lake Houston Park; Kingwood and The Woodlands which have greenbelts and bike trails along creeks; the Spring Creek Greenway; and the Bayou Land Conservancy’s Arrowwood Preserve.
Parks like Kingwood’s East End make more great examples. East End preserves wetlands, accommodates tens of thousands of visitors each year, and provides valuable habitat for wildlife.
Interested in getting more projects like this started near you? As a starting point, please share these brochures with leaders in your community. And support local groups seeking to preserve green spaces such as the Bayou Land Conservancy.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 10/23/23
2046 Days since Hurricane Harvey
Welcome to Climate Psychotherapy
Two nights ago I started to hug my wife. “Not tonight,” she said.
“What’s wrong,” I asked. “Headache?”
“No,” she sighed. “Climate change.”
The temperature in the room dropped about 10 degrees.
“I see what you mean,” I said.
Ironically, the next morning, I opened the New York Times to an article by Brooke Jarvis. The title: “Climate Change Is Keeping Therapists Up at Night: How anxiety about the planet’s future is transforming the practice of psychotherapy.”
It began with the experience of one psychotherapist to bring issues into focus. He said that many potential patients are looking for someone to talk to about climate change, only to be told (by others, not him) that they are overreacting.
Climate Psychology Alliance of North America and Eco-Anxiety
Enter stage left a group of about 100 “climate-aware” psychotherapists who call themselves the Climate Psychology Alliance of North America. According to Jarvis, they primarily deal with three types of issues:
Collectively, they call it “eco-anxiety” or “a chronic fear of environmental doom.”
It’s not clear from the rest of Jarvis’ story whether the psychotherapists have reached any consensus yet about how to treat this emerging malady.
Conflicting Info About Breadth of Concerns
Jarvis cites a nationally representative 2022 survey of more than 1,000 people from Yale and George Mason University. Researchers found that a majority of Americans (64%) say they are at least “somewhat worried” about global warming.
However, Jarvis does not report that the same research also found about 90% of Americans experience no distress at all about global warming.
Should psychotherapists bring climate concerns up even when clients don’t? That’s not clear either.
But the climate psychologists agree that they should validate their clients’ climate-related emotions as “reasonable, not pathological.” The climate shrinks believe they should make clients feel their fear is a “rational response to a world that’s very scary.”
Link between Eco-Reporting and Eco-Anxiety Not Examined
While not denying climate change, I also personally believe the threat may be artificially exaggerated.
The New York Times article does not examine eco-reporting that contributes to eco-anxiety. Some days, I’m afraid to open a newspaper because I may find Republicans can’t elect a speaker…due to climate change. (Just joking.)
Comments on the New York Times article seemed polarized. About half felt eco-anxiety was justified. The other half felt it was manufactured by media.
In that regard, I have previously posted about the Associated Press policy of taking money from foundations with interests in renewable energy to hire 20 reporters who focus on climate change.
Before the Internet undermined local newspapers, news organization sold advertising to generate revenue that paid employees. Ads clearly showed client’s logos. News organizations jealously guarded their editorial integrity; news almost never crossed the line into advertising.
That’s no longer the case. Now, 20 reporters are looking for any way possible to connect random weather events to climate change…using the most tenuous of threads. And if they can’t find one, they say, “So-and-so worries that climate change may make his problem worse in the future.” But they present no real statistical proof.
Not to make light of anyone’s feelings or circumstances, as I scrolled through other headlines this morning, I learned that…
Such stories are rapidly becoming a parody of themselves. Regardless…
Repetition Makes Claims Rise to Level of Assumed Truth
Through sheer repetition of such claims day after day, people assume their truth. Individual events such as a flood, drought, freeze, heatwave or windstorm may or may not exemplify larger trends. But reports rarely present actual proof they do.
Rather, they quote people who have suffered some kind of weather-related damage and who fear such events may become more common in the future…due to climate change.
Of course, who can disprove the future? That’s pretty safe ground for a reporter.
I asked one of the area’s leading psychotherapists in Houston to review the New York Times article. She replied, “Climate change didn’t come up once in my 40 years of private practice.”
Posted by Bob Rehak on 10/22/23
2245 Days since Hurricane Harvey