{"id":1305,"date":"2019-04-09T11:09:16","date_gmt":"2019-04-09T16:09:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jimschwab.com\/Hablarbooks\/staging\/1734\/?p=1305"},"modified":"2019-04-09T11:08:43","modified_gmt":"2019-04-09T16:08:43","slug":"great-lakes-merit-protection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jimschwab.com\/Hablarbooks\/great-lakes-merit-protection\/","title":{"rendered":"Great Lakes Merit Protection"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I grew up near the shores of Lake Erie<\/a>, in suburban\nCleveland. After a seven-year stint in Iowa and Nebraska, I ended up in\nChicago, where I have lived since 1985. The Great Lakes<\/a> have been part\nof my ecological and geographic consciousness for essentially 90 percent of my\nlifetime. As an urban planner, that means I am deeply aware of their\nsignificance on many levels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It will surprise no one, then, that as a planner who has\nfocused heavily on environmental and natural hazards issues, I have been\ninvolved in projects aimed at protecting that natural heritage. As manager of\nthe Hazards\nPlanning Center<\/a> at the American Planning\nAssociation<\/a> (APA), I involved APA as a partner with the Association of State Floodplain Managers<\/a>\n(ASFPM) as ASFPM developed its Great\nLakes Coastal Resilience<\/a> website with National\nOceanic and Atmospheric Administration<\/a> (NOAA) support. Later, I prepared a\nsuccessful grant for support from NOAA\u2019s Sectoral\nApplications Research Program<\/a> for a project on\nintegrating climate change data into local comprehensive and capital\nimprovements planning<\/a>. In that project, APA collaborated with the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning<\/a>\nand the University of Illinois<\/a>. That\nproject, which involved work with five pilot communities in the Chicago\nmetropolitan area, was (and still is) ongoing when I left APA at the end of May\n2017. The aim was to develop applicable models for such planning for other\ncommunities throughout the Great Lakes region. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is thus always encouraging to see others pick up the same\nmantle. It was hardly surprising that the Environmental\nLaw & Policy Center<\/a> (ELPC), a long-time Chicago-based staple of the\npublic interest community, would see fit to do so. On March 20, in concert with\nthe Chicago Council on Global\nAffairs<\/a>, ELPC released \u201cAn\nAssessment of the Impact of Climate Change on the Great Lakes<\/a>,\u201d with 18\nscientists contributing to the 74-page report. I spoke two weeks later with Howard Learner<\/a>, the\nlong-time president and executive director of ELPC, about the rationale and\nhopes for the report. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The impact of adding one more report to the parade is\ncumulative but important. Learner explained that national studies, particularly\nthe National Climate Assessment<\/a>,\nmention regional impacts of climate change, but that drilling down to the\nimpacts on a specific region and making local and state decision makers aware\nof the issues at those levels was the point. Thus, he asked Don\nWuebbles<\/a>, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Illinois and a\nscience adviser to ELPC, to assemble a team of experts for the purpose.\nWuebbles recruited most of the team, with the goal not only of identifying\nproblems but of developing or pinpointing solutions. Repeatedly, Learner\nemphasized the public policy role of ELPC as a \u201cproblem-solving\u201d institution.\nThe intended audience was governors, provincial ministers, congressional\ndelegations from Great Lakes states, and other public officials, providing them\nwith an assessment of the state of the science concerning the Great Lakes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I won\u2019t even attempt to review all the data in the report,\nbut certain points are essential to an adequate public understanding. For one,\nthe Great Lakes are simply huge and constitute a very complex ecosystem in a\nheavily populated region of more than 34 million people in the U.S. and Canada,\nthe vast majority of whom repeatedly express support for protection of the\nGreat Lakes in public opinion polls. It is the largest freshwater group of\nlakes on the planet, and second largest in volume. It is a binational ecosystem\nthat demands cooperation across state, provincial, and national boundaries. It\nis home to 170 species of fish and a $7 billion fisheries industry. It has long\nbeen home to one of the most significant industrial regions of both nations.\nWhat happens here matters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The term \u201clake effect<\/a>\u201d is most often associated with the Great Lakes because their sheer mass has a measurable impact on local and regional weather patterns. Winds pick up considerable moisture that often lands downwind in the form of snowstorms and precipitation. For instance, any frequent visitor of farmers\u2019 markets along the Great Lakes is likely to be aware of western Michigan\u2019s \u201cfruit belt<\/a>\u201d offerings of apples, cherries, pears, and other crops dependent on the lake effect. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Figure 3. <\/strong>Observed changes in annually-averaged temperature (\u00b0F) for the U.S. states bordering the Great Lakes for present-day (1986\u20132016) relative to 1901\u20131960. Derived from the NOAA nClimDiv dataset (Vose et al., 2014). Figure source: NOAA\/NCEI (Both images reprinted from report courtesy ELPC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Figure\n4.<\/strong> Projected change in annually-averaged\ntemperature (\u00b0<\/strong>F)\nfor U.S. states bordering the Great Lakes from the (a) higher (RCP8.5) and (b)\nlower (RCP4.5) scenarios for the 2085 (2070-2099) time period relative to\n1976-2005. Figure source: NOAA\/NCEI<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The lake effect, of course, is a part of the natural system\nin a region carved out of the landscape by melting glaciers at the end of the\nlast Ice Age<\/a>. Recent\nclimate change is another matter. The region has already experienced a 1.6\u00b0\nF. increase in average daily temperatures in the 1985-2016 period as compared\nto the 1901-1960 average. Those increases are expected to accelerate over the\nremainder of this century. It is not just temperatures that change, however,\nbecause changing weather patterns as a result of long-term climate change\nresult in altered precipitation patterns. Summer precipitation is predicted to\ndecline by 5 to 15 percent, suggesting some increased propensity for drought,\nwhile winter and spring precipitation will increase, producing an increased\nregional propensity for spring flooding. Increased intensity of major\nthunderstorm events will exacerbate the vulnerability of urban areas to\nstormwater runoff, resulting in increased \u201curban flooding<\/a>,\u201d often a result of\ninadequate stormwater drainage systems in highly developed urban areas. That,\nin turn, has huge implications for municipal and regional investments in\nstormwater and sewage treatment infrastructure. In addition, heat waves can\nthreaten lives and public health. Public decision makers ignore these\nimplications at the fiscal and physical peril of their affected communities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Among those impacts highlighted in the report is the\nincreased danger of algal\nblooms<\/a> in the Great Lakes as a result of changing biological conditions.\nThe report notes that the largest\nalgal bloom in Lake Erie history<\/a> occurred in 2011, offshore from Toledo<\/a>, Ohio, affecting drinking water for a\nmetropolitan area of 500,000 people. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is also danger to the stability of some shoreline\nbluffs, an issue highlighted on the Great Lakes Coastal Resilience website, as\na result of reduced days of ice cover during the winter. While less ice cover\nmay seem a minor problem to some, in fact it means changes in water density and\nseasonal mixing patterns in water columns, but it also means the loss of\nprotection from winter waves from storm patterns because the ice cover prevents\nthose waves from reaching the shore until the spring melt. The result is\nincreased shoreline erosion. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

All of that harks back to the central question of my\ninterview with Learner: What do you hope to achieve? \u201cThe time for climate\naction is now,\u201d he insisted, noting that the Trump presidency has been \u201ca step\nback,\u201d making it important for cities and states to \u201cstep up with their own\nclimate solutions.\u201d Learner hopes the report at least provides a \u201croad map\u201d for\ngovernors and Canadian premiers to focus their actions on the impact of climate\nchange on the Great Lakes, such as \u201cextreme weather events.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Curiously, one arena in which new action may be possible is\nthe city of Chicago itself, which on April 2 elected a new mayor, Lori\nLightfoot. Media attention has focused on the fact that she is both the first\ngay mayor and the first African-American female mayor in the city\u2019s history,\nbut equally significant is her history as a former federal prosecutor who\ncampaigned against corruption. Learner notes that outgoing Mayor Rahm Emanuel\nconvened a Chicago Climate Summit in November 2017, and that ELPC is now\n\u201clooking to Mayor Lightfoot to step up Chicago\u2019s game\u201d to benefit both the\nlocal economy and environment with a stronger approach to climate change. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The same can be said, of course, for numerous other\nmunicipalities choosing new leadership and for the new governors of the region,\nincluding J.B. Pritzker in Illinois. They all have much work to do, but an\nincreasing amount of research and guidance with which to do it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jim Schwab<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I grew up near the shores of Lake Erie, in suburban Cleveland. After a seven-year stint in Iowa and Nebraska, I ended up in Chicago, where I have lived since 1985. The Great Lakes have been part of my ecological and geographic consciousness for essentially 90 percent of my lifetime. As an urban planner, that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[76,13,49,179,393,109,555,381,609,358,222,180,357],"tags":[1316,364,365,383,24,154,320,1314,1311,172,1312,182,1313,1318,519,208,184,1279,1317,1319,1315],"class_list":["post-1305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-activism","category-book-reviews","category-chicago","category-climate-2","category-drought","category-environment","category-floodplain-management-2","category-infrastructure","category-natural-hazards","category-public-policy","category-resilience-2","category-science","category-water","tag-algal-bloom","tag-apa","tag-asfpm","tag-chicago","tag-climate","tag-climate-change","tag-climate-change-adaptation","tag-cmap","tag-elpc","tag-environment-2","tag-environmental-law-policy-center","tag-great-lakes","tag-howard-learner","tag-lake-effect","tag-lake-erie","tag-midwest","tag-noaa","tag-stormwater","tag-toledo","tag-urban-flooding","tag-wuebbles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jimschwab.com\/Hablarbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jimschwab.com\/Hablarbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jimschwab.com\/Hablarbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jimschwab.com\/Hablarbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jimschwab.com\/Hablarbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1305"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.jimschwab.com\/Hablarbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1305\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1308,"href":"https:\/\/www.jimschwab.com\/Hablarbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1305\/revisions\/1308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jimschwab.com\/Hablarbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jimschwab.com\/Hablarbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jimschwab.com\/Hablarbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}