Monday, October 25, 2010
SLC rated city most ready for climate change
Posted By Eric S. Peterson on October 25, 2010, 3:33 PM
Not that most Utahns believe in this crazy “climate change” hysteria, but in a recent book, UCLA economist Matthew Kahn rates Salt Lake City as the city most resilient to climate change.---
Which is good news for the local pols here since most Utahns believe climate change refers to the difference between ski season and boating season. Lucky for us, our natural elevation, Kahn says, will help protect us from flooding in his new book Climatopolis.
A lot of coastal cities, however, are likely going to have to make major changes in planning to accommodate heat waves, water scarcity and/or hordes of zombies, pirates or pirate-zombies. More or less… I assume--I didn’t read the book, but if it didn’t bring up that Salt Lake City is also well positioned to survive a zombie apocalypse, then it’s the author’s own damn fault.
While the book came out in late September, author Kahn has kept busy lately rebuffing criticism like that from an L.A. Times review that take jabs at Kahn’s positive outlook that capitalistic ingenuity will prevail in prepping cities with technology and innovations to beat the heat of the future decades.
Kahn points out in a recent blog the goal of the book is to get city planners to examine how ready they are to adapt themselves to climate change.
“I acknowledge throughout the book that I do not have a crystal ball but I understand how an evolutionary optimizing capitalist system can change its ways in the face of an unknown but known scary threat of climate change.”
Which is win-win for us Rocky Mountain climate-deniers, since our geographic advantage means we don’t need to invest as much to adapt to climate change—excellent because we’re not going to. It’s hard enough for the Utah Legislature to invest in problems we admit exist like education and health and human services, let alone one’s we don’t believe in like, climate change.
As for all you socialist, East and West coasters out there, you better start working on them arks now!
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