By Steve MacLaughlin for NBC Miami.
Broadcast version by Trimmel Gomes for Florida News Connection reporting for the Solutions Journalism Network-Public News Service Collaboration

After Hurricane Irma, the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity allocated $15 million to the Monroe County Voluntary Home Buyout Program. It allows the county to purchase land from homeowners affected by Hurricane Irma, demolish the structures and let the land remain an open space that can accommodate the rising ocean.

Monroe County has an all-in approach: Adaptation with projects like raising roads and managed retreat with projects like home buyouts.

"When you're looking at a foot of sea level rise in the next 20 years by the year 2045 and then another foot beyond that by the year 2060, we can't stop the water from coming in, that's a given," Chief Resilience Officer Rhonda Haag explained. "So we're gonna lose low-lying areas, we're gonna lose parts of islands, that's a given, but we can modify our existence here with money to be able to stay here in most of the areas of the keys at least for the next 25 years. That's why we did this road elevation plan. We needed to have a sound plan to determine which of those areas should we focus our resources on and which of those areas might have to be different and accommodate the rising waters as they come in."

Monroe County is also looking at development in areas that were destroyed by Irma but are not expected to be inundated between now and 2045. They will build code-compliant, elevated homes to be occupied by the low to moderate-income workers that were forced to leave after Irma.

Adaptation is 100% necessary. Mitigation is 100% necessary. But managed retreat must also be a part of any serious solutions discussion.

According to A.R. Siders, "People often shy away from talking about managed retreat because it's a conversation about loss and that's a really difficult conversation, but not having that conversation doesn't mean that the risk goes away."

"Retreat is not defeat," Andrea Dutton concluded. "If we retreat from the coastlines, then we are keeping ourselves safe from the rising seas and removing ourselves from that vulnerable position."


Steve MacLaughlin wrote this article for NBC Miami.


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The Conservation Fund, which works to protect land and nature across the U.S. has announced it has protected more than 1 million acres of working forests lands across the country, including in Oregon.

The organization's milestone comes as forests are rapidly disappearing -- as many as 13 million acres in the next few decades.

Brian Dangler, director of the Working Forest Fund with The Conservation Fund, said valuable work continues on the protected land which adds to the nearby economy.

"The beauty of these projects is that the receipts from the timber, the sustainable management of forests, timber harvest really helps local folks to keep the schools going, the fire department, the local services," he explained.

He added The Conservation Fund has helped protect forestland in the Columbia River Gorge near Hood River and Deep River Woods near Astoria. Nationwide, it's secured forests in 21 states. The organization uses community and private partnerships to protect nature.

Dangler said large, intact forests support jobs in rural communities, through logging, trucking, building roads and other activities.

"And, of course, the wildlife habitat that goes along with it. Good forest management usually improves wildlife habitat for lots of different species," he continued.

Dangler noted development is one of the biggest threats to forests, and said it's important to keep forestlands as units rather than smaller parcels.

"Eventually more and more development just nibbles away at these large, intact forests. It's very important for them to be large in landscape," he said. "It's like Humpty Dumpty -- you can't put it back together again when it gets fragmented so much."

Summer in Indiana produces a variety of festivals, outdoor concerts, and athletic competitions.

These attractions produce large crowds and hundreds of pounds of trash and food containers which could end up in a landfill.

"The Indianapolis Event Waste Guide" is an environmentally-focused publication with resources and contact information for nonprofits and vendors wanting to reduce waste.

Ecosystems Events Owner Julia Spangler said the publication is for events attended by a dozen or thousands of people.

"Bringing people together, especially if you're feeding them or decorating, often generates waste," said Spangler. "So, this guide is all about first, how to reduce the amount of waste generated in the first place, and then how to keep that waste out of the landfill."

Spangler described the publication as a "one-stop shop starting point" for recycling or composting food, waste, leftover lanyards, or banners.

In 2021, Indiana collected more than nine million tons of garbage, refuse, office waste and other similar materials.

The Indianapolis Event Waste Guide was released to coincide with the U.S. Olympic swimming trials held in Indianapolis last month.

As the state continues to draw large crowds at amateur and professional athletic competitions, event planners are looking for ways to reduce their carbon footprint.

Sustain Indy Community Manager, and City of Indianapolis Office of Sustainability Community Engagement Manager Lyndsay Trameri noted the guide is intended for local residents and out-of-town organizers.

"Just because you're planning an event in the town you live in," said Trameri, "that doesn't mean you're aware of all the different contacts and organizations that are local that can help you decrease your footprint."

Trameri added that city leaders have a plan for Indianapolis to be net zero emissions by 2050. Trameri said you can download the free guide on the Visit Indy website.

Weather researchers at Iowa State University say a shifting climate and warmer ocean temperatures are partially responsible for a record number of tornadoes this spring.

More than 100 were reported in Iowa, in May alone.

Eleven hundred tornadoes were reported regionwide in May -- from Texas to Minnesota, and from West Virginia to Georgia. That's more than twice the 30 year average.

One of the fiercest killed five people and injured dozens in rural Greenfield, Iowa.

ISU Severe Weather Meteorologist and Professor of Meteorology William Gallus said extreme heat from a changing climate has increased ocean temperatures, and is one contributing factor to this year's storms.

"Mexico and Texas were having record high temperatures," said Gallus. "That was allowing the Gulf of Mexico to rapidly warm up, get much warmer than normal, which means that is our main source of energy."

Gallus said the weather pattern known as El Niño -- characterized by warmer ocean temperatures that prompt more precipitation and provide fuel for severe weather -- is now shifting to La Niña, marked by cooler seas and drier weather.

That could cause the rest of the tornado season to be less active.

Gallus said the high number of tornadoes in the region was unusual, since climate change models predict Iowa and neighboring states west of the Mississippi should being seeing below average numbers, which they have in recent years.

"The long-term trend has been for tornadoes to be hitting more places east of the Mississippi River," said Gallus.

Gallus said data show tornadoes occurring on fewer days each year, but coming in clusters and with greater intensity.

He says some storms that have been listed as Category F3 are probably F5's, but measurement methods in some areas are not adequate to gauge the storms' intensity.




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