When to Relocate and When to Rebuild After Disasters

When to Relocate and When to Rebuild After Disasters - Room for Debate - NYTimes.com

I see a lot of valid points in all five opinions. Don't rebuild without thoroughly rethinking placement, priority, mitigation options and whether retreat is an option.

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Solar-Powered Floating Schools

Solar-Powered Floating Schools Allow Bangladeshi Kids to Learn During Monsoon Season



Inhabitat - Sustainable Design Innovation, Eco Architecture, Green Building

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Vegan Thanksgiving recipe rundown

Last night was a Thanksgiving success, which is amazing considering my oven BROKE with an hour left on the turkey and five dishes uncooked. The nice thing about Thanksgiving with friends who live nearby is you can scatter to two different kitchens with working ovens and reassemble into a Thanksgiving Voltron of Deliciousness. This year I am thankful for friends, planning ahead and alcohol.

We also played a hilarious game: everyone gets a sheet of paper and a pen. You start by writing down a phrase on the top of the paper (I chose "bitches ain't shit but hos and tricks"), then pass it to the person next to you. That person draws a picture illustrating the phrase. Then they fold the paper so the phrase is hidden, and all that is showing is the drawing. Then they pass that to the person next to them, who writes a phrase that describes what they think is going on in the picture. Then they fold to cover the picture and pass their phrase on, etc. Continue until the page is filled up and then pile them all in the center of the room. When all the pages are done, everyone grabs one at random, unfolds it, and passes them around to read.

It's basically like visual telephone, and depending on people's creativity and drawing skills (or lack thereof) you can get some pretty hilarious results. We were laughing so hard that a couple of people felt sick. I think the winners were Ganja Santas and Steaming Choirs of Shit, plus the squirrel-raping tree stump.

Now, the recipes!

For breakfast the day of, while watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and the Purina Dog Show:  Pumpkin Waffles (G Free and Vegan) from Girl Makes Food (this is a great blog by the way).

Cranberry Sherbert and Praline-Topped Sweet Potatoes from my earlier post.

Apple Fauxsage Pecan Stuffing

• 2 lb Field Roast Apple Sage sausages, sliced into 1/4" - 1/2" rounds
• 2 carrots, peeled & finely cubed (1/8") *
• 1 Tablespoon sage
• 1 teaspoon thyme
• 1 teaspoon marjoram
• 10 cups cubed stale bread/unseasoned stuffing mix
• 2 onions, sliced*
• 2 apples, cored & cut into small cubes 
• 1 1/4 cups veggie stock
• 1/2 cup fresh parsley, chopped (optional)*
• 3/4 cup chopped pecans
• salt and pepper

1. Cook sausage in 1 TBSP oil, about 5 min, stirring often.
2. Add onions and carrots, cook another 3 minutes.
3. Stir in apples, sage, thyme, and marjoram, cook another 5 minutes.
4. Add 1 cup of stock, and bring to a boil.
5. Remove from heat, stir in bread, pecans, parsley, salt and pepper.
6. Spoon into a lightly greased casserole dish.
7. (This recipe can be made ahead to this point, it will keep in the fridge for 2 days or in the freezer for 2 weeks. If frozen, thaw in fridge before baking).
8. Bake, covered, in 325°F oven for about 40 minutes. Halfway through cooking time, drizzle with the remaining stock.
9. Remove the lid and bake 10 more minutes, until the stuffing has a crusty top and is heated through.

*I hate celery so I swapped carrots in for it, but if you like that kind of thing feel free to swap it back out, or have both. I liked the color the carrots added.  I used 1 1/2 large onions and used the leftover half for the gravy. I also didn't have any fresh parsley so I didn't add it. It was fine without, but would be tasty with. 

Adapted from: roxanne's recipe at Food.com

Vegan Gravy*

• half a large onion, minced
• 1/4 cup Earth Balance
• 2 Tbsp all-purpose flour
• Pacific Foods mushroom broth (or 2 cups veggie broth)
• 1 tsp rosemary
• 1 tsp thyme
• 1 tsp sage 
• salt & pepper

1. Sautee onion in Earth Balance on medium-low heat for 10 minutes. 
2. Mix in flour to make a roux and stir constantly for 5 minutes, or longer as desired, until it's well combined into a smooth paste/thick sauce
3. Slowly add 2 cups broth while stirring (whisk recommended) 
4. Add spices and salt & pepper to taste
5. Simmer on medium-low heat for 10 minutes. Reduce heat if it's really boiling, a low simmer is ideal. 
6. Reduce heat to lowest heat and let sit until ready to serve, stirring occasionally. Add water if it's thickened too much. Serve hot! 

*this is an approximation of what I made up on the fly without measuring. You can cook the onions longer to caramelize them more. Also, you can do a white roux in five minutes, or you can keep cooking/stirring to get a golden or darker roux. Just add the broth when it starts to stick or seems like it will burn. As for cooking time, with the Voltron Thanksgiving it ended up sitting on low heat for an hour, and was fine, though I did have to thin it.

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Storm Surge Barriers May Save Wall Street, But Would Worsen Flooding in Outer Boroughs

This is what I am TALKING ABOUT. Yes. The Dutch were only able to install the storm barriers *after* protecting the rest of the coast, and that included huge setbacks, dune replenishment, and a few site-specific hardening methods. Otherwise you're protecting one area at the expense of everything else, and actually making things worse for them.

Storm Surge Barriers May Save Wall Street, But Would Worsen Flooding in Outer Boroughs : TreeHugger:

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New New Amsterdam

The gates by themselves won't solve everything, but for infrastructure or settlements that are too expensive/delicate/sacred to move, the gates could be one of the solutions. Sandbars or barrier islands are a good idea but the currents would have to be carefully studied/estimated to see if they would turn into walking islands, or how they would affect the current ocean movements. In the wrong place, or wrong angle, they could just disappear a few years after they were created. Properly placed they could be a benefit in more ways than one.

For the rest of the coast, however, setbacks have to be enforced and, for starters, politicians have to agree to accept scientific predictions based on current data, regardless of an individual's stance on anthropogenic climate change.

This would not be a small, easy or cheap fix, but it is likely necessary unless New York and New Jersey wants a repeat performance (whether from a hurricane, tropical storm, or a Nor'easter).


New New Amsterdam: Should New York Do Like the Dutch and Build Some Skyscraper-Sized Sea Gates? | Observer:

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The Evolution of Urban Planning in 10 Diagrams

The Evolution of Urban Planning in 10 Diagrams - Design - The Atlantic Cities:

Nice addition of the hockey stick graph at the end. I'll have to investigate the Frank Lloyd Wright one more.

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Oakland shaping 'monster' of long-term vision plan

Oakland has a lot of potential, and a lot of problems. I'm glad they're focusing on transportation and the slumlords, student housing doesn't need to be that bad. If they can improve some of the connections between it and other neighborhood centers, rather than blurring the the edges of Oakland (e.g. student rentals bleeding into surrounding areas), it might help mix up the housing stock in the way they are hoping.

Oakland shaping 'monster' of long-term vision plan - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

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The allure of the technological fix after Hurricane Sandy

I agree on all points. Select the points where retreat is not an option and protect them; let everything else go and rebuild somewhere that makes sense.

Good luck with that though, what with Americans' fanatical attachment to a specific piece of land, rather than what that land lets them do - live. Amazing how many will give up some rights in exchange for safety, but not when it comes to land ownership (and not giving up rights, just relocating those rights to a place that makes sense).

Grist: Blinded by science: The allure of the technological fix after Hurricane Sandy 

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