The New York Times recently published an article regarding the incorporation of climate change into projects undergoing NEPA review. Observing the impending complexities under NEPA, one looks to see what can be expected locally.
Massachusetts prides itself on being a national leader in climate change study and policy. Given the number of elite academic institutions within its borders, this should surprise no one. Nor should it be a surprise that as one of the original colonies, it has a few unique legal structures. One such structure is known as Home Rule. Home Rule as allows each municipality to create unique bylaws and regulations independent of the Commonwealth provided that the laws are not less stringent than the standing Commonwealth laws.
It is within this structure that land use proposals are formed. The layering, though intended to provide a greater good, is not without well known burrs. The biggest complaints voiced by the land use/ development community are:
- The rules are byzantine.
- The rules are not enforced uniformly.
- The outcome is not predictable under the best of circumstances.
- The frequently requested additional studies (beyond that in regulatory requirement) are expensive, time consuming and generally do not result significant increased protection to the environment.
- The process is long (environmental permitting times for all but the most minor projects often exceed 6 months).
Now take the ever changing findings produced by the climate change community, express them by either a stationary regulation or a study requested by town citizen serving on a municipal board and things start to get interesting. So here’s the million dollar question:
Will the State (and individual municipalities under Home Rule) use this opportunity to acknowledge and amend the five biggest difficulties facing land use in the Commonwealth or will climate change simply become the new battle cry for environmentalists seeking new ways to curtail development in the Commonwealth?
The path to the final answer promises to be loud, expensive, polarized, clumsy, public and long – and most certainly a show to remember.
1 Response to "Climate Change and Massachusetts Land Use: Setting the Stage"
the hypothesis was that the increase in CO2 would cause increased water vapor at the equator and form a hot spot in the upper troposphere. Despite all the hooha about it. This hot spot has never been observed. Water vapor is a more efficient absorber of heat than CO2. The basic problems appear to be that the models that predict all of this stuff ignore negative feedbacks from clouds and other things in the correct manner. When you get water vapor up high enough, and high enough is not all that high, it forms clouds. Clouds increase the albedo of the earth and re-radiate the energy. Sad but the vested interests of klimatic kleptocracy (sic) will not cave into science easily. Al Gorge has made 200 mn peddling his rot. Others around are like him. Do not expect them to throw in the towel just because they have been proved to be wrong. [You can never prove a model to be right, but you can prove that a model can fail. The CO2 model is failing.]