New Orleans St Claude Line Stops Short of Press Street.

The New Orleans RTA streetcar line down St. Claude Avenue to Poland Ave. is stopped short for now; the line will end at Elysian Fields Ave. because the Norfolk Southern Railroad will have nothing to do with a streetcar line crossing their tracks at Press Street. There's nothing mentioning a possible flyover or duckunder at the NSRR tracks, but I suspect they'd have nothing to do with that, either. Considering how unsafe the existing St. Claude Ave. grade crossing is , if I were the railroad, I'd demand that the state and the city shut it down immediately! Plus all other grade crossings on the riverside of Gentilly Boulevard, all the way to the river.

Anyway, here are some images:

Suggested forty-five year plan for New Orleans area rapid transit to 2050.

Basically, light railways and commuter rail. [1]

Closeup of same, at the historic core. [2]

 

So what I would suggest, is sever the Rampart Street section of the line at Franklin Ave. and send it out that way to the Lake. I would then take the section of the line east of the NSRR and hook it up to the riverfront Streetcar in the French Quarter. Both suggested modifications are shown in blue. 

My suggested changes using a nola.com-generated map.

 

Because eventually, we are going to have to get around using non-petroleum dependent forms of transportation because we won't have oil extraction at the rates we've been having since 1995 for much longer. Peak Oil, you know.

 

Notes:

 

[1]  Eugene L. Birch & Susan M. Wachter, eds. Rebuilding Urban Places After Disaster / Lessons from Hurricane Katrina. Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006, Plate 20: Transit and transportation plan.

[2] Ibid.

Blighted Property in the Medical Area.

This one is on S. Galvez South Johnson Street, in New Orleans' Bioinnovation District, a.k.a., the Tulane-Gravier medical area. This building should be occupied by medical professionals, but nooooo...o...o...o! It's boarded up, has vines growing on it, and has a piece of its roof missing.

No. 433 South Johnson Street.

View from the front. See the missing roof?

Three-quarters profile at right hand side.

Vines are growing on the back.

Another view of the front-right corner,

viewed diagonally across from Tulane Ave.

Two Blighted Properties in Gentrified Areas.

In an era of peak oil and the fashionableness and popularity of city living, these buildings should have been rehabbed into perfect condition by now.

First blighted property! Magazine at Napoleon Avenue in the Faubourg Bouligny. Miss Mae's, a local tavern, is on the bottom floor, the top floor is vacant and boarded up.

 

 

If this isn't fixed up and fixed up soon, Miss Mae's will have to move.

 

 

The second blighted property is on Sophie Wright Place near Felicity, in the Coliseum Square / Lower Garden District.

 

Three-quarters front and left profile.

View of front with collapsing gutter and soffit.

"Nice noggin' youse got there. I'd hate to lose it."

Nice warning sign.

Too bad it's at the wrong (left) end of the front of the house.

And here is the collapsing gutter and soffit - at the right end!

 

Looking up at the collapse-in-slow-motion.

Somebody could get killed by this once it lets go.

Three-quarters profile of right side from across the street.

Graced with oh, so lovely graffiti.

Close-up of the right side.

Grey Ghost, you have a job to do!

 

Left end of the house from across the street.

Look! You can see daylight!

And here's a dogtrot down the middle!

Did it used to be a garage???

Three-quarters profile view of the left side of the house.

Nice view from the front bedroom!

Satellite dish behind the right end of the house.

Clearly inoperable; only serves as a support for weed vines.

 

 

 

 



Hellooo, Detroit!

Actually the subject piece of Urban Decay is at Claiborne Ave and Soniat Street, southeast (River-Downtown) corner in Uptown New Orleans.

Front view.

Right side view.

Front view at left side.

Ocean Overheating Causing Beginning of Massive New Coral Bleaching.

This is from Mashable.com via Colorado Bob at Robertscribbler:

The third recorded global coral bleaching event may be underway.

"Coral reefs around the world — from Hawaii to the iconic Great Barrier Reef, eastward all the way to the Bahamas and beyond — are in jeopardy of being severely damaged or even dying because of a dangerous spike in ocean temperatures, scientists say.

"Conditions are so dire that, provided coral bleaching soon spreads from the Florida Keys to the Bahamas, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is expected to declare as soon as two weeks from now that the third global coral bleaching event is here. There’s already evidence of coral bleaching in three major ocean basins.

“ 'It’s like watching a slow-motion train wreck, and we’re waiting for the cars to pile up on this side of the track,' says Mark Eakin, the coordinator of NOAA’s Coral Reef Watch, in an interview with Mashable."

http://mashable.com/2015/09/24/third-global-coral-bleaching-event/?utm_source=climatenexus&utm_medium=referral#oFAa_etJzuqD

NOAA to "declare [a bleaching event] as soon as two weeks from now" and "already evidence of coral bleaching in the three major ocean basins" means the current El Nino, as strong and monstrous as it is, cannot cool down the oceans soon enough to avoid this event. The article also states that "many coral reefs expected to perish by the middle of the century if recent trends continue." which means (1) we need Peak Oil on purpose, now, reducing energy use and switching to renewables, and (2) even if we reduce our emissions to zero, the 405 ppm CO₂ and the 480 ppm CO₂e means we will still have these global warming trends continuing for as long as forty years, or more, until the ice, oceans and atmosphere finally reached equilibrium.

There is a new study out that shows information can be extracted from samples of coral reefs to determine what the paleoclimatic record, i.e., the prehistoric climate, was like.

From Science Daily via Colorado Bob at Robertscribbler:

 Fossil corals have the unique advantage that they can be precisely dated by radiometric uranium-series dating, giving an age scale that can be directly compared to the ice core records.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/09/150924151409.htm

And, now scientists have discovered another effect of global warming which is an amplifying of  semiannual to twice-annual variation in Pacific Ocean sea level, perhaps in both amplitude and frequency, causing South Seas' islands' coral reefs to become exposed to the air and die back as a result.

Also from Science Daily via Colorado Bob at Robertscribbler:

During El Niño, warm water and high sea levels shift eastward, leaving in their wake low sea levels in the western Pacific. Scientists have already shown that this east-west seesaw is often followed six months to a year later by a similar north-south sea level seesaw with water levels dropping by up to one foot (30 cm) in the Southern Hemisphere. Such sea level drops expose shallow marine ecosystems in South Pacific Islands, causing massive coral die-offs with a foul smelling tide called taimasa (pronounced [kai' ma'sa]) by Samoans.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/09/150925142700.htm

Which means there will be more catastrophic diebacks of the coral reefs. Better start transplanting them now. Peak Oil will not stop this.

The RENT Is too Damn High!

I read this this morning at the Daily Kos and it really made my blood boil. See, I'm very very poor, I have to post these at the New Orleans Public Library with limited time (1 to 2 hours combined with other work to do) and also I can't afford the $1,200 a month rent (now $1,500!?) for a two-bedroom apartment in New Orleans. Which means I have to make * ahem * "other arrangements."

The RENT is too damn high!

From the Daily Kos:

The rent crisis will only get worse.

Mon Sep 21, 2015 at 11:29 AM PDT

In December 2013, Shaun Donovan, U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, gave this warning:

 "We are in the midst of the worst rental affordability crisis that this country has known."

Few paid attention to the warning, and of those who did, even fewer would have guessed that the crisis had only just started.

Today a new report came out showing that the most likely future scenario means difficult times are in store for renters.

The number of U.S. households that spend at least half their income on rent—the "severely cost-burdened," in the lingo of housing experts—could increase 25 percent to 14.8 million over the next decade. More than 1 million households headed by Hispanics and more than 1 million headed by the elderly could pass into those ranks...

To put that into perspective, a household that spends half of its income on rent means no savings, no retirement, no health insurance, no break from living paycheck-to-paycheck.

While this is really hitting the older generation, it is showing effects on the younger generation as well.

One lasting scar from the deepest recession since the 1930s is the phenomenon of young adults, facing their own financial challenges, forced to squeeze in the homes of their parents. And new data show the trend is getting worse, not better .

In 2015, 15.1 percent of  25 to 34 year olds were living with their parents, a fourth straight annual increase, according to an analysis of new Census Bureau data by the Population Reference Bureau in Washington. The proportion is the highest since at least 1960, according to demographer Mark Mather, associate vice president with PRB.

"It takes young people longer these days to find jobs with decent wages," Mather said. "Young adults need to spend more time getting the necessary education and skills before they can become self-sufficient. The recession likely exacerbated this trend."

Indubitably. After I graduated from College down in Miami, I had to live with roommates -- sometimes bad roommates -- in apartments and condos in so-called suburban "neighborhoods" where the defining characteristic was endless driving utopia sprawl. I really hated it. Hated it so much, that I got a job in Boston, moved up north, and had to live with bad roommates AGAIN due to the extremely high cost of rental housing there at the time. The local media even said Bostonians had the lowest real wages of any metropolitan area at the time (1985).

And of course, it's only gotten worse up there since then. Just go to Craig's List and check out the rentals for greater Boston!

And now youth are increasingly having to live in with their parents. Wonderful. Of course, the parents' houses are usually in sprawl-burbia, which means they have to drive everywhere so and until they can dig themselves out of student debt and save up enough to buy a house. By that time the cities will be all gentrified and they'll have to live in the inner ring of suburbia with all the ghetto trash, or find a house close to their parents'. Either option is not good because all this is contingent on us Americans to continue to get enough raw materials and consumer goods to keep up this auto-centred pattern of living. As if Peak Oil were no object... the downslopes of oil and other fossil fuel extractions to come will make these same suburbs implode.

Several Items Today, September 23, 2015.

Global Warming was evident in the 1940s -- not just the tropics, but the Arctic, too. Rachel Carson, in the 1962 edition of her The Sea around Us, noted signs of climactic warming in Greenland in the 1940s including the arrival of warmer-climate plants and birds.

You can probably pick up a copy of it, new or used, at your local mom-and-pop bookstore. If that fails, there’s always Amazon.com and friends.

From dtlange at Robertscribbler:

– GIZMODO 0922

“the fact that most big research universities are located in countries with seasons— what’s happening in the tropics has been largely ignored.

We Could Have Discovered Climate Change As Early As the 1940s if We Had Just Looked

“Remarkably our research shows that you could already see clear signs of global warming in the tropics by the 1960s but in parts of Australia, South East Asia and Africa it was visible as early as the 1940s,” said lead study author Andrew King in a statement. (That’s decades before the the fore-thinking researchers at Exxon discovered global warming!)

Climate change is hitting high latitude ecosystems the hardest — the Arctic, for instance, is warming twice as fast as the world at large. For that reason — and the fact that most big research universities are located in countries with seasons— what’s happening in the tropics has been largely ignored.

http://gizmodo.com/we-could-have-discovered-climate-change-as-early-as-the-1732420254

But it will take another ten to thirty years for the signal-to-noise ratio to confirm it; i.e., the signal of global warming exceeds the  noise of natural variability.

Thirty years!? It’ll be too late to act then. Even ten years is cutting it.

With all the mass media brainwashing going on, who will wake all the masses before then? Is it even possible????

From Abdel Adamski on Robertscribbler:

Also
http://phys.org/news/2015-09-reveal-global.html
Researchers reveal when global warming first appeared

While temperature records generally showed pronounced indications of global warming, heavy rainfall events have yet to make their mark. The models showed a general increase in extreme rainfall but the global warming signal was not strong enough yet to rise above the expected natural variation.

“We expect the first heavy precipitation events with a clear global warming signal will appear during winters in Russia, Canada and northern Europe over the next 10-30 years,” said co-author Dr Ed Hawkins from the National Centre for Atmospheric Science at the University of Reading, UK.

“This is likely to bring pronounced precipitation events on top of the already existing trend towards increasingly wet winters in these regions.”

This is going to deprive Russia of more and more Natural Gas, and the revenues from exporting it...

From humortra at Robertscribbler:

A new expedition to one of the mysterious Siberian giant holes found in recent years has concluded that it is a warning sign of a deadly threat to northern regions as the climate warms.

Scientists from the respected Trofimuk Institute of Petroleum Geology and Geophysics insist the process by which a series of craters formed was caused by the melting of gas hydrates and the emission of methane.

This accumulates in a pingo – a mound of earth-covered ice – which then erupts causing the formation of the strange holes that have appeared on Russia’s Arctic fringe.

A pingo believed to be poised to explode ‘at any moment’ is now being constantly monitored by a Russian space satellite in an attempt to catch the moment when the eruption occurs.

http://siberiantimes.com/science/casestudy/news/n0415-danger-of-methane-explosions-on-yamal-peninsula-scientists-warn/

Not so much apocalyptic as hearalding the coming global superstorms.

From Colorado Bob at Robertscribbler:

“It Felt Like the Apocalypse”: Israel Hit with Extreme and Unusual Weather on Jewish New Year
“It felt like the apocalypse, the rain has been torrential, there were about 10 lightning strikes in seconds, and even with your windshield wipers on high, it was impossible to see anything,” Mark Katz, a National Parks Authority employee, told the Times of Israel.

Since the beginning of September, Israel has experienced a series of extreme weather changes, beginning last week with a sudden sandstorm that blanketed the country in thick yellow dust.
The record setting five-day dust storm was also accompanied by a heat-wave, with new records reached across Israel in temperatures and air pollution.

Read more at http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/49091/it-felt-like-the-apocalypse-extreme-flash-flooding-hail-strike-israel-on-jewish-new-year-jerusalem/#3wE4Ml1A6jvMtMD8.99

Simple. Boil off all the water til there’s nothing left but salt. they [sic!]* you can market it as rock salt, or bury it.

*then

From Maria at Robertscribbler:

Solar Desalination in California. The company will be desalinating irrigation drainage in the Central Valley. The article doesn’t talk about where all that brine will go….What is an appropriate method way to deal with desal brine?

snip

“Less than one percent of the world’s desalination is powered by renewable energy sources today, but that could all change soon if companies like California-based WaterFX have anything to say about it. Its Aqua4 “concentrated solar still” (CSS) uses a concentrated solar thermal collector to compress heat, create steam and distill water at 30 times the efficiency of natural evaporation. It can produce 65,000 gallons of freshwater per day—and it can desalinate a wide range of water sources, not just seawater.

"Solar desalination is a technique used to remove salt from water via a specially designed still that uses solar energy to boil seawater and capture the resulting steam, which is in turn cooled and condensed into pristine freshwater. Salt and other impurities are left behind in the still.
Less than one percent of the world’s desalination is powered by renewable energy sources today, but that could all change soon if companies like California-based WaterFX have anything to say about it. Its Aqua4 “concentrated solar still” (CSS) uses a concentrated solar thermal collector to compress heat, create steam and distill water at 30 times the efficiency of natural evaporation. It can produce 65,000 gallons of freshwater per day—and it can desalinate a wide range of water sources, not just seawater.

"To wit, the company will start employing solar desalination to treat some 1.6 billion gallons of salt-laden irrigation drainage from California’s drought-stricken, agriculturally-rich Central Valley next year. Crops extract nearly pure water from soil, leaving behind salt and other potentially toxic minerals like selenium that naturally occur in the water. These excess minerals must be drained from the soil, or crop productivity plunges. By treating this drainage, WaterFX can prevent about percent of farmland in California from being retired every year to make room for storage for untreated drainage water."

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/can-solar-desalination-slake-the-world-s-thirst/

Maria on Robertscribbler also responded to the second item above. My response to her remarks follows them:

I saw your comment up thread re: we don’t have decades. I recently learned that the big People’s Climate March was partially subsidized by FF. we know that Paris talks are being partially funded by big oil & major emitters. I’m afraid that unless the grass roots-/-county-to-county and state to state citizens & their leadership take bold action? Decades, I’m afraid. Hope I’m wrong. And that a massive positive feedback loop re: renewals ensues, giving FF & nat’l leadership no choice but to follow.

Crap. Combined with corporate dominance of our “free” news media (including Russia’s) means any such attempts to get Peak FF’s before their natural peaking at least 15 years from now (too many in my opinion) will be met with derision and … get ready now … “ZOMG DOOMER PORN!!!!!!” spoken from every news media mouthpiece.

And the same media will say the American Way of Life (Suburban Utopia and Happy Motoring! ^TM) is still non-negotiable.

And people will fall for it, especially here in the United States, for we are the World’s easiest marks. And that is the reason why our country will do the right thing after trying everything else.

And there’s something like 8,000 GT of Carbon embedded in the permafrost and the sea beds, which are melting or getting ready to melt as we speak. Sam Caranas, not to mention the paleolithic-paleoclimactic record, has demonstrated that rapid uncontrolled releases of Carbon, especially in the form of Methane, are likely to lead to a hot house extinction right quick. But the ice will stick around for a thousand more years or so, which will put a brake on uncontrolled global overheating.

Sum it all up, and we face Near Term Human Extinction, maybe even NTE, (by 3015).