Planning & Growth

For the latest Between the Lines – a question-and-answer feature in which published authors provide advice to SEJ members – SEJournal Book Editor Tom Henry interviewed Jörg Friedrichs, author of “The Future Is Not What It Used to Be: Climate Change and Energy Scarcity,” which received an honorable mention in the Rachel Carson Environment Book Award category of SEJ’s 2014 annual awards contest. The book offers a unique perspective by explaining how transitions between climatic eras of the past are unlikely to happen again because infinite growth is not possible. Friedrichs, a native of Germany, is an associate professor in politics at the University of Oxford in England.

Since U.S. oil production started booming, the news has been full of tanker trains blowing up. Under a May 2014 emergency order, the Federal Railway Administration increased requirements that railroads disclose oil train routes. But a new regulation issued May 1, 2015, leaves the public — and firefighters — with less information about the risks they face. Photo: The latest oil train derailment and explosion, today, in ND/Curt Bemson via AP.

After Katrina, Louisiana may have hit the national spotlight for a time, but coastal communities elsewhere around the country will have to find their own answers to the question “Why does anyone still live there in harm’s way?” — even as more and more people move toward the coast and the water moves ever closer to them.

In the effort to help all coastal communities face with the realities that the Gulf of Mexico is their neighbor and sea level rise is inching up relentlessly, lessons can be learned from Louisiana as it works to adapt and to mitigate flood risk.