Portland decides it's better to be prepared for the climate-change worst, uncertainty or no

Even though it's clear that burning fossil fuels and other human activities, such as deforestation, is altering the globe's climate, there is much uncertainty about how this change will affect us. Sea levels, for example, are almost certain to rise, but it's far from clear by how much and how quickly.

In a startling sign of maturity, however, Portland Maine has decided that it's better to at least think about the worst rather than to take solace in uncertainty and do nothing. As the Press-Herald reports:

Interfering with personal property rights based on climate change predictions? That should be fun to push through.

On a semi-related note, Vermont's Agency of Natural Resources is urging planners to assume that more "extreme rain events" will happen in the future. (Story here)

This idea came up at the very first Science Cafe, almost a year ago, discussing climate change. The town planner for Keene said one of the issues under debate is culverts, those artificial tunnels under roads, which have been sized according to historic water flows. If those flows are going to start being much larger much more often, roads are going to wash out more often - so maybe we should be installing bigger culverts as a matter of course.

But that's expensive, and it's not clear how much bigger they should be. It's not an easy question to answer.