A Previous Post Suddenly Getting Mucho Hits. An “Apps for Earth” Related.

Several days ago theguardian.com published a story in its U.S. edition called “Florida wakes up to climate change“. That day my blog post about the same subject got 17 hits. Over the next 2 days, another 31 hits.

Its lead, including a link to an old EPA publication, read: “The city of Miami Beach is slowly disappearing under water.” I’d call this lead understated. Slowly? Accelerating, IMO, is the better adverb.

The piece concludes: “So it’s no surprise that 81% of people in Florida polled recently said they believe that climate change is happening now – an increase on the 63% in 2012. And yet climate change has been drowned out in the US presidential primary elections – apart from political debates in Miami.”

P.S.  Interesting how “tags” get things around on the web. BTW, the Guardian online piece has been shared 903 times so far.

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Apple has been rolling out something it calls “Apps for Earth” where, if purchased by April 24th, 100% of the proceeds will be donated to the World Wildlife Fund. (DW-GREEN already supports the WWF.)

Several of the apps left me completely uninterested, i.e., one called “Jurassic World: The Game.” Another, called “Angry Birds 2” left me in the same place. I’m not a gamer and, somewhat impatiently, I hoped to find one I could connect with. Happily I did, at least as to the initial look.

But first, back to birds. In The Washington Post article by environmental reporter Chris Mooney about the apps, he got a quote from the creative director for “Angry Birds 2: “‘We’re going to see the birds kind of saving the oceans from the naughty pigs.'” And: “‘We also have a special power-up made, it’s almost like revenge of the fish, where we kind of liberate the fish from the nets, and they’re going to fight back.'” Tempting? If not for you, how ’bout your kids?

As a green bricks-‘n-mortar/planner type, SimCity BuildIt (v. 1.12.7) is more interesting. I first looked at it some years ago, especially trying to interest my kids in it. More a planner/”visionary” inspiration back then.

“Build A City in Harmony with Nature” its website proclaims. I’m for that! So are most of you.

With a high-rise city in the foreground, note the beach, then ocean, gulf or whatever in the background. It ties neatly with theguardian.com piece and my post referenced above.

What would be different about how you, the gamer, would design/construct this city as compared to Miami Beach? (How does the banner “Grow and sustain lush forests” work with the pictured high-rise city? Meaning forests rather than skyscrapers?)

If a coastal downtown of high-risers, elevate it? What would a platform for a major coastal city cost? Or, move the city boundaries way back from current flood plain markers and add sand?

Heh. Back to Apple.

I blogged about its worldwide efforts to save energy in a late 2014 post.

Lisa Jackson, former EPA Administrator and now Apple’s VP for environment, policy and social initiates, told Mooney about its customers: “They love the work Apple is doing as a company, but they want to be engaged in this mission of leaving the planet better than we found it. This is really our first big step into engaging customers in our mission.”

Well, I offer to Ms. Jackson and her company on this initiative: welcome to Starbucks’ world.

That she claims Apple’s global facilities are now 93% powered by renewable energy is indeed something to proclaim in a boots-on-the-ground way!

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