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Author: David Kyler

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In observance of Independence Day, we are posting this letter to the editor by Center Co-Director, David Kyler. It was originally published in the Savannah Morning News in July 2020.

Photo by Fabian Fauth on Unsplash

In the barrage of recent events, Independence Day invites self-reflection on the history and values associated with this hallowed holiday.

Diverse expressions of dissent related to COVID-19, racial issues, and national interest have exposed contentious rifts in America’s identity. Ironically, these conflicting viewpoints are commonly derived from aspirations embedded in the nation’s origins – foremost, individual liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Americans are renowned for independent thinking, articulated in the landmark 1841 essay by Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Self-Reliance.” Resisting conformity and following one’s instincts as perceived in an “every-man-for-himself” world have been espoused for much of our history.

Related residual views still predominate among various divisive groups, serving as a vaguely understood basis of self-respect. Yet, intertwined social, economic, and technological changes that have occurred since these tenets of American identity were formulated require that we adapt them to new circumstances.

Personal liberty in the 21st century depends on a respectful society that requires tempering the excesses of a “frontier ethic” whose practitioners are often skeptical of science and hostile toward others – including racial minorities and migrants.

Abandoning fantasized freedoms is essential if we hope to restrain COVID and other diseases, restore our ravaged global environment, and establish lasting social justice.

Achieving an equitable, interdependent society with mutually beneficial opportunities requires that past prejudices and antagonisms be cast aside. A revitalized sense of the common good must inspire our vision.

To honor America’s ideals, we must struggle for independence from the oppressive dogmatism that degrades our country’s worthy prospects.

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Various planning updates are underway on Georgia's coast: the comprehensive plans for Chatham County and its cities, the Coastal Regional Plan, and the Jekyll Island Master Plan. Coastal plans must address the increasingly urgent causes and consequences of climate change to achieve community and regional planning benefits in making critical decisions that influence our future.

Over the past five years, climate disruption's dangerous impacts and causes have stirred well-founded public awareness and concern. Our rapidly growing understanding of the scale and significance of the causes of climate change and their grave consequences will be renowned as the fundamental "paradigm shift" of the 21st century.

Surveys consistently conclude that a majority now recognize that human activities are causing worldwide environmental degradation, which is of such urgency and magnitude that we must soon bring them under control or irreversibly impair the planet's life-support systems. Yet, until now, decades after these perils were well-known within the global scientific community, the plans of coastal Georgia's cities and counties have made little or no mention of climate change.

The only references to climate disruption in Georgia's coastal plans have concerned the rising sea level. These were limited to reactive adaptation, such as flood-control projects and flood-risk rating compliance. They were also all based on historical events, rather than the escalating science-based projections linked to global heating.

The current planning updates for coastal communities must acknowledge the urgency and acceleration of these hazards.

Moreover, planning must prioritize actions that reduce the cause of these accumulating hazards – namely, the emission of greenhouse gases – and protection of critical areas, both developed and natural, to the greatest extent possible. The alarming fact that some 43 percent of coastal Georgia residences are within the 100-year flood plain substantiates concern about escalating flooding.

Overdue recognition of climate-change impacts and causes in local and regional plans will have a critical advantage in an array of decision-making.

Furthermore, incorporating these considerations in planning documents, better positions our region in competition for imminent federal funding to support climate-related projects. Examples include flood-control infrastructure, clean-energy implementation, and power-transmission grid upgrades.

...continue reading "Timely advice to the planning authorities in coastal Georgia"

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Many have observed the depletion of credibility in daily discourse – causing a disturbing decline in fact-based consensus.

Without a fundamental sense of shared reality, how can we collectively – as a community, state, or nation – anticipate and respond to imminent threats and opportunities?

Perplexity about this predicament was renewed when I recently learned of terminology – accepted by a federal court – for describing a rocket explosion as a “rapid unscheduled disassembly.”  This devious euphemism for an event threatening death and destruction epitomizes the abuse of language that accelerates an alarming abandonment of truth.

The impoverishment of facts that afflicts our political institutions has brought us to the brink of environmental destruction. Consider that science has verified the human causes of climate change for more than two decades. Yet, many elected officials still thwart actions to confront them, thereby propagating the serious consequences of rising temperatures. 

...continue reading "Earth Day Must Become Truth Day"

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March 8 was the deadline for Georgians to comment on a justifiably controversial project proposed in Camden County, known as "Spaceport Camden." If approved, this spaceport would be the only such facility in the U.S. ever sanctioned to launch rockets over privately owned and occupied property. Moreover, the "hazard zone" for launching includes the world-renowned Cumberland Island National Seashore, part of which is a federally designated Wilderness Area.

Since 1997, under the federal Coastal Zone Management Act, Georgia's Department of Natural Resources (DNR) has been authorized to review major federal permits to determine if they are consistent with Georgia's Coastal Management Program. DNR's Coastal Resources Division (CRD) is currently engaged in evaluating Spaceport Camden.

Accordingly, CRD invited public comments on the agency's proposal to issue Coastal Consistency Certification. If certified by CRD/DNR, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which administers spaceports under U.S. law, would have to decide whether to license Spaceport Camden. Most agree that without state certification, FAA would be less likely to grant the license. 

As objectionable as the project certainly is for jeopardizing humans, wildlife, valuable homesites, tourism destinations, and rare natural resources, there is a less apparent but closely related reason to oppose the spaceport - the appalling lack of detailed information to evaluate such risks responsibly. After years of unsubstantiated claims about the spaceport's benefits, compounded by incomplete, contradictory, and illogical review of the project, fundamental questions remain unanswered.

For instance:

...continue reading "Why DNR Should Give Spaceport Camden a Thumbs Down"