![]() See, JSC is like a city of 7,000 people on 1,620 acres southeast of downtown Houston, and it’s Walker who keeps the place running. I was talking with Joel Walker, JSC’s director of Center Operations, and Stacy Shutts, JSC’s Sustainability Program specialist, about how Walker’s Office of Strategic Infrastructure has incorporated climate change into his organization’s daily thinking. There were lakes, ponds and some flooded areas, as it had been raining recently. I’d noticed Houston’s astounding flatness flying in the day before. The geography of JSC is so flat that you can pretty much see the bay out of just about any south-facing window. Sitting in Johnson Space Center’s Operations Office, I can see Galveston Bay out the window. Now add that on top of an extra 8 or 17 inches of projected sea level rise over the next few years from climate change. ![]() Yet what would happen to these low lying areas if climate change causes more hurricanes to form or the ones that do form become more intense? Under Hurricane Ike, there was a 12-foot storm surge. And even though Ike occurred back in 2008, it remains etched on the collective memory of this area as the costliest tropical cyclone ever recorded to hit Texas. You can pick up Hurricane Ike souvenir t-shirts, it’s the name of the kicking-est drink on the two-dollar taco Tuesday menu and the spiciest sauce at the barbeque joint down the road. Around the Houston, Texas coast near NASA’s Johnson Space Center, reminders of Hurricane Ike are everywhere. ![]()
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