Tag Archives: Orlando

You can choose love: Valdosta vigil for Orlando

Before the names of the dead were read by 50 of the crowd
that numbered at least three times as many;
before the moment of silence and the prayer
and the thanks to all the first responders and police who assisted at the scene in Orlando;
this evening at St Barnabas Church on Bemiss Road
one speaker said we could choose to focus on the person who did this horrible thing in Orlando,
or we could choose to focus on fear, but as for her and her house,
she chooses love:
go out and do something for your neighbor.


Choose to focus on love

The gathering also served as Continue reading →

Duke to build solar in Perry, Taylor County, Florida

Still citing clouds after Georgia has become the fastest-growing solar market in the U.S.,


and ignoring one of its own earlier Florida solar installations,
not to mention its numerous ones in North Carolina,
Duke Energy Florida takes a baby step of a 5 megawatt solar installation in Florida.

Susan Salisbury, Palm Beach Post, 15 October 2015,

Duke Energy to construct solar facility in North Florida,

Duke Energy Florida Thursday announced plans to construct a new
solar facility in Perry, which is in Taylor County in the Big Bend
region.

This will be the second Continue reading →

Clean Green Metro Florida by Brookings Institution

Amy Liu spoke about globalization last week in Orlando,

Leaders will seize the clean economy
about clean industries leading economic growth.
Even though she was talking linear growth,
her Metropolitan Policy Program at Brookings Institution
has some interesting points that mesh with the exponential growth like compound interest

Georgia can get on with in solar and wind power.

The Florida Economic Development Council

2013 FEDC Conference 26-28 June 2013
was the venue for Amy Liu’s

A Globally Competitive Florida: Regional Opportunities in the Next Economy.
To summarize her slides (which are

in a format not easily linkable,
she bashes Congress to motivate cities leading.
In particular, Florida’s 20 metro ares have 61.75 of land area,
94.1% of population, and 95.9% of output.
Nothing surprising there: cities are densely populated.
Two of the biggest in Florida are in our Floridan Aquifer:
Orlando and Jacksonville.
(She didn’t mention the aquifer; I did.)

The national economic
recovery is slow, the middle class has been hard-hit,
and Florida is recovering faster, except on unemployment.
The U.S. population is rapidly getting older and by 2050
53.7% will be minorities, each of which have very different
educational achievements, and much of this is happening
in metro areas.



Her solution is Continue reading →

Ben Copeland on water and growth in south Georgia



Ben Copeland asked the big question: “How much growth do we want?”
He related it to regional water in the aquifer, rivers, growth, and planning,
speaking at the Lake Park Chamber of Commerce annual dinner, 28 January 2011.

Copeland is Past Chairman of the Board, Wiregrass Technical College.
He serves on the regional water planning council.
He said

those councils were started due to worries
about Atlanta not having a reliable water supply.
He said the councils were

planning for water and wastewater to 2050.
The local regional council is the

Suwannee-Satilla regional water council.


He described the

extent of the water planning region (see map).
He
expects finalization of the water plan by May.
He talked about the Floridian aquifer, and how he’s worried not so much about Atlanta taking our water as about Orlando, Jacksonville, and Tallahassee.
“Because they all have their straws in that same aquifer.”

Finally, Ben Copeland asked the big question:

“How much growth do we want?”

“Do we want to be Jacksonville?
Do we want to be Tallahassee?
Do we want to be a large metropolitan region?

Folks are going to move to south Georgia, I can tell you that,
because of all the resources that we have.
I’m a great believer in the free enterprise system.
How much do we try to limit that?

Continue reading →