The Effects of Climate Change Are All Local: Here's What You Can Do to Help Manage the Risks

We've spent far too much time thinking about the global causes of climate change, and not nearly enough worrying about the local impacts that climate change is already having on coastal communities. The distinction is important. Most of the people pushing for reductions in greenhouse gas emissions are environmentalists or experts worried about future generations. But there is a very immediate constituency – the people being hit with higher costs for insurance, water and electricity, and those facing substantial property losses or a drop in business income today because of increased flooding and water shortages. People who live in a coastal community or on a river nearly anywhere in the world are a lot more worried about what's happening right now, than what might happen to future generations if we don't limit greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S., China, India and elsewhere.  Climate change means too much water or not enough water in the wrong place at the wrong time! It means deadly heat waves. It means radical changes in natural places, animal and plant life and the onset of new diseases. 

Our new book, Managing Climate Risks in Coastal Communities: Readiness, Engagement and Adaptation (by Lawrence Susskind, Danya Rumore, Carri Hulet and Patrick Field) is about to be published by Anthem Press. It tells the story of four coastal communities trying to take climate change-related risks seriously. What they are doing -- and what we have helped them learn from their efforts -- can help other cities and towns fast-forward the adoption of climate risk management measures that everyone agrees on.  Here's what these four communities in New England have done:

1. WHAT WE DID:  The “we” in this story is the New England Climate Adaptation Project (NECAP), a partnership based at the MIT Science Impact Collaborative and the not-for-profit Consensus Building Institute. Our close partners included the National Estuarian Research Reserve System, the University of New Hampshire, and four New England coastal communities. We prepared four Stakeholder Assessments—one for each partner town in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire and Maine. These involved interviews with several dozen officials, activists, business leaders and scientists.  The scientists on our team prepared a local climate change forecast (estimating likely temperature, precipitation and sea level changes in the near term, mid-term and long-term) using downscaled regional climate models and long-term data from local meteorological measuring stations. With all this information in hand, we developed tailored role-play simulation (RPSs). These are "serious games" that ask participants to imagine that they are working in a community a lot like their own, trying to figure out what to do about possible climate risks. We organized several workshops in each of our four partner communities at which more than 100 - 150 people played the games in each place. Workshops were co-sponsored by a wide range of local environmental, business and public service organizations.  The press attended.  We used social media to generate as much interest as we could.

2. WHAT WE WANTED TO LEARN:  We wanted to know if this approach to enhancing community readiness to address climate-related risks works. Does it give people a better understanding of the problems they face, the options open to them, the reasons that experts and locals think differently about what is happening and what ought to be done, and the costs of taking different actions?  Does this approach to public engagement build capacity and political momentum? Does it change anyone's mind?  Does it legitimize the search for immediate "no regrets" actions as far as public spending is concerned?  Does it help the community see why adaptation is a local (not a state or a federal) problem?  To answer these questions, we used independent town-wide polling to establish a base line of public attitudes about climate change before and after the workshops, surveying more than 500 people. We held intensive debriefings with all participants at the end of each workshop. We interviewed almost 25% of the participants 4 - 6 weeks later to see what they remembered.  We did statistical analyses of the results across demographic groups within each community, between those who participated in workshops and those who didn't, and then compared the four communities in the four states. We prepared detailed Case Studies summarizing what we learned in each town. In the book, we summarize all of our findings.

3. RESULTS: A simple, but tailored one-hour game with a 30-minute debriefing can change minds with regard to the importance of climate change, the nature of climate risks, and the need for local action. People from almost all groups (except those so convinced that climate change is not a problem that they refused to participate) learned about the science involved, increased their sense that local governments need to act and became more optimistic that people in their community could and should act together to manage climate risks. Public officials and staff felt more empowered to take action in their respective spheres (public works, emergency response, health services, etc.) after seeing people’s hearts and minds change at the workshops.

4.  WHAT COMMUNITIES CAN DO.  Communities facing climate change-related risks have a few different options: they can do nothing and hope for the best. They can invest in emergency preparedness so they are better able to respond and recover from crises. They can "retreat" from the most vulnerable areas. They can try to defend themselves by building protective infrastructure and adopting new policies, such as land use regulations and building codes. They can mix and match elements of each of these strategies. Whatever they decide, they will need widespread support because it will take public and private cooperation and a continuous, not a one shot, effort to bring all but one of these options to fruition. Individual landowners, businesses, environmental activists, public agencies and taxpayer groups will have to work together. 

5.  WHAT WE LEARNED: Above all, communities must enhance their level of readiness if they expect to address climate risks. They will have to provide opportunities for widespread public involvement in something other than a few "town hall" meetings at which pre-packaged information is handed out and people are lectured at. They will have toh help taxpayers understand that there are "no regrets” moves they can make to reduce climate risks while simultaneously accomplishing other important objectives at the same time. For example, using this year's open space preservation money to create natural barriers along the shore can provide storm protection for private property owners, reduce saltwater intrusion into freshwater wetlands (protecting underground water supplies), armor waste disposal and electricity infrastructure, and minimize flood risks. 

6.  OUR TAKEAWAY: The sooner the U.S. shifts its focus to reducing local vulnerability to climate risks (so that everyone can see what the costs are going to be year after year as climate change accelerates), the sooner there will be more of a political constituency that wants to get at the source of the problem. So, unlike many who worry that any talk of adaptation detracts from global efforts to push for mitigation (i.e. reduction in greenhouse gases), we take just the opposite view.  We think the political pressure for mitigation is not strong enough to push for a global action plan or new US laws because people don’t recognize the costs to them today.  Now is the time to highlight what it’s going to take to help vast numbers of coastal and riverine communities all over the world avoid paying immense costs just to survive in the years ahead. When they see what it really costs to manage climate risks, we believe they will care much more about the underlying cause, and quickly become the missing constituency needed to push for global emissions reducing policies.

6. WHAT CAN YOU DO?  Get your community to play the serious games we have developed (or look for a range of local partners that will help adapt the games to your local conditions). Do a simple, anonymous assessment to understand what everyone's real views are at present on issues of climate change (you might be surprised!).  Use our before-and-after surveys to document the shifts that occur once people start attending workshops and playing the right games.  Get local officials and community activists to be the first to play the games and talk about what the results suggest for your community. Involve the local media in reporting the story.  Adopt a consensus building approach to formulating a collective risk management plan for the community. Don't wait for extensive state or federal direction -- it's probably not coming anytime soon. Emphasize the search for no-regret options -- things you can do right away that are good for multiple reasons AND will reduce your community's vulnerability to sudden climate change. 

You can order our book from Amazon.  You can learn more at scienceimpact.mit.edu.

Preparing for Climate Change Requires Collective Risk Management (CRM)

If I told you that your coastal city will probably face rising sea levels, more very hot summer days, and increasingly intense rain and snow storms, would you expect someone to do something? What exactly? And whose responsibility is it to take appropriate action?  Even if  the city wants to do something, what can they do to minimize the worst effects?

The Science Impact Collaborative at MIT has prepared risk assessments for four coastal communities in New England.   Here’s what one looks like (please click the images to view them in full screen format):

By downscaling global circulation models (and checking forecasts against actual meteorological data from local measuring stations) we can generate local forecasts for the near term (about 20 - 30 years in the future), the medium term (about 50 – 60 years into the future) and what we are calling the long term (about 80 – 90 years in the future).  All the towns we looked at are very likely to get hotter and wetter.  You can see all the details about the forecasting methods and our findings at necap.mit.edu.

If I boil all the results down, and tell you that annual rainfall is going to increase 5 inches a year (or about 10%) over the next several decades, the number of times extreme rainfall happens (more than 4” in 48 hours) will double, sea level will increase between two and five feet, and the number of days with 90 degree temperature in the summer will increase from about three to as many as 30, would that worry you? After all, the worst effects might not happen during your lifetime (although they are very likely to happen during the lifetime of your children).   My assumption is that your first reaction would be, “What does this mean for me?”   Well, it means that if you live in a low-lying area, your house is going to be flooded periodically, and you are likely to be without electricity for extended periods.   If you live very near the shore, erosion might make your house uninsurable and unsellable.  If your mobility happens to be limited (by age or illness), you might need to evacuate periodically. And, you may have to stay in an air-conditioned location for long stretches in the summer. It could be that you will be at greater risk of suffering from airborne diseases of various kinds. In general, you can probably expect to be inconvenienced and even endangered on a regular basis.  Your drinking water supply could be at risk.

If everyone in your city is upset enough about all of this, you could press your elected officials to do something.  They could raise taxes and invest in various improvements to the town infrastructure (including roads, electricity transmission lines, drinking water, waste treatment systems, and even water-proofing public buildings).   They might buy a lot more emergency response equipment and arrange to have more trained personnel available.  They might try to reduce the vulnerability of coastal properties by building seawalls or other blockades, although these are very expensive. They could impose new zoning and development restrictions or “buy out” property owners in the most vulnerable areas.  They could adopt revised building codes requiring everyone to build new houses up on stilts or with first floor “breakaway panels” so that water can run through without destroying the whole structure.  Some of these are things that individual property owners can do on their own, most require permission of the local government or collective efforts.

In our surveys, many people are pessimistic about the ability and willingness of their local officials to take action.  They are not optimistic that officials will take climate change risks into account when they make new infrastructure investments today.  It makes no sense, for example, to build a wastewater treatment plant by the harbor (even if the town already owns the land there), if that facility is likely to be flooded out or destroyed multiple times during its 30-40 year life. But, if no one pays attention of the kinds of risks we have outlined, that’s just what will happen.  Can you imagine having to invest multiple times in rebuilding the same facility because no one bothered to take climate risks into account when they chose the site or designed the facility in the first place?

If we publish a list of possible actions your town can take to prepare for climate risks, along with a price tag for each possible move, it’s probably fair to say that there will be substantial disagreement about what should be done.  Some people won’t want the town to take any action.  Some will be indignant about having restrictions placed on what they can do with their own property (even though they will certainly expect to be rescued at town expense in the next big storm and will blame officials if they can no longer purchase property insurance because the town failed to take obvious risk reduction steps).  Until and unless the whole town gets together, educates itself about the likely risks, inventories possible adaptation strategies and reaches agreement on the best way to proceed, nothing is going to happen.

Our work has focused on designing and testing low-cost strategies for preparing coastal communities to take collective risk management decisions.  It turns out not to be that hard.  In a couple of hours, we can help large numbers of residents attending regularly scheduled meetings of organizations, social clubs, homeowner associations or business groups, to learn what they need to know and see how easy it is to generate informed agreements when people listen to each other and take each other’s views seriously. If this is something you want to your community to do, learn more at the New England Climate Adaption Project, the Science Impact Collaborative, or the Consensus Building Institute. 

What To Do in a Risky and Uncertain World

Have you ever noticed that all the writing about risk perception and risk assessment assumes a unitary mind?  One single decision-maker is always trying to figure out what to do in the face of some potential hazard -- a possible earthquake, tornado, hurricane, sea level rise, terrorist plot, and something equally terrible. In actuality, most risk management choices involve collective decisions.  Whether our community decides to build a sea wall to protect coastal properties from storm surges isn't up to one person.  We need to make a collective choice.

Societal risk (R) is calculated as follows.  First, figure out the probability (p) of a hazard occurring (H).  Then, multiple that by the impact (I) the hazard will cause if it does occur.  R = p (H) x I. If there is a 1% chance of a flood occurring in our community in a given year,  and major (100 year) floods in the past have done a $10 million in damage, then the annual societal risk associated with a 100 year flood is $100,000 a year.  Easy, right?  Well, first we have to be able to forecast the likelihood that a major flood will occur in a given year. Climate change is making that hard to do.  Whatever the past pattern of flooding has been, it may be changing.  And, it is not easy to calculate the impacts of a major flood. The $10 million figure is probably just a measure of average property damage in the past. What about the long-term impacts on the natural environment and all the ecosystem services that will be lost if soil or wetlands are washed away?  And, there may be loss of life or injuries involved.  How should we put a price tag on those losses?  And, the psychological and emotional damage involved in losing one's home or neighborhood is not insignificant. If our community has to decide whether to build a $1 million sea wall to protect some, but certainly not all, coastal property, the costs and which benefits on different groups in the community have to be assessed, and priorities have to be set.

The more uncertainty attached to an estimate of societal risk (in terms of both p (H) and I), the more difficult it is to reach agreement in a community about the measures that should be taken.  Risk management can sometimes reduce the probability of an event happening.  Most of the time, though, risk management measures are aimed at reducing impacts. So, if we have an emergency evacuation plan, and we practice it ahead of time, we can avoid some of the costs (i.e., deaths and injury) when the hazard occurs. There's a cost to preparing and rehearsing. And, not everyone will want to pay the costs involved. If the "best" risk management approach involves restricting what is allowed to be built near the shore, or imposing new construction methods, other groups are likely to object.  Some will oppose such measures because they will experience additional costs if those measures are implemented. Others will object in principal, arguing, for example,  that individuals have a right to build where they want and the way they want.  Of course, the costs to the rest of the community (of having to provide emergency evacuation services to those who refuse to move, or needing to build and maintain roads and other infrastructure for the benefit of people who refuse to move, or facing higher town wide insurance premiums and lower bond ratings) are rarely taken into account in these conversations.

So, risk management involves collective choices, but the theory and practice of risk management always seem to assume a single (rational) individual will weigh all of these costs and benefits and do what's best.  When there are multiple stakeholders, and they stand to gain and lose different amounts, while holding different views on what ought to be an individual's responsibility and what should be the government's responsibility, risk management decisions become extremely contentious.

One approach to dealing with these difficulties is to rely heavily on technical or scientific expertise.  If there were a way to produce an indisputable forecast of the likelihood of H occurring and the  likely impacts (I) if it does occur, there would still be differences among stakeholders with regard to the actions that should be taken, but at least everyone would be working with the same forecast.  As it turns out, the "systems" we need to model are quite complex.  And, even if we add a lot more computing power, the complexity and uncertainty involved in most socio-ecological system interactions makes forecasting extremely difficult.  This means that the task of reaching a collective judgement about how best to handle R is doubly hard.  We can't get a definitive forecast AND we have different views about the appropriate response to whatever forecast is available. As climate change adds even more uncertainty, the job of managing the risks associated with sudden climate change becomes even more difficult.

Another approach, one that de-emphasizes the search for a definitive technical forecast, is called scenario planning. This is a technique that begins with a wide range of possible forecasts (each the result of starting with a different driver of change). The task of risk management involves searching for "no regrets" actions that will reduce societal risk whichever "future" materializes. So, for example, instead of building an expensive sea wall that protects only a few coastal properties, a community might decide to build up natural barriers along the shore that provide some additional protection to all landowners AND enhance ecosystem functions at the same time (whether or not there is a terrible storm). While this may not protect a particular property owner as well as a sea wall if a ferocious storm occurs, it will provide a range of community benefits every year that more than justify the collective investment.

Scenario planning assumes we can not produce a reliable forecast of societal risk.  So, like a financial investor trying to figure out where to park his or her money for the long term, a community is better off with a diversified portfolio rather than a single bet.  Scenario planning provides a wide range of forecasts, each based on a different set of assumptions about p and I. They can use the full set to bracket the risks the community faces.  Then, they can ask which risk management strategy makes the most sense given the bracketed range of possible futures.

To make this work in practice, three things have to happen.  A broad set of stakeholder representatives in the community need to engage in scenario planning.  If they aren't involved directly, they are not likely to have much confidence in the multiple forecasts that emerge.  Also, they will probably need technical assistance to sort through the various risk reduction options and the likely costs associated with each scenario.  Second, the product of the scenario planning effort ought to be widely publicized.  Risk management is not something that should be turned over to elected officials to decide on a community's behalf behind closed doors.  The public needs to be heard once it has reliable information. There is no correct decision, only a plausible decision given all the concerns that the various stakeholders bring to the table.  Third, every community should probably put a collaborative adaptive management (CAM) strategy in place. When we are dealing with complex and uncertain systems, every move we make should be seen as provisional.  So, once we've made a move, we ought to monitor the results closely (as well as the results in other places where they have taken different approaches) so we can make adjustments.  Risk management needs to be a continuous process.

Most people haven't stopped to think about the chances of an earthquake occurring in the place where they live. Yet, at some point, some people decided to impose construction standards that could reduce the risk of death dramatically. If buildings have to be earthquake "proof," they are probably going to be more expensive. Even if we have very little confidence in our ability to predict the likelihood of an earthquake occurring (pH) or estimate the impacts (I) if it does occur, we will probably be glad that we live in an earthquake-resistant building.  I assume that the same thing is true about climate change. Even if we can't predict sea level rise or increasing storm intensity (pH) with much confidence, we have an idea that the impacts (I) would be enormous.  Super-Storm Sandy taught us that. If there are ways a community can increase its resilience and reduce its vulnerability (and achieve a variety of other goals at the same time), the collective choice should be relatively straight-forward.  Of course, this will only work if the community has access to the results of a transparent scenario planning process.

In a risky and uncertain world, we should treat risk management decisions as collective choices.  We should not pretend that we can forecast p(H) or I very accurately, or that there are "correct" risk management decisions.  Instead, we should commit to a transparent process of adaptation planning that yields the information stakeholders need to participate in collective choices.  And, we should admit that whatever actions we take are, at best, provisional, while we learn more and make adjustments.

Talking to Climate Skeptics

On Wednesday, November 10th, I had an opportunity to speak to a packed room of students and community residents at Harvard College seeking advice on how to talk to climate skeptics. The premise was that students would soon be heading home for Thanksgiving. They were looking for advice on how to talk to family and friends around the holiday table who either don't believe that global warming is happening, or accept the fact that the climate is getting warmer, but attribute relatively recent temperature changes to natural rather than man-made causes. To get things started, we heard from a local radio talk show host who really is a climate skeptic. He made it very clear that he doesn't trust Al Gore, is sure that scientists disagree about almost everything (because that's what science requires), and thinks that anyone who believes that climate change is the result of human activity (rather than cyclical natural phenomena) has been sold a bill of goods.

First, I tried to make clear that seeking to convert "non-believers" is probably a mistake, and is certainly no way to encourage constructive dialogue. Rather, I suggested, the goal of dialogue ought to be to share ideas, advance the cause of mutual understanding, and see what opportunities to reach agreement might exist -- in spite of fundamental differences in beliefs or levels of understanding. A number of the students present found this unacceptable. From their standpoint, the threat posed by the continued build-up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is so frightening, they are compelled to convince anyone who doesn't believe this to admit that they are wrong. These want to repeat and review what the vast majority of atmospheric scientists know to be true -- the atmosphere is warming; this is caused by the build up of greenhouse gases, particularly CO2 and methane; this build up is caused by human activity, particularly the burning of fossil fuels; and the end result will be a worldwide catastrophy -- sea level rise that will inundate vast coastal areas, particularly in the developing world; increasing storm intensification the will cause destructive flooding and Katrina-like devastation;increased drought in some areas and increasing numbers of extremely hot days that may cause massive eco-migration; more rapid spread of airborne disease, and irreversible harm to a range of marine and terrestrial species and habitats. The skeptic on the dais with me indicated that scientist can't possibly know exactly when and where such things will and won't happen (and he's right). He also insisted that even if warming is occurring, it is impossible to know for sure whether it is mostly or entirely a man-made or nothing more than a natural phenomenon.

That was my cue. I said I didn't think that mattered. I urged people interested in engaging in useful conversation with skeptics to shift their conversations to a discussion of risk -- to talk about risk and risk management. I used the example of earthquakes. We don't need to know for sure whether (where and when) an earthquake will occur to seriously consider taking action to minimize its serious adverse effects an earthquake would cause if it does occur. It turns out, we can require construction standards in new buildings that will protect people from collapsing structures. We can even retrofit existing buildings to make them more earthquake proof (although this comes at a cost). While there doesn't seem to be anything we can do to reduce the odds of an earthquake occurring, there are lots of things we can do (including organizing and practicing emergency relief efforts) to save lives and reduce misery and reconstruction costs when earthquakes do occur. Even if the majority of scientists are right -- that if we don't reduce to 350 - 450 parts per million of CO2 equivalents in the next fifty years the worst effects of global warming will be impossible to correct, we won't be able to reduce greenhouse gas emissions enough over the next three decades to mitigate the effects of global warming. So, given the chance that the many thousands of scientists around the world who study these issue might be right, we could look for things to do that will reduce the disastrous effects if climate change is, in fact, occurring. And, if we could find things that also serve to achieve other laudable objectives (that help almost everyone), why would anyone be opposed to that?

So, I suggested reframing the discussion around what is called adaptation. If we can switch to energy sources that don't involve the burning of fossil fuels, but instead rely on infinite energy sources like sunlight, wind, ocean waves, biofuels and the flow of fresh water, we may be able to simultaneously reduce the adverse effects of climate change (if it does occur), decrease our country's dependence on imported oil and gas, dramatically reduce the health dangers to human beings, minimize the ecological damage caused by air and water pollution and the degradation of surface lands, and create more jobs in our own country. This would be a "no-regrets" response to the possibility of climate change. Similarly, if we can help every household reduce the amount of electricity it wastes (especially at peak times), we can eliminate the need to build new power plants, thereby reducing everybody's electricity rates and saving all consumers money. Even if the risks are not fully predictable, a shift to renewable energy (especially if planned in a way that compensates anyone who suffers any losses in the short term as a result of the shift), would be a more desirable way to proceed. If you think about each component of climate change risk, it should be possible to brainstorm adaptive responses that minimize the chances of serious harm to the public and to the environment while simultaneously improving the economy, and enhancing social well-being. That's what you want to ask skeptics to think about. Ask them to join you in various "thought experiments:"

"Whatever you think the chances are that a buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is causing global temperatures to rise, and that such increases will trigger a host of dangerous and costly consequences, can we brainstorm cost-effective ways to reduce the harm that would occur if the worst happens and achieve a host of other benefits at the same time?"

Improved emergency preparedness in cities will help if flooding of the sort that occurred in New Orleans happens more often. (Increased storm intensity is one of the presumed effects of climate change.) It will also help cities whether any kind of natural or man-made emergency. Almost every city could do more at a modest cost to update and practice its emergency response procedures.

Investments in expensive transportation, wastewater treatment and other municipal infrastructure should probably be made greater consideration for the possibility of sea level rise, saltwater intrusion into fresh water marshes, and increased storm intensity. It would be crazy to be in a position of having to pay off infrastructure bonds long after a facility is no longer useable because we didn't think twice about climate change risks. Instead, by factoring the risks associated with climate change into infrastructure planning, safer locations or new designs for new facilities might be selected.

As we think about the possibility of a lot more hot days (over 95 degrees farenheit) every summer, what improvements might we make in public and elderly housing that would help people without air conditioning survive? It should be possible to design or retrofit public housing units and to add trees and plantings to keep these units cooler. It should also possible to designate public cooling centers along with ways of helping the disabled get to these locations during a heat wave. Many lives could be saved. These are things worth figuring out regardless of whether anyone is sure that the increase in the number of hot summer days over the past decade was caused by climate change. People died in Chicago two summers ago because of what is now called "the heat island effect."

When you getting into brainstorming sessions with skeptics, avoid asking yes or no questions. Instead ask "when, where and how" questions. How could we reduce certain risks while accomplishing other worthwhile goals? When we have the information in hand, and the public dialogue that follows could look at the full range of costs and benefits (and I don't just mean in dollar terms) what kinds of choices might be made? People with very different views about what climate change science allows us to know might still agree on useful steps to take to reduce the risks associated with climate change because these same activities would help them achieve other things they see as important.

Don't personalize these discussions. Focus on outcomes that would respect everyone's principles. Talk to people you disagree with in the same way you would like to have them talk to you.

Don't paint people into corners by saying something like: "Since science knows Fact A to be true, then you must agree that everyone ought to take Action 1." That will just provoke a counter-attack arguing that there must be someone (somewhere on the web) who disagrees wit Fact A. Moreover, everyone who agrees that Fact A is true will not agree that only Action 1 is the logical thing to do. Instead, ask "Forget for a moment whether Fact A is true or not. What are things that people who don't necessarily agree about Fact A would suggest are worth doing for a variety of reasons?

Climate Change: Adaptation vs Mitigation

There is a substantial risk that the continued release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere will cause a range of adverse impacts including global warming, sea level rise, intensification of storms, changes in historical patterns of rainfall (and drought), threats to endangered habitats and the possible spread of infectious diseases.  Even if the countries of the world agree to take aggressive steps to stabilize or reduce CO2 emissions over the next twenty to fifty years, there is still a strong possibility that the cumulative effects of past greenhouse gas emissions will cause sea level to rise and storms to intensify for at least the next several decades, and probably longer.   Think about the worst storm you or your family can remember and the damage it caused.  What if storms like that occurred every ten years instead of every 100 years? 

Given such risks, it makes sense to search for low-cost ways of reducing CO2 emissions. Collectively, such steps fall under the heading of mitigation. We also need to be thinking about how to reduce the severity of whatever impacts do occur. These are generally called adaptation measures.   In the same way that cities and towns plan ahead for natural disasters like earthquakes, they should take steps to deal with the risks posed by climate change and sea level rise. This is particularly true for coastal communities.

There is a consensus building approach to managing the risks associated with climate change. First, coastal communities need to forecast the likely impacts of sea level rise, storm intensification, changes in rainfall patterns, and potential public health threats. They need to identify the ways in which their community is vulnerable. While this is not easy to do, most communities have documentation of the worst storms that have occurred in their area and the damage they did.  If there are photos, these can provide particularly useful evidence of what a two foot or an six foot rise in sea level might mean.  Communities can use various computer-based forecasting and scenario-casting tools to anticipate the risks that they face. Then, they need to inventory their options.  What can they do to protect themselves?  Our team at MIT (http://scienceimpact.mit.edu) has identified five types of responses:  reduce the vulnerability of the built environment by removing certain important structures from harm's way or protecting them in place by adopting new building or land use codes; protect water and waste water infrastructure by increasing water supplies and decreasing demand; protect wetlands and wildlife by preserving existing assets and enhancing their resiliency; preserve farm and forest land in the same ways; and invest in public education (including emergency preparedness, evacuation strategies, and civil defense). Once a community has an inventory of policy options, it needs to organize a public forum to consider which options make the most sense from a risk management standpoint. A lot of groups and individuals will need to be involved in joint fact finding and collaborative problem solving. (Professional facilitation can make the job easier).   Finally, communities need to enhance their adaptive management capabilities.   That means clarifying which agencies and organizations have responsibility for monitoring risks and implementing risk management strategies given new information.  

These are not merely technical tasks, they involve political choices, particularly about what money to spend and what added restrictions to impose on private property holders.  Such decisions can't be left to experts.  Communities must engage representatives of all relevant stakeholding groups in making these hard choices.  And, since we are talking about very complex "socio-ecological systems," nobody is going to get it right the first time.  A process of continuous public learning and adjustment will be required.

The global battle goes on over who should pay for mitigation and whether we can restrict

CO2 emissions while simultaneously encouraging economic growth in the developing world and economic recovery in the developed nations. Whatever these decisions, however, there is a high likelihood that we have already begun to feel the effects of climate change.  We can not ignore the risks (think Katrina and what happened when that city's infrastructure was overwhelmed). A consensus building approach can make it easier to reach fair, efficient, stable and wise agreements about how best to adapt.