In my climate change course, we devote a week to discussing climate and past civilizations. Among the goals of that week is to erase the notion that climate change is inherently "bad", or inherently "good", from the student's minds. The effects of climate change on any system, whether a society or an ecosystem, depends on the adaptive capacity and the rate of the climate change. The same climate change that spelled the end of the Norse settlements in Greenland did not affect (ed. crowd-sourced copy editing) the well-adapted Inuit of the region.
A recent, and controversial, book hypothesizing that the Easter Islanders were not done in by "ecocide", as argued by Jared Diamond and most archaeological evidence suggests, led to some discussion about the societal resilience to climate change. All roads lead to climate these days, I guess.
Judith Curry concludes a post on the subject with this statement, which supports a dangerously simple view of adaptation to climate change:
Occam’s razor suggests that we should tend towards simplest theories. However, in complex coupled social-ecological-environmental systems, simple theories are almost certain to be too simple. The complexity of such coupled systems precludes simple cause-effect analyses. If we are arguing about such a system on the scale of Easter Island, what hope do we have of understanding and managing such interactions on continental or even global scales? Ecosystems eventually adapt to climate change and insults from humans.
The comments about Easter Island notwithstanding - we argue about places like Easter Island because it all happened in the past and thus evidence is disputable, not because we can't understand complex systems - this statement concludes with exactly the type of simple, blanket view of complex problems that we should be teaching students to avoid. Theories like "Ecosystems eventually adapt to climate change and insults from humans" are indeed too simple!
Ecosystems do adapt. In a broad sense. But the question is not if they can eventually adapt, because we don't live in eventually. And, regardless of the time frame, we must remember that adapt itself is a vague term. To estimate the impacts of climate change, or other human insults, in the real world, we need to delve deeper and dispense with the vague generalities:
1. Define eventually: At what rate can the system adapt? Is the change happening faster than ecosystems, or people, can adapt such that they stay in the present state?
2. Define adapt: What exactly does adaptation look like? Say, coral reefs can "adapt" (in a collective, rather than an individual biological sense) to climate change by killing off the less resilient species and growth forms. That, for example, may be what is happening in South Tarawa where I do field work. You've got reefs dominated by a single, weedy species, and little habitat diversity. This new adaptation may not be desirable for those who depend on the ecosystem.
That's science. You don't just assume away an answer ("oh, we'll be just fine") based on a pre-conceived notions of what's "good" or "bad". You gotta analyse the data, do the math, unpack how the system works.
Monday, September 26, 2011
The folly of broad statements about adapting to climate change
Friday, March 25, 2011
Climate change hits the big time
I received this "important" notice from "Desmond Tutu" today. You know an issue is important when it is being abused for email scams!
Perhaps the scam could also be seen as a unintentional bit of social commentary, on the fact that a lot of aid funding for climate change adaptation or awareness generally goes on international consultants rather than to people in developing nations.
Attention: Sir/Madam,
This is to inform you that the NELSON MANDELA FOUNDATION and WILLIAM J. CLINTON FOUNDATION in Collaboration with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change has held an Internet Raffle Draw, and your Email Address was among the 2010 Email Addresses that was
picked through the computer ballot system. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change/Nelson Mandela Foundation and William J. Clinton Foundation were conceived with the objective of human growth, educational, and community development, and to create awareness to the dangers posed on our planet by climate change.
To celebrate the 18th anniversary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change /Nelson Mandela Foundation and William J. Clinton Foundation in conjunction with the United Nations (UN) and the European Union (EU) is giving out a yearly donation of $ 900,000.00 (Nine Hundred Thousand United States Dollars Only) to 18 lucky recipients. These specific Donations will be awarded to 18 lucky international recipients worldwide in different categories for their personal business development and enhancement of their educational plans and to create awareness in their community on the dangers posed on our planet by climate change as a Result of pollution. Recipients are only eligible to be awarded this donation once. We therefore with great pleasure notify you that your email address happened to be among the eighteen email addresses selected for this Donation. BELLOW ARE YOUR WINNING DETAILS...
Please note that these donations/Grants are strictly administered by the UN. You are by all means hereby advised
to keep this whole information confidential until you have been able to collect your donation, as there have been cases of
double and unqualified claim, due to beneficiaries informing third parties about his/her donation. Finally, all funds should
be claimed by their respective beneficiaries, not later than 14 days after notification.
On behalf of the Board kindly, accept our warmest regards.
Regards.
Rev. Dr. Desmond Tutu
Foundation officer.
PLEASE HELP PROTECT/SAVE OUR PLANET.
Friday, July 23, 2010
Widespread coral bleaching over the past year
Maribo's been quiet the past few months because of field work, other research, the Canadian summer and a major case of blog exhaustion. I may be inspired to write more on the exhaustion issue later, we'll see.
In the meantime: Last year, I mentioned that several parts of the Indo-Pacific were at risk of coral bleaching in the coming year. The same El Nino event that melted the Vancouver Olympics and weakened last year's Atlantic hurricane season, did indeed cause coral bleaching across the Central Equatorial Pacific from October through the spring. We're still putting together the data for Kiribati (home of this whimsical coral).
The Pacific since sloshed back towards more neutral or La Nina conditions, the unusual warmth has been pushed to the western Pacific and Asia, leading to bleaching in Thailand, Malaysia and other parts of SE Asia. Add it all up, and 2010, which the data shows may end up being the warmest or second year in the observed temperature record, may end up also having the most extensive bleaching since 1998.
The management response in Malaysia is impressive. The Department of Marine Parks has banned diving in several popular dive sites in order to give the reefs the best chance to recover (the Telegraph):
"We expect [the corals] to recover or at least improve." Mr Abdul Jamal said The Department of Marine Parks claimed the damaged coral was solely the result of rising sea temperatures and not tourism activities.
However, Mr Abdul Jamal explained that by banning diving, the coral will be given time to regenerate naturally. The closures are likely to affect tourism revenue over the summer, but authorities argue the priority is to safeguard one of the country's main attractions – its coral reefs.
Will this ensure the coral reefs recover to the previous state? No, but it increases the odds. Short of covering the entire reef with a sheet, you can't really stop a bleaching event. But you can manage the system to encourage recovery. This is the type of management - of climate change adaptation - that many of us in the community have argued is necessary to help coral reefs survive the predicted warming over the coming decades.
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Climate change and human rights
I had a nice long interview about different aspects of climate change with human rights expert Darren Thorne as part of a new podcast series Human Rights and Wrongs, hosted by the Mark. As always, feedback and comments are welcome.
[Update] On the podcast, we discuss the pitfalls of Canada relying on the US to determine climate policy. One of the problems is that it may be a long wait. From the Globe and Mail:
Environment Minister Jim Prentice is signalling further delays in imposing greenhouse gas emission standards on the oil sector and other industries, saying Ottawa does not want to lose jobs and investment by driving activity out of the country.
The Conservative government is waiting for the United States to decide how it will impose climate-change regulations before acting here. And the U.S. Congress could take up to two years to pass legislation that sets caps on greenhouse gas emissions, Mr. Prentice told a Senate committee Thursday.
Add the delay to the fact that the whatever US legislation is produced will be tailored to the US economy (i.e. provide loopholes for industries that are more prominent in the US than in Canada), and there's even more reason to pursue a national strategy.
Friday, October 16, 2009
Can the world meet the high cost of adaptation?
A few weeks ago, I posted what are more or less the three themes of Maribo. The third theme:
Adapting to climate change is far more difficult and far more expensive than most people and most supposed experts assume. This comes from spending too much time and effort estimating the costs of mitigation here in the developed world, and too little looking the efficacy of local development and especially international development projects.
The only thing more challenging than agreeing on emissions policy and acceptable limits of warming will be agreeing on how and how much to fund adaptation. The financial support for adaptation in the developing world may be as big an obstacle block to a deal in Copenhagen as the emissions targets. From the NY Times:
Many developing countries have made it clear that they will not sign a treaty unless they get money to help them adapt to a warmer planet. Acknowledging that a new treaty needs unanimity for success, industrialized nations like the United States and those in Europe have agreed in principle to make such payments; they have already been written into the agreed-upon structure of the treaty, to be signed in Copenhagen in December.
We're not terrible good at funding or implementing adaptation in the developed world, beyond measures that protect society from near-term threats. And thus far we've been reluctant to fund adaptation in the developing world, where the impacts of climate change are expected to be greater and the ecological and societal resilience is generally lower. Again from the NY Times:
Perhaps even more troublesome, the United Nations Adaptation Fund, which officially began operating in 2008 to help poor countries finance projects to blunt the effects of global warming, remains an empty shell, largely because rich nations have failed to come through with the donations they promised. The fund now holds about $18 million, a tiny fraction of what it was supposed to have, according to fund officials.
Funding, of course, is only one first step. Using the money wisely, and avoiding the top-down style that often limits the effectiveness of international aid, is another story entirely. More on that in the coming months.
Monday, August 31, 2009
More on climate change adaptation
In a Wall Street Journal op-ed a few days back, Bjorn Lomborg offered a list of ways that technology can fight global warming. Lomborg, the fingernail scratching across the climate scientist's blackboard, has rightfully upset a number of experts by once again playing loose with the facts and language. Bill Chamedies from Duke does a fine job pointing out Lomborg's most egregious errors and deceptive sleights of hand.
There's one seemingly innocuous passage in the op-ed that touches on the very concern I expressed in the previous post on adaptation:
A group of climate economists at the University of Venice led by Carlo Carraro looked closely at how people will adapt to climate change. Their research for the Copenhagen Consensus Center showed that farmers in areas with less water for agriculture could use more drip irrigation, for example, while those with more water will grow more crops.
We could also build levees in New Orleans strong enough and high enough to withstand a category five storm. That doesn't mean it will happen. The challenge of climate change adaptation is not identifying what is technically possible. It is overcoming the cultural, organizational, political and economic hurdles to implement that which is technically possible.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Climate change adaptation and the lessons of Hurricane Katrina.
The fourth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina making landfall in the Gulf Coast passed this weekend with news about the state of the New Orleans economy, the ongoing recovery effort, and a presidental radio address. The common thread in all of the analysis is the magnitude of the challenge in coordinating and implementing better "hurricane preparedness" plan for New Orleans and the Gulf Coast.
The potentially catastrophic impact of a category three or stronger hurricane on New Orleans was no secret before Katrina hit. The knowledge that the levees and storm protection systems were inadequate to withstand a large storm surge did not spur investment to improve the infrastructure, restore the coastal wetlands and/or a prepare a better emergency management plan. Four years hence, despite the very real evidence of Katrina, the US government is still struggling to ensure New Orleans is protected from another category three or stronger hurricane.
This is the challenge of adapting to climate change. This is why I argue that "adapting to climate change is far more difficult and far more expensive than most people and most supposed experts assume."
There are really two separate questions to ask. First, are we capable of adapting to climate change? Second, will we actually implement the adaptation activities?
Forget for a moment the scientific uncertainty about how climate change will affect hurricane frequency and strength. Instead, think simply about today. Think about adapting our society and our infrastructure to deal with hurricanes, or another climate event, that happen under the background natural variability in the climate system.
Are we as a society investing the time and the money to construct the social and physical infrastructure required to minimize the impact of hurricanes (or other extreme events)? Moreover, are we investing even more time and money to construct the social and physical infrastructure in developing nations that are currently far more vulnerable to extreme events?
Finally, are these efforts successful?
Look at how difficult it is for the wealthiest country in the world to develop the necessary protection in one of its own cities. Even if the will is there, and the money is there, it may not happen. President Obama's address dealt with the challenge of coordinating such a large effort:
To complete a complex recovery that addresses nearly every sector of society, we have prioritized coordination among different federal agencies, and with state and local governments. No more turf wars – all of us need to move forward together, because there is much more work to be done. I have also made it clear that we will not tolerate red tape that stands in the way of progress, or the waste that can drive up the bill. Government must be a partner – not an opponent – in getting things done.
This is, again, in a wealthy nation four years after a storm that any meteorologist or atmospheric science student could have told you would happen one day. Now imagine doing this not just at home, but also for other less-developed countries through complex international aid, with imperfect knowledge of the future climate. Adapting to climate change will not be simple. Even with the ability and the resources, it might not happen.
That is the message of point #3 in the three themes of Maribo post.
Monday, August 24, 2009
What we should be saying about climate change
Some end of summer thoughts. Consider these the three new themes of Maribo:
1. Climate change is not an "environmental" problem. The non-linear, multi-factorial and time-varying dynamics of the climate system make the problem of climate change radically different from most classic "environmental" problems. As such, we can learn more about how to address climate change from studying other grand societal challenges, like poverty or racism, than other environmental problems.
2. In general, we have a very poor understanding the effect of climate variability, climate events or "shocks", and climate change on our lives. In the western world, this comes in part from being largely isolated from the everyday reality of weather and climate. It is also comes from wrongly placing different types of climate change impacts (precipitation, sea level rise) and climate change impacts of different regions (droughts in the prairies, droughts in sub-saharan Africa) into separate mental boxes. In an interconnected, globalized world, the rain doesn't have to stop falling in your neighbourhood for you to be affected.
3. Adapting to climate change is far more difficult and far more expensive than most people and most supposed experts assume. This comes from spending too much time and effort estimating the costs of mitigation here in the developed world, and too little looking the efficacy of local development and especially international development projects. More on this later.
I plan to return to these three themes, especially #3, again and again.
