The Tide Is Coming In…
There is a popular body of thought within the climate change debate which says that we would be better off focusing on adaptation to climate change rather than trying to prevent it. Focusing on our current problems, they say, and on those that might be brought about in the future as a result of a changing climate would be a far more effective use of our resources than trying to prevent something which is largely inevitable anyway.
For example, whilst the United Nations estimate that global warming will increase the number of people at risk of hunger from 777m in 2020 to 885m by 2080, it has been suggested that this problem can most effectively be tackled by funding better irrigation systems, drought-resistant crops and more-efficient food transport system.
As recently suggested by Professor Mike Hulme of the University of East Anglia, “If you’re really concerned about drought, those are much more effective strategies than trying to bring down greenhouse gas concentrations.”
Except…
Such arguments are difficult to challenge. However, as usual, there is another equally valid school of thought which says that some consequences of climate change will occur on a scale that is impossible to adapt to. As Stephen Schneider, a climatologist at Stanford University tells us: “You can’t adapt to melting the Greenland ice sheet. You can’t adapt to species that have gone extinct.”
Discussions in Eastern England last week seem to recognise aspects of this debate, with plans afoot to throw in the towel to global warming and abandon sea defences, conceding 25 square miles of Norfolk to the sea. Should the plans to “realign the coast” be accepted then six villages, hundreds of homes and thousands of acres of farmland would be wiped out over the next 20 to 50 years. Maybe not a disaster on a grand scale, unless of course you live there.
During much of the discussion here on TalkClimateChange we have the luxury of viewing issues from a hypothetical perspective. However, when looking at these very real problems, which are effecting people today as house prices plummet, one begins to see the adaptation vs prevention argument quite differently. Many people have supported the ‘adapt later’‘ approach instead of the ‘prevent now’ course of action, we suspect, because it is often easier to put things on the list for tomorrow rather than making uncomfortable decisions today. But the case of Norfolk shows that tomorrow is already affecting us today.
So what now?
Just as King Canute learned - you can’t stop the tide coming in, and reversing the climate processes that have already begun won’t be stopped even if by some amazing happening we all go carbon neutral tomorrow. The climate has simply become another variable of change that we will have to get used to, and the effects are something we will have to deal with.
What we should be wary of is that these lines of thought don’t become a distraction to the obvious imperative that we should try to stop throwing fuel on the fire at an ever increasing rate.
Reconciliation
What am I saying in this post? Simply that we need to pursue all strategies, and that there is no single course of action that we should commit to.
There has certainly been a spirit of reconciliation here on TalkClimateChange in the past week, with Daryl’s Red, Green and Blue in Me post, and my slow shift on the Nuclear Debate. However, I’m planning to return to the fray later in the week as I plan to take Daryl to task over this statement from his recent post:
That’s correct, it does not exist - the minuscule change in global temperature is insignificant to the planet and to the climate in particular. To even think that we can somehow pick our climate and control the patterns of storms and floods by regulating a gas created or consumed by every living thing on the planet is so amazingly arrogant that it defies explanation.
Until then..
This has been the argument from day one of the AGW non-debate. With all the real, existing problems in the world today, how is it better to ignore them and spend trillions for something that MAY happen in 50 years?
Can you point me to a documented case of a single species which has gone extinct due to AGW? And if you can, so what? There are millions of people dying of malaria and aids every year. No matter what, isn’t that a more important mission than mitigating a degree of temperature, or saving the purple sea knat?
How about the millions dying for lack of clean water for crying out loud. That’s a problem that can easily be solved, instead we get AGW to suck up all the available cash.
As far as moving people away from the coastlines, I think that’s a great idea. It’s a good adaptation technique that won’t break the bank.
And even if it doesn’t flood, you still have a nice beach.