I’ve spent a lot of time and energy talking about the need to adapt to climate change, but I’ve also become increasingly uneasy about “adaptation” as a way to think about the situation. One of the things I don’t like about the term “adaptation” is that it suggests that we actually can, at some expense, restore ourselves to the same position we would have been in without climate change. For any given amount of climate change, we can do things that decrease the resulting harms (at a cost), but we can’t eliminate those harms. Adapting to climate change is like “adapting” to a serious chronic disease — you can get by, with luck, but it’s still not like being healthy.
But there’s also an important conceptual issue. The idea of adaptation assumes that the world will go along more or less as it always has, except that we’ll take some specific actions due to climate change to neutralize its effects. This makes sense if we think global warming is just a marginal change. But given our current trajectory, climate change, adaptation, and mitigation may go beyond marginal impacts. Climate change may well have wide societal effects, and mitigation efforts themselves could be major enough to shift the economy. Moreover, both mitigation efforts and actions to address climate-based risks will have environmental impacts of their own. ”Adaptation” suggests a marginal quality to climate change that may be quite misleading.
As a comparison, suppose we were to ask which policy decisions in L.A. were adaptive responses to the existence of automobiles. It would really be a kind of meaningless question in the sense that everything about L.A. has been shaped by automobiles, and everything people do is tied up, one way or another, with the city that cars have created. Asking which current L.A. policies are “adaptations” to the automobile is almost a meaningless question.
I hope we can keep climate change down to a level that limits impacts on society to easily identified marginal changes — but that’s far from being a sure thing. In the worlds of 2060 or 2100, where people live, what they do for a living, the rate of economic growth, even the alignment of political interest groups, could be shaped by a different climate, by an economy with a different energy base, and a built environment that has changed due to climate risks. In such a world, it makes little sense to talk about adaptation costs, because the baseline of a world free from climate change has become irrelevant.
Showing 2,834 results
Daniel Farber | November 26, 2013
I’ve spent a lot of time and energy talking about the need to adapt to climate change, but I’ve also become increasingly uneasy about “adaptation” as a way to think about the situation. One of the things I don’t like about the term “adaptation” is that it suggests that we actually can, at some expense, […]
David Hunter | November 26, 2013
Efforts to hold private companies responsible for their contribution to climate change just took a big step forward, thanks to researcher Rick Heede. For the past eight years, Heede has painstakingly compiled the historical contribution of fossil fuel companies to today’s concentrations of greenhouse gases. According to Heede’s study ”Tracing anthropogenic carbon dioxide and methane […]
Robert Verchick | November 26, 2013
It’s not easy to stare into the eyes of a dying man. But that is what David Michaels, the head of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), wants you to do. A video called, “Deadly Dust,” featured on OSHA’s website, introduces Bill Ellis, a retired painter and sandblaster. After years of exposure to fine particles of […]
Anne Havemann | November 21, 2013
Lately, press releases from the Maryland Department of Agriculture read like a broken record: MDA Withdraws Phosphorus Management Tool Regulations; Department to Meet with Stakeholders and Resubmit Regulations — August 26, 2013 MDA Withdraws Phosphorus Management Tool Regulations; Department to Consider Comments and Resubmit Regulations –November 15, 2013 The second headline is from this past […]
James Goodwin | November 21, 2013
When it comes to OIRA’s antiregulatory meddling, the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) pilot fatigue rule provides as textbook an example as you could ask for. Following Congress’s instruction that the rule be based on the best available science regarding human sleep patterns, the agency drafted a rule that set minimum rest standards for all commercial pilots. But, […]
Anne Havemann | November 20, 2013
Maryland’s effort to limit pollution from massive industrial animal farms in the state is falling behind. A new CPR Issue Alert finds that the state has not registered 26 percent of Maryland’s concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) and Maryland animal feeding operations (MAFOs), missing out on tens of thousands of pounds of pollution reduction in […]
Rena Steinzor | November 20, 2013
When we all sit down for Thanksgiving dinner next week, we hope that the food we are feeding our families is wholesome and that the workers who produce it are safe. Thanks to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), ever the mindless booster of corporate profits, that turkey at the center of the table already […]
Matthew Freeman | November 20, 2013
Yesterday, Catherine Jones, CPR’s Operations and Finance Manager, received Public Citizen’s 11th annual Phyllis McCarthy Public Service Award, in recognition of her contributions to the organization and the nonprofit community. Catherine’s been with CPR for eight of our eleven years, and she’s been a lynchpin of the organization for most of that time. CPR began […]
Lisa Heinzerling | November 18, 2013
The Food and Drug Administration recently announced its tentative determination that most of the trans fatty acids in our diets – specifically, partially hydrogenated oils (PHOs) – are not “generally recognized as safe” within the meaning of the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, and thus must be regulated as food additives. If the FDA finalizes this […]