Societal adaptation key element with climate change

originally published March 2, 2008 in the Terre Haute Tribune Star

The conference I attended the first week of February in London was titled: “Living with Climate Change: Are There Limits to Adaptation?” This international conference drew together the leading scholars in the world who study social adaptation to climate change. This is a new area of research, the first scholarly article published on the topic was in 1990.

It matters little whether climate is changing due to human activity or not. Recent polls indicate a sizable majority of Americans, better than 70 percent, believe human activities are at least partly contributing to the phenomenon. The climate is warming.

Adaptation is nothing new: humans have been adapting for thousands of years. However, the pace of this current change is going to force a more conscious adaptation on humanity’s part. The last such rapid change was about 5,000 years ago. It is not likely that humanity was aware of the change as we are today.

Most people think climate change is linear and as the climate warms we will adapt in an incremental manner. No one at this conference saw it that way. Instead, the scholars believe it will be abrupt, with many thresholds of mostly irreversible changes. Adaptation will not be like going down a gentle slide. It will be more like falling down stairs.

Our culture, institutions, religion, and technology will both constrain and help us adapt. Adaptation is going to be, in the end, a local phenomenon. A 1.5 degree Celsius increase in worldwide temperature will flood Miami. Will they adapt by building seawalls, much like London is already beginning to do? Will Miamians migrate inland and north, leaving behind their once-valuable properties? Will the rest of us bail them out for their property losses?

What strategies will Midwestern farmers favor who depend on rainfall for crops? Rainfall here is expected to increase, making mechanized planting and harvesting difficult in muddied, wet fields. The dry period farmers depend on to dry crops and fields for harvesting is likely to disappear.

One scholar demonstrated potential value-based conflict inherent in responses to future adaptation policies. She asked who are risk-takers, meaning the type to ski down a hill without a helmet, to not save money for a rainy day, to invest money in risky ventures as much for the thrill as for the payoff? And, what was our view on equity? Did we think that government should help those who need it most or whether government should help the most people? The way people answer these questions form four possible combinations and these form the axis of future political conflict as democracies face adaptation policies.

Many attendees were climate scientists who are working with social scientists on these questions. I was struck by their certainty about two things. First, that the atmosphere is warming and, second, that humans are contributing to that warming. They were the killjoys who noted several times the irony in 250 scholars of climate change and adaptation leaving such a large carbon footprint. Not to be outdone, I noted the use of bottled water from Scotland, instead of tap water, and the many imported foods. Almost by design, the mayor of London started London’s new Low Emission Zone in London that week. London is the most air-polluted city in Europe. The new program, as you can imagine, was met with mixed reviews.

I met one person who welcomes a warmer London climate. He is a 65-plus-year-old Londoner who was swimming in Hyde Park’s Long Water (a man-made pond built for Queen Caroline in 1730). He told me he swims every day, regardless of the weather. He invited me to see Peter in the bathhouse, that he had an extra suit if I would like to join him for a swim. “No thanks, I have to get to my conference that begins in a few minutes.” He told me that he doesn’t like to swim when there is ice on the Long Water. “No kidding,” I thought to myself. Trying to be polite, I said to him, “Yes, I can imagine icy cold water is hard to swim in.” He told me not because of the cold, but that “ice is sharp and can cut your skin, very bad.” He was thankful for last year’s record warm winter and the mild weather London was experiencing that week. It was about 45 degrees as we spoke.

Here is one chap who is already adapting to climate change.

Cosmopolitan London Quickly Sheds Stereotypes

published February 17, 2008 in the Terre Haute Tribune Star

I spent the first week of February in London. This was my first time traveling outside North America. I was there on academic business, a conference and meetings with new colleagues at King’s College.

I did very little “typical” tourist things, although Monday was my lightest day, made more so by an ill colleague who cancelled our meeting. Like a cancelled class, I made the most of it. Within sight of the campus is the London Eye. Think of a huge, slow moving Ferris Wheel, owned by British Airways. I purchased a ticket and got in line for my 36 minute “flight.” Before boarding the “capsule,” passengers go through a security check point. My bag was searched, I was patted down, wanded, and just before we entered the capsule, a 2-person security team swept the capsule with electronic devices. These were greater security precautions than on my overseas flight!

I expected Londoners to be pasty and tweedy. They are pasty but not tweedy. I was a bit disappointed with the lack of tweed because I wore my tweed jacket in order to “blend.” According to my new British colleagues, I looked “very American” in my tweed blazer. I also felt very large. I rode the Tube (the subway) to downtown London every morning. I saw very few people as large as me, both height and girth. I noticed there were very few “fat” people in London. Could it be that when you go through “passport control,” if you can’t fit through the rather narrow turn styles, that the British authorities just don’t let you in the country?

A “row” occurred in London while I was there. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, said he could see a future where Sharia (Muslim religious law) is recognized in Britain. That caused quite an outcry. It dominated the headlines for two days in the tawdry British tabloids. London is multicultural. The two college campuses I visited both had Muslim prayer rooms as did Heathrow Airport. I found restaurants offering cuisine from all over the world in a three block area, including fish and chips and scones. My “full English breakfast” was prepared and served by two Filipinos. My fish and chips and two British brews were chosen and served by an east European. My hotel’s front desk was staffed by a Lithuanian, a Swede, a Bangladeshi, and a Romanian. A Russian straightened my room every day.

There is assimilation. There is pluralism. There is separation and segregation. I suspect it has always been this way in London and in all other cosmopolitan cities of the world. Cosmopolitan or a “world” city is multicultural. French Huguenots built a church in London. They later joined the Church of England, only later to become Methodist, then the church became a Jewish synagogue and is now a Muslim mosque. The original building remains but its inhabitants changed. Isn’t that evidence of adaptation and integration?

I am encouraged when I watch a young Hindu man tutor a Muslim family trying to figure out the rail transportation system. I know exactly how the Muslim family feels because a Londoner did the same for me on my first day at Paddington Station.

Londoners are very polite; even the transplanted ones. Despite “suspended” trains, “diabolical” delays, and very intimate stranger contact on packed “tubes,” I never saw any bad behavior. Even when things screwed up, Londoners responded in a calm and civil manner. This is made even more amazing given how diverse London is; it is one of the most diverse in the world.

Even the dogs are polite! I crossed Hyde Park to get to my conference at the Royal Geographical Society. The British love their dogs. Lots and lots of dogs and only about half are leashed. This worried me because I thought surely the ruffian dogs would jump up on me and get me muddy. But the dogs were very much like the people: civil, polite with a quick nod and smile and on their way.

This baffled me. Did the British train their dogs that well? Was I succumbing to the stereotype of the proper British Higgins character on Magnum, PI?

On my last day I figured it out. While walking around the Long Water in Hyde Park I happened upon a most British sign. It read: “Do not allow your dogs to chase, worry, or injure the wildlife.”

Tourists are just part of the wildlife in London Town.