Unfortunately, freight ships don’t turn around quickly, and we have pushed the climate change ship too far down the line to avoid consequences. The throes of climate change are upon us. Our hurricanes are more furious and more frequent. Our droughts are longer. Our temperatures are hotter. The air is drier. Wildfires start quickly and spread with vengeance. When rain comes it causes extreme floods and landslides. Our oceans are expanding causing loss of real estate. The death toll is multiplying.
Adaptive capacity is defined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Cllimate Change (IPCC) as, “The ability of a system to adjust to climate change (including climate variability and extremes) to moderate potential damages, to take advantage of opportunities or to cope with the consequences.” Adaptive capacity is our ability to adequately respond to the questions we are facing: What are our governments’ abilities to respond quickly, sending aid to people affected by climate disasters? How can we build our communities to withstand searing heat and floods? How can we adjust our food resources when farmland ceases to produce crops because of drought? How do we drink when water supplies are contaminated by rising ocean levels? Are we ready for the mass migrations as people flee drought, flood, loss of clean water and food, and political unrest? How do we relocate people whose entire communities are lost to sea-level rise? How do we train these people for new ways of providing income for their families when jobs are eliminated? Do we have the capacity to inform people about the resources available to them?
Developed countries with advanced infrastructures and industrialization, high income per capita and standards of living will be far more able to adjust and adapt to their changing climates than developing countries with tumultuous governments, primitive farming methods, little export, and rapid population growth. Without assistance these people will experience great physical misery, suffering and death.
Even within developed countries we will see a chasm between the “haves” and the “have-nots”. We will see those with resources and education finding their way to a better life. Yet the impoverished will be forsaken. Every environmental event will leave them with fewer options for employment, housing, transportation, and health care.
As we saw when Syrians, with their children and elderly in tow, walked across the desert by the thousands trying to escape drought, famine, and the resulting civil war, we will see large scale climate migration within the next few years. And, as with the Syrians, borders will close as societies are no longer capable of accepting the overwhelming number of people seeking asylum. We in the United States will see refugees from Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean.
The non-governmental National Intelligence Council concludes that economic, environmental and human resources are essential elements of determining the adaptive capacity of a region. This includes the ability to deliver aid swiftly to those affected by disasters, education so people can change livelihoods, unmanaged land that can be brought into production, and institutions that provide knowledge and assistance in times of change.
With foresight, the UN established the Green Climate Fund. With multi-governmental oversight and ways to measure results, this fund takes the voluntary contributions of developed countries and private donors and disperses it to developing countries with the goal of helping them mitigate and adapt to the coming climate changes. This approach helps insure the safety of developed countries. Perhaps short-sighted, when President Donald Trump announced the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, he criticized the fund, calling it a scheme to redistribute wealth from rich to poor countries. To quote “World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity,” “This is not altruism, but enlightened self-interest.” Fortunately, U.S. governors and mayors, and leaders around the globe realize the imminence of adversity. They continue the fight against global warming by creating, implementing and generously sharing plans for curbing greenhouse gas emissions and for preparing their citizens to handle the new reality.
Freight ships don’t turn quickly, but they do turn. We might not see relief soon, but if we all do whatever little we can to decrease our own contributions to global warming, I have hope that we can save our planet for future generations. Follow my sojourns to discover what is successfully being accomplished to rescue cities in climate peril, and to visit, conceivably for the last time, places that may be lost to us forever.