Adaptation Network

Building Resilience in a Changing Climate

Publications

Occasional Newsletter III

WELCOME: from Beth: Greetings. We have been in such a period of growth we’ve delayed publishing! First, I want to welcome our co-director, Lynne Carter, and point you to her lead article in this issue, and thank her for turning our Occasional Email into a newsletter. How do you like it? What kinds of changes do you want to see? And importantly: what do you want to know, and what can you add? Until next time, and with thanks for your care for adaptation,
Beth

WHAT IS ADAPTATION?: Some Early Thoughts from Lynne
Adapting, adaptation, adaptedness—all, according to Merriam-Webster’s, mean change to better match present or future circumstances. Adaptation can mean adjusting to environmental conditions to avoid negative impacts or to embrace positive consequences of change. This is what I mean, too, when I think about climate change adaptation and the Adaptation Network. By looking at present and likely future environmental conditions, we can see that climate is changing. As humans we know what it means to have our natural environment change and to be able to prepare for it through changes in our built environment: we know that the seasons will cause us to need a variety of clothes and housing because winter is colder and summer is warmer. Change, then, can and does affect us in both our natural environment and in our built or human environment.

Adaptations we make to climatic change need to be aimed at making systems more resilient and healthy now and in the long run. Resilient, healthy systems can better withstand perturbations of all types than systems that are unbalanced or at the edge of their survival. Making a system more resilient could mean reducing pressures that are already stressing the system. It could mean providing greenways and migration routes for plants and animals that need to move to better match the environment that is best for them. It could mean restoring natural floodways to allow the natural system to better protect the built environment. It could mean investing in long-term projects that reduce vulnerability (of people, infrastructure, or even investments) rather than increasing it. It could mean investing in educating the public to increase their awareness and availability of more environmentally friendly choices and options open to them. In short, adaptation action can vary greatly from on location to another. That is also why adaptation may require a significant level of planning and feedback prior to and following implementation.

When making a decision to adapt to some future climatic condition, it would be unwise to make that decision based on any extremely specific projected value or future date. Rather the answer might be looking at the trends that the models are suggesting along with the trends that are beginning to show themselves. Trends will continue for generations—even if mitigation is extremely successful—so we must plan accordingly. So for decision-making, trends are one important factor. Another is vulnerability. Mapping projected and observed trends with already identified vulnerabilities will give some indications of where one might consider starting to think about developing adaptation options—at any level.

Levels of adaptation decision-making are many. Homeowners may, for example, decide to plant not the traditional horticultural choices but instead choose options that grow more readily in the new/projected environment. They may work with other citizens in a town to develop neighborhood resiliency plans. Cities and towns may look at areas of present vulnerability—for example, where it always floods during heavy rains, and make changes to the drainage of particular locations because they have learned that the problem will likely increase or become more frequent. States or regions may look to changes in laws or regulations that could for example, make developing long-term reservoir plans and systems work differently. National governments may support adaptation by offering grants to develop local models aimed at supporting choices of local decision-makers. So a variety of levels of decision-makers can make adaptation decisions.

There are many approaches to planning or choosing adaptive activities and all have their appropriate place in a planning repertoire. Vulnerability assessments are probably well known and were mentioned above. Others are scenario building, hazard planning, and what ifs/how much (would have to happen to see a particular negative impact or reach a threshold). When deciding to make adaptation to climate changes, we need to be cognizant of not choosing an adaptation just because it is easy now if in fact it could make the problem worse in the long run. It is important to consider consistency in any short-term decisions with the longer-term perspective of adaptation and reducing the vulnerability or building the resilience of society or the natural environment. It would be a waste of money and time to make adaptations to immediate problems that do not translate into long-term solutions. In fact all adaptive actions should probably be in the win-win-win category. By that I mean that it is a benefit now, a benefit in the future, and could still be a benefit whether the climate changes as projected or we are surprised.

Network News

• The Adaptation Network is delighted to announce that we are now a part of the Earth Island Institute (EII) family of projects. EII is our fiscal sponsor. All your gifts to the Adaptation Network are now tax-deductible to the full extent of the law. For more on Earth Island and its other projects, see www.earthisland.org.
• Sid Gale of IMC Controls in CT, a notable adaptation activist, gave a presentation on climate impacts to the CT Joint Legislative Environment Committee’s day-long workshop on Climate Change on 3/13/07; and testified on 3/16/07 in favor of Senate Bill 1432 (CT Senate), Section 4, to initiate a state study of impacts.
• The Adaptation Network co-sponsored with the Center for Humans and Nature (CHN) a two-day working meeting, Adaptation to Climate Change: Expanding Our Moral and Civic Imaginations to the Scope and Urgency of the Challenge. The goal was to assist CHN in integrating adaptation into their scope of work. CHN has offices in New York City, Chicago, and coastal South Carolina. The CHN website: www.humansandnature.org.
• We seek materials for adaptation curricula with students both K-12 and undergraduate. We recently assisted with a general studies/ethics curriculum that integrated adaptation with mitigation at Elon University, where the entire campus will read Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth in the fall. This called to our attention how few materials we’re aware of that cover adaptation in any way for any other than a specialist audience, and that show how to think about adaptation and mitigation together. Please share any you use or know of! If you’d like to be put in contact with other educators to develop or share materials, please contact us.
• We were very pleased that Climate Science Watch chose to highlight Lynne’s comments to the State Department on the US’ 4^th Climate Action Report as an example of “how it should be done” (). You received a copy of our alerts to comment on this report the US is required to submit under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, which, yes, the US has signed. Beth takes it as our first “win” that out of four comments we asked our members to make, the first one was to extend the deadline—and within days of our alert being issued, the deadline was indeed extended!

Regional Projects: This is a new section. Send in notes of adaptation being done or planned at community, municipal, county, state, or regional levels. Include description and contact information.

Connecticut: thanks to Sid Gale [sfgale(at)imcontrols.com] Town of Guilford Board of Selectmen recently passed a resolution to “recognize Climate Change as a phenomenon requiring long term governmental monitoring and management.” As a result, it recommends, “that all Town Departments consider impacts [of climate change] on planning, management, procurement and budgetary decisions and regulations.”

Adaptation News and Publications:

• EPA Encourages Adaptation
  EPA Cites Adaptation as Key Strategy for Climate Change Response: a brief article in the February 19 edition of Inside EPA cites a presentation by Dr. Joel Scheraga, National Program Director, Global Change Research Program, to the Center for Clean Air Policy in December 2006, as “urging local officials to pursue adaptation strategies as a major part of their efforts to respond to climate change.” Story available through Inside EPA, www.insideepa.com.
• EPA Water Office To Develop Global Warming “Adaptation” Strategy: another article in Inside EPA of March 9 cites the EPA’s Office of Water as starting a process “on development of strategies to adapt to climate change,” see Inside EPA, www.insideepa.com.
• Nature: A brief article in the scientific journal Nature (vol. 445, 2/8/07) was entitled Lifting the Taboo on Adaptation, written by Roger Pielke Jr., Gwyn Prins, Steve Rayner, and Dan Sarewitz. Its major point is that we must give adaptation priority in climate policy-making and see adaptation to climate change as sustainable development. Read the article at www.cspo.org/documents/NatureAdapt.pdf
• The Consortium for Science, Policy & Outcomes (CSPO) at Arizona State University, directed by Dan Sarewitz, has a project called SPARC—Science Policy Assessment and Research on Climate. CSPO is "dedicated to understanding the linkages between S&T and its effects on society, and to developing knowledge and tools that can more effectively connect progress in S&T to progress toward desired societal outcomes.” In early 2007, as part of SPARC, Sarewitz, Steve Dovers, and Roger Pielke, Jr. guest-edited Environmental Science & Policy in an issue devoted to carbon cycle research: Reconciling the Supply of and Demand for Science. All papers in this issue are available free online at:
• Canadian Climate Impacts and Adaptation Research Network (C-CIARN): “C-CIARN generates new climate change knowledge by bringing researchers together with decision-makers from industry, government, and non-government organizations”. C-CIARN is comprised of 6 regional groups and addresses 7 sectors. They have produced one handbook, a four-CD set on adaptation (food security, communities/ infrastructure, water resources, and coastal zones), and make available presentations from workshops and conferences, and a variety of information in searchable databases—all for free! Go to www.c-ciarn.ca.
• We recommend C-CIARN’s handbook, Adapting to Climate Change: An Introduction for Canadian Municipalities. It’s a superb tool aimed at the local level where municipalities and communities have not yet included adaptation in their planning processes. For those already developing adaptation plans, it can increase understanding.
• United Kingdom Climate Impacts Program (UKCIP): Another resource for adaptation in English is the UK Adaptation program found at . There are many tools and resources on this website. Their “adaptation wizard” for example is terrific.
• A Joint Publication: Sigma Xi, the Scientific Research Society, and the United Nations Foundation released, February 2007, a document entitled, Confronting Climate Change: Avoiding the Unmanageable and Managing the Unavoidable. The title clearly expresses the content of the document that encourages both mitigation and adaptation to climate changes. Single hard copies of the report are available free from the UN Foundation or the Adaptation Network. Copies are free online through Sigma Xi.
• Climate Change and Agriculture, Canadian Style: University of Guelph, Department of Geography, Occasional Paper 27: Farm-Level Adaptation to Multiple Risks: Climate Change and Other Concerns, by Belliveau, Bradshaw, Smit, Reid, Ramsey, Tarleton, and Sawyer is an interesting study in climate change adaptation as it specifically addresses the surrounding issues that can complicate and confound farmers choices of what and how to respond to climate changes. This is a C-CIARN sponsored research report.
• Climate Change and Northeast US Agriculture: Is the title of a new website that “provides a unique and comprehensive set of resource materials to help farmers make practical and profitable responses to climate changes.” This website contains many resources available for downloading at www.climateandfarming.org/index.php
• Lawsuit Update: In our last occasional email, you read about a lawsuit filed by the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD), Greenpeace, and Friends of the Earth in federal court November 2006 to compel the federal government to keep up with our National Assessments of climate change impacts and adaptation. Senators Kerry and Inslee are very publicly supporting the suit. Julie Teel, one of CBD’s attorneys writes us that the hearing on this case will be July 10 and that the case might be helped by the Supreme Court’s finding against the EPA in the climate-change mitigation-related lawsuit, MA v. EPA. Keep your fingers crossed!

Information Available: If you have resources to share, please let us know! We have the start of a library of graphics available as PowerPoint slides illustrating the need for adaptation and showing how it interfaces with mitigation. We would be happy to make these available to people who want to make the case for adaptation – we ask that you acknowledge the original author as your source.

• Dr. Robert Corell has allowed us the use of a presentation he recently made on climate change and the need and timing for adaptation.
• Sid Gale offers his presentation relating to adaptation needs for his town in Connecticut. He has some photos of flooded areas that might give others some ideas of approaches for discussion in their locales.

Funding Opportunities: This is another new section! Please share any funding opportunities that you know about and we will share them with the Network.

Thank You:

• to Mairi Pileggi, Director of the Women and Gender Studies Program at Dominican University of California for online resources on climate change and gender.
• to Rick Heede of Climate Mitigation Services for alerting us to the Pew Center report. The introduction is especially helpful.
• to Dr. Robert Corell and Sid Gale for their generously allowing us to offer their powerpoint slides for use.