Adapting to climate change: A matter of dollars and sense

Are jobs lost by anticipating and adapting to climate change? No. But not adapting can put jobs, personal property, and lives at risk.

Climate change is already having significant impacts on public health, the economy, and the environment. The floods occurring now along the Mississippi are just one example of the impacts a changing climate could have. It is estimated that damages in Arkansas, Tennessee, and Mississippi could exceed $1.5 billion. Looking to the future, we’ll likely see more floods like these as the frequency and intensity of storms continue to rise. Lives could be lost, homes destroyed, factories damaged, and production disrupted. More frequent and severe droughts will threaten crops and increase the risk of economic losses for farmers. More rapid sea level rise and more intense storm surges will threaten coastal communities. More frequent and intense heat waves will threaten public health as the risk of heat stroke rises, potentially killing people or making them ill.

 

Vicksburg, MS, May 12, 2011  (Photo credit:  Howard Greenblatt/FEMA)

Common sense planning and smart risk management demand that communities anticipate and prepare for these impacts. However, some people have suggested that actions taken to anticipate and adapt to climate change could cost jobs and hinder economic growth. Does this make sense to you?

• How does the development of heat-resistant crops that enables farmers to cope with heat waves and avoid financial losses hurt the economy?
• How can the establishment of early warning systems hinder economic growth when they are designed to warn people of approaching storms and hurricanes to protect lives, homes, and valuable infrastructure?
• How can efforts by a community to increase water-use efficiency to prepare for more frequent droughts be a bad strategy? Isn’t the efficient use of scarce resources a smart thing to do if one wants to promote economic growth?
• How would the elimination of perverse economic incentives that encourage people to build in harm’s way (such as in coastal areas increasingly vulnerable to sea level rise, hurricanes, and storm surges) hurt the economy?

Adaptation isn't free, and common sense dictates that the resources used to support priority adaptation efforts not be wasted. But if used effectively and efficiently, society will be better off than if it doesn't take the actions necessary to avoid the negative impacts of climate change. Following the 1995 heat wave that killed over 500 people in Chicago, the city developed a new Extreme Weather Operations Plan.  It’s true that the tax dollars the city used to develop and implement this plan could have been used for some other purpose. But the choice the city made saved lives. Several hundred fewer people died when the next major heat wave occurred in 1999.

Would you have made the same choice as the city of Chicago, especially knowing the frequency of intense heat waves will rise as the climate continues to change? Or would you have argued that the expenditure of funds to pay people to develop heat response plans is wasteful and costs jobs?

The consequences of not adapting to climate change could be economic hardship, the loss of lives, and the loss of jobs. Adaptation is simply common sense planning and good risk management. It’s the smart thing to do.

Were the recent catastrophic storms in the southern United States caused by climate change?

Catastrophic storms roared through the southern United States during the past two weeks, killing dozens of people and destroying property in Oklahoma, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia, and Maryland.

When weather-related disasters like this strike, people often ask whether they were caused by climate change. The answer climate scientists invariably give is that no single weather event can be attributed to climate change, but the types of extreme events just seen are consistent with the predicted effects of climate change.

This response is unnecessarily equivocal. The climate that exists today in the southern states is the result of changes that have occurred over time. These changes have resulted in a climate that is now conducive to the formation of intense storms like the ones that just occurred, and in which intense storms are likely to occur more frequently than in the past. Similar changes are occurring around the country.

Are the recent catastrophic storms in the south a result of climate change? Yes.

Asking someone whether a particular storm was due to climate change is like asking Steve Jobs whether the invention of the Apple iPad was due to technological change. I've never had the chance to ask Mr. Jobs the question, but if I did, I'd hope he'd respond, "Of course it was! We're able to make dramatic breakthroughs like the iPad today because of advances in electronics and computer technology that have occurred over time. And the likelihood that we can make dramatic advances like this on any particular day is a lot higher than it was 20 years ago."

Questioning whether a particular weather event is due to climate change is no different than asking whether a technological breakthrough by Apple is due to technological change.

The next time someone asks you whether a particular weather event is due to climate change, your answer should be yes. And to the extent you believe humans are partly responsible for ongoing changes in climate, you should consider that we must take some responsibility for the disastrous weather events that are occurring today. They're not all just "acts of God."