I’ve been traveling, so I’ve only been keeping up with the news sporadically. But this front page NYT story from Monday, about Chicago (and other cities) preparing for climate change, deserves mention. It also highlights the parallel (but strikingly different) universes of the climate change debate. In her piece, Leslie Kaufman nicely displays the disconnect…Continue Reading…
Over at Frontier Earth, some musing about beaches, climate change, and homeowners beating back an advancing sea.
That’s what I’m wondering, anyway, over at Frontier Earth.
Actually, it’s David Roberts at Grist, and he recommends that adaptation undergo a linguistic makeover to make it more palatable. More on that in a minute. What’s most notable about Roberts’ post is that he has had a change of heart on an issue that, based on my own anecdotal experience, will be met with…Continue Reading…
The Economist explains why adaptation has long been marginalized in the climate debate: The green pressure groups and politicians who have driven the debate on climate change have often been loath to see attention paid to adaptation, on the ground that the more people thought about it, the less motivated they would be to push…Continue Reading…
Well, I’m not gone yet. I just read this op-ed in today’s NYT by Thomas Homer-Dixon, which is related to, um, a certain controversial post. Count Homer-Dixon among those who believe it will take a major, unequivocal climate shock to spur worldwide action on global warming. Meanwhile, he writes: Policy makers need to accept that…Continue Reading…
Several weeks ago, a varied group of distinguished scholars released a provocative treatise, called The Hartwell Paper: A new direction for climate policy after the crash of 2009. It got a decent splash of media coverage. The Economist wrote an excellent overview and analysis. The BBC’s Richard Black posted a respectful and mildly critical review….Continue Reading…
More proof that environmentalists can’t chew gum and talk about climate adaptation at the same time comes in this post from David Roberts at Grist. The cognitive dissonance from this crowd continues to amaze me. As we learned earlier this year, the carbon load already in the atmosphere is projected to lead to irreversible climate…Continue Reading…
I had no idea that NYC was taking such a pro-active approach to climate adaptation. When I read stories like this, which also discusses how other major cities in the world are making similar plans for a hotter, more turbulent climate, I can’t help but wonder if climate change debate has broken off into two…Continue Reading…
I don’t understand how someone can call himself a climate change “pragmatic” and entirely dismiss the need for adaptation. Let me see if I get Joe Romm’s logic right: The tragedy of Katrina demonstrated that we can’t do adaptation, so why bother? I understand that Romm and many other climate advocates regard talk of adaptation…Continue Reading…