US can’t turn blind eye to climate change
Within the next 10 years, the tiny Alaskan village of Kivalina is likely to vanish, a victim of global climate change.
Warming temperatures have eroded the ice that once protected the settlement, in addition to thawing the permafrost.
These factors have resulted in erosion that now makes the people of this tiny settlement some of the first Americans facing the specter of becoming climate change refugees.
Many individuals consider this a local, albeit tragic event. Kivalina and its fellow villages are far from any population centers and uniquely vulnerable to the changing climate.
However, much as miners once used canaries to detect noxious fumes before they became dangerous to humans, Kivalina should serve as a warning to all Americans regarding the threat of failing to prepare for the impact of climate change.
It is now extremely unlikely that the world will be able to effectively mitigate global climate change. It will be necessary to pursue a policy of adaptation rather then prevention.
As climate change starts to impact other inhabited areas, both the short and long-term economic cost of adaptation will rise dramatically.
Effectively man- aging a response to these trends will require long-term planning, rather than simply waiting to respond to a crisis as it happens.
Most importantly, unlike a storm or other transitory disaster, there will be no “waiting out” climate change, but rather a need to adapt to a new norm.
In addition to the physical issues relating to climate change, the US and other nations will have to make longterm plans to handle the economic cost of a changing climate.
As climate change makes various regions less tenable, mortgages and other investments in those areas may find themselves becoming worthless.
This does not simply apply to coastal areas, as climate change may render large parts of US agricultural land useless, adding increased food prices to the already staggering cost facing the world.
However, in the US, resistance to the idea of climate change has become something of a religion in some quarters.
One merely has to look at North Carolina, where a 2012 bill essentially banned the use of any new information in predicting the future rate of sea level rise.
Backed by individuals fearing potential damage to North Carolina’s coastal real estate market, the bill symbolizes how a lack of effective planning can result in later harm.
While the residents of North Carolina may be free to build now, of course they will be far more vulnerable to changes in the future because of the politically mandated refusal to consider how climate change and sea level rise will impact the state’s economy and its inhabitants alike.
Eventually, the state will have no choice but to confront the effects of climate change. Nonetheless, much like Kivalina, at that point the homes and busi
nesses built in these areas may find themselves needing to be relocated at great economic cost.
Unfortunately, due to the size of the US economy, the impact of a failure to adequately prepare for the effects of climate change will be felt far beyond its borders, much as it was a US economic meltdown that helped trigger the worldwide 2008 recession.
Leaving planning authority in the hands of state and local organizations will result in a disorganized and ineffective response to climate change. The federal government should establish a dedicated organization to help assist in planning and implementing a plan of adaptation to the challenges of climate change.
The strategy for a unified climate change response should include identifying those areas that are most at risk from climate change, determining what mitigation strategies will be most helpful and helping the inhabitants adapt to the challenges they will face.
Finally, any comprehensive plan must include a willingness to accept that in some cases; abandonment may be a wiser strategy than expensive and ultimately futile attempts to protect atrisk regions. Today, the story of US response to the challenge of climate change is one of missed opportunities.
Although Kivalina may seem far away, the warning it presents is a serious one.
Without effective and realistic planning at all levels of government, the price global climate change will exact from the US will be a very high one.