“1 decade down. 9 decades to go”:
Coping with climate, water and weather-related
hazards and disasters in the 21st century
Michael H. Glantz
University of Colorado
Boulder, Colorado
www.ccb-boulder.org
December 8, 2012
Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University APU)
Beppu City, Oita, Japan
Natural disaster word collage
Source: JimKimmartin.com
But first …
Some facts
SCEP 1970
•Focused on global
atmospheric problems
1.Global problems do
not necessarily need
global solutions
2.“In the foreseeable
future advanced
industrial societies
will probably have to
carry the major burden
of remedial action”
Man’s Impact on the Environment
Study of Critical Environmental
Problems (SCEP)
M.I.T. Press
Humans and the Climate System
Society is a part
of the climate
system and not
separate from it.
Climate Change Impacts on the United States, USGCRP, 2000
Physical changes
are to be expected
The climate is always changing
More Extremes are Expected:
but where?
2012 Report
Societal changes are also to be expected
Shanghai Harbor
1988
2004
“4 Laws of Ecology”
1.
Everything is connected to
everything else.
2.
Everything has to go
somewhere or there is no
such place as away.
3.
Everything is always
changing.
4.
There is no such thing as a
free lunch.
Citarum River, Indonesia
rekkerd.org/img/random/ citarum_pollution.jpg
Could these also be the “4 Laws of Natural Disaster” in the 21st Century?

✔
A ‘weighty’ analogy:
something to keep in mind
You can’t go home again:
• “You can’t recover the past”
• Return to an earlier CO2 level
will not necessarily return to the
climate once witnessed at that
level.
• The amount of CO2 already in
the SUBJECTS US to global
warming for the rest of the
21ST century.
A “loss of weight” analogy
The future is arriving earlier than expected
• 2020 is the new 2050
• Disappearing Arctic sea ice
• Melting Glaciers worldwide
• Warming global temperature
• Ecosystems moving upslope
• Rising sea level
The 21st century’s first decade:
Some attention-grabbing disasters
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
2000 Mozambican floods
2003 European heat wave
2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami
2005 Hurricane Katrina
2005 Mumbai Floods
2008 Myanmar Cyclone Nargis
2008 China’s winter storms
2009 Australia’s Black Sunday
bushfires
• 2010 Russian heat wave
• 2010 Pakistan’s Mega Floods
European Heat Wave, 2003
The second decade (so far):
Some climate, water and weather-related disasters
• 2011 East Japan Great
Tsunami
• 2011 Thailand floods
• 2012 Super Hurricane Sandy
2012 Afghanistan avalanches
• 2012 US devastating drought
• ** 2012 Super Typhoo Bopha
• 2011/12 Rapid melting of
Arctic sea ice
• “Will 2012 top 2011 for
record weather disasters?”
News Headline
** December 3, 2012
Historic 'Super Typhoon'
Bopha Smashes Into
Philippines: 'Most
southerly typhoon ever
recorded in the Western
Pacific' expected to
bring 'life-threatening
impacts'
Disaster-related News Headlines
“2011 Worst Year for Disasters in
History...2012 Will be Worse! Are You
Ready?”
The Tornadoes Of 2011: The Worst
Natural Disaster In The United
States Since Hurricane Katrina
Under the Weather: The disasters just keep
piling up
Under the Weather: The disasters just keep
piling up
A “Teachable Moment”: Super Hurricane Sandy, October 2012
1.
2.
3.
A reaffirmation that all coastal cities are
vulnerable, rich and poor cities alike
4.
Climate change and urbanization rates
and enhancing the risk to extremes
5.
Highlighted the value of ‘soft’ measures
for coping with a changing climate:
effective institutional coordination,
rapid and accurate information and
timely decision-making, front-end
coordination, preparedness measures,
cooperation of government agencies,
effective monitoring and early warning.
6.
7.
Every disastrous extreme event
is a “teachable moment” identifies
lessons for future consideration.
Step-like change in the US in views
about climate change and the need to
take action on adaptation
Media attention focused on Sandy’s
impacts on the USA and not on the
impacts in the Caribbean (Cuba, Jamaica,
Haiti, the Bahamas). WHY?
8. A local storm can have global
implications (NYC is a global
financial center)
Governments are not ready
for consequences of global warming
• Response to Hurricane Sandy in 2012
is a major success, when compared to
responses in 2005 to Hurricane
Katrina (America’s costliest natural
disaster)
• Government responses for Sandy
were …
– faster, more efficient, more effective,
better executed (so far), more equitable,
more caring of victims’ needs, top-down
and bottom up approaches were taken,
etc.
What a difference
a lesson and
leadership make!
Learning by Analogy:
East Japan’s Great Tsunami provides
lessons for coping with climate change
1. Quick recovery is sometimes impossible. Be prepared for it.
2. Bad situations can continue for a long time.
3. Prepare many people to cope with disasters because victims are
the real first responders.
4. Uncertainty–based risk management is necessary.
5. We cannot predict exactly when, where and how a disaster will
occur, but can prepare for uncertainties.
6. Preparation of many risk scenarios may be useless.
7. Too many risk response manuals act as ‘societal tranquilizers’
8. Keep records in more than one locality (e.g., medical
information).
Super Hurricane Sandy Response:
was it as good as it gets?
1. Pre-election government response guaranteed the best
possible response
2. Reliable forecast of the hurricane
3. Credible warning a few days in advance
4. Responses to Sandy show resilience of infrastructure, of
government, of people, of neighborhoods
5. Attentive political leaders at all levels
6. Opposing political ideologies were put aside
7. Response was not perfect but perhaps as good as it could
be
An example of foreseeability:
An increase in Superstorms
The focus today is on adaptation
But, should it be?
Disaster risk reduction and climate change
adaptation: Linking or Sinking
Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR)
Climate Change Adaptation (CCA)
•Coping with existing hazards
•Disaster preparedness
•Short term focus; getting back
to normal, better or different
•Identifies prevention needs
•Concerned with future hazards
•Sustainable development
•Mid- to long term focus
•Does not deal with prevention
•
•
•
•
•
Each has its own bureaucracy
Each has its own time dimension
Each has its own own vocabulary
Each has its own concepts
BUT, both worry about DISASTERS
CCA DRR
Definitions of Resilience:
3 variations of a concept
1. The ability of the community to withstand
the consequences of an incident.
2. The power of recovery to original shape
and size after removal of the strain which
caused the deformation.
1. The capacity to adapt without harm.
We can disagree on what resilience is,
But we know what it isn’t !
Dynamite
fishing
in the
Philippines
Introducing Resilient Adaptation
(Luthar, 2003, CUP)
• A process that is a
flexible, incremental
approach
• to adjusting to
foreseeable adverse
impacts
• of an uncertain
changing climate in
the future.
What’s needed
for effective resilient adaptation
1. Early Warning
systems
2. Foreseeability
3. Expect surprises
4. Improvization
5. Precautionary
Principle
6. A focus on “Plan A”
Heightened value of
early warning systems
Foreseeability:
One form of warning
• Scientists rely on probabilities
• For a hazard’s occurrence
• For its potential impacts
• Use foreseeability
• A qualitative version of probability
Foster creative responses:
improvization and innovation
• Improvization
• To invent, compose, or perform with little or
no preparation
•
Is is an intuitive “process of structuring the
unknown”
•
To perceive, understand and make sense of
what is experienced
Victims are the true “first responders”
(ZORs: ZERO ORDER RESPONDERS)
Expect climate, water and weather
surprises
• Not all ‘surprises’ are
‘unexpectable.’
• I was “semi-surprised”
• “almost surprised”
• “hardly surprised”
• “a little surprised”
• “sort of surprised”
• “somewhat surprised”
There are “foreseeable surprises”
Hurricane Katrina 2005, USA
Plan A:
“Precautionary Principle”
• “Governments should
not use the lack of full
scientific information as
a reason to postpone
action to prevent
serious irreversible
environmental damage”
» World Lake Vision
Committee
FOCUS ON MITIGATION,
REDUCE GHG EMISSIONS AND
ROLL BACK CO2 LEVELS
Planet Earth is now Global Warming’s
“Ground zero”
(b)
(c)
(a)
Seems people have chosen (a)
There are many …
“Plans B”Geo-engineering ideas to stop Global Warming
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Mirrors in space
Mimic volcanoes
Brighten clouds
Carbon sequestration
Iron particles in ocean
Global tree planting
Go nuclear
Go renewable energy
www.lightwatcher.com/ chemtrails/smoking_gun.html
While there are
many “Plans B” …
SMIC 1971
1. “We recognize a real
problem: global
temperature increase
produced by man’s
injection of heat and CO2
… may lead to dramatic
reduction even elimination
of Arctic sea ice.”
2. “This exercise would
be fruitless if we did
not believe that
society would be
rational when faced
with a set of
decisions that could
govern the future
habitability of our
planet.”
Inadvertent Climate Modification
Report of the Study of Man’s
Impact on Climate (SMIC)
Edited by SMIC
M.I.T. Press