{"id":346248,"date":"2024-10-10T15:02:00","date_gmt":"2024-10-10T13:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=346248"},"modified":"2024-10-10T15:02:02","modified_gmt":"2024-10-10T13:02:02","slug":"resilience-and-adaptation-mitigation-demotion-ahead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=346248","title":{"rendered":"\u201cResilience and Adaptation\u201d: Mitigation Demotion Ahead?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From Master Resource<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Robert Bradley Jr.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cMitigation has had far more attention than adaptation\u2026. So thanks to various people who alerted me to a new guide to the often-ignored subject of adaptation\u2026.\u201d (- David Shukman, below)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The failure of climate mitigation policy grows ever more obvious. It was 36 years ago (1988) that the debate began on the front pages of the New York Times<\/em> <\/a>and other leading newspapers, and look where we are now. A tripartite fossil fuel boom<\/a> \u2026 grassroot backlash<\/a> against wind and solar installations \u2026 growing federal budget deficits<\/a> with Green Energy bribes<\/a> \u2026 and a significant divide in regard to nuclear<\/a> and geoengineering<\/a> as \u2018climate fixers\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the crisis is upon us<\/a>, then the \u2018climate dollar\u2019 must go toward resilience and adaptation (R&A), not mitigation that has no effect on global climate for decades. David Shukman<\/a>, BBC News Science Editor turned \u201cIndependent Consultant\/Storytelling Expert,\u201d recently posted<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

A good friend once said our bodies can travel by jet but our souls have to walk.

I felt something similar with the contradictions of Climate Week in New York \u2013 finding positives amid the traffic fumes and hot air. With the Amazon burning and northern Nigeria underwater, immediate dangers are getting more attention, as they should, giving the week\u2019s insipid slogan \u201cIt\u2019s Time\u201d some meaning.

And dealing with those dangers is now edging into the mainstream, at last. It\u2019s a good sign that Boston Consulting Group (BCG)<\/a>, spotting a commercial opportunity, could rustle up a dozen speakers to talk about adaptation. Or is it resilience? Or \u2018A and R\u2019? Actually who cares, I thought, gazing out from the 45th floor, as long as new investments save lives in future fires and floods.

One problem is that \u201cprevention doesn\u2019t have a business case\u201d \u2013 credit to <\/a>Dr. Ashwin Vasan<\/a> for that memorable line, at a Reckitt<\/a> Bupa<\/a> roundtable on healthy cities at the Goals House<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Shukman continued:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

You might think it would be screamingly obvious to use less fossil fuel not only to slow the rise in temperatures but also to reduce air pollution to cut asthma cases to lighten the burden on hospitals, a beneficial chain reaction. Apparently not, though the case is gaining ground.

As with the two billion people whose health and productivity would be immeasurably improved by access to clean water, a scandal that\u2019s \u201cunforgivable\u201d according to \u2013 name drop \u2013 <\/a>Matt Damon<\/a>, co-founder of Water.org<\/a> which enables millions to get micro-loans to fund new water connections.

Hearing this master storyteller, it occurred to me that specifics like water supply \u2013 at risk from higher temperatures and increasing drought \u2013 are the best way to describe the effects of climate change\u2026.

Before I left, I spent a few hours in Queens, an often forgotten side of New York that has a view of the Manhattan skyscrapers but feels like another planet. <\/a>Yoselin Genao Estrella<\/a> introduced me to victims of flooding. Rain was forecast, making everyone edgy, because the heaviest downpours fill their basement apartments with sewage and threaten lives.

This is where the acronym \u2018A and R\u2019 really matters, because getting it right will make people safer in a climate that\u2019s becoming more hostile. Much more to follow.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

In the comments, Shukman added<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u2026 waking up to the realities of our new climate. So thanks to various people who alerted me to a new guide to the often-ignored subject of adaptation\u2026.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

And<\/a>: \u201cMitigation has had far more attention than adaptation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One reader asked<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

So did all of the hashtag#climateweek<\/a> high-flyers come up with the simple great idea of (deeds not words*) stopping flying to climate conferences, here on in? Pledging hashtag#flightfree<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I hope so. Been waiting decades for you to come up with that one. You know, \u2018being the change\u2019 \u2018walking the talk\u2019 \u2018leading from the front\u2019 \u2018teaching by example\u2019 And acting as if the truth is real. \u2018Flying to climate conferences\u2019 was a sick joke 30 years ago. A good idea like this could go a long way. And save our souls.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Shukman (meekly) responded<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Totally fair point. I\u2019m sure everyone there, like me, believed that somehow their presence was making a difference whether through a well-timed nudge or a revealing insight or providing something useful for others to take back to their bosses and help make a case for change. For each of us, there\u2019s the unavoidable fact that others, like you, will judge us which is never comfortable and which rightly forces some serious self-scrutiny.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

I commented<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Resilience and adaptation have been at the core of the free market, wealth-is-health \u2018climate policy\u2019 since the beginning. Substitute \u2018weather\u2019 for \u2018climate\u2019, and this is the argument for the beginning of humankind.

\u201cClimate livability\u201d

\u201cThe popular climate discussion \u2026 looks at man as a destructive force for climate livability \u2026 because we use fossil fuels. In fact, the truth is the exact opposite; we don\u2019t take a safe climate and make it dangerous; we take a dangerous climate and make it safe. High-energy civilization, not climate, is the driver of climate livability.\u201d \u2013 Alex Epstein, The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels, pp. 126\u2013127.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Final Comment<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Climate mitigation policy is at war with itself. Extreme weather from whatever cause, natural or anthropogenic, calls for immediate relief\u2013and resilience\/adaptation for next time. Mitigation policies are a crap shoot and decades out versus the present. Many birds loose in the bush versus one in the hand, so to speak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And with resilience\/adaptation increasingly chosen, the \u2018negative externality\u2019 of manmade greenhouse gas emissions is increasingly internalized by anyone\u2019s math. Added to the saturation effect ((diminishing returns)) of CO2 forcing, it is increasingly game-over<\/em> for the climate activists. May free-market wealth-is-health policies win.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Appendix<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

My exchange with David Shukman went further.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shukman<\/a>: \u201cRob, you\u2019re right that mitigation hasn\u2019t cut emissions so far but the effort has been hampered in no small way by the denial, distraction and doubt whipped by fossil fuel interests, you\u2019d have to agree. Now, however, cost reductions for renewables are starting to change that picture. And on the question of living space, when did you last visit an oil field or open cast coal mine?!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bradley<\/a>: \u201d \u2026 the effort has been hampered in no small way by the denial, distraction and doubt whipped by fossil fuel interests\u2026\u201d

Far too simple and conspiratorial. Billions of consumers have strong preferences for the best energies\u2013those that are the most affordable, available, and reliable. Those are the stock energies from the sun, not a very dilute flow that is intermittent.

Oil fields and coal mines produce very concentrated energies that are easily neutralized and covered up. Peter Huber made this point well (versus solar\/wind sprawl):<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cThe greenest fuels are the ones that contain the most energy per pound of material than must be mined, trucked, pumped, piped, and burnt. [In contrast], extracting comparable amounts of energy from the surface would entail truly monstrous environmental disruption\u2026. The greenest possible strategy is to mine and to bury, to fly and to tunnel, to search high and low, where the life mostly isn\u2019t, and so to leave the edge, the space in the middle, living and green.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Hans van der Loo commented<\/a> to both Shukman and me:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

at this moment we (wrongly) believe capturing trickle flows of solar energy with metal intensive rebuildables, somehow can replace multi-million years of stored ancient solar energy. However, Physics does not agree with that notion. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The failure of climate mitigation policy grows ever more obvious. It was 36 years ago (1988) that the debate began on the\u00a0front pages of the\u00a0New York Times\u00a0and other leading newspapers, and look where we are now. A\u00a0tripartite fossil fuel boom\u00a0\u2026\u00a0grassroot backlash\u00a0against wind and solar installations \u2026\u00a0growing federal budget deficits\u00a0with\u00a0Green Energy bribes\u00a0\u2026 and a significant divide in regard to\u00a0nuclear\u00a0and\u00a0geoengineering\u00a0as \u2018climate fixers\u2019.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":346251,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_crdt_document":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[691830868,691818118],"class_list":{"0":"post-346248","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-climate-mitigation-policy","9":"tag-green-energy","11":"fallback-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/0governing-transformation-strategies-for-climate-change-course-image.jpg?fit=1600%2C1066&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paxLW1-1s4E","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":365953,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=365953","url_meta":{"origin":346248,"position":0},"title":"Net Zero Cure Worse Than Climate Change Disease","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"13\/02\/2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Although people like Antonio Guterres have made the foolish claim we have entered the era of global boiling, we have to acknowledge that the world has warmed a bit since pre-industrial times. The alarmist response to this is Net Zero which is an example of a so-called mitigation strategy that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"carbon dioxide (CO\u2082)\"","block_context":{"text":"carbon dioxide (CO\u2082)","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?tag=carbon-dioxide-co%e2%82%82"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/0Screenshot-2025-02-13-161633.png?fit=1200%2C567&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/0Screenshot-2025-02-13-161633.png?fit=1200%2C567&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/0Screenshot-2025-02-13-161633.png?fit=1200%2C567&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/0Screenshot-2025-02-13-161633.png?fit=1200%2C567&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/0Screenshot-2025-02-13-161633.png?fit=1200%2C567&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":335295,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=335295","url_meta":{"origin":346248,"position":1},"title":"David Turver: The Net Zero cure is worse than climate change\u00a0disease","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"02\/07\/2024","format":false,"excerpt":"We hear a lot about how we are supposedly in a climate crisis and how The Science\u2122 tells us we are about to succumb to global boiling. 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