Social Dimensions of Climate Change: Lessons about Lessons Learned

The Social Dimensions of Climate Change:

Lessons about Lessons LearnedMichael Glantz

(CCB) Consortium for Capacity BuildingINSTAARUniversity of ColoradoMarch 5, 2009

NB: NOTES TO THESE SLIDES WERE UPDATED SEPTEMBER 2, 2014 BY MICKEY Pentti Sammallahti (Finland),

1975

Creeping environmental problems: rates as well as processes

High impact weatherForecasting by analogy: history has a future

Early warning systems

Floods

“Climate, Water, Weather & Societal Change: Ideas to think about” Michael Glantz, [email protected]: 303-579-4034

Seasons of superstorms?

DROUGHT

Resilient AdaptationLessons learned

about lessons learned

STUSpare Time University

Global warming’s “Tipping points”

• IPCC 1st to 3rd Assessments

• IPCC 4th Assessment

• Inconvenient Truth

• Nobel Prize

BUT, the spotlight has shifted

• From …

• WG 1 IPCC SCIENCE

•To … •WG 2 IPCC IMPACTS

“Impacts Research Seen as New Frontier” Science Magazine (October 10, 2008)

Millennium Ecosystems Assessment: an ipcc for

ecosystems• Ecosystems goods and services for Human well-being

BUT … What happens if we flip it around?

Human goods and services for Ecosystems well being

Putting last, first

• Current tendency– Social Dimensions of Climate Change (SDCC)• e.g.,IHDP (International Human Dimensions Program)

Also Consider ‘putting last, first’

“Climate Dimensions of Social Change” (CDSC)

US Global Change Research Program, 2000

How scientists see the climate system

We are now an integral part of the climate system

The changing climate and the “global stew”

My concern is … HOW TO …

1) Explain change in usable terms of variability, extremes and seasonality

2) Highlight the importance of early warning systems

3) Highlight “Forecasting by Analogy”, that is, Looking Back to Look Ahead”

4) Highlight lessons identified but not learned

5) Translate scientific information into street language

6) Energize Gatekeepers as well as Stakeholders

global stew

High impact weather

• Most weather events aren’t record setting or extreme.

• They get less attention

• Yet, high impacts cause ‘misery’, death, destruction

• Research them »along with climate

» change impacts blockbuster extremes.

WMO

Seasons of uperstormsand runs of years

1995 --- tropical storms lined up aimed at the US & Caribbean.

2004 --- unusual tropical storm year in Florida and in Japan

2005 --- tropical Atlantic storm season: 28 named storms

societies fear a “blockbuster” extremes each year --- – the worst flood, drought, fire outbreak, the worst fire,

possibility of more several blockbuster climate, water or weather events in a year.

Early Warning Systems (EWSs)

more important than governments might realize

Foreseeability:exploiting the value of “ordinary

knowledge”

• Provides a qualitative version of probabilities.

• It can improve public understanding of hazards and risk

• Is dependent on “ordinary knowledge” and ability to anticipate

History has a future:“look back to look ahead”

1) Forecasting by analogy (FBA)

1) FBA is a form of an early warning system

2) “history has a future”, when it comes to environmental changes.

3) Similar processes of degradation in similar ecosystems are occurring somewhere on the globe.

4) An environmental impact statement not needed, because the process has led either to success or failure elsewhere.

Thinking outside the box is the goal:

“Usable Science”

But, sometimes you need to think inside the box

So, Give History a Future !!

Creeping environmental change (CEPs):

Rates and processes of change1) CEPs are Long-term, low

grade but cumulative environmental changes

2) Governments have great difficulty focusing on CEPs

3) Quick onset changes get attention; slow onset are neglected, …

» Until, it’s a costly crisis

4) Rates of change are as important to monitor as are the processes of change.

5) CEPS can easily be “Forecasted by Analogy

Lessons learned … about lessons learned

1) Mea Culpa

2) Every report has recommendations or lessons learned

3) Similar lessons reappear for each disaster.

4) Recommendations must be come with ramifications

No Recommendations without Ramifications

Thinking downstream

• Adaptation– To climate change?... or– To a changing climate?

• Mitigation• Prevention

Mitigating the impacts of adaptation

•Bring back prevention, and …

•Consider “resilient adaptation”

Resilient adaptation

1) Concept used in psychotherapy

2) Resilient adaptation is a “flexible” response to an uncertain climate future.

3) Climate has been warming. Africans have been adjusting (coping) for three decades or so.

4) Now, we are going to inform African stakeholders how best to adapt?

5)Shouldn’t they be informing us?

“Slumdog Millionaire”• Q: How could you answer 12 difficult questions?

• A: “They asked me the 12 things I do know.”

Ordinary knowledge is valuable

Spare Time UniversityInformation is power. Sharing information is

empowering

1) This is an attempt primarily to reach poor and isolated people to empower and enfranchise them.

2) Use existing technologies, to edcate and train people in rural and isolated areas and in cities.

3) They can be educated in their own language to improve their lives.

4) They get access to information in a high school, university or training center.

Climate, Water and Weather Affairs

Educating educators and trainers

About the need for a multidisciplinary approach to undergraduate, graduate and

informal education

Make existing science usable

Stretch goalsA. Development prototype activity of Spare

Time University B. Develop an “All-Africa Center for

Climate, Water, Weather and Society”C. Catalyze development of a “northern

African University-based consortium” (for climate, water, weather and society)

D. Foster the notion of a “Capacity building by Proxy”

E. Foster multidisciplinary approach thru climate and water affairs --- of equal partners

Changing role of science science andand society

• Before the 1970s: “Science for Science” Campaign button

considered radical at the time

In 1970s: “Science for the People”

Uppsala Universitet: Field Season 1999 

After 2000: “Science with the People”

Today, we need all three roles of science