“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

Natural disaster word collage

Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University APU)
Source: JimKimmartin.com
Beppu City, Oita, Japan
 But first …

Some facts
 SCEP 1970
•Focused on global Man’s Impact on the Environment
atmospheric problems
1.Global problems do
not necessarily need Study of Critical Environmental
global solutions Problems (SCEP)

2.“In the foreseeable

future advanced
industrial societies
will probably have to
carry the major burden
of remedial action” 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

 More Extremes are Expected:
Physical changes but where? 2012 Report
are to be expected

The climate is always changing

Societal changes are also to be expected

Shanghai Harbor

1988 2004
 “4 Laws of Ecology”
1.    Everything is connected to 
everything else.  Citarum River, Indonesia

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  rekkerd.org/img/random/

free lunch.  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 European Heat Wave, 2003
• 2010 Pakistan’s Mega Floods
 The second decade (so far):
Some climate, water and weather-related 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
Thousands flee as ty Thailand
phoon blows into P fl ood reac
hilippines hes Bang
kok
0 1 1 f o r r ecord
top 2
Will 2012 s t e rs ? ( R e u )
ters“2011 Worst Year for Disasters in
dis a
weather History...2012 Will be Worse! Are You Ready?”

C o u ld Drown
201 rms fornia
1, T Megasto rtions o f C a li
Eart he D s iv e P o
h i Mas The Tornadoes Of 2011: The Worst
Nat quakes saster Y
ural , e Natural Disaster In The United
Disa Tsunam ar for
ster is an States Since Hurricane Katrina
s dO
ther
Under the Weather: The disasters just keep
piling up bo o ks :
ve ls rise r ec ord
r a s sea le f o r the
in d ange warns ] y ear
s ta l cites ed, study A [ USA
O A A)
o a c t N
US c han expe 2 0 1 1(
t Under the Weather: The disasters just keep
faster
piling up
 A “Teachable Moment”: Super Hurricane Sandy, October 2012
1. Step-like change in the US in views
about climate change and the need to
take action on adaptation
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. Media attention focused on Sandy’s
impacts on the USA and not on the
impacts in the Caribbean (Cuba,
Every disastrous extreme event Jamaica, Haiti, the Bahamas). WHY?

is a “teachable moment” identifies 8. A local storm can have global

lessons for future consideration. 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 •Concerned with future hazards

•Disaster preparedness •Sustainable development
•Short term focus; getting back •Mid- to long term focus
to normal, better or different •Does not deal with prevention
•Identifies prevention needs

• Each has its own bureaucracy

• Each has its own time dimension
• Each has its own own vocabulary CCA DRR
• Each has its own concepts
• BUT, both worry about DISASTERS
 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

preparaton

• 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,
 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 Inadvertent Climate Modification
temperature increase
produced by man’s Report of the Study of Man’s
injection of heat and CO2 Impact on Climate (SMIC)
… may lead to dramatic
reduction even elimination Edited by SMIC
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 M.I.T. Press
habitability of our
planet.”