The event has been blogged, with link to its podcast, by Justin Gerdis, who IMO did a stellar job.
Here I offer some bits not blogged there; and some event format feedback; and one piece of my-two-cents advice: namely, it probably makes more sense to watch or listen to the recordings than to attend these events in person, if you have any distance to travel.
Sat Dec 17th update: Minor edits, added photo.
Additional content, from my notes -
(Everyone said yes, weather's changing, it's getting more extreme, losses are rising.)
"Crop insurance startup" CEO Friedberg stressed that he doesn't address causality of adverse weather events when talking to current & future clients; no need, plus it could ruffle the feathers of those who hold different views. I believe he noted we expect regional changes in future; and "Texas is very difficult to farm right now."
Oppenheimer said there will be climate change winners and losers, region-wise, so "Global food supply probably won't be threatened [timeframe?]; but we don't have a global food supply."
Karen O’Brien agreed on the food supply problem. She noted the "winners & losers" projections are based on averages, so likely won't reflect the (future) reality, they may overlook extreme weather events. Norway got extreme rains this summer, so now has a butter shortage. (did I mishear the causality? were the cows drowned/washed away?)
Chris Field said in California the (main?) implication of climate change is reduced water security (from lower snowpack); and worldwide, we expect a greater % of precipitation falling in heavy rainstorms.
A consistent message from the panelists was that "things can be done" to adapt and reduce losses; e.g. Oppenheimer cited installation of early warming systems & concrete bunkers in low-lying southern Bangladesh, saying they've reduced storm-related mortality rates by a factor of ~100. (But adaptations that are dramatically effective in the short run can be rendered futile by further change; and nobody asked what'll happen in Bangladesh when the sea level rises another 5 or 10 (or 20 or 70) feet.)
Oppenheimer did say adaptation alone wasn't sufficient response to climate change, that mitigation was needed.
But to my recollection nobody used the excellent metaphor I heard today on the "Governor’s Conference on Extreme Climate Risks and California’s Future" webcast: that the effect of adding climate change to the weather mix is akin to having a kid do a cannonball into the bathtub when it's full, vs. when it's only half full.
(my two cents, YMMV, etc)
I would have liked to hear the panelists talk more among themselves, giving them more freedom to shape the discussion, but it was mostly the host firing off questions and the panelist(s) answering. This format wasn't ideal but the Qs were intelligent & worked fairly well, until the end, when the host moved into personal-action territory, & didn't seize the contextual opportunity to address or ask about the relative importance of various personal actions. And while some panelists addressed the personal effectiveness issue indirectly (O'Brien in particular, saying "each of us has a circle of influence", and noting we need to "create the systems transformations that are necessary"), nobody tackled the (widely misunderstood among the public) "lightbulbs vs leaders" issue head on.
(Someone - Friedberg? Oppenheimer? - did advise us to "Occupy energy policy", noting Bill Gates had said energy policy is the most important influence; and also said we need governments involved.)
The official Q&A - feedback on its format, & Qs not asked:
Beforehand, I'd been encouraged by the piles of "Write your question for the speaker" forms in the lobby, not being very articulate or public myself; but they went unused, questioners used a mic, in person. I would have liked to have brought up fractional risk attribution (since I don't recall this approach being mentioned, just the usual emotionally-neutral "can't attribute any one event but the dice are getting loaded" framing), and also to have pointed out that we shouldn't view "extreme weather" adaptations as a successful "job well done" if they'll be overrun with further climate change.
The social dynamics of the event didn't match what I'd hoped for, as a blog denizen hungry for the meatspace equivalent of a comments section. My far-flung community doesn't have an active science-aligned-and-oriented climate education group (which is something I have (had?) not, so far, managed (helped?) to change), so I came to this event hoping to meet & learn from & ideally organize with my fellow concerned & already-on-board citizens formerly known as the audience. But at this event we were still just the audience. While a host (of either Climate One or the Commonwealth Club, I forget) did list intra-audience interaction among their goals, the impression I got was that this event series was really geared toward a host-plus-panelists TV performance, with the audience as a prop.
(Do urban people develop armor like that?)
I did not see a suggestion box.
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1 comments:
I would give it rating 5/10
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