Some news on NPR, and probably other news outlets, got me thinking about climate change - science, impacts, controversy, politics. What can be done? I assume you know there are really two questions here:
(1) How do we adapt society to the realities of climate change?
(2) How can we reduce the impact of human activity on the climate?
The second question seems to produce more controversy because not all of us believe that human action, activities that generate greenhouse gases, even affects the climate. The first question is a little easier to swallow, even for climate science critics. Going on an assumption that efforts to adapt to the realities of climate change would make sense to most people in the United States, we can jump right to the next step. What do we do?
To review what I've learned, and what you may have learned as well, climate change is causing chaotic weather around the globe. Hurricanes and tropical storms are more numerous and more powerful in some cases. There are more powerful tornados now. Droughts and floods are more common, and perhaps more severe as well. Wildfires are more common now, or so it seems.
Being that this isn't a climate science blog, I think I will stop right there and go on to the next topic. How do we adapt to these new realities? Many possibilities exist, more possibilities that I am aware of. Social and technological innovations designed to mitigate the effects of climate change come out more often than new movies these days.
The key question to ask at this point seems to be this: How do we "sell" consumer choices, lifestyle choices, business practices, and government programs that will help us adapt to climate change in the most efficient and effective ways possible?
Evaluation criteria: Whatever it is we "sell" should meet a need or want that people have (one could argue). Any climate change adaptation we aim to sell should fit with existing values. Whatever we sell can't cause new and worse problems.
Asking the right questions can help you generate a viable new idea or define what counts as a good idea. You may know what counts as a good idea, intuitively, but a little systematic thinking can lead to evaluating ideas differently - we forget things, overlook things, or give things less weight that they might deserve. All three factors can affect our ability to decide what climate change adaptations best meet those other criteria of effectiveness and efficiency.
Next time I will summarize this rambling and list some "climate change adaptation" questions to use in creating new innovations, doing a social marketing campaign, or improving some process that we have now. I think I better define the "existing values" that I referenced above. So, look for that information as well.
(1) How do we adapt society to the realities of climate change?
(2) How can we reduce the impact of human activity on the climate?
The second question seems to produce more controversy because not all of us believe that human action, activities that generate greenhouse gases, even affects the climate. The first question is a little easier to swallow, even for climate science critics. Going on an assumption that efforts to adapt to the realities of climate change would make sense to most people in the United States, we can jump right to the next step. What do we do?
To review what I've learned, and what you may have learned as well, climate change is causing chaotic weather around the globe. Hurricanes and tropical storms are more numerous and more powerful in some cases. There are more powerful tornados now. Droughts and floods are more common, and perhaps more severe as well. Wildfires are more common now, or so it seems.
Being that this isn't a climate science blog, I think I will stop right there and go on to the next topic. How do we adapt to these new realities? Many possibilities exist, more possibilities that I am aware of. Social and technological innovations designed to mitigate the effects of climate change come out more often than new movies these days.
The key question to ask at this point seems to be this: How do we "sell" consumer choices, lifestyle choices, business practices, and government programs that will help us adapt to climate change in the most efficient and effective ways possible?
Evaluation criteria: Whatever it is we "sell" should meet a need or want that people have (one could argue). Any climate change adaptation we aim to sell should fit with existing values. Whatever we sell can't cause new and worse problems.
Asking the right questions can help you generate a viable new idea or define what counts as a good idea. You may know what counts as a good idea, intuitively, but a little systematic thinking can lead to evaluating ideas differently - we forget things, overlook things, or give things less weight that they might deserve. All three factors can affect our ability to decide what climate change adaptations best meet those other criteria of effectiveness and efficiency.
Next time I will summarize this rambling and list some "climate change adaptation" questions to use in creating new innovations, doing a social marketing campaign, or improving some process that we have now. I think I better define the "existing values" that I referenced above. So, look for that information as well.
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