Responding differently to the challenges of climate change

I

Recently, I attended an informative conference on sea-level rise, storm surges and flooding in the greater San Francisco Bay Area, now and projected into the near decades. It was held by the Propeller Club of Northern California and the Society of American Military Engineers (San Francisco Post), both long established marine-focused institutions in the Bay Area.

Most of the day was spent on projects and interventions for climate change mitigation and adaptation that I knew nothing about, including: a Lake Mendocino water storage innovation, several dredging and sediment projects geared to beneficial uses, several wetlands restoration projects, and a great many planning and feasibility efforts funded with respect to not just sea-level rise, increased storm surges and inland flooding, but also for rising groundwater levels and changing air temperatures affecting major infrastructures differently.

In addition to these specifics, I was told:

• that Bay Area would need some 477 million cubic yards of sediment–the vast majority of which can’t be sourced locally–to restore area wetlands and mudflats;
• It would require an estimated US$110 billion dollars locally to adapt to higher sea levels by 2050, this being based on existing plans in place or used as placeholders for entities that have yet to plan; and
• To expect much more sea level rise locally because of the newly accelerated melting of the ice cap melting in Antarctica and Greenland.

Millions of cubic yards equivalent to over 420 Salesforce Tower high-rises? Some $110 billion which has no possibility whatsoever of being funded, locally let alone regionally? And those massive new requirements posed even locally by the melting ice caps? How are these unprecedented high requirements to be met?

It’s not surprising that the individual interventions presented that day and all the hard work they already required paled into insignificance against the funding and work challenges posed by the bulleted challenges.

What to do? How to respond?

II

These massively large sums (and like figures) are meant to underscore the urgency of the matter, to stir us to action that matches the unparalleled magnitude of the crisis. Such numbers do that for some people, but others instead respond by becoming even more uncertain than they already are. Some of that increased uncertainty is translated into dread over how to proceed (like we saw with respect to nuclear weapons in the Cold War), and dread can also be instrumental in generating action.

More often though, I’ve found that the increased uncertainty generated by category-five sums ends up reinforcing the focus on and approach to projects and interventions already underway. At least we know and can see hard work achieves this!

III

And in that hard work is one answer to why such large numbers, even when they measure true requirements, fall short of the needed analysis.

The problem lies in the estimates of losses (economic, physical, lives, and more) incurred if we don’t take action now, right now. It’s been my experience that none of these estimated losses take into account the other losses prevented from occurring by infrastructure operators and emergency managers who avoid systemwide and regional system failures from happening that would have happened had they not intervened beforehand, sometimes at the last moment.

Why are these uncalculated billions and billions of saved dollars important when it comes to responding to sea level rise, increased storm surges, more inland flooding, rising groundwater levels and other sequelae?

Because it from this pool of real-time talent and skills and practices that society will be drawing for operationally redesigning the inevitable shortfalls in new technologies, macro-plans and regulations for climate restoration and recovery.

IV

We have a pool of such professionals already. They are not being consulted nor is their professionalism adequately recognized for the Anthropocene challenges ahead. Those in infrastructures who are already making billion-dollar saves are going to be needed even if the impossible sums were funded, and most assuredly because they won’t be.