Climate Sense

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Humanity needs climate sense to survive

Ray Shirkhodai, Dr Heather Bell, and Joseph Bean, Pacific Disaster Center, USA

limate change and variability is anticipated to have

enormous impacts on disaster risks and sustainable

development within a generation or two. Luckily though,

lessons of the past regarding disaster risk reduction practices

are all still relevant in making us better equipped facing the

unprecedented challenges of climate that lie before us.

Human beings have always relied on their common sense to survive

and thrive. This common sense stems from constant curiosity about

the forces of nature, and the consequent development of mental

skills sufficient to understand those forces and to devise creative

solutions that minimize risks and reduce dangers. Over eons, the

practical use of risk and safety information has been streamlined and

handed down through generations, leading to coping strategies and

some adaptive capacities. But now, humankind may need to develop

another new sense to survive the challenges of the new climate into

the next millennium.

Everyone is familiar with seasonal variations in temperature

and precipitation. People have learned to take advantage of these

changes for agriculture, food production and other purposes. Now

though, what has become common sense regarding climate vari-

ability is no longer adequate.

Recent predictions about climate change and variability anticipate

enormous impacts on Earth’s atmosphere and oceans. As a result,

tremendous shocks and shifts are foreseen in fresh water resources,

wildlife, food security, agriculture, health and energy.

Among the expected effects is mass migration.

These unprecedented impacts on the basic elements

of human security and sustainability will gravely endan-

ger the quality of life and even human survival – within

the century, by most scientific estimates. While the

timing and nature of the shifting risks brought about

by the changing climate are open to scientific debate, it

is widely agreed that the magnitude of the shocks will

be beyond the adaptive capacities of existing human

systems. That is, we will be unable to address future

risks and ensuing disasters unless attention is given to

policy implications and disaster risk reduction efforts,

right away.

Short-term tactical solutions and long-term strate-

gies need to be developed, practiced, and streamlined

into a mainstream ‘climate sense’, if we hope to reduce

immediate risks, avert long-term consequences, and

develop adaptive capacities to help our kind survive.

Fortunately, we don’t have to start from zero, because

what we have learned in the area of disaster risk reduc-

tion can help us develop climate sense.

El Niño as a model for shifts in risk

Disaster risk is a function of the physical characteristics

of hazards, the susceptibility of exposed elements and

systems to negative impacts from hazard events, and

the ability of communities and surrounding systems to

handle impacts. Disasters happen when human-envi-

ronment systems are overwhelmed by events, whether

chronic, slow-onset, or quick-onset. However, risk is

dynamic, changing through time and space. Future risk

depends on the relationship between hazard, vulner-

ability and capacity, but it also reflects any changes in

these components.

Climate change and variability alters the hazard-

vulnerability-capacity relationship by shifting patterns

of both climatological hazards and the conditions in

which human-environment systems operate and events

occur.

The El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is a familiar

example of climate variability shifting short-term risk.

In 1997, the world experienced a particularly strong

ENSO that sent sunfish and tuna up to the US Pacific

Northwest coast and Alaska, and caused many stocks

of fish normally caught in those waters to disappear.

Hazard characteristics and environmental conditions

were changed substantially. Consequently, those who

daptation

and

itigation

trategies

PDC Executive Director Ray Shirkhodai greets Dr Nguyen Huu Ninh

Image: Pacific Disaster Center