35. Ready for disaster?

A colleague of mine here in Australia at the Victorian Eco-Innovation Lab (who also studied at the International Institute for Industrial Environmental Economics in Sweden) appeared in the newspaper on the weekend in an article entitled Ready for disaster? The article was centred around the argument that communities need to begin preparing for the big problems caused by global warming (likes fires, heatwaves and floods to name a few). The article discussed scenario work with two communities, Anglesea and Creswick, to explore the possible impact of climate extremes and the ways residents could best adapt. A powerful quote from the article sums up the future in a couple of sentences. ''Our planning standards and institutions are based on an assumption that the world we live in is fairly stable. Climate change is already rewriting those standards. Uncertainty will be the norm.'' But the article also cautioned that adaptation is only part of the response to global warming. We must continue, and drastically ramp up, mitigation efforts to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. The work being done with these two communities goes to the heart of the local, concrete problems, and also where the solutions can be designed and implemented.