Climate chaos and adaptation ... by gimleteye

The end points of climate chaos are famine, disease, and war. Not necessarily in that order. On the way, civilization has chances to avoid the worst of it: first, stop climate change by altering patterns of consumption-- especially those that produce carbon dioxide. On this chance, we missed. The die is cast. Signs of climate chaos are here, now. This doesn't mean, necessarily, that all is lost. But on second chance, adaptation, we are losing ground at an accelerating pace. Here is an assessment of the brutal facts, and a hope that it foments more than surrender.

The experience in the United States is instructive. The science of climate change has solidified at the same pace as the calcification against meaningful adaptation. The ascendent politics in the US is strongly organized around campaign contributions from polluters who are determined to wring out the last the profits before the climate bell tolls. The Koch brothers stand out as examples; billionaires funding GOP conservative think tanks and the Tea Party to foment for "regulatory reform", crystalized in the effort to knee cap the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. In Florida, a particular form of thievery has merged against the EPA: to obstruct the imposition of rules against water pollution. The Chamber of Commerce and groups like Associated Industries are determined to block the EPA and lobbying Congressional delegations. But the battle to undermine EPA is mainly to serve the purpose of inhibiting or even destroying the ability of the federal government to address climate change adaptation.

It is an unstated, undeclared Civil War on the Climate, framed as a struggle by Republicans and conservative Democrats against the overbearing hand of the federal government. Never mind that the EPA is only beginning to emerge from the dismal politicization of science during the Bush terms when ideologues appointed to key staff positions throttled honest debate about climate change, wielding red pens like swords to excise any paragraphs offending oil and gas and coal producers.

In the meantime, fiscal crises at the state levels now provide a powerful reason for Republican legislatures to eviscerate agency budgets and staff charged with environmental protection. "Create jobs" by wrecking environmental protections. It happening in Florida, where the state legislature is primed to embrace draconian reductions in agencies and regulatory missions that have been chronically hobbled, but also in other GOP-controlled legislatures as well. The Tea Party, blinded to the motives of its funders, is mainly serving to kill off any moderate discussion of environmental protection within the GOP and scaring the daylights out of the remnant Democrats.

Part of the GOP demagoguery on the war against federalism is that the best government is the government closest to the people. It is worthwhile, then, to take a close look at how local government is faring on the matter of adaptation to climate change.

In Florida's most populous county, Miami-Dade, Harvey Ruvin, the county clerk, has been engaged for decades in the pressing matter of organizing municipal governments response to climate change. Ruvin is a long-time member of ICLEI, the international local government sustainability initiative, and successfully advocated for the county's establishment of an Office of Sustainability. Recently, EOM highlighted a tense exchange between Ruvin and the county commissioner who has micromanaged public discussion of environmental affairs, Natacha Seijas. Although the county has made some movement forward on the matter of adapting and changing energy consumption in county government, on the heavy lifting not only has no progress been made, but Seijas has waged a determined effort on behalf of her key supporters-- builders and developers-- to negate any firm policies that would adapt land use to the reality of rising sea levels. In addition, Seijas has stacked the Office with highly paid staffers who are, primarily, loyal to her. For example, in 2010 Seijas intervened in the local initiative and halted the incorporation of sophisticated topographic mapping, showing exactly where sea level rise will affect property and property values, that could have the consequence of harming land speculators' investment.

The one level of government that Republicans in Florida embrace-- local government-- is frozen in place to serve the narrow and short-term interests of a status quo that will not yield its prerogatives. Massive investment, in lobbyists, law-making, and interventions in national politics-- like the effort to neuter the EPA-- advance in direct proportion to climate chaos. Although adaption could fortify national security, it is being undermined by local thievery. That government is mainly organized to reward speculators has been laid bare by the Great Recession. As climate conditions worsen, speculators will tilt the playing field harder in their favor. For the rest of us, getting clear of climate chaos will be like throwing bales of tea into a hundred mile an hour headwind. No one knows how long it will take for us to get there, but thanks to our stable of political leadership, dark days are coming faster than we will be able to adapt.