Climate Change Narcissism

Check out Daniel Sarewitz's piece on climate change narcissism. His article suggests that climate survivalism, that is, how individuals protect themselves and live in a world of climate change, ought to focus more on adaptation and not just mitigation.

But beyond the "individual", society will need to collectively adapt to the pressures brought on by climate change. Evidence of communities around the world that have suffered from natural disasters provide even more compelling reason to consider more strict policies such as rigid building codes and drought resistant crops to alleviate the burdens of hurricanes and heat waves respectively. Policies that are brought about by our governments need to recognize the realities of human behaviour. Asking millions of North Americans to cut down on driving is logical but simply unrealistic. Providing smart incentives to use transit, among other things, is one way to help society adapt in a world of higher fuel prices and help mitigate the impact of congestion, for example.

From the article:

"I assume that climate survivalism is not the version of adaptation that most people who are concerned about climate change would advocate. Yet the attention of climate change policy advocates (as well as climate change researchers) has never seriously focused on sensible approaches to adaptation. Until recently, leaders of the mainstream environmental community resisted open discussion about adaptation because they naively thought that they could get the world to stop using fossil fuels, and that any discussion about adaptation would simply give comfort to those who didn’t, or couldn’t, fully buy into their agenda."

More here.