By Robert Bradley Jr.
“I still don’t love talking about climate adaptation. I wish we didn’t have to…. I’m not admitting defeat. But I am realistic that we need to adapt too.” ( – Tim McPhie, below)
In the post-Net Zero CO2 world (yes, here we are), the new argument is every-little-bit counts “to avoid the worst effects of climate change.” Forget precision or cost/benefit analysis; it is a qualitative ‘deep ecology‘ argument. They know that the real math is daunting with negative CO2 emissions being required starting decades ago.
Brave talk about energy transformation will continue, but reality is creeping in. Consider this from Tim McPhie, a five-year climate communication expert at the European Commission. “I’ll admit it,”, he posted on social media, “I was never really comfortable talking about climate adaptation.”
I guess it always felt like accepting defeat. I used to think that talking about adapting meant accepting that we wouldn’t be able to stop or limit climate change. And it felt like giving a free pass to those who didn’t even want to try.
It was always easier to talk about climate mitigation. Governments and institutions setting new targets is easy to explain. Encouraging people to install solar panels, build wind turbines, use less energy, drive electric cars, make energy efficient products… There was always a story.
But change is change.
I don’t regret for a second communicating the urgency of reducing emissions. And I think that we made major progress. But we have already seen climate change hitting hard in the past few years.
The EU clearly needs to become more resilient to temperature changes, shifting precipitation patterns, changing seasons and more extreme weather events. This is essential for our health and wellbeing, for our security and for our prosperity….
It is a bummer argument, he acknowledges.
[Adaptation and resilience] … feels so defensive, focused on avoiding damage, preventing the worst kind of harms, minimising or avoiding losses. I think most people want to reach for something good in their lives, not hide from something bad. They want to seek out opportunities, not avoid risks.
Luckily there is a different story starting to emerge about climate adaptation. William Samoei Ruto PHD and Patrick Verkooijen tell it well:Adaptation is not simply a means of minimising the damage inflicted by extreme weather, although that alone would justify the investment. Done properly, it can transform economies, as well as strengthen them against natural disasters … Companies that develop cutting-edge solutions for climate adaptation…will gain a competitive advantage in a world where demand for these products and services is only likely to grow.
McPhie ends:
I still don’t love talking about climate adaptation. I wish we didn’t have to. But we do. And at least there are some some more positive stories being told. We must still keep fighting to reduce emissions, and I’m not admitting defeat. But I am realistic that we need to adapt too.
Conclusion
The inconvenient truth is that the whole climate issue is self-defeating. Warmer weather increases the demand for air conditioning and mist machines during the hot months, increasing energy demand. Wind, solar, and battery industrialization come with their own environmental drawbacks, not to mention economic burden.
Adaptation itself requires a whole lot of cement and steel, which requires a lot of affordable, reliable energy, not wind and solar. And that means higher, incremental CO2 emissions.
It is hard being “green”.
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Climate nihilism is the point of the hard corps Greens. Industrial society is Evil by definition, so anything that does not support their Arcadian socialism is crimethink.
Yes, so many things are backward. Happy No Kings day in the U.S.
I don’t understand your comment…The No Kings Day is a fako excuse for anti-ICE and general rioting and property destruction and assaults on LEOs by leftist thugs. I do so hope you’re being sarcastic.
Sorry. My comment was meant to be more than sarcasm, I intended to convey some irony too.
No kings day would be more appropriate in Orwell’s UK, where crimethink can indeed be prosecuted by the state, but here attempted murder and arson are acceptable if done in support of communist ideals.
Ah, I see. My deepest concerns for the UK, and to we here. The world has gone insane and Orwell’s boot on the face is a true, deep fear for any freedom loving peoples.
An interesting take.
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/asra-nomani-2-1-billion-machine-behind-spontaneous-anti-trump-protests
I’ve been adapting to the English climate all my life. It changes – a work in progress
I couldn’t adapt so moved to tropical Queensland. However, 5 degrees C as I write this at 6.30 am. More warming please.
Trade you. South East Arizona right now (1600 hours, June 14), 104°F, peaked at 107°F.
I’m sorry, we mustn’t let any of these “deep ecologists” get away with what they have done. They have committed crimes against our civilization, and so crimes against humanity.
Reading the way “adaptation” is talked about sounds like a simple pivot to another reason for massive government spending and control of our lives. They don’t seem to be talking so much about “adaptation” but pre-emptive preparation which depends every bit as much on flawed models, bad science, government control, and government spending as net-zero.
This. This can’t be emphasized enough.
Venice is an example of adaptation. Imagine if Venicians (?) had tried to control sea level rise instead of adapting to it. There would be no Venice.
How do you make a Venetian blind?
Take away his glasses?
“But we have already seen climate change hitting hard in the past few years.” [Tim McPhie]
Who is this “we” he references? And he is a “communication expert”?
I respectfully disagree. I have been expecting Saguaro cacti to appear in my pasture for 40 years. Still none.
The climate is actually fine, so there’s nothing to adapt to. A greener, slightly warmer world, I suppose. How awful. Build smarter, but that isn’t “adapting”, that’s just using our noggins.And stop blaming things on “climate” which are basically just weather, or are simply due to human stupidity.
I sense the new “adaption” boogyman coming where activist will be telling us we aren’t doing enough to save ourselves from the climate because “we told you so and you didn’t listen”.
And there’s no point in being green either. There is not a chance that the Keeling curve will be checked whether natural or Asian coal burning. Luckily modern science gives very low ECS numbers for a doubling of CO2. Oh by the way you can’t have climate change or a climate emergency if there’s been no change in tropical cyclones for a century.
ECS is one of those bogus, fabricated expressions by the Climate Mafia designed to instill fear.
Where is this dangerous warming? Here I sit on a Saturday mid-afternoon, less than a week to the summer solstice, and it’s 18°C.
And people worldwide never bought into the climate change argument sufficiently enough to make any major efforts or accept any new taxes, restrictions, mandates or lifestyles in general. Why aren’t EVs selling? Why isn’t air travel declining? Why aren’t commuters demanding more public mass transit systems? Where’s the demand for heat pumps, solar panels, and wind energy. Why hasn’t red meat consumption fallen? None of this is occurring except to the smallest degree. People smelled a scam from the outset, and though some were willing to put some effort into combating the putative climate crisis argument, higher living costs and no improvement nor worsening of climate
/weather conditions put a final nail in its coffin hopefully permanently.
Building windmills and solar panels takes a whole lot more coal than if we didn’t build then.
I think the increase in “Climate Disaster” is more related to the increase in cellphones than the increase in CO2 emissions.
Cell phones are a part of the “Information Super Highway” augmented by digital and social media.
It is much more that we are hearing about more things, repeated frequently, than a trivial amount of real change.
That and the fact that every tiny burg has set up a weather station and started measuring and recording their weather. Not just in 1st world countries, but in all countries.
Back in the 1700’s, there were a few hundred places recording their local weather. Today there are 10’s of thousands. (Most of them not spending enough to record quality data.)
As a result of all these new recording stations, there are 10’s of thousands of places that have the potential to record a “record” high or low. So it’ isn’t a surprise, that if one looks, it’s easy to find record high temperatures every day.
It has nothing to do with any changes in the climate, but rather in the increase in people measuring the climate.
Spot on.
It isn’t easy being green
— Kermit the Frog
With complements to Gretta’s hat.