Lets prepare for our new climate Vicki Arroyo

this is the skyline of my hometown New

Orleans it was a great place to grow up

but it’s one of the most vulnerable

spots in the world half the city is

already below sea level in 2005 the

world watched as New Orleans and the

Gulf Coast were devastated by Hurricane

Katrina 1836 people died nearly 300,000

homes were lost these are my mother’s at

the top although that’s not her car it

was carried there by floodwaters up to

the roof and that’s my sister’s hello

fortunately they and other family

members got out in time but they lost

their homes and as you can see just

about everything in them other parts of

the world have been hit by storms and

even more devastating ways in 2008

Cyclone Nargis and it’s aftermath killed

138 thousand in Myanmar climate change

is affecting our homes our communities

our way of life we should be preparing

at every scale and at every opportunity

this talk is about being prepared for

and resilient to the changes that are

coming and that will affect our homes

and our collective homes the earth the

changes in these times won’t affect us

all equally they’re important

distributional consequences and they’re

not what you always might think in New

Orleans the elderly and female-headed

households were among the most

vulnerable for those in vulnerable

low-lying nations how do you put a

dollar value on losing your country

where your ancestors are buried and

where will you people go and how will

they cope in a foreign land

will there be tensions over immigration

or conflicts over competition for

limited resources it’s already fueled

conflicts in Chad and Darfur like it or

not ready or not this is our future sure

some are looking for opportunities in

this new world

that’s the Russians planting a flag on

the ocean bottom to stake a claim for

minerals under the receding Arctic sea

ice but while there might be some

short-term into

winners our collective losses will far

outweigh them look no further than the

insurance industry as they struggle to

cope with mounting catastrophic losses

from extreme weather events the military

gets it they call climate change a

threat multiplier that could harm

stability and security while governments

around the world are evaluating how to

respond so what can we do how can we

prepare and adapt I’d like to share

three sets of examples starting with

adapting to violent storms and floods in

New Orleans the i-10 twin spans with

sections knocked out in Katrina have

been rebuilt 21 feet higher to allow for

greater storm surge and these raised and

energy efficient homes were developed by

Brad Pitt and make it right for the

hard-hit to Ninth Ward the devastated

church by mama tens has been not only

rebuilt higher it’s poised to become the

first Energy Star Church in the country

they’re selling electricity back to the

grid

thanks to solar panels reflective paint

and more their March electricity bill

was only 48 dollars now these are

examples of New Orleans rebuilding in

this way but better if others act

proactively with these changes in mind

for example in Galveston here’s a

resilient home that survived Hurricane

Ike when others on neighboring Lots

clearly did not and around the world

satellites and warning systems are

saving lives in flood prone areas such

as Bangladesh but as important as

technology and infrastructure are

perhaps the human element is even more

critical we need better planning and

systems for evacuation we need to better

understand how people make decisions in

times of crisis and why while it’s true

that many who died in Katrina did not

have access to transportation others who

did refuse to leave as the storm

approached often because available

transportation and shelters refused to

allow them to take their pets imagine

leaving behind your own pet in

evacuation or rescue fortunately in 2006

Congress passed the pet evacuation and

transportation Standards Act

it spells pets to change that second

preparing for heat and drought farmers

are facing challenges of drought from

Asia to Africa from Australia to

Oklahoma while heat waves linked with

climate change have killed tens of

thousands of people in Western Europe in

2003 and again in Russia in 2010 in

Ethiopia seventy percent that’s seven

zero percent of the population depends

on rainfall for its livelihood Oxfam and

Swiss Ray together with Rockefeller

Foundation are helping farmers like this

one build hillside terraces and find

other ways to conserve water but they’re

also providing for insurance when the

droughts do comes the stability this

provides is giving the farmers the

confidence to invest it’s giving them

access to affordable credit it’s

allowing them to become more productive

so that they can afford their own

insurance over time without assistance

it’s a virtuous cycle and one that could

be replicated throughout the developing

world after a lethal 1995 heat wave

turned refrigerator trucks from the

popular Taste of Chicago festival into

makeshift morgues Chicago became a

recognized leader tamping down on the

urban heat island impact through opening

cooling centers outreach to vulnerable

neighborhoods planting trees creating

cool white or vegetated green roofs this

is City Hall’s green roof next to Cook

County’s roof which is 77 degrees

Fahrenheit hotter at the surface

Washington DC last year actually led the

nation in new green roofs installed and

they’re funding this in part thanks to a

five cent tax on plastic bags they’re

splitting the cost of installing these

green roofs with home and building

owners the roofs not only temper urban

heat island impact but they save energy

and therefore money the emissions that

cause climate change and they also

reduce stormwater runoff so some

solutions to heat can provide for

win-win winds third adapting to rising

seas sea level rise threatens coastal

ecosystems agriculture even major cities

this is what 1 to 2 meters of sea level

rise

like in the Mekong Delta that’s where

half of Viet Nam’s rice is room

infrastructure is going to be affected

airports around the world are located on

the coast it makes sense right there’s

open space the planes can take off and

land without worrying about creating

noise or avoiding tall buildings here’s

just one example San Francisco Airport

with 16 inches or more of flooding

imagine the staggering cost of

protecting this vital infrastructure

with levees but there might be some

changes in store that you might not

imagine for example planes require more

runway for takeoff because the heated

less dense air provides for less lift

San Francisco is also spending 40

million dollars to rethink and redesign

its water and sewage treatment as water

alcohol pipes like this one can be

flooded with seawater causing backups at

the planned harming the bacteria that

are needed to treat the waste so these

alcohol pipes have been retrofitted to

shut seawater off from entering the

system beyond these technical solutions

our work at the door town Climate Center

with communities encourages them to look

at what existing legal and policy tools

are available and to consider how they

can accommodate change for example in

land use which areas do you want to

protect through adding a sea wall for

example alter by raising buildings or

retreat from to allow the migration of

important natural systems such as

wetlands or beaches other examples to

consider in the UK the thames barrier

protects london from storm surge the

asian cities climate resilience network

is restoring vital ecosystems like

forests mangroves these are not only

important ecosystems in their own right

but they also serve as a buffer to

protect inland communities new york city

is incredibly vulnerable to storms as

you can see from this clever sign and to

sea level rise and a storm surge as you

can see from the subway flooding but

back above ground these raised

ventilation grates for the subway system

show that solutions can be both

functional and attractive in fact in New

York San Francisco and London designers

have envisioned ways to better integrate

the natural and built environments with

climate change in LA

and I think these are inspiring examples

of what’s possible when we feel

empowered to plan for a world that will

be different but now a word of caution

adaptation is too important to be left

to the experts why well there are no

experts we’re entering uncharted

territory

and yet our expertise and our systems

are based on the past stationarity is

the notion that we can anticipate the

future based on the past and plan

accordingly and this principle governs

much of our engineering our design of

critical infrastructure city water

systems building codes even water rights

and other legal precedents but we can

simply no longer rely on established

norms we’re operating outside the bounds

of co2 concentrations that this planet

has seen for hundreds of thousands of

years the larger point I’m trying to

make is this it’s up to us to look at

our homes and our communities our

vulnerabilities and our exposures to

risk and to find ways to not just

survive but to thrive and it’s up to us

to plan and to prepare and to call on

our government leaders and require them

to do the same even while they address

the underlying causes of climate change

there are no quick fixes there are no

one-size-fits-all solutions we’re all

learning by doing but the operative word

is doing thank you