Mayor Heartwell on Climate Change: We Must Adapt Or Die
For years now, as mayors, state and federal legislators, governors and presidents have tuned in to the reality of climate change and begun the work of mitigation, the notion of adapting to climate change has been anathema.
Surely, acknowledging the need to adapt to warmer temperatures and all that implies is tantamount to surrender. We must be about the work of saving the planet, reversing the trends of higher temperatures, rising ocean levels and falling Great Lakes levels; adapting is admitting defeat.
Well, we’re waking up to the fact that climate change, no matter how aggressively we attack its sources, is with us to stay --- for decades at least, perhaps for centuries. Ask Frank Cownie, the mayor or Des Moines, Iowa, a city which has experienced two 500-year floods in the past three years, if adaptation is necessary. Ask the mayors of Great Lakes coastal cities facing falling water levels and worried about harbor access if adaptation is necessary. Ask the farmers who are seeing new crop threats and dealing with extreme weather conditions if adaptation is necessary. Ask the rescue workers in cities where elderly residents are dying during extreme temperature conditions if adaptation is necessary.
Don’t misunderstand me, addressing the conditions that contribute to climate change is essential. But if we do not assess our vulnerabilities to climate change and design and implement adaptation strategies, we will be ill-prepared for the years to come. Human suffering and economic loss will be the certain consequences of our short-sightedness.
If extreme weather, extreme temperatures and extreme rainfalls are characteristic of our just now-emerging future, then cities will be the frontline of the battle. Already cities, in our efforts to mitigate climate change, have been implementing adaptation strategies that will serve us well in the future. We are separating combined storm and sanitary sewers as a water quality strategy, preparing ourselves for the extreme rainfall events that lie ahead.
We are enhancing transit options to efficiently move people around our communities, preparing for extreme heat events that lie ahead. But what are we doing to protect the power grid against extreme weather and the demands of extreme heat? What are we doing to ensure the safety of our elderly citizens or to preserve our urban forest canopy against new invasive insects or diseases? What is our role as cities in ensuring sustainable agriculture in a climate changed future?
Clearly much work lies ahead. No place is more critical for adaptation planning than cities. No collection of citizens more vulnerable. Now is the time to start. There is not an hour to waste.
--- George K. Heartwell, Mayor of Grand Rapids, Michigan LCV Board
