In UW-Madison’s magazine EdgeEffects, I recently wrote about Al Gore’s climate change documentary sequel, An Inconvenient Sequel: Speaking Truth to Power. In it, I suggested that we who focus heavily on climate change need to listen to those with worldviews different from our own. And that we need to find stories of positive change to engage people in building better futures.
The problem for most of us is that we do not know what these activities look like in practice. What does it mean to listen to other views? How does that get us somewhere? Where can we possibly find stories that really draw us into taking action? Besides, too many of the actions we feel able to take on our own feel small and inconsequential in the face of the great challenges we face.
I wrote a post a while ago about actions we can take individually and as citizens. Yet, even having all of these ideas at my fingertips, I still often felt powerless.
But over the past six months, my mindset has begun to change. Rather than feeling a burden of responsibility to be a “good environmental citizen” on my own, I am finding ways to work with others.
I rarely wrote letters or called congresspeople on my own. It intimidated me, but even more importantly, I felt like tiny toad trying to call out to all the other species in the Chihuahuan Desert. Yeah, a few other toads might hear and understand me, but most of the other toads and other species could not even hear me. So, I croaked to myself and my friends and family.
Now, however, I belong to a group that takes political action. We call and write and hold one another accountable for that work.
What has been most important to me, though, is finding people who want to collaborate to create positive stories.
I have been in academia for a while. And that world, for all its power to analyze, understand, and spread new ideas has a downside when it comes to working for change. It is competitive. It can sometimes be hard to find the people who want to collaborate rather than compete against you. And to find people who want to build something together rather than deconstruct (metaphorically, of course).
So, I have put a toe into other waters without leaving academia. I continue to believe analysis and critique are extremely important endeavors to move us forward. If we do not understand what we are dealing with, we will make far more mis-steps.
Earthships are one example of how positive futures are already being built: recycled & local materials, cooperative construction, nearly all energy produced on-site.
Importantly, we are focusing first on building community. On getting to know one another and to understand one another’s goals. So, we are in very early stages. But we have begun.
And the key to the change, so our evaluator told us at a recent academic conference, is to just do it. Just begin. There will be experiments that work, and those that do not. But if we sit immobilized, the changes we do not want will wash over us.
So, we are beginning. In seeking out positive stories, and spreading those we hear, we are starting to build our own vision of a positive future here at home.
So, how do we tell positive stories? How do we heal the pains we see in the world? Find someone else who is willing to take action. Slowly build a group. Support one another. Seek out the positive stories. They are there on YouTube, if you don’t know any in your area. And be forgiving. We will all make a lot of mistakes as we try to build something better. But we have to try. And to sustain our own joy in the work, we have to try together.
***************
Okay, you may say, you mentioned positive stories, but what about this listening to other worldviews piece?
I will aim to dig further into that in a future post. I still need to learn more. For now, though, take a look at Megan Roper’s version of how to listen. Ms. Roper left the Westboro Baptist Church, and now works to build empathetic dialogue, including among those with extreme views.
I am continuing to summarize here the reading I am doing for an Oslo Summer School course. In this article, Karen O’Brien and Linda Sygna review the literature that focuses on deliberate climate transformation. They then use a model of three spheres both to analyze how these literatures approach the problem, and to offer ways of thinking about how to move forward effectively with transformation.
Key Ideas
There are four strands of literature that focus explicitly on climate transformation: transformational adaptation, transformations to sustainability, transforming behaviors, and social transformations. They will be more fully addressed below.
The three spheres of transformation posited by O’Brien and Sygna are a straightforward means of clarifying areas in which transformation can happen. They are conceived in three dimensions: the practical sphere lies inside the political sphere, which lies in side the personal sphere.
The practical is the “core” both literally and figuratively. It expressed the focus on technical responses to change, as well as social innovations. It is the sphere where outcomes are measured, and also where the most attention has often been placed.
The political sphere is the next sphere out, and it is defined by the systems and structures that surround the pragmatic changes of the practical sphere. Working within this sphere is to work on identifying problems and developing solutions. Natural resources management is included in this sphere. It is about the political, the economic, the social and the cultural.
The personal sphere is the outermost sphere. Its focus is worldviews and beliefs. It is the outside sphere because it shapes both of the other two spheres. Changes here will likely change the other two spheres, at least when the changes happen across communities rather than for a single individual.
The spheres can be a useful framework, the authors say, for analyzing transformation. It can be used to identify leverage points – points where a change may most effectively be applied. Leverage points are often found where the spheres interact and across spheres. Acknowledgement of the importance of all three spheres is important – the central sphere is needed to enact physical outcomes, the middle for making scaled-up decisions, and the outermost sphere for building up consensus and understanding conflicting values systems.
Transformation literatures
Transformational adaptation literature says that transformation is “often technological or behavioral,” but recognizes the many social barriers that may prevent transformative change.
Transformations to sustainability literature tend to focus on technical issues such as greenhouse gas emissions. The literature highlights the need for fundamentally reworking structural elements of our systems, such as our energy infrastructure. It tends to be based on systems theory and complexity science, and it often brings in ideas from resilience theory. It recognizes cultural barriers, the need for human agency, and our capacity for learning. The literature also underlines the “importance of institutional entrepreneurs.”
Transforming behaviors literature examines individual and cultural elements of climate change, “including the psychological barriers to responding.” Several different fields contribute to this literature, including cognitive psychology, cognitive anthropology, and social psychology. The literature looks at our beliefs, our culture, and our mental strategies in terms of how we deal with climate change. It highlights how we can become agents of change, including building our self-awareness. The literature has sometimes been criticized for not fully acknowledging the role that our existing systems play in preventing us from making the changes that our minds could conceive of.
Social transformations literature analyzes how power relations matter in climate transformation, and how they are addressed. One focus of the literature is the need to analyze the system itself and how it shapes social processes.
Each of these literature strands uses elements from the three spheres, but often puts different weight on different areas. For example, the transforming behaviors literature focuses most on the practical sphere, while the social transformations literature puts more emphasis on the political sphere. Working across the spheres, as described in Key Ideas above, is seen as the best way to ensure that a variety of perspectives and ideas are best addressed.
The article reviews the literature on typologies of adaptation. The authors contend that most of the work on types of adaptation has been largely or entirely theoretical. So, they reviewed the work done under the Global Environment Facility and created a “grounded” typology of 92 of the projects financed. They reviewed documents and conducted surveys and interviews with some of those involved in the projects. They found that the theoretical typologies often did good work of describing types of actual adaptation actions.
Introduction and literature review
The introduction gives a broad review of why adaptation practices are necessary and how adaptation definitions vary.
The authors then dig into an extensive review of the adaptation typologies that already exist in the climate adaptation literature. Some are completely theoretical, while others have been linked to specific systems, but none, the authors say, have looked empirically at the broad sweep of adaptation projects at a global level.
They note that typologies tend to focus on five main areas: “timing relative to stimulus . . . intent (autonomous, planned), spatial scope . . . form (technological, behavioral, financial, institutional), and degree of necessary change.” The remainder of the review is essentially an extensive list of typologies from different works.
Of interest to me were the two on agricultural systems. Smit and Skinner take on agricultural adaptations in Canada and classify them by, “technological development, government programs and insurance, farm production practices, and farm financial management.” Ayers and Huq were not focused exclusively on typologies, but classified agricultural adaptations by “institutional policies, public/private arrangements . . . and livelihood-based approaches.”
Financing
Next the authors review financing for adaptation activities. They note that the first formal donor commitment of funds for adaptation in developing countries was under the Marrakech Accords in 2001. The processes of determining eligibility of funds and of creating accountability for donor-financed projects helped to drive more explicit thinking about which types of on-the-ground adaptation projects should be emphasized.
Methods
The authors looked at projects funded through the Global Environment Facility for 70 countries. They reviewed documents, and focused on “CEO Endorsement Requests” for close analysis because they reflected the state of the project and contained high quantities and qualities of data. The authors then followed up with surveys of project leads, and interviews with a select group of them.
Reviewed documents were coded and analyzed to develop a “grounded” typology of climate adaptations.
Results
The authors identified ten types of adaptation, and analyzed which were the most frequent, as well as which specific activities within the types were most frequent.
The main finding is that what can probably be classified as earlier-stage adaptation activities were the most common. So, the “capacity building” and “management and planning” types of activity were the most common.
Discussion
The authors point out that the “early ideas and concepts” emerging from theoretical typologies largely seem to be supported by their empirical analysis. They further assert that the finding that capacity building is one of the major types of activity supported by the GEF is in line with suggestion of authors like Ayers and Huq that capacity building is one of the key needs of developing countries as they respond to climate change.
The discussion contains some specific insights from the study’s informants. One point made was that projects do need to be informed by science, but, even more important, must be created with willing and informed communities as central players. Also, adaptation actions that were actually chosen by practitioners were in direct response to demonstrated vulnerabilities found in projects’ planning stages. The authors conclude that a theoretically-informed approach to vulnerability and adaptation can help to identify real vulnerabilities.
Further research possible includes an analysis of costs of certain types of practices, and an assessment of which projects require co-financing rather than just direct GEF financing. Further, “projects with ‘soft’ measures,” i.e. projects related to policy and capacity building, were the most common in these early stages of GEF financing, more research is needed on financing needed for what initially appear to be the more expensive elements of adaptation, such as large-scale engineering projects. The authors feel that assessment of such projects could be assisted by effective typologies.
Finally, it is likely, the authors state, that the preponderance of certain types of adaptation activities probably reflects the fact that many adaptation projects are in their relatively early stages.
Conclusions
The authors point out that the typology for GEF projects will require updating over time, as well as continued and detailed analysis of costs. Further research is also needed to compare how costs compare at the planning versus the implementation stage.
One key shift suggested is for researchers who have been working mostly in theory to begin working with “local adaptation laboratories” to ensure that theoretical and empirical or applied work inform one another. The example of “the Learning Route” is given as one model. Both practitioners and academic scholars would produce more effective work if they collaborate across the empirical and theoretical divides.
I am preparing to attend a workshop on climate adaptation and transformation at the University of Oslo in August. In preparation, I am reading 29 related journal articles. As part of my preparation, I am going to post summaries here in hopes that they give someone else a good academic primer on the topic.
The first article is Are there social limits to adaptation to climate change? Unfortunately, like many an academic article, it is behind an expensive pay-wall. To combat that, I will see what I can do to add a bit more depth than you can get from the abstract alone.
The paper’s authors develop a multi-part theory of when and why our society may not adapt well to climate change. To do so, they draw on social science literatures including psychology, history, and economics. They examine the ways in which our goals and values may prevent us from making the best decisions to fit the challenges that face us.
Remnants of a January snowfall in the Organ Mountains of southern New Mexico’s Chihuahuan Desert
They begin by laying out a definition of limits against which to counter their own definition. This is the “traditional” definition they see underlying much climate adaptation literature. Such limits are “immutable” and are linked to one of three systems: biological, economic, or technological. So, for example, limited rain is one major reason that the plants in the image above have developed adaptations such as leaves with waxy coatings.
Adger and his co-authors believe such definitions of limits have their usefulness. After all, a straightforward definition with a perceptible threshold (“seven inches of rain”) makes it easier to analyze when we have reached a given limit (“many of the branches on the creosote bushes died”).
The authors counter, however, with a definition of limits that builds upon how society is organized and how we tend to think about ourselves. They see our limits to adaptation as “endogenous and emerg[ing] from ‘inside’ society.” In other words, our own ethical beliefs, knowledge of the world and its risks, and our very culture may limit the choices we are able to make as we confront climatic challenges.
The authors then analyze how each of those four factors – our ethics, knowledge, awareness of and comfort with risk, and culture – are likely to shape our reactions to climate risk.
Ethics
If Sonora sets a goal to reach the top of the mountain, but Jeff wants to run up the trail as fast as he can for an hour, will their goals conflict? Which values underpin their goals? How will communication be necessary to create compromise?
The first proposition the authors develop is that our goals and ethics will shape our adaptation: If we set a goal to move all low-lying residents away from Florida’s Gulf Coast, it is far more likely that we will do so. Yet, in a democracy, the goal to relocate a large population depends upon the public valuing the idea that such relocation is necessary and right.
When those values conflict strongly across multiple large groups of the public, it may be difficult to develop coherent goals. If some believe it to be the responsibility of residents to care for themselves regardless of circumstances, they may insist that no government money be given to help with relocation. If others believe that land area is too limited to move residents inland, they may insist upon developing raised land areas that lie above the new sea levels. “Take care of your own problems” and “there’s no room for you” may be values that are hard to bring into agreement with each other or with the view that the government should spend money to move residents.
Moreover, careful discussion is necessary to develop the details of those goals, even if they are broadly agreed upon. Certain decisions may disproportionately improve the well-being of certain citizens while harming others. For example, imagine that planners decided that all residents being moved from the Gulf Coast would be given relocation assistance in the form of a market-based payment for any real estate they owned. Those who owned expensive houses would have adequate payments to comfortably relocate. Those who were renting, however, would lose out financially. Receiving no payment, yet still having to pay a new deposit and first month’s rent for a new apartment, they would be worse off than they were before the move.
Both the examples of conflicting values and of the relocation payment highlight the need for broad public dialogue. The authors believe such dialogue is best facilitated through effective governance mechanisms that provide a forum for all interested parties to deliberate together.
Two more points are important in the author’s discussion of ethics: 1) the scale of decision-making matters. In our Florida example, it would be far easier to help a single home-owner make decisions than to determine how to assist the entire population within a mile of the coast. The larger and more complex the system, the more difficult it becomes to develop coherent goals. 2) Different sectors of society may have very different attitudes to risk. For example, a homeowner may be more concerned about damage to a house than is a renter. An elderly homeowner on a fixed income may be less willing to risk damage to his house than is a young carpenter who owns his own home.
Uncertainty
Pecan trees with flood irrigation near Las Cruces, NM. Will pecans still be a viable crop in the Mesilla Valley in twenty years? The authors say that whichever options people choose should be those that work “over a wide range of assumptions about the future.”
Uncertainty plagues climate science’s communication with the public. Modeling scenarios always have a certain amount of uncertainty built into them because of unknown elements like how much carbon dioxide will be in the air at a given time and the specifics of how local weather patterns will interact with larger atmospheric changes. Also, climate scientists are quite rightly averse to stating predictions with certainty when such unknowns exist.
Moreover, uncertainties abound even outside of climate science. The changes our societies make in government, consumption, and values will greatly affect what is possible in the future. We cannot know precisely what the future will look like.
The authors suggest that we acknowledge such uncertainties, but not let them paralyze our decision-making. Our decisions, they say, should take future scenarios into account and then develop strategies that will work well regardless of which scenario occurs.
A commonly used example of such “robust” decision-making focuses on improving well-being in the present. If you live in a village on the edge of the Sahara, we may not be sure of how long your village will remain livable. You may become an environmental refugee in ten years. You may lose access to your pasture routes next year because neighbors no longer want your cattle on their land. To accommodate either scenario, we can work to build up your financial well-being in the present so that, whatever happens, you have a better chance of thriving after you lose your land.
Risk
In discussing risk, the authors dig into its psychology and sociology. We each have, “beliefs, presences, perceptions of self-efficacy and controllability.” Such aspects of our thinking, along with our perceptions of risk and knowledge of our situation, shape what we see as the limits of our adaptation.
The authors’s proposition related to risk is, “social and individual characteristics act as limits to adaptation.” I dug into some examples of how that may play out, as well as outlining the authors’ evidence on how such limits have shaped society so far.
Corn growing in the lower Rio Grande valley near Las Cruces, NM
First, though, the authors next make a distinction between limits and thresholds. A threshold is passed when a system changes to a new state. Adaptation may well still possible after a change in state (e.g. after a source of water is lost, a community may migrate).
A limit, on the other hand, is embedded in our values and perceptions. We may see an adaptation as impossible. So that perception becomes a limit. Some may see it as impossible to continue to grow crops on the Rio Grande if available water continues to diminish. They may perceive the use of water for Rio Grande farming as too great a risk to the survival of area cities whose residents need water. If that is the social consensus, adaptation in Rio Grande cropping systems would not occur. If, however, a social consensus were to occur that crops should continue to grow, a dialogue might develop about which choices could be feasible under changing water regimes.
Such a dialogue would be further shaped by societal factors. What is marketable? Does government insurance back certain crops? Are there mechanized means of producing the crop?
Since farming is an independent endeavor in much of the world, individual worldviews and perceptions will shape the choices made. However, the authors point to literature that suggests that people can be “enabled” to choose responsible alternatives. When the environmental and social effects of choices are made clear, and the environment is supportive of community decision-making, they say, decision-making can be better aligned with societal and environmental needs.
That said, the authors go on to point out that the climate adaptation literature tends to suggest that, “little adaptation to climate change is occurring at individual levels.” People may be adapting to other elements of their circumstances, but rarely to climate change itself. Or, they may be making changes to deal with current climate variability, but not making explicit plans for future climate scenarios.
That may be partly influenced by the fact that many of us do not “link experiences of extreme weather events” to their possible occurrence later on – we may not be allowing ourselves to experience “behavioral learning.” Some of the limits to behavioral leaning occur when the changes that we perceive do match with our perceptions of reality. For example, if we do not believe that long-term climate change is occurring, we may not perceive gradual changes that are occurring as a result of climate change.
The authors point out that we need to be making broad changes that “build our capacity to deal with future events.” The evidence so far suggests, however, that we are mostly reacting to what comes. They believe that broader shifts may require “deep cultural and social change.”
Culture
Environment and culture are closely linked. The beetle-killed trees in the background are closely managed by Rocky Mountain National Park staff. As some parts of society become averse to spending on public lands, the maintenance of the parks’ beetle-killed trees could conceivably become unmanageable. The value of the specific place to particular groups of people will affect the shape of the parks’ future and that of those who value it highly.
The authors’ final proposition mystified me at first. A few careful readings, however, made it clear. In brief: most broad analyses of adaptation needs ignore the uniqueness of places and the richness of cultural context. This unintentional ignorance of how much people value specific places and specific cultural activities means that the need for adapting to their loss is often left out of the accounting of how to deal with the future.
Culture is important to people, and elements of culture may also be important to how people deal with their (now changing) biophysical environment. Decisions about how to deal with future change, the authors contend, must account for how people value their places.
For myself, I think of the loss of one “my” important places. I don’t think anyone knows clearly what that ecosystem will look like in the future, but I would like to know that we can have a societal conversation about how to ensure some form of viable, wild ecosystem.
Conclusions
One main conclusion of the paper:
“This paper challenges the implicit assumption that successful adaptation to climate change will be bound by limiting factors beyond which adaptation will not be possible . . . . More often, adaptation to climate change is limited by values, perceptions, processes and power structures within society.”
We have to change how we think if we want to more flexibly deal with climate change.
So, just as importantly, we must develop governance mechanisms that allow us all to speak to one another about what we value and why. We must have dialogues about what we want to maintain and how we want to change. Developing such “deliberative platforms” is not how we have most often operated in relation to scientific findings in the past. So, we need to come together to consider how to build such bodies.
In short, understanding what we value and talking about it will be key to our future as we face climate challenges.
Tomorrow's Fields 