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