 Okay, so starting out in the mode of a TED talk or something without a screen Talking about climate change and risk analysis For something like 40 years Scientists have been urging politicians to reduce Carbon dioxide emissions because carbon dioxide is greenhouse gas and Holds infrared radiation in the lower atmosphere and That causes heating if you have more energy coming in in the way of sunlight Then is going out In terms of infrared then the planet is absorbing energy now it can do multiple things It can heat the surface it can melt ice, which doesn't necessarily heat the surface And the heating will cause Changes in weather patterns and Those changes in weather patterns tend to be of increased energy because The oceans are warmer So Because of Climate change which are the effects of the warming of the earth or the increase in energy in The atmosphere of the earth atmosphere and ocean of the earth Will have changed Rain patterns some places that we're getting rain before may not get rain now and others may Start getting rain, but that isn't always good for crops because The soil type may be different where the rain moves to The weather will often be more extreme Simply because it is running at a higher energy level the oceans are warmer where hurricanes Start out And as Phil said as many species do not adapt quickly Including humans Which is true the other thing that's going on is rising sea levels from Essentially two factors one is as the ocean warms it expands And that's going rise the raise the sea level also Ice is melting. It's melting in the glaciers and It's melting At the poles And both of those are going raise sea level and they're not going raise sea level Equally over the whole ocean because of wind patterns and ocean currents and then The other factor since The planet is increasing energy is Rising global annual average temperature Now 40 years ago people were saying You know, let's reduce carbon emissions and To a large extent that's been ignored particularly ignored in the United States Some of that has been happening. However, just through private effort, but we're still on a Increase in CO2, I think the current level was about 418 parts per million where pre-industrial was 285 about and The effects of that increase in CO2 and Something like a one-degree increase over that period one degree Celsius in temperature Are having their effects now one of the effect is the Poles tend to heat two to three times faster than the global mean temperature so If that's one degree heating in the global mean global annual mean that can easily be two degrees temperature at the poles Which sort of gets us into Texas. I don't know about How effective carbon trading has been different topic, but if the poles are warming faster than the average temperature that means the Tropical to pole Temperature change is becoming less and that means the Exchange or transfer of energy from the tropics to the poles Isn't as large and It's that transfer of energy and the weather patterns associated with it that Drive the polar vortex and make that polar vortex stronger. So with climate change the polar vortex the Winds around the pole that tend to keep the art care Locked up near the poles That circulation becomes weaker. So if the jet stream Hits the Polar vortex and Then dip south what it tends to do is break the polar vortex, which is exactly what we've been seeing Down to Texas that what happens is the cold polar air head south and Places like well this time it's in the mid of United States and Places like Alaska and Greenland are seeing these warm temperatures and people in Greenland are Complaining that it's harder to get around on their snowmobile because the ice is turning into slush Sure, sometimes Europe will see that too the outbreak of polar air can in fact Split in two or three. So it's not always just One if you think about that that's exactly the way that waves are That they oscillate up and down. So if we have a down oscillation in the mid United States we have And easily have up all the salations In Greenland and Alaska and then a further down oscillation down being south Now Texas is an interesting case Not only because They got a very Unexpected amount of Arctic air and it was colder than Had been estimated what occur They also were planning on the peak Energy needs for summer, which is the general case because of air conditioning and in fact had some of the electric generators offline Getting prepped for summer Additionally El Paso did fine El Paso Seems to be unique in being hooked up to the larger country electric grid whereas Texas Predominantly is an isolated grid all by itself. So when their generators lost capacity, they didn't have any network that Any larger network they could draw from? Yes, as Sumo says yes El Paso is on the national grid So that was a problem Nothing was winterized the natural gas Lines in particular weren't winterized There was a small amount of which was the product predominant power loss. There was a small Amount of wind and wind energy lost because the Turbines weren't winterized, but that was a relatively small Addition to the overall power loss in Texas now interesting that About ten years ago another cold episode had had it had happened and the national government called on Texas to Add winterization which got ignored because Because it's totally an in-state Electric grid the federal government does not have any authority to mandate Changes and of course this is exactly what Texas was trying to avoid having the federal government Have any say in their electric affairs So it was a perfect setup of Insufficient planning Not anticipating the severe effects of climate change and helping to bring polar air down into Texas and Not being prepared for the cold you know I have one reference that Notes that it was planning for Low-cost rather than planning for reliability Well, they knew they knew it would be colder. They didn't know it would be as cold and they didn't and from what I've read they didn't anticipate that the Increase in demand would be as large as it was And yeah, it happened before it happened something like ten years ago another example Another example of Where good planning was avoided was ignored Was in the Himalayas and Officials ignored expertise saying that it was not a good idea to build hydro Dam plants In that fragile an area but went ahead built a hydroelectric plants and in doing so stimulated a Flash flood off of the glacier That had been melting Wiping out the dams I think something like 26 people were known dead and 200 were missing so an example where It's not a good idea to do this, but the government went And did it over the objections and The villagers were saying they had no idea what to anticipate And we're totally unprepared. I've got that in a Reference File I can make a note card out of and give it to channel there was another example and this time it was a Successful example in California in the Santa Cruz Mountains It was forecast that a river of air would come in these used to be known as pineapple expresses But that the river of air carrying a lot of moisture from the tropics Into California would come in the authorities Evacuated about 5,000 people from the Santa Cruz Mountain Towns Lake Boulder Creek Partly because there've been fires up there up near Park called Big Basin So they knew there'd be Not as much foliage to absorb the rainfall and expected floods and that was a good example of Early warning followed by action now at the recent January 2526 Climate Adaption Summit that was one of the things A session on risk management talked about was the need for early warning and The need for that early warning to lead to action because If you have an early warning and nothing happens You might as well not have done the early warning It's sort of like driving down a Street and hitting a bump and then seeing a sign that said, you know bump occurred so What are the negative impacts in in thinking of adaption and on risk reduction? We first got to identify What the Different likelihoods for changes in climate Will be and how probable is a severe a given level of severe rainfall Or winds What will be the probability of? High oceans things like combining storms the rise in sea level with climate and Tides for example Example so potential negative impacts on people are reduced water and food quality and supply One of the things I was reading on New York, which does have its own program of adaptation Was having Garbage holdings or garbage if you'd call them reservoirs Above the flood level which seemed like an excellent idea. I think that would also hold for water treatment plants When impact is loss of lives there were lives lost in the Himalaya flood episode and in the Texas Cold event Loss of income and property flooding and high sea levels damage to human health and In some cases displacement New York in their Planning has a segment on buying up property That is expected to become uninhabitable how to discount the future That gets into partially how often will an event occur the event that used to occur One in a hundred years might have been tolerable or if it's one in three years It's intolerable and a lot of this Is Our social decisions what's in what's an intolerable impact Who's affected a lot of times The people affected by climate change aren't the ones who benefited From the release of CO2 displacement Severe drought May require people to migrate and that's a lot tougher now than it Once was simply because when they get to the border they're going face people with guns who Don't particularly welcome them So a nomadic lifestyle or moving from one place to another Starts becoming a security issue and the US Department of Defense Recognizes climate change of security issues. It also recognizes climate change as a risk factor to Military bases that summer in flood zones some Maybe we're desert desert a tiff vacation is happening and Or we're drought is occurring. So the Department of Defense Defense Is much more receptive to Adapting and mitigating Effects of climate change then the country as a whole has been yes insurance companies Are very much interested in increase in risks Because if they weren't they're going to start losing money so How can one Work to prevent and respond to impacts Again, this is from a slide by the International Federation of Red Cross and red Crescent is public awareness Advocating for the most vulnerable who often are the the people who have the worst side effects Are worse effects of climate change Disaster preparedness and response Improving laws and policy Water sanitation and hygiene promotion one of the occurrences with the Texas power loss Was that water supplies were also compromised and I think it was seven million people Were under an advisory to boil the water their top water before using it providing mental health counseling Shelter community level skills and resources Early warning and forecast based action and income loss assistance which Certainly with the COVID pandemic is one of those things that's been argued a lot and survey shows that Republican voters and city officials are all pretty much in favor of Receiving federal government money to Supplement what they have and help them survive well Congress is in the opposition mode So a Congress that's out of touch with some of the Voters in the same party and looking over documents on adaptation and a lot of the writing was about The science or evaluation or assessment stops with the Effects of the science and hasn't gone into the Type of risk assessment that decision-makers need into What can occur how likely is it? What will be the consequences On the population and what can be done What strategies can be used to Mitigate the effects not of Which is different than mitigating the climate warming mitigating the climate warming has to do with Going to renewable energy And carbon-neutral energy production mitigating the effects is Adaptation To what's happening at any level so One of the papers said the the consequences of physical climate science Paying little attention to the needs of risk assessment has been that important issues have been neglected one consequence has been to Afford insufficient attention to the low likelihood high-impact events That has already discussed or a central concern in risk Assessment and I think the Texas event could be Categorized in that at least as far as we know it's still low likelihood But the impact was huge climate uncertainty Has been used as an excuse for doing nothing, but that's Scientifically the wrong way of looking at it Because greater uncertainty Increases the likelihood of a A large effect of climate change even if the Probability is low so uncertainty can be a source of Actionable knowledge something to Spur on how can we ensure that no matter What happens within a a Reasonably finite probability That the effects won't be catastrophic so when we talk about risk One of this Simplest ways of looking at it is the loss or gain of something of value and that something of value is One of the sticky points because that's a imprecise social evaluation and different people will Look at it differently for instance some unfortunately look at the loss of life in Third-world countries as Not something of value However There are local efforts happening in Africa for instance To mitigate against the effects of flooding or drought So there's a large amount of social political and economic analysis Of observed and projected climate impacts That aren't straight Probability There's a physical climate system and The effects may cover a range of probabilities and then there's the social impacts from what happens Also covering a Range of probabilities for in a sense each probability of the physical change Decision makers need to understand how climate change may interfere With their plans and compromise their objectives So they can adapt existing policies and adopt new strategies to stay on track Whether to protect life health and well-being sustain economic growth preserve natural resources ensure continued performance of critical Infrastructures or maintain national security So definitely a complex problem Core principles of risk assessment adapted from a paper by King Yadal in 2015 Define what we value. What is it risk make that this transparent and put these things people human systems Valued natural systems and surfaces friend and center in the assessment risk analysis inevitably involves definitions of valued outcomes that Reflect particular ethical or political interests open deliberation is required to define relevant values that are acceptable to all stakeholders and Then step 2 define what we wish to avoid with respect to these valued things for example thresholds of performance Viability house losses and damages. What keeps you up at night? Carry out analyses to identify what risky outcomes are possible cannot be ruled out Starting with the biggest Ones and such analysis it is useful to distinguish between two questions What is most likely to happen and how bad could things get? other important questions include what methods and tools are available to manage those risks what efforts are needed over short versus long time scales and By When are likely are we likely to have additional information that may change our risk perceptions and our decisions? and then distinguish between direct risks that deal with Individual impacts resulting from a given change in climate and might be the targets of adaptation actions at local and regional scales and Systematic risk that relate to major potentially interconnected failures across multiple regions or Sectors and us provide important Motivation for adaptation and migration and mitigation actions at larger scales Certainly Texas had not evaluated correctly the How bad could it get because it got a lot worse than was anticipated It's interesting in the climate adaptation summit The good part of the discussion was on local action New York has Its own local action interestingly southern Florida city of Miami Miami and County actions are acting to mitigate Effects with no help from the state and federal government at least in the past four years so There's a consortium I think of a hundred cities Working on adapting to climate change So drawing on core principles Suggested three areas of Climate change assessment starting with a decision focus improving quantification of key risks relevant to users needs and Presenting risk Information strategically Basically creating a framework That will be understood by those needing to make decisions The social construct of value is the core of risk assessment And values are inherently subjective come in many forms Economic psychological and otherwise and can be challenging to quantify Metrics of value Pertain to life well-being prosperity Ecosystem prosperity natural capital and Economic services cultural heritage and other qualities One of the things also discussed in the climate adaption summit was the use of Nature what nature provides to help mitigate For instance one of the counties in South Florida was Planting magnolias to Protect the park basically using the magnolias as Surge protectors ocean search protectors I think that's About what I have for today and any particular questions I do have a a page of references already that I just need to cut and paste into a note card