EurekAlert: Organizations in the United States that are at the highest risk of sustaining damage from climate change are not adapting enough to the dangers posed by rising temperatures, according to a Yale report."Despite a half century of climate change that has already significantly affected temperature and precipitation patterns and has already had widespread ecological and hydrological impacts, and despite a near certainty that the United States will experience at least as much climate change in the coming decades just as a result of current atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, little adaptation has occurred," says Robert Repetto, author of "The Climate Crisis and the Adaptation Myth" and a senior fellow of the United Nations Foundation.
Repetto says that private- and public-sector organizations face significant obstacles to adaptation because of uncertainties over the occurrence of climate change at the regional and local levels, over the future frequency of extreme weather events, and over the ecological, economic and other impacts of climate change.…The report cites:
- New York City's 40-year-old building codes that require structures to withstand only 110 mph winds, when climate change is causing more intense hurricanes that could bring speeds of up to 135 mph, and its flood maps that are based on historical data and not on climate change modeling data. Increases in sea levels and surges associated with severe storms would likely inundate
…"To say that the United States has the technological, economic and human capacity to adapt to climate change does not imply that the United States will adapt," said Repetto. "Without national leadership and concerted efforts to remove these barriers and obstacles, adaptation to climate change is likely to continue to lag."
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