Lecture 5: adaptation and vulnerability

Question 1

What happened in 1859 in the UK in regards to adaptation?

Answer 1

Establishment of the Met Office that meant daily weather forecasts were not published

Question 2

What happened in 1879 in the UK in regards to adaptation?

Answer 2

Destruction of Tay Bridge during winds led to new building codes and improve wind monitoring

Question 3

What happened in 1917 in the UK in regards to adaptation?

Answer 3

Started using meteorological information from military planning after Army offensive of Passchendaele

Question 4

What happened in 1953 in the UK in regards to adaptation?

Answer 4

storm surge caused intense coastal flooding which led to improved design and construction of Thames Barrier

Question 5

What happened in 1987 in the UK in regards to adaptation?

Answer 5

Great Storm caused intense damage and costs which led to changes in the way weather forecasts were communicated

Question 6

What happened in 1995-97 in the UK in regards to adaptation?

Answer 6

Drought provoked new government legislation that required companies to meet basic water standards and water companies also had to have management plans implemented

Question 7

What happened in 2000 in the UK in regards to adaptation?

Answer 7

Floods led to new planning guidance about building in flood plains

Question 8

What happened in 2003 in the UK in regards to adaptation?

Answer 8

Heatwave led to premature elderly deaths which led NHS to introduce a heatwave plan

Question 9

What happened in 2009 in the Australia in regards to adaptation?

Answer 9

Heatwave and bushfires that resulted in 272 deaths and consequently a Royal Comission was created to investigate deaths

Question 10

What are the 3 forms of adaptation?

Answer 10

Anticipatory (before impacts are observed)
Autonomous (reactive to an event)
Planned (result of deliberate policy decision based on prior event awareness)

Question 11

Evidence that climate adaptation is new

Answer 11

unprecedented climate change conditions, rates of change and knowledge about issue. Adaptation features new actors and measures

Question 12

Evidence that climate adaptation is old

Answer 12

societies have always attempted to make the best use of their climatic conditions. Adaptation includes practices from well-established domains.

Question 13

What is vulnerability and capacity?

Answer 13

vulnerability is the risk from exposure and capability is ability to resources/ability to cope with the risks posed

Question 14

What affects vulnerability and capacity?

Answer 14

social characteristics: age, gender, class, ethnicity, race, disability

Question 15

What differentiates human adaptation from other forms of adaptation from other organisms?

Answer 15

The availability of social capital

Question 16

What is social capital?

Answer 16

the value of bonding, bridging and networking between different people

Question 17

When was the Chicago heat stress event?

Answer 17

1995

Question 18

What were the social capital factors that affected the damage caused by the heatwave event?

Answer 18

living on top floor
working air conditions
living alone
whether they left home
participated in group activities
had a pet
access to transportation 
had friends in Chicago

Question 19

What were the different ways that elderly people did not perceive themselves as vulnerable after the 1995 chicago heat event?

Answer 19

whether they perceived themselves as ‘elderly’
whether they acknowledge heat as a threat
level of self-efficacy
knowledge held by their carers

Question 20

What is a social contract?

Answer 20

A real or implicit contract between civil community and the state. The contracts are constantly being negotiated between the two actors due to new perturbations that affect how risks should be managed

Question 21

What is an example of a social contract?

Answer 21

The Australian government’s ‘prepare, stay and defend; or leave early’ policy in response to bushfires during 2009

Question 22

Where did the social contract between community and state break down?

Answer 22

Norfolk where coastal erosion has started to threaten a home so much that it is now worth £1 and cannot get any insurance. Residents believe that prior state action could have prevented such harm

Question 23

What did Adger (2003) state?

Answer 23

The ability of communities to make sustainable transition will be determined in part by their networks and social capital. When they perceive adaptation to and the risk of climate change being within their powers to alter they will be more likely to make the connection to the causes of climate change thereby enhancing their mitigative as well as adaptive capacity

Question 24

What did Handmer and O’Neill (2016) propose to improve the adaptive capacity of the Australian government plan that did not work during the 2009 wildfires?

Answer 24

• People with identifiable vulnerabilities should be supported by fire agencies
• Unacceptably high bushfire risk locations should be abandoned
• Warnings should be increased in urgency

Question 25

What did Handmer and O’Neill (2016) note about the later response of the Australian government?

Answer 25

2014 the strategy changed to leave and live. But challenges remain in convincing people not to ‘wait and see’. The other challenge is also around making sure people are always in a state of preparedness as being ready ‘just in case’ is too disruptive to people’s lives

Question 26

What did Wolf et al. (2010) state?

Answer 26

To support social capital, government could emphasize financing local social development to support and empower the elderly. Government could benefit from knowing which values and norms support what type of adaptation.

Question 27

What did Adger et al. (2013b) state?

Answer 27

• climate risks are particularly problematic for consensus building for government because of uncertainty and uneven distributions of burdens. If social contracts can be negotiated through enhancing collective responsibility and citizenship, adaptation will advance smoothly at less real cost to vulnerable groups

Question 28

What did Adger et al. (2013a) state?

Answer 28

• cultural perspectives help explain differences in response across populations. recent evidence has shows that information about climate change does not connect with all cultures and worldviews in the same way
• climate changes may itself be influencing cultural values, individual and collective identies and notions of community