What Are We Missing?

Ann Rappaport

Lecturer, Department of Urban and Environmental Planning and Policy, School of Arts & Sciences

People expect that wealthy countries are going to be more resilient than poor countries, because we will be able to recover more quickly when problems happen and we have the resources to invest in technology and can plan and anticipate. But I don't see any evidence right now that we are doing that planning in this country, no evidence that we are anticipating what climate change will mean to us in any sort of comprehensive way. You see individuals and organizations making anticipatory decisions, but I don't think that's part of government discussion.

"One of the things that we need to think about well ahead of time is the vulnerability of our infrastructure to sea-level rise... I don't think we've even come to a point where our governments are willing to engage in that discussion."

Historically, we think of government as having a responsibility for doing planning, especially the kind of planning that prevents risk. One of the things that we need to think about well ahead of time is the vulnerability of our infrastructure to sea-level rise. And that takes decades. "Should we move this road, because if there's sea-level rise it'll be very vulnerable to storm surges?" Well, if we should, then we should be thinking about it now, and I don't think we've even come to a point where our governments are willing to engage in that discussion.

How can we engage in a constructive dialogue on infrastructure and start investing the resources that are needed? In recent years, it seems to me that government has been much more reactive and much more reluctant to make investments for low-probability, high-consequence events. I think that people actually understand risk quite well, and I think that we have the capacity as a society to have that dialogue, but we need to be brought together to focus on a future that is going to require significant public investments.

"Unless we start changing that, we'll see much more severe consequences from climate change than a wealthy country which has enormous capacity should experience."

[Hurricane Katrina] was a perfect example. There had been repeated warnings from many organizations and voices about the vulnerability of the Louisiana coastline to storm surges. And yet, as a collective group, we were incapable of allocating the money that was needed to take preventive measures. And that's precisely the kind of thing that intrigues me. Unless we start changing that, we'll see much more severe consequences from climate change than a wealthy country which has enormous capacity should experience.

It's one thing for of individuals to start changing their light bulbs, that's all good. But the real issue is making those hard decisions collectively.

[ Learn more about Rappaport's work ]

Interviews by Georgiana Cohen, Office of Web Communications

Homepage photo by John McConnico / Associated Press. Tseng photo by Melody Ko, University Photographer. Islam, Metcalf, Rappaport, Reed and Shimshack photos by Alonso Nichols for Tufts University. Portney photo by Zara Tzanev for Tufts University. Kirshen photo by Aaron Schutzengel (A'07) for Tufts University. Najam photo by Brian Loeb (A'06) for Tufts University.

This story originally ran on Oct. 22, 2007.