Adapting to Climate Change: Thresholds, Values, Governance

Cambridge University Press
Edition: Illustrated, 6/25/2009
EAN 9780521764858, ISBN10: 0521764858

Hardcover, 532 pages, 25.4 x 17.8 x 2.8 cm
Language: English
Originally published in English

Adapting to climate change is a critical problem facing humanity. This involves reconsidering our lifestyles, and is linked to our actions as individuals, societies and governments. This book presents top science and social science research on whether the world can adapt to climate change. Written by experts, both academics and practitioners, it examines the risks to ecosystems, demonstrating how values, culture and the constraining forces of governance act as barriers to action. As a review of science and a holistic assessment of adaptation options, it is essential reading for those concerned with responses to climate change, especially researchers, policymakers, practitioners, and graduate students. Significant features include historical, contemporary, and future insights into adaptation to climate change; coverage of adaptation issues from different perspectives: climate science, hydrology, engineering, ecology, economics, human geography, anthropology and political science; and contributions from leading researchers and practitioners from around the world.

Introduction
1. Adaptation now
Part I. Adapting to Thresholds in Physical and Ecological Systems
2. Ecological limits of adaptation to climate change
3. Adapting to the effects of climate change on water supply reliability
4. Protecting London from tidal flooding
limits to engineering adaptation
5. Climate prediction
a limit to adaptation?
6. Learning to crawl
how to use seasonal climate forecasts to build adaptive capacity
7. Norse Greenland settlement and limits to adaptation
8. Sea ice change in Arctic Canada
are there limits to Inuit adaptation?
Part II. The Role of Value and Culture in Adaptation
9. The past, present and some possible futures of adaptation
10. Do values subjectively define the limits to climate change adaptation?
11. Conceptual and practical barriers to adaptation
vulnerability and responses to heat waves in the UK
12. Values and cost-benefit analysis
economic efficiency criteria in adaptation
13. Hidden costs and disparate uncertainties
trade-offs in approaches to climate policy
14. Community based adaptation and culture in theory and practice
15. Exploring the invisibility of local knowledge in decision-making
the Boscastle harbour flood disaster
16. Adaptation and conflict within fisheries
insights for living with climate change
17. Exploring cultural dimensions of adaptation to climate change
18. Adapting to an uncertain climate on the great plains
testing hypotheses on historical populations
19. Climate change and adaptive human migration
lessons from rural North America
Part III. Governance, Knowledge and Technologies for Adaptation
20. Are our levers long and our fulcra strong enough? Exploring the soft underbelly of adaptation decisions and actions
21. Decentralized planning and climate adaptation
toward transparent governance
22. Climate adaptation, local institutions and rural livelihoods
23. Adaptive governance for a changing coastline
science, policy and publics in search of a sustainable future
24. Climate change, international cooperation and adaptation in transboundary water management
25. Decentralization
a window of opportunity for successful adaptation to climate change?
26. Adapting to climate change
the nation-state as problem and solution
27. Limits to adaptation
analysing institutional constraints
28. Accessing diversification, networks and traditional resource management as adaptations to climate extremes
29. Governance limits to effective global financial support for adaptation
30. Organizational learning and governance in adaptation in urban development
31. Conclusions
transforming the world
Index.

Review of the hardback: 'This book is a major contribution to a subject that has hitherto been far too little studied and commented on. 'Adaptation' to climate change sounds a simple idea, but turns out to be a complex and problematic one. Everyone involved in the debate about how to cope with global warming will profit by studying the diverse contributions this volume contains.' Lord Tony Giddens London School of Economics and Political Science and author of The Politics of Climate Change

Review of the hardback: 'A fascinating collection of papers addressing adaptation to climate change in all its complexity, ranging geographically from the Inuit of Arctic Canada to the African Sahel via the inhabitants of Boscastle in Cornwall. On the way, it explores from the perspectives of many different writers the factors that enable and encourage communities to adapt, and the factors that hold them back. The book has a richness and depth of thinking that makes it required reading for all who seek to understand why some communities live in harmony with their climatic environment whilst others fail, and what this means for the future of society as a whole as it seeks to come to terms with climate change.' Jean Palutikof National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility, Griffith University

'This book provokes thought … it succeeds in bringing together a wide-ranging group of specialists and provides valuable synopses of vital aspects of climate change science and social science.' A. M. Mannion, The Biologist