Climate Change, Risk Management, and Our Future Prosperity

Yesterday's post about the MVP program and Harvard's participation makes a plea for volunteers to join the Town in executing the next phase of the project when Harvard can pursue action grant money for actual projects. The two MVP plans that were adopted and accepted by the state has led to our designation as an MVP Community last month. Some facets of the MVP plans that were developed relate to Harvard's local economy, particularly the agricultural sector. However, the documents do not consider macroeconomic and related sociopolitical risks.

This New York Times article, "Climate Change Will Cost Us Even More Than We Think," is an eye-opening reminder that our economic system has a fragility that isn't often considered since more or less we are constantly on a growth trajectory. Certainly there are perturbations that impact the markets, employment, interest rates, and the like, but in general, the system and its components must have growth or they/it fails. We haven't seen hints of this vulnerability for over a decade but from time to time they remind us of all of the things that must go right in order to keep the ship sailing in a direction that facilitates this growth.

I've written extensively about the philosophy of perpetual growth that the global economy rests upon so I won't repeat those thoughts here, but one of two interesting concepts that emerge from this article relate to risk management.  One point of emphasis that I sought from the consulting team that developed Harvard's plans was this lens of risk management that is applied to so many elements of our lives such as life insurance, automobile insurance (mandatory), health care, investments, and so on. If we are concerned enough about minute short-term risks such as premature death, then certainly a threat that could impact global and local economies, local safety and security, and emergency management scenarios is worth at least talking about from that perspective.

Consider the following related to climate change:

1. Large insurance companies like Zurich and many others are taking climate change very seriously and when such a conservative and cautious industry sector assumes leadership in this area, it's a pretty strong indicator not only of the validity of the issue but the seriousness  
2. Department of Defense,  Intelligence Officials, and Financial and other entities 
3. First Responders and their concerns

Harvard residents, businesses, and local officials should all be cognizant of the potential for climate change to impact things of importance. I could give examples of what these impacts might be, but the list might be incomplete, might overstate it, and surely will miss things that are wholly unanticipated at this point, precisely because of the cascading effects that the authors discuss in the article.

"...they will not occur in isolation, but will reinforce one another in damaging ways. In some cases, they may produce a sequence of serious, and perhaps irreversible, damage."

Some may throw up their hands in frustration suggesting that if there is so much uncertainty related to impacts and their interactions, why even try?  I'd perhaps liken it to when you're very sick and need to take a half-dozen or more medications. While pharmacology researchers seek to do the best they can to estimate interactions, there is no way to be certain, particularly the more in tandem are prescribed. So, when sick, do we just say no to the prescribed medications or do we usually steel ourselves to try?

But the bottom line for the issue of climate change and how it might impact us individually or collectively; locally or regionally, is that we need to at least pay attention. Get involved if you can, but at the very minimum, invest in learning about the issue and, if you are so inclined, hold discussions with friends, neighbors, family, and, most risky of all, co-workers.

Don't forget that we need volunteers to help us with MVP, so drop me an email - cryan@harvard.ma.us -  if you want to help us out!