Buying Time for Climate Action

The 2021 IPCC report made one thing crystal clear — global climate change is here to stay. Time is up. We need to act or climate change will lead to inconceivable suffering by billions of people. Buying Time for Climate Action is the combined narrative of world class experts, all committed to help humanity survive its largely self-induced destructive course. Changing that course requires urgent action. Determining which actions will lead to helpful change requires insights into the stumbling blocks that always emerge when actions aimed at change are planned, resulting in lost time. The experts who contributed to this volume, through their expertise, networks, wisdom and creativity, have largely concluded that the way to cope with the stumbling blocks is to avoid them by focusing on grassroots initiatives. Their narratives and discussions, presented in this book, highlight such thinking.The book is essential reading for anyone committed to help avoid an existential disaster for humanity, and ready to move plans into effective action.Contents: About this Book:IntroductionA Kaleidoscopic Wealth of ApproachesPresentations:Existential RisksFood Systems and Their Sustainability: Buying TimeFisheries and Climate ChangeWhat are Emerging Infections Diseases?Climate-Induced Managed Retreat, a Multifaceted Action PlanFinance as Barrier to Addressing Systemic Climate ChangeResilient Water ManagementInterlude:Heraclites, Lao Tzu, Change, Evolution and Stumbling BlocksThe Nature of Stumbling BlocksSelected Discussion HighlightsExploring Ways Around Stumbling Blocks:Introduction to Section 2DecarbonizationThe Financial ConundrumWildlife Management, Fish and Meat. What Worked and What Did NotLet a Thousand Flowers BloomConversion or AlignmentIncentivesPoliticizationUseful Models in Fishery, Conditions for ChangePriorities for Change, Who/What is Going to Change the System?How People Make Decisions — Role of ExpertsUnblocking Blockages, Levers and Priorities, a Limited InventoryIf You Could, What Single Thing Would You Change?Do We Need a Real Crisis?Issues Where We Could Realistically Hope to Make a DifferenceAgency and Transformative Action; Back Away from PessimismLeadership — How Do We Become More Visionary?History and AgencyFinancing Prevention and Long-Term PlanningVested Interest — Absent Political Will/NerveLinking Bottom-Up and Top-Down to Catalyze ActionThe Case of Managed RetreatFinal ReflectionAnnex 1: Speakers, Invited Participants and OrganizersReadership: All readers interested in climate change and its consequences.
Climate Change;Existential Risks;Food;Water;Finance;Fishery;Action Plans;Stumbling Blocks;Pandemics;IPCC 2021;Bottom Up;Heraclites;Lao Tse;Let a Thousand Flowers Bloom0Key Features:Emphasizing an omnipresent need to find a balance between bottom-up actions and top-down coordinationLooking for ways around the stumbling blocks that emerge from the system must prevail over efforts to change the system generating those stumbling blocksIndicating fairness, perceived but also proven, is essential for all policy and bottom-up action to build trust enabling changing attitudesStrongly recommends to Let thousand flowers bloom