[Another cross-post from Adapt Already]
One way to deal with uncertainty is brute force engineering. See, for example, the canal that brings 1.5 million acre feet (1850 gigalitres according to Google) of Colorado River water into Arizona each year (the Central Arizona Project or CAP).
Or, here in Victoria, there’s the massive desalination plant under construction on the Bass Coast, which will deliver annually 200 gigalitres of water purified from the ocean.
This is apparently one third of Melbourne’s annual consumption. The fancy-pants animation provided on the project website ends with the dramatic and reassuring words:
“Water now
and for the future.
For sure.”
And this is precisely the point. The impact of climate change on annual rainfall is potentially quite bad, and at best, highly uncertain. The response? Find a source independent of rainfall. While fears of climate change no doubt played a significant role in bringing about this desalination project, this is one form of adaptation that doesn’t rely on detailed climate predictions in order to be effective.
Chalk this up as one of the many examples that contradicts the conceptual model proposed by the Climate Science Framework:
climate science –> adaptation research –> adaptation
On another note… Continue reading »
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