2021-09-24 Preparing for Disasters We Don’t Want to Think About

Host: Greg Dalton

Guests:

Alice Hill, author, The Fight for Climate After COVID-19, Senior Fellow for Climate Change Policy, Council on Foreign Relations

Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Thomas P. Bostick, Former Commanding General, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

Francis Suarez, Mayor of Miami

The COVID-19 pandemic revealed structural weaknesses and inequities that existed long before 2020. Like the COVID-19 pandemic, climate disruption is a threat multiplier. 

In her new book, The Fight for Climate After COVID-19, Alice Hill says we need to adapt our thinking and our policies to combat the ever-increasing threat of climate change, especially as we see more compound disasters like a wildfire followed by a mudslide. 

“With the pandemic, we saw all 50 states and six territories hit at once. FEMA never contemplated having to respond in that way before,” Hill says. “We need greater surge capacity, that is, a faster response that can cover more territory all at once to help communities withstand the impacts and then recover from them.”

Hill worked on climate issues at the Department of Homeland Security and the National Security Council in the Obama administration. She’s now senior fellow for climate change policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. She advocates for a nationally coordinated government approach to adaptation to climate change, though she’s aware of a “climate literacy gap” among leaders in government and the private sector. 

“We need to come together to understand the risks, understand the vulnerabilities and then start making decisions with the support and the aid of the federal government to have better outcomes,” Hill says. 

Tom Bostick is former commanding general of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. He led the Hurricane Sandy response and recovery efforts and says we should take disasters like that as opportunities to better prepare for future ones. 

“Risk is all about fighting against some sort of impact,” says Bostick. “Resilience is accepting the fact that you're going to have to give way; you're going to have to fail somewhere in the system, but bounce back and bounce back even stronger.”  

But building resilience requires leadership, planning, priority setting and funding – resources that can be limited, Bostick says. “On any given day, the Corps has about 3,000 projects. We receive a certain amount of appropriations every year and that money is spread like peanut butter over these projects.”

He says the federal government did invest in recovery after Hurricane Katrina, spending $135 billion on the Hurricane and Storm Damage Risk Reduction System. 

“And in 2012, seven years to the day after Hurricane Katrina, Hurricane Isaac hit...and the storm system did its job down there,” Bostick says “So, our country, when put to task, can build a system that can reduce risks. We can't protect people from climate change, but we can reduce the risk.”

In 2019, citing the Paris Climate Agreement, the city of Miami declared a climate emergency and urged the State of Florida and the United States to do the same. Mayor Francis Suarez says that emergency continues to be taken seriously today. The city has also joined C40, a global network of cities committed to addressing climate change,  and pledged carbon neutrality by 2050. 

Despite increasingly severe storms and sunny day flooding, the mayor of Miami says continued waterfront development is a bet on the city’s focus on climate resilience.

“There are some that, for whatever reason, feel that Miami will not exist in 10 years or 20 years, or 50 years or in 10 years, and that's certainly not an acceptable outcome for me,” Suarez says. “We're dedicating resources, we’re not putting our head in the sand, and it's imperative that we do whatever it takes,” he says.  

Suarez says he’s also committed to exploring how to reverse some of the effects of climate change, “so that the world that we give our children is a better world than the one that we've inherited.”

Related Links:

The Fight for Climate After COVID-19

City of Miami Climate Change Programs 

Host: Greg Dalton

Guests:

Alice Hill, author, The Fight for Climate After COVID-19, Senior Fellow for Climate Change Policy, Council on Foreign Relations

Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Thomas P. Bostick, Former Commanding General, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

Francis Suarez, Mayor of Miami

The COVID-19 pandemic revealed structural weaknesses and inequities that existed long before 2020. Like the COVID-19 pandemic, climate disruption is a threat multiplier. 

In her new book, The Fight for Climate After COVID-19, Alice Hill says we need to adapt our thinking and our policies to combat the ever-increasing threat of climate change, especially as we see more compound disasters like a wildfire followed by a mudslide. 

“With the pandemic, we saw all 50 states and six territories hit at once. FEMA never contemplated having to respond in that way before,” Hill says. “We need greater surge capacity, that is, a faster response that can cover more territory all at once to help communities withstand the impacts and then recover from them.”

Hill worked on climate issues at the Department of Homeland Security and the National Security Council in the Obama administration. She’s now senior fellow for climate change policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. She advocates for a nationally coordinated government approach to adaptation to climate change, though she’s aware of a “climate literacy gap” among leaders in government and the private sector. 

“We need to come together to understand the risks, understand the vulnerabilities and then start making decisions with the support and the aid of the federal government to have better outcomes,” Hill says. 

Tom Bostick is former commanding general of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. He led the Hurricane Sandy response and recovery efforts and says we should take disasters like that as opportunities to better prepare for future ones. 

“Risk is all about fighting against some sort of impact,” says Bostick. “Resilience is accepting the fact that you're going to have to give way; you're going to have to fail somewhere in the system, but bounce back and bounce back even stronger.”  

But building resilience requires leadership, planning, priority setting and funding – resources that can be limited, Bostick says. “On any given day, the Corps has about 3,000 projects. We receive a certain amount of appropriations every year and that money is spread like peanut butter over these projects.”

He says the federal government did invest in recovery after Hurricane Katrina, spending $135 billion on the Hurricane and Storm Damage Risk Reduction System. 

“And in 2012, seven years to the day after Hurricane Katrina, Hurricane Isaac hit...and the storm system did its job down there,” Bostick says “So, our country, when put to task, can build a system that can reduce risks. We can't protect people from climate change, but we can reduce the risk.”

In 2019, citing the Paris Climate Agreement, the city of Miami declared a climate emergency and urged the State of Florida and the United States to do the same. Mayor Francis Suarez says that emergency continues to be taken seriously today. The city has also joined C40, a global network of cities committed to addressing climate change,  and pledged carbon neutrality by 2050. 

Despite increasingly severe storms and sunny day flooding, the mayor of Miami says continued waterfront development is a bet on the city’s focus on climate resilience.

“There are some that, for whatever reason, feel that Miami will not exist in 10 years or 20 years, or 50 years or in 10 years, and that's certainly not an acceptable outcome for me,” Suarez says. “We're dedicating resources, we’re not putting our head in the sand, and it's imperative that we do whatever it takes,” he says.  

Suarez says he’s also committed to exploring how to reverse some of the effects of climate change, “so that the world that we give our children is a better world than the one that we've inherited.”

Related Links:

The Fight for Climate After COVID-19

City of Miami Climate Change Programs