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[StephanieVanbryce]

Impacts of Climate Change

... tons of embedded links ...

A System Vulnerability Approach to Consider the Potential Impacts to 2050 of a Mid-Upper Greenhouse Gas Emissions Scenario
Nils Gilman, Peter Schwartz, Doug Randall
March 2007


Climate change is a real and growing problem for the United States and for the world. As urgency around the issue continues to grow, so too does the scientific consensus that changes to Earth’s climate will enormously affect the planet’s future and the futures of all who inhabit it. Anthropogenic climate change is now widely considered to have the potential not just to cause perturbations in the weather, but also to create major discontinuities in many complex natural and human systems, including ecosystems, economies, human settlements, and even political institutions.

Over the past two decades, and especially in the last few years, climate change has become one of the most heavily researched subjects in science. Yet climate change impact studies remain at the low end of usefulness for policymakers and others; they are not predictive enough to be actionable because the exact nature of the events that will jar the planet in the near- and long-term future—the wheres, whens, and hows of climate change—remains both unknown and unknowable. This paper offers policymakers an alternative approach to thinking about climate change and its impacts. Instead of starting with climate change and working out toward impacts, we focus on systems that are already generally vulnerable first, and then consider what the geophysics of climate change may do to them. This approach has two benefits. First, it limits the number of logical steps necessary for thinking about the impacts of climate change, enabling more confident insights and conclusions. Second, it cuts across analytic stovepipes and gives regional specialists a framework for thinking about what climate change will mean for their particular areas, based on expertise they already have.


To read the white paper, click on the attached PDF.

Related GBN work on climate change and its impacts:


Scenarios

The Future of Energy webcast with Peter Schwartz, May 2006
"An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario and Its Implications for United States National Security," scenarios for the Department of Defense, February 2004
Electric Power Industry Scenarios, with the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), February 2006
"U.S. Energy Scenarios for the 21st Century," with the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, April 2003
Articles

"Environmental Heresies," Stewart Brand, Technology Review, February 2006
"Nuclear Now," Peter Schwartz and Spencer Reiss, Wired, February 2005
"How Hydrogen Can Save America," Peter Schwartz, Wired, April 2003


Upcoming Event

In early June, GBN will be facilitating a one-day strategic conversation on the uncertainties, risks, and opportunities of climate change. The session is targeted to corporate decision-makers from a wide range of industries who want to explore the implications of climate change for resources, markets, and competition, and other business imperatives. Participants will include GBN chairman Peter Schwartz, cofounder Stewart Brand, and CEO Eamonn Kelly. Space is limited. For further information, please contact Nancy Murphy at [e-mail] or 415-932-5400.



Impacts of Climate Change (PDF: 461 KB)


http://www.gbn.com/climatechange/index.html?aid=39932