ClimatePrep

The ecological and economic significance of the Yangtze basin to China make its vulnerability to climate change a matter of critical importance. © Michel Gunther / WWF-Canon

One of these threads began at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Unlike the US National Academy of Sciences, the CAS is both an organization to connect some of the premier researchers in China and a graduate university. There are dozens of divisions within the CAS. I had been asked to speak on a Saturday morning at the cluster focused on geographic sciences and natural resources. Most of the professors and students were ecologists and physical or biological geographers.

My handler picked me up at my hotel and we caught a cab down the street. Passing through the main entrance, we came into a large open plaza with students and staff exercising — a classic Chinese street scene. Upstairs, I looked at a large poster showing a photo of me giving a talk (apparently very passionately) with a lot of Chinese text, except for the occasional reference to John Matthews in English letters (ie, my name). Grad students were laying out snacks. I set up my computer. Several faculty came in — I was surprised that I had met one in Stockholm last summer, and another is a prominent researcher and advocate for wetlands conservation I’ve met several times before. I didn’t know he was in this department as well. My host introduced himself — a collaborator with several colleagues who has worked on an excellent climate vulnerability assessment of the Yangtze basin. The students hovered respectfully. They seemed somewhat terrified of me. I tried to seem harmless. About 50 people came in and sat down. The students sat in the back of the room. I was supposed to give a long talk — very long by US or European standards. Talk as long as you want, said the host. I thought, The room seems pretty warm to go too long.

My talk began with a brief overview of why climate is important to humans, and how human institutions have to shift sometimes when they are transferred to new climate conditions.

North America is essentially split by the 100th meridian — the north-south lines of longitude that begin with 0° at Greenwich in the UK. In the nineteenth century as settlers moved west from the Atlantic coast in search of cheap, productive land, they noted that the 100th meridian corresponded to where a farm could reliably depend on precipitation (to the east of that line) and irrigation was critical for reliable row-crops (to the west of that line). Most of the western portions of North America are relatively arid or semi-arid, and farming is a much sketchier endeavor in that part of the US. An important US government ecologist named John Wesley Powell in the 1870s and 1880s argued forcefully that government itself should change at this line too. But that’s also where the abundance of land is. And with good irrigation and the ample warmth and sun of the western US, farmland could be extremely productive.

Powell proposed that the way we organize ourselves in the west should be fundamentally different than we do in the east.

Since water is key to the success of this region, Powell said we should make sure that the political boundaries match the hydrological, basin boundaries. We should make sure that everyone within a basin has access to water, and that it is managed in an equitable way for both small and large farmers. Anything else, and we will foster conflict and doom for many of these settlers.

In modern language, Powell was recommending that we manage water sustainably, respecting both ecological and hydrological boundaries. His efforts to push these efforts into sound policy are described movingly and beautifully in Wallace Stegner’s great book Beyond the 100th Meridian. It is a water classic and reads as if it was written yesterday.

John Wesley Powell, Geologist and Explorer of the American West

While Powell and Stegner were not talking about climate change, their messages are profoundly relevant to our time. In a sense, we are all entering a period where we are beyond the 100th meridian — the meridian is moving as the climate shifts, altering our hydrological and ecological boundaries. In many ways and places, the approach we take to water management will also have to shift. It is as if we were moving into the dry west of North America from the east without changing position. Or … that we are moving from the dry regions to the wetter areas. Both stories are true in places across the globe. And this type of institutional flexibility is critical to how we think about water, our institutions, and even our economies and culture.

I used a lot of other examples too — Nepal, Guatemala, Australia, lots of bad examples from the US like the Hoover dam on the Colorado River. But Powell was a good place to start. He was a scientist who understood that importance of speaking science to power – even if power didn’t listen. And my final message to this audience of scientists was that our science had to be translated into the language of policy and finance so that they could shape our findings into a more sustainable world. It’s hard work. But it’s what we’re supposed to do to make our science relevant.

That talk lasted over two hours. We had a good discussion. If people were sleeping, I couldn’t tell. A lot of students came to talk with me afterwards, so I must have seemed relatively harmless in the end.

The end of this particular thread came the next day, just a few blocks away. The national convention center of China is a huge structure — tall, broad, imposing. It’s quite close to the Olympic center with the “bird’s nest” stadium and the water cube swim center. The central government had teamed up with WWF and a big private energy producer in China to hold a high-level conference on climate mitigation (greenhouse gases — where they come from, how to reduce their concentration and emissions rate) and climate adaptation (how to adjust human and natural systems to climate impacts). The Chinese vice-premier was there. I was speaking in a session on capacity building for climate change, with distinct sections on mititgation and adaptation.

The mitigation people went first. One of them was an executive from a major US company that has expanded operations all across China. He said, I won’t talk about climate change per se but our approach to sustainable management of resources.

His talk was very admirable, even moving. They are trying hard to become carbon neutral within a short period, and they are definitely reducing their environmental footprint generally. But I got a little worried listening to him.

I spoke shortly afterwards and unlike the CAS I was limited to about 12 minutes with no questions. “As we’ve heard, the practice of mitigation is mostly about developing new technologies and tools. But climate adaptation is mostly about using existing tools in a new framework. Sustainability is the goal, but we can no longer assume that it is a single goal. Sustainability is about a shifting goal, since we have to be mindful about where ecosystems are natural resources are changing through time. What is sustainable now is unlikely to remain so within a decade. And some changes are happening more quickly than that.”

As I went back to my seat, I thought, Well, I hope we weren’t looking to build a long-term relationship with his company, since I had in very polite, indirect language just undermined the basis for some of his company’s goals. Win some, lose some.

But at the break, the man ran up to me. Can I have a copy of your talk? I think there’s a lot we should be thinking about that you said. This represents the next stage in ethical management.

I was stunned. I hadn’t expected that response. And then I thought to the previous day’s talk.

Science and industry in China — both rapt learners. How do we make significant changes as a society, especially a society evolving as rapidly as China today? Change is neither easy nor simple. I often feel that global lessons and examples of the challenges and opportunities of climate adaptation are better received abroad where there is a strong willingness to listen and engage in rich discussion, than in North America, China helped prove the rule.