DOI Theoretical Framework

Change is not easy! People adhere to old routines and habits tenaciously. Most people are slow to accept new ideas, new products, in short, innovations. When it comes to new technologies that can aid in adaptation to climate change, there is fierce resistance from farmers (to sustainable agriculture), from the fossil fuels industries (to sustainable energy), from developers (to going green), and the list goes on. While a new technology does involve a certain investment of time and money at first, it is cost effective and profitable in the long term. When it comes to sustainability, nothing less than the future of our planet is at stake, so it is incumbent upon us to find a way to “sell” the innovations to the masses. The Diffusion of Innovations (DOI) Theoretical Framework provides an effective, structured means of doing this; its efficacy has been established for hundreds of innovations, and it is particularly suited to technologies.

Climate Change Solutions

Carbon pricing initiatives, as well as carbon capture and geologic sequestration (CCS), are tools to offset and reduce the impact of CO2 emissions. The best solution is to not create the CO2 emissions in the first place by switching from fossil fuels to renewable clean energy sources. This can be incentivized through tax breaks, as Norway has done with EVs. DOI can be used to change the public mindset so that they will embrace EVs, as Germany is doing now. Sea level rise solutions include shoreline armoring and beach renourishment, elevation of roadways and sidewalks, managed retreat through purchase of vulnerable land for public use, and avoidance through limiting development in high-risk areas. This chapter gives case examples from U.S.'s 100 Resilient Cities, and UK's Bristol is Open, a programmable city where data on air quality, transportation, health, and needs of elderly residents are integrated into one high-speed centralized network.

Cultivating Environmental Justice

The environmental justice movement grew out of the civil rights movement, and its aim was to provide all people with equal environmental protection. In the 1970s it became clear that African American and Hispanic children had much greater exposure to lead paint than did other children, and that hazardous waste dumps were disproportionately placed in communities of color. In 1991, the First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit in Washington, D.C., laid out the 17 principles of environmental justice. One of the Summit leaders was Hazel Johnson, an African American mother from Chicago who formed a nonprofit organization to clean up toxins in her neighborhood, which had the highest concentration of hazardous waste dumps in the nation. Mrs. Johnston's long battle with big industrial polluters is the focus of one of this chapter's case examples of how communities can empower their residents to fight for and achieve environmental justice.

Impacts on Public Health

Many serious adverse public health impacts of climate change are already being felt around the globe, including record-breaking heat waves, severe air pollution, widespread water contamination that has brought a resurgence of cholera and has compromised clean drinking water and sanitation for more than one billion people worldwide, food scarcity and undernutrition from droughts and desertification, pandemics of vector-borne diseases, and increasingly frequent and severe natural hazards such as flooding, hurricanes, and earthquakes. Centralized, well-organized emergency preparedness planning is needed at the national, regional, and municipal levels to enable safe and efficient evacuations, and to minimize injuries and fatalities. In addition, effective planning to address the public health impacts of climate change is contingent on poverty reduction, and adequate access to education and healthcare for all. This chapter addresses the major public health impacts of global warming and the use of technologies in adapting to them.

Cultivating Resilience

Adaptation to the challenging impacts of global warming, especially extreme weather events such as intense heat waves and hurricanes, is much more effective when the members of a community look out for each other. As we will see in the case example from the great Chicago Heat Wave of 1995, among the poor communities that were hardest hit, the neighborhoods that had social cohesion fared far better than those whose members were socially isolated. Social networking cultivates resilience, which protects vulnerable populations before, during, and after emergencies. In addition, the use of technologies is vital to address the impacts of extreme weather events; this chapter demonstrates how technologies aid in addressing heat waves and other natural hazards by providing a platform for database management, dispensing health and emergency information rapidly, and providing timely, effective medical relief.

Identifying and Mapping Vulnerable Populations

Climate change does not affect all populations uniformly; there are disproportionate impacts on certain populations who are more vulnerable to displacement, injury or death due to risk factors such as poverty, race, age, and medical conditions. The social determinants of health interact with climate change to determine a population's risk of adverse health impacts from changing precipitation patterns, rising temperatures, rising sea levels, and extreme weather events. Emergency preparedness planning must take into account the special concerns of vulnerable populations in order to ensure that they have food, water, and a temperature-safe shelter during climate change events such as heat waves, floods, and hurricanes. In addition, they may require assistance in evacuating their residences. This chapter addresses the use of technologies to identify and map these vulnerable populations.

Climate Change Overview

There is overwhelming scientific evidence that we are experiencing global warming, and that is it due to human-made greenhouse gas emissions, not to a “natural” cycle. Two key indicators of climate change had record-breaking years in 2016: the global mean surface temperature was the highest since recording began in 1880, and the average Arctic sea ice extent was the smallest annual average since record-keeping began in 1979. The greenhouse effect, caused by the burning of fossil fuels, has accelerated as carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere has soared to more than 400 parts per million (ppm). As a result of global warming, sea levels are projected to rise at least one-meter (39.4 inches), possibly two meters (78.7 inches), by 2100. It is vitally important that the nations of the world reduce CO2 emissions to slow down global warming. This chapter gives an overview of domestic and global trends in, and impacts from, climate change.

Sustainable Development

Sustainable development works within the ecosystems of the planet to conserve and replenish renewable clean energy sources. The most widely used definition of sustainable development was written by Norway's Prime Minister in her 1987 Brundtland Report to the United Nations: it must meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. The United Nations has adopted 17 Sustainable Development Goals, to be achieved by 2030; they include the eradication of poverty and hunger, provision of clean water and sanitation for all, achievement of gender equality, elimination of health disparities, access to quality education, promotion of economic prosperity, use of affordable clean energy sources, and good health and well-being for all. Proper disposal of hazardous waste and effective disaster risk management help to facilitate these goals. This chapter will discuss several new technologies employed in sustainable development.