One thing about the Arctic is not in dispute, however: this summer portions of it rose to the highest temperatures ever recorded there, 100.4˚F (38˚C).[1]

It’s an unheard-of heat wave for an area where, in days past, the ocean could reliably be walked across most of the year and where winter temperatures frequently dropped below -50°C (-58°F).[2]

And, while “annual Arctic air temperature continues to increase at more than double the magnitude of the global mean air temperature increase,”[3] we nonetheless “wouldn’t expect the natural world to generate [such a heat wave] in anything less than 800,000 years or so,” climate scientist Andrew Ciavarella of the U.K. Met Office in Exeter, England, said July 14 in a news conference. It’s “effectively impossible without human influence.”[4]

Okay, so climate change is being directly blamed for the warming, that is hardly surprising. Indeed, the World Weather Attribution Network says such an event is 600 times more likely due to anthropomorphic climate change.[5]

Attribution can also warn us to expect certain secondary and tertiary impacts – what we call submerged impacts – resulting from a heat wave.

For example, a warming tundra greatly increases release of the 1,400 gigatons of methane – an incredibly potent greenhouse gas – currently sequestered in the permafrost.[6]

One tertiary effect of this is an odd sort of land-based acne, made by methane bubbling to the surface and exploding into the atmosphere leaving a massive, circular sinkhole gaping open at the surface. Seventeen of these huge and mysterious holes have welled up since 2004,[7]and scientists have spotted thousands more bubbles apparently poised to burst at any time.[8]

Another effect, the thawing of what was permanently frozen ground, caused the toppling of a huge Siberian fuel tank and the subsequent leak of an enormous plume – about 20,000 tons – of diesel fuel into the Ambarnaya river ecosystem,[9] a spill that could be seen by satellite (see image, above).

It is possible to drill down this cascade of impacts even further to a Siberian anthrax outbreak on the Yamal peninsula – well above the Arctic circle – four years ago. The likely cause is believed to be an infected reindeer carcass, frozen and buried in permafrost decades ago, that had thawed due to rising temperatures.[10]

Warming temps also herald a far greater likelihood of wildfires and, indeed, these were raging out of control in Siberia this year – including “peat fires [that] can burn longer than forest fires and release vast amounts of carbon into the atmosphere.”[11] Aside from direct damage to forests, animals, and property, such fires give rise to plumes of ‘black carbon’ particulate which has damaging downstream implications of its own. 

So while climate change per se is a global phenomenon and its major impacts can be generally predicted, its Arctic local effects – an oil spill, an anthrax outbreak, a series of small craters, and so on – cannot.

But are even these events truly ‘local’ in the jurisdictional sense? 

The Arctic is not a single perfectly defined area, and definitions differ, but all agree it passes through several national jurisdictions: through Greenland, across Canada from Baffin Bay to the Beaufort Sea, slicing through Alaska, jumping the Bering Strait, and bisecting the vast expanse of Northern Russia from Vladivostok to Murmansk. It then whisks across the Norse countries, misses or encompasses Iceland depending on the map,[12],[13] and comes full circle to Greenland once more.

The same is true of the open oceans and of an entire continent: Antarctica.

In the largest sense, we all know this is a global issue and also in the largest sense, we know who is responsible: all of us.

Yet when a hurricane damages Florida, there’s a fairly clear understanding of the agencies, governments, insurance companies and individuals involved in the cleanup. U.S. federal, state, local agencies, local insurance purveyors, and local individuals and businesses. But how do we protect the Arctic, when that name merely represents an idea, a circle of latitude?

And who is responsible for dealing with a mess or disaster when the event is outside the 3-mile limit or crosses international boundaries? In the Arctic’s case, this is a highly complex question.

Cooperation
On an ad hoc basis there has been significant – if non-binding – cooperation between the Arctic nations.

As Edward Alexander of the Gwich’in Council International Circumpolar Wildland Fire project, noted last month, it’s “important to make sure that fire and smoke are not the only things crossing national borders. Our knowledge, cooperation, resources, respect for each other and our commitment to mutual aid should also be trans-boundary.”[14]

A body called the Arctic Council helps facilitate cooperation on many cross-border issues.[15] It is comprised of the 8 Arctic landowning nations – Russia, Canada, the United States, Sweden, Denmark (including Greenland and the Faroe Islands), Finland, Iceland, and Norway – along with the 40 indigenous communities representing about a million people, and several European and Asian states who ‘observe’ deliberations.[16] The Council forms working groups and disseminates information and policy briefs, but it is not clear how sharp its teeth are.

Some four million people live above the Arctic circle[17] and, while any given town or village may be within one nation or another, the communities they belong to may not. An estimated 80,000 – 100,000 Sámi, for example, range through Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Russia.[18] Because of this, and because Arctic inhabitants’ livelihoods generally center around local resources, their input is critical to the Arctic Council.

Given the massive challenges about to face the Arctic, and the thorny international questions that must be resolved, it would be well to have solid, binding cooperation and strong leadership. And here is the truly profound submerged impact of climate change: the warming globe has caused the polar ice to recede, thus opening the Arctic for commercial interests that are likely to increase the warming effect. 

One example is the Northwest Passage – lodestone of explorers like Cartier and Hudson – which is now open far more often. This route has cut more than 1,000 nautical miles (1,852 kilometers) and up to 4 days off the passage from Atlantic to Pacific.[19] A time and distance – and therefore fuel – savings like this will attract a good deal of shipping, including tankers too large to get through the Panama canal.[20]

But who owns or controls the route? Canada firmly asserts that the passage is strictly their affair,[21] but other countries – including the United States, Denmark, Japan, Norway, the European Union and, especially, Russia – have expressed increasing interest in the region and are making differing claims in relation to international law. The U.S. Secretary of State recently called that claim “illegitimate” and tensions have risen.[22],[23]

As this makes clear, claims on the Northwest Passage are likely to be highly contested.

There are also military implications, with numerous nations – who are not necessarily friends – sending submarines.[24] and warships[25] through slender and shallow shipping lanes. This is another reason the importance of open waters in the Arctic is clear even if who controls those waters is not. 

Another issue is the contested control of the Voronovsky Ridge and other resource-rich areas. About a quarter of the world’s remaining untapped oil and gas reserves – some 90 billion barrels of oil, 1,669-trillion cubic feet of natural gas, and 44 billion barrels of natural-gas liquids[26] – lie below what was perpetual snow and ice but is now open water.

The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) “gives coastal states a 200 nautical mile continental shelf claim that allows countries the right to exploit resources in the seabed and subsoil of their respective areas,” including fishing, oil and gas extraction, and mining.[27]

Yet even here things are murky. The treaty specifies rights from the end of the continental shelves – and there are at least three continents involved in the Arctic[28] and there’s a lot of lively discussion about where those shelves actually end. Heck, geographers can’t even agree on how many continents there are![29]

Though the long-term future of oil and gas fuel is uncertain, there is already complex maneuvering for these resources that have lain untapped beneath the ocean floor for so long. The U.N. Shelf Commission – yes, there is a commission on establishing the outer limits of continental shelves – must approve applications for various nations’ claims, some of which have already been accepted.[30] Whether those rights will remain undisputed is an open question.

We may never settle which man first set foot on the North Pole, but we must quickly settle the issues facing the Arctic today. The decisions made in this region over the next few years will have a major impact on our race. We know who those decisions will affect – all of us – we just don’t know who will make them.

References
[1] Science News, Climate Change Made Siberia’s Heat Wave at Least 600 Times More Likely, July 15, 2020
[2] Wikipedia, Polar Climate, Arctic
[3] NOAA Arctic Program, Arctic Report Card: Update for 2019
[4] Science News for Students, Siberian Heat Wave that Caused an Oil Spill Made More Likely, Aug. 13, 2020
[5] Ibid
[6] National Snow and Ice Data Center, Methane and Frozen Ground, 2020
[7] National Geographic, Colossal Crater Found in Siberia. What Made it?Sept. 23, 2020
[8] ZME Science, Thousands of Methane-Filled Bubbles are Waiting to Explode in Siberia, July 2017
[9] Yahoo News, Putin Declares State of Emergency Over Siberian Fuel Spill, June 4, 2020
[10] BBC News, Russia Anthrax Outbreak Affects Dozens in North Siberia, August 2016
[11] NASA Earth Observatory, Another Intense Summer of Fires in Siberia, August 2020
[12] By some definitions, the Arctic Circle is that area (defined in red on the map) where the temperature remains below mean 10 °C (50 °F). In this scenario, the Arctic encompasses more area including Iceland.
[13] Ibid
[14] Arctic Council News, As Millions of Acres Burn in the Arctic, Creating a Common Language Around Wildfire Management is Key, Sept 7, 2020
[15] The Arctic Council, Arctic-council.org
[16] Arctic Council Indigenous Peoples’ Secretariat, We are the Indigenous Peoples of the Arctic
[17] Nordriego, Indigenous Population in the Arctic, March 2019
Arctic Center University of Lapland, Definitions of the Arctic by the Arctic Council Working Groups
[18] Wikipedia, Sámi People
[19] The Globe and Mail, A Reality Check on the Northwest Passage ‘Boom,’ Jan 7, 2014
[20] International Journal of e-Navigation and Maritime Economy, Vol. 1, An Economic Analysis of Container Shipping Through Canadian Northwest Passage, December 2014
[21] Canadian Library of Parliament, Canadian Arctic Sovereignty, Jan 26, 2006 
[22] The Guardian, Mike Pompeo Rejects Canada’s Claims to the Northwest Passage as ‘Illegitimate,’ May 2019
[23] Quartz, The U.S. is Picking a Fight with Canada Over a Thawing Arctic Shipping Route, June 2019
[24] The Nauticapedia, A List of the Known Underwater Transits of the Canadian Northwest Passage 1958 – 2009, 1990 (last updated 2017) 
[25] Quartz, The U.S. is Picking a Fight with Canada Over a Thawing Arctic Shipping Routem, June 2019
[26] U.S. Geological Survey, Circum-Arctic Resource Appraisal: Estimates of Undiscovered Oil and Gas North of the Arctic Circle, 2008
[27] The Barents Observer, Canada Files Submission to Establish Continental Shelf Outer Limits in Arctic Ocean, May 2019
[28] United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), Preamble, Part VI, Article76, Definition of the Continental Shelf, 1982
[29] Wikipedia: Continents, Number
[30] The Barents Observer, Canada Files Submission to Establish Continental Shelf Outer Limits in Arctic Ocean, May 2019

“Indeed,” Holmes babbles at one point, “I cannot think why the whole bed of the ocean is not one solid mass of oysters, so prolific the creatures seem. No doubt there are natural enemies which limit the increase of the creatures. You and I, Watson, we have done our part. Shall the world, then, be overrun by oysters? No, no; horrible!”[1]

Perhaps. Yet, what the great detective doesn’t say is that a bivalve takeover of the great deep, a vast increase in mollusks and other crustaceans, could be a part of the solution to global warming. As part of the carbon cycle,[2] CO₂ is moved from the atmosphere to the depths, and is also sequestered in mollusk shells, crustacean exoskeletons, and coral structures, allowing the oceans to soak up and sequester, even more.[3]

These shell-forming creatures, along with crustaceans and corals, can soak up significant amounts of carbon – in the case of oysters, 12% of overall shell mass.[4]

It is an extraordinarily complex process to calculate the number of oysters the seabed can support[5] but, in order to make a significant impact – enough to be viable for carbon mitigation – some who are studying the problem[6] say mollusk farming on a massive scale would be needed.

Currently, mollusks make up just 0.2 gigatons (Gt[7]) – in terms of total mass – of all life on earth.[8] (For reference, human life represents one-tenth that much, 0.02 Gt, while all plant life comes to 2,250 times as much, a massive 450 Gt. For a fascinating representation of the relative weights of all life on Earth, click here for a chart).

The ocean already absorbs quite a bit of CO₂ from the atmosphere, and stores more than any other system – but there’s a downside: the extra CO₂ acidifies the waters, which creates a number of issues including limiting the oceans’ own ability to take up carbon.[9][10] (It’s also worth noting that ocean acidification can impact the oyster population itself. Thus, in helping to cure acidification, the oysters can actually create better conditions in which to thrive.[11])

In addition, while oysters indeed absorb carbon, “their real talent is filtering nitrogen out of the water column. Nitrogen is the greenhouse gas you don’t pay attention to — it is nearly 300 times as potent as carbon dioxide, and according to the journal Nature, the second worst in terms of having already exceeded a maximum ‘planetary boundary.’ ”[12]

Another part of this method of dealing with atmospheric carbon is known as enhanced mineral weathering (EMW). This method is designed to prompt and enhance the carbon cycle that moves CO₂ through plants and animals in the oceans, transforming it into carbon-sequestering calcium carbonate – limestone – that sinks to the ocean floor.[13]

The particular mineral to be ‘weathered’ is the pellucid green volcanic stone, olivine, whose particular makeup allows absorption and storage of carbon.

“All the CO₂ that is produced by burning one liter of oil can be sequestered by less than one liter of olivine,”[14] and its abundance – it is the most prolific rock in the Earth’s mantle[15] – and low cost could make it ideal for ocean-sequestration efforts.

There is currently an experiment underway on the coast of a tropical Caribbean island using olivine to enhance absorption of CO_2, and help deacidify the ocean, a method that has been considered for decades[16] but has not actually been tried outside of a lab until now.[17] An NGO called Project Vesta has taken this project on, grinding olivine into sand-sized grains and spreading it on a beach where wave action can further weather it and pull it into the depths.

Once there, the olivine begins a complex chemical process that pulls CO₂ from the waters, alkalizes those waters, and renders the carbon into minerals that are taken up by growing shellfish. “The shellfish secretes Calcium Carbonate (CaCO3) to form its shell”[18] and, in the process, fixes the carbon permanently. More shellfish, more sequestration, hence the drive to carpet the seafloor with bivalves, corals and crustaceans.

The process looks like this:

• Atmospheric CO₂ dissolves in seawater becoming carbonic acid
• Granular olivine is added by wave action and when it interacts with water molecules, alkalizes them and binds ambient CO₂ in the new alkaline molecule (bicarbonate).
• Shellfish such as oysters, corals, sea snails, and crustaceans take up the carbonate to build their shells and exoskeletons
• Finally, those empty structures – each containing their load of sequestered carbon – turn to limestone on the seabed over geologic time

In other words, olivine can potentially both reduce ocean acidification and massively increase the amount of carbon safely sequestered in the oceans.

The science is not theoretical, relying as it does on the natural carbonate-silicate cycle that is taking place all the time, and which has been “the primary control over carbon dioxide levels over long time scales”[19] for eons. However, the olivine injection – designed to vastly speed up that natural process – has never been studied onsite on a large scale. The test currently underway, which includes an olivine seeded beach and a control beach on the next cove, is designed to gather real-world data.

A 2016 study using the Max Planck Institute’s Earth system model[20] examined this process and found it could have significant positive impact on planetary temperatures. 

However, the actual long-term effects of enhanced mineral weathering have not been tested and have raised significant objections in some quarters. Specifically, there are concerns that “the addition of alkaline substances releases conjointly toxic heavy metals (e.g., cadmium, nickel, chromium) leading to further perturbations that would likely impact ocean biogeochemical cycling and marine ecosystem services,” note researchers from the Max Planck Institute.[21] “Thus, the CO₂ mitigation potential of AOA comes at a price of an unprecedented ocean biogeochemistry perturbation with unknown ecological consequences.”

The same authors have a further objection: while olivine is incredibly abundant in the mantle, that layer lies some 20 – 30 miles (32 – 48 km) beneath the surface. Mining operations, currently fairly modest, would need to be ramped up dramatically.

Indeed, it has been calculated that, “offsetting even a third of global carbon emissions would require five gigatons of olivine granules.”[22]

The feasibility of the concept depends on the rate of olivine dissolution, the sequestration capacity of the dominant reaction, and its CO₂ footprint.”[23] Since the activities involved would certainly require significant energy, this points to the need for further study. To that end, Project Vesta is making a beginning, spreading the pale green stuff on a single cove on a single island for the purpose of study.

As Sherlock Holmes would say, when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains – however improbable – must be the answer.[24] As improbable as it seems, a massive bed of oysters and some pale green pebbles may be part of the answer to climate change. Stay tuned!

References:
[1] His Last Bow, A. Conan Doyle, The Adventure of the Dying Detective (1917)
[2] Wikipedia, Carbon Cycle
[3] The Fish Site, Mussels, Carbon Sequestration Potential of Shellfish, Oct 2004
[4] Ibid
[5] Ibid
[6] Proceedings of the Royal Society, Oyster Reefs as Carbon Sources and Sinks, June 2017
[7] Gigaton: a billion metric tons, i.e. 1,000 kilograms (about 2,200 pounds).
[8] Vox, All Life on in One Staggering Earth Chart, Aug 2018
[9] NOAA, Ocean Acidification, Updated April 2020
[10] Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology, Vol.#492, Linking the Biological Impacts of Ocean Acidification on Oysters to Change in Ecosystem Services: A Review,July 2017
[11] Oregon State University, Study: Ocean Acidification Killing Oysters by Inhibiting Shell Formation, June 2013
[12] The Atlantic, The Coming Green Wave: Ocean Farming to Fight Climate Change, Nov 2011
[13] NASA Earth Observatory, The Slow Carbon Cycle, June 2011
[14] Schuiling and Praagman, 2011
[15] Geology Page, Measuring the Strength of Olivine, the Most Abundant Mineral in the Earth’s Mantle, September 2017
[16] Seifritz, W. CO2 disposal by means of silicates. Nature 345, 486 (1990)
[17] Columbia University Earth Institute, Carbon Sequestration
[18] The Fish Site, Mussels, Carbon Sequestration Potential of Shellfish, Oct 2004
[19] NASA Earth Observatory, The Slow Carbon Cycle, June 2011
[20] Geophysical Research Letters #43, González M., Ilyina, T., Impacts of Artificial Ocean Alkalinization on the Carbon Cycle and Climate in Earth System Simulations, June 2016
[21] Ibid
[22] Natural Resources Defense Council, onEarth Blog, Brian Palmer, Olivine: Carbon Eater?March 2017
[23] International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control, Coastal spreading of olivine to control atmospheric CO2 concentrations: A critical analysis of viability, December 2009
[24] Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Sign of the Four, Doubleday (1890)

It’s a picturesque little cantonment and a cherished venue for some 3 million tourists annually. Aside from the charming town, and the Abbey with its famed stained-glass windows, Mont-Saint Michel has one feature that sets it apart from many similar towns in Europe: when the tide comes in, Mont-Saint Michel becomes an island.

This is unique – for the moment. But it won’t be for long. 

Consider that a new bridge connecting the Cantonment with the mainland opened in 2014 and, the very next year, during what was considered an unusual ‘super-tide,’ said bridge was almost completely submerged. Since such tides may not be unusual at all going forward – for sea level rise (SLR) continues apace – access to the rock may soon require a boat or a wait until neap tide.

The last time CO2 was at the current atmospheric level of 400 parts-per-million (415 ppm currently), sea levels were more than 50 feet higher than today, according to two groups of scientists working independently, who found that CO₂ levels have not been this high since the late Pliocene era some 3 million years ago, when “oceans were at least 15 meters (49 ft) deeper” than today.[1]

This is not to suggest sea levels will rise that steeply again. Most projections have the oceans lifted from between 2 and 6 feet this century,[2] though there is constant updating and debating as new findings come in and that range could turn out to be low.[3]

Still, as we recently wrote,[4] even at those levels the impacts will be global, massive, and devastating. Two to three hundred million people are expected to be refugees of flooding and inundation, as cities and coastlines around the globe are assailed by rising tides, and hinterlands are regularly flooded by rivers and storm surge.[5]

But it’s not just people’s homes and businesses that will be impacted. Other places may come to resemble Mont-Saint Michel, whose shiny new bridge may be all but useless in the next decade or two. Public infrastructure, as well as individual holdings, are going to take a beating and require support as the waters rise.

One possible response to this state of affairs – what we’ll call the Planet Krypton solution – is to do nothing and hope the climate experts are wrong. Although many people are working tirelessly to prevent this from being the route we take, far too many are content to travel this road.

Another approach – what we’ll call the Noah’s Ark solution (more correctly referred to as Managed Retreat)[6] – involves moving whole communities to higher ground in an orderly fashion, rather than the disorganized rout that will ensue if the Krypton model prevails.

But there is a third option – what we’ll call the Dutch Dike or civil-engineering approach – used for generations by a state surrounded by encroaching seas. With a quarter of its land below mean sea level (MSL) and almost a third of it at risk of inundation and significant riverain flooding,[7] Holland has used dams, levees, seawalls, reservoirs, tidal canals, and stilted buildings to hold back damage from the waves. All of these, and any other solutions the modern mind can imagine, will be needed in the coming years to keep thousands of communities dry and safe.

Schools, railways, causeways, airports, arterial roadways, and more, will need structural changes to remain functional in a world without polar caps. Everyone has seen a flooded underpass but, as a Stanford University study released this month warned of the roads in Northern California, “the domino effect of flooding… is going to require a redesign of transportation systems as sea levels, storm surges and flooding worsen over the next thirty years. Otherwise, more extreme weather conditions could paralyze road transportation.”[8] Yikes.

But roads are only part of the transportation infrastructure under attack from SLR. For obvious reasons, many coastal cities place their airports near the waterfront, with runways often just a few meters above the waves. An analysis by Resource Watch found that, if mean sea levels (MSL) rose only one meter (3.28 ft) – well within the majority of predictions – around 80 airports globally would be flooded and useless.[9]

In fact, at just half that level, runways in Florida, California, Denmark, China, Iran, and more could be under water.[10]

Indeed, the runways at Kansai International Airport near Osaka, Japan, are receiving a multi-million-dollar refit complete with seawalls and raised runways, after the whole airport was covered by seawater during a typhoon.[11]

Even at current levels, the storm surge from Hurricane Sandy flooded the New York airports and much of the underground portion of the New York City subway system, severely restricting mobility throughout much of the city.[12]

This doesn’t just affect regular citizens. Emergency services planners in New York City have determined that as the seas rise, the time it will take to reach those in need, already impacted by traffic during a flood and storm, “is expected to be further aggravated during coastal flooding, (which) is set to increase in frequency and magnitude” due to SLR.[13]

Indeed, during hurricane Hugo in 1989, in a hospital in Charleston, “engineers had to shut off the generator that fed the intensive care unit… and ran portable generators with extension cords to the ICU. When the floods receded, flounder, crabs and mud covered the concrete floor. The storm revealed how susceptible the hospital’s critical infrastructure is to rising water.”[14]

Unfortunately, the whole area is low lying and floods are now common. “During a tropical storm in 2017, personnel crisscrossed the campus in boats. [The hospital] even bought a military surplus high-water vehicle to make sure staff can move between hospitals.”[15] Hurricane, storm surge, or direct SLR threatens such systems in low-lying cities all around the world.

Military operations may be hampered, too. “Ten times a year,” noted National Geographic, “the Naval Station Norfolk floods. The entry road swamps. Connecting roads become impassable. Crossing from one side of the base to the other becomes impossible. Dockside, floodwaters overtop the concrete piers, shorting power hookups to the mighty ships that are docked in the world’s largest naval base… all it takes to cause such disarray these days is a full moon, which triggers exceptionally high tides.”[16]

That, of course, is under current conditions. As things progress, “Norfolk station will flood 280 times a year,” or about 77% of the time, noted the Union of Concerned Scientists in a 2016 report that detailed climate risks at 18 military installations around the United States.[17]

Homes are possible to move, but a naval base? Runways of 1.5 miles? Airport towers? These assets may be so challenging to move they may require the Dutch Dike approach, where feasible. Runways could perhaps be walled. Indeed, Boston and San Francisco have erected seawalls in the last few years[18] or elevated in some cases.

Water resources may also need to be rethought, as rising volumes of saltwater infiltrating traditionally fresh groundwater supplies could make many aquifers and drinking-water sources unusable without desalination. As the National Environmental Education Foundation reported this year, “the amount of saltwater infiltrating the (Biscayne) groundwater aquifer will increase, which can make the water too salty for human consumption.”[19]

Some Solutions
The sheer number of projects needed to protect infrastructure world-wide is so vast it is difficult to comprehend. Infrastructure is built locally, designed to last over time based on the conditions that obtain at the time. The New York Subway system was built when sea levels were not known to be rising quickly and hurricanes ranging that far north were quite rare. Meanwhile, most at-risk airports were deliberately built as near to sea level as possible and most water systems were not designed to cope with vast inland storm surge and riparian flooding.

As such, remedial plans are too many to be described here. But the questions of who is responsible for all this, and how it will be paid for, is becoming top-of-mind for many planners.[20]

A 2019 study in Australia and New Zealand showed the costs to local communities at various levels of ocean rise. Just half a meter – a height almost every projection suggests is likely – will cost upwards of $2.7B New Zealand dollars to local communities moving to $5.1B at 1 m and $7.8B at 1.5 m.[21]

There have been some comprehensive studies on the cost of SLR preparation and mediation that encompass the global community,[22] but the uncertainty about the actual levels of rise, the potential arrest of global warming during the century, and the sheer number and scope of the infrastructure needed makes any assessment uncertain at best.

Some of the costs are – pardon the expression – submerged costs, in that they are secondary and tertiary costs that derive from other costs. For example, according to one analysis, by 2017 “flood-prone areas in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut [had] lost $6.7 billion in home values,” and the total across eight states was over $14 billion.[23]

There are other hidden risks, too. Two years ago, researchers performed a risk assessment for fiber optic cable in the U.S. and found that more than 4,000 miles (6,437 kilometers) of the stuff was at risk, especially around New York City, Seattle and Miami. As the author’s note, “while the standard buried fiber conduits are designed to be water and weather resistant, most of the deployed conduits are not designed to be under water permanently,”[24] as they would likely be under NOAA SLR projections.

Another less visible impact is that, as the Smithsonian’s Ocean Portal Team noted in 2018, “Sea level rise is not just a problem of water, it is also a problem of salt. Imagine if salt water flooded a farmer’s field, or a coastal forest. Not only does the area have to survive flooding, but also a drenching in salt water that can kill plants and irreversibly alter soil chemistry. Saltwater flooding can mean death for these ecosystems. Already scientists have seen stands of “ghost forests” where once-healthy trees were killed by saltwater flooding, and farmers’ fields are being converted to tidal marsh and salt flats.”[25]

Stepping back, a new study published in Nature this year found scientists from Australia, Germany and Holland reporting that global SLR was likely to cause more than $14 Trillion – with a T – in damage to infrastructure around the world.[26]

Hanging above all of this is the impact of skittish insurance companies unwilling to cover climate disaster-prone systems and structures. As we’ve reported in the past, this is only going to grow as all of the impacts become clear.[27]

The world does not yet have its arms around the reality that more and more places will be islands either all or half the time as this century ages. Yet, it is time to come to close grips with the reality of this phenomenon. “The historical approach to sea level rise was that the threat was going to happen at the end of the century,” noted one author of the Stanford study. “It’s not. It’s happening right now.”[28]

The folks who live on the charming cantonment of Mont-Saint Michel are accustomed to a home that is an island half the time. For the rest of us however, that’s a far less charming future.

References:
[1] Phys.org, Dire Future Etched in the Past: CO2 at 3-Million Year-Old Levels, April 2019
[2] NOAA Climate, Climate Change: Global Sea Level, 2019
[3] Ibid
[4] Valutus Sustainability R.O.I. Issue #26, Managed Retreat Advances, originally published June 19, 2020
[5] Ibid
[6] Ibid
[7] Reuters, U.N. Climate Panel Admits Dutch Sea Level Flaw,Feb 2010
[8] Ajot, Stanford Says Northern California Highways Face Sea Level Rise Threat, Sept 4, 2020
[9] Resource Watch, Runways Underwater: Maps Show Where Rising Seas Threaten 80 Airports Around the World, Feb 5, 2020
[10] Ibid
[11] The Straits Times, Osaka’s Sinking Kansai Airport to Raise Runway After Last Year’s Flooding by Typhoon Jebi, Feb 1, 2019
[12] Mass Transit, Impact of Hurricane Sandy, Dec 2012
[13] Princeton University Publications, Yin, et al, Evaluating the Cascading Impacts of Sea Level Rise and Coastal Flooding on Emergency Response Spatial Accessibility in Lower Manhattan, New York City, 2020
[14] Charleston Post and Courier, Plagued by Some of Charleston’s Worst Flooding, Hospitals in Medical District Plan to Stay, Sept 25, 2020
[15] Ibid
[16] National Geographic, Who’s Still Fighting Climate Change? The U.S. Military, Feb 2017
[17] Union of Concerned Scientists, The U.S. Military on the Front Lines of Rising Seas, July 2016
[18] Resource Watch, Runways Underwater: Maps Show Where Rising Seas Threaten 80 Airports Around the World, Feb 5, 2020
[19] NEEF USA, Groundwater and the Rising Seas, 2020
[20] Science Daily, Sea Level Rise Could Reshape the United States, Trigger Migration Inland, Jan 22, 2020
[21] Institute of Public Works Engineering Australasia, Sea Level Rise Could Sink $14 Billion of Local Government Infrastructure, Feb 20, 2019
[22] Springer Link Open Access, The Global Impacts of Extreme Sea-Level Rise: A Comprehensive Economic Assessment, Jan 2015
[23] First Street Foundation, As the Seas Have Been Rising, Tri-State Home Values Have Been Sinking. August 23, 2018
[24] University of Oregon, Lights Out: Climate Change Risk to Internet Infrastructure, 2018
[25] Smithsonian ‘Ocean: Find Your Blue, Sea Level Rise, April 2018
[26] Nature: Scientific Reports, Projections of Global-Scale Extreme Sea Levels and Resulting Episodic Coastal Flooding Over the 21^st Century, July 20, 2020
[27] Valutus, Blame!February 29, 2020
[28] Ajot, Stanford Says Northern California Highways Face Sea Level Rise Threat, Sept 4, 2020

.

But this story is not about submerged risk. Rather, it’s about the very visible risk of being submerged: millions of people and their communities will be under water due to rising sea levels, riparian flooding, and storm surges from more powerful storms – all driven by anthropomorphic climate change – if something isn’t done.

A new report on potentially inundated areas (PIA) shows that, “by 2100, areas now home to 200 million people could fall permanently below the high tide line” and “rising sea levels could within three decades push chronic floods higher than land currently home to 300 million people.”[1] This will likely result in massive instability, millions of environmental migrants (EM), battles over land rights and enormous economic strains over how to pay for any actions taken.

.

Sea levels are expected to rise by anywhere from half a meter to two meters over the next 8 decades[2] – estimating is tricky because of the need to nail the melting rates of the polar and Greenland ice caps.[3] Suffice to say a person 6’ (≈183cm) born today at sea level may be mostly or fully submerged when he turns 80. A six-foot rise will inundate vast stretches of land currently occupied by, well, by you and your family, your house, your business, your baseball diamond or your rice paddy.

Clearly, we must do something.
But what?

Well, we could continue business as usual, hope nothing happens, and try to rebuild when it does. That has been the approach up to now. Get crushed and rebuild – in the U.S., often with the help of the taxpayer-subsidized National Flood Insurance Program – on the same footprint. Wait a bit and – literally – rinse and repeat. But this is tough to manage when the land isn’t just flooded but has actually been reclaimed by the sea.

Besides, as these events transpire, insurers, whose actuaries grasped and embraced the facts of climate change early, will begin raising prices dramatically to offset increased risk, or will refuse to renew policies in inundation-prone zones.[4]

We could rebuild homes differently, on stilts for example, as communities in flood- or tide-prone areas have done throughout history. The problem here is that tide levels at par may stay beneath the floor, but more frequent and more powerful storms means higher storm surges and water moving higher and farther inland than before on top of higher sea levels. It could work in areas not prone to such storms – although as we’ve detailed in our cyclone story above, there will be fewer places like that going forward – and this may have to be considered in targeted communities.

The third option is to simply pick up and move those hundreds of millions of people – along with their shops, pets, schools, churches, and community buildings – to higher ground. Just pick ‘em up, lock, stock and Main Street. This is known as ‘managed retreat.’

This is not a new concept and “prehistoric tribes regularly packed up settlements along riverbanks when periodic floods struck.”[5] Since then it has been done occasionally on a small – usually very small – scale: a house or two. A cluster of families. In a few cases whole midwestern towns or English hamlets prone to flooding have been relocated or rebuilt on higher ground.

The U.S. government has begun, on a piecemeal basis, “offering to buy storm-damaged homes and homes likely to be damaged again due to an extreme weather event—purchasing homes and converting them to natural open space. This program, however, is entirely voluntary for the homeowners,”[6] which is assisting certain foresighted individuals but not solving the problem of probable inundation.

Yet even on this scale, “managed retreat presents numerous complex challenges—legal, logistical, ethical, political, financial, and architectural.”[7] The implications of moving several hundred million peoples’ lives are almost incalculable.

.

In some cases, there is no high ground to be moved to. “Indonesia has proposed moving its capital to Borneo Island, because up to one-third of Jakarta could be underwater by 2050. The low-lying Pacific island nation of Kiribati has bought land in Fiji to allow a future migration,” and many other examples. The average height of the land in the 1200-or so islands of this nation is “around 4 feet above sea level, and the highest point in the entire nation is just under 8 feet (about 2.4 meters).”[8] Where will these people go as the rising tides they did little to produce sweep over them?

For context, consider the case of Soldiers Grove, Wisconsin, on the banks of the usually placid Kickapoo River. According to a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) case study,

With classic myopic optimism, the town recovered and rebuilt in place every time until “the flood of record in 2007 inflicted the worst damage in the state just 10 miles downstream in Gays Mills.” At that point, they found higher ground and skedaddled.

That’s what it took to get just one town to move.

.

And consider what’s involved from a purely logistical standpoint. On an already crowded planet, what kind of land will there be, available to move vast numbers of people to? If fishermen now live next to their boats and farmers next to their fields, what will the impact of moving be on their livelihoods? Who will pay for the new land? New schools? New stores?

And, while areas like Florida and Louisiana in the United States are vulnerable, “the threat is concentrated in coastal Asia and could have profound economic and political consequences within the lifetimes of people alive today.” Many of these nations have neither the resources nor the infrastructure to cope well with such large-scale migration.

At the end of the day, however the logistics are managed, there may be little choice. The seas are rising. The storms are intensifying multiplying. Insurance companies – where they exist – won’t cover perpetual disaster and even the U.S. National Flood Insurance Program has bankrupted itself – it is nearly $25 billion in debt[10] – paying claims for properties it undervalued and therefore emboldening property owners to build where they should not, passing the risk to the U.S. treasury.[11]

Now
So the question is not if, but when and how. When, of course, should be now. But a quick Google search indicates clearly that managed retreat has not yet advanced in the public mind or in government planning.

This will change soon, as the inevitable begins and the sea begins claiming land from us wholesale, rather than retail as in the past. In any case, it might be wise to keep some galoshes handy and to head for the hills soon. Those hills may be islands before long.

.

References:
[1] Climate Central, Report: Flooded Future: Global Vulnerability to Sea Level Rise Worse Than Previously Understood, Oct 2019
[2] Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, John Carey, Core Concept: Managed Retreat Increasingly Seen as Necessary in Response to Climate Change’s Fury, May 27, 2020
[3] Forbes / Earl J. Ritchie, University of Houston Energy Fellow, Contributor, Is the IPCC Wrong About Sea Level Rise?June 2018
[4] The Outline, Your Insurance Premium is About to Rise Like the Sea Levels, March 2019
[5] Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, John Carey, Core Concept: Managed Retreat Increasingly Seen as Necessary in Response to Climate Change’s Fury, May 27, 2020
[6] Planetizen, Managed Retreat from Sea Level Rise, April 2017
[7] Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, John Carey, Core Concept: Managed Retreat Increasingly Seen as Necessary in Response to Climate Change’s Fury, May 27, 2020
[8] National Geographic, Climbing the Highest Point in the Maldives
[9] FEMA, Village Locals Reflect Moving Was Best Flood Protection
[10] U.S. General Accountability Office, Flood Insurance: Comprehensive Reform Could Improve Solvency and Enhance Resilience, April 2017
[11] Union of Concerned Scientists, Overwhelming Risk: Rethinking Flood Insurance in a World of Rising Seas, Aug 2013

In case you were planning to calculate how much surface area it would take to power the entire world with solar, don’t bother: back in 2009, someone at Land Art Generator beat you to it.[1] The answer? 496,805 square kilometers (191,817 square miles).

That friends, is a lot of solar panels.

But how big is 500k kilometers² really? According to these guys, the uninhabited portions of the Sahara alone – some 9 million km² – is 46 times the area needed for the planet’s energy needs by 2030.

Then again, they say, if panels were rolled out as fast as rainforest is being burned for industry – 170,000 sq kilometers every year,[2] the project would be finished in only 3 years.

Okay, so clearly there’s enough sunny real estate available globally to more than get this done but even so it’s probably not likely we’ll blanket such enormous areas with a PVs. For the time being we need as much solar as possible in the minimum amount of room. The best way to achieve that would be to improve the power generation of solar panels and to allow more panels in a smaller space. How can we get there?

The answer appears to be simple: go vertical.

Going Vertical
This is not about the efficacy of laying standard rectangular panels upright versus lengthwise. This is about upright solar innovations that are radically different from – and take up far less space than – garden-variety solar farms, and may well revolutionize the industry in a few years.

One of these, building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV) and building-adapted photovoltaics (BAPV) take ‘vertical’ to a whole new level – all the way to the top of steel-and-glass skyscrapers – and is so critical going forward that it’s the subject of our next story.

Another, and our topic here, is any of several innovative vertical solutions involving free-standing, upright PV structures that both require less room and generate more power than their reclining cousins.

One example of this thinking-outside-the-frame is the new ‘vertical polygen solar tower,’ unveiled in Los Lunas, New Mexico this June.

A village called Los Lunas – the moons – is admittedly an odd one for testing a device that runs on sunshine, but this 6-sided tower – built by New Jersey-based startup Wiltech Energy – packs 20kW into 4.5 square meters (49 sf)[3] and is topped by a bladeless wind turbine for additional power and generation during times of low light. A 22kW storage battery is included to keep power flowing continuously.

Designed to power the village’s recycling facility, the polygon approach is a radically different type of panel structure which involves a number of small panels set in vertical tiers at different angles in such a way as to gather light no matter where the sun is relative to them.

The other key to vertical is the way the angle of sunshine interacts with the PV materials. Flat panels are generally laid out in series and raked to specific angles depending on planetary coordinates. In Arizona, for example, “south-facing panels with a 57˚ tilt” are called for, whereas in Minnesota a range of 22˚(summer) to 68˚ (winter) is optimal.[4]

Horizontal panels, whether ground or roof based, are raked to catch the sun when it is directly overhead, and fall off considerably in output earlier and later in the day. Vertical panels, on the other hand, capture light far longer and continue to produce even as the sun is on the horizon.

The polygon structure does the same by capturing light more directly from east to west and – as each of the six sides is vertical – for longer than is usual. Such light is largely lost to standard panels, which thrive on overhead light but fare poorly at other times. In addition, the panels are hung on masts for maximum exposure and this allows more panels to be stacked on top. The whole contraption takes a fraction of the land space – about 4 square meters – so land costs would be lower.

But this doesn’t tell the whole tale. Horizontal panels, wherever they’re placed, lose power when all or part of their surface becomes obscured by dust, dirt, pollen, sand or snow. Such panels may be covered in snow for weeks or months while, in desert regions such as the Sahara mentioned above, or even the New Mexican landscape near Los Lunas, sand and dust storms pose a serious problem.

Complex equipment has been developed to clean them adding a fortune in time, money and that most precious of desert materials, water. Considering our original premise, powering the world by solar alone, cleaning half a million square klicks of PV is a truly Herculean task.

And the multi-sided approach means the sun has more surface to impact as it courses from sunrise to sunset and throughout the seasons. In addition, the vertical polygon approach is stackable… the taller the mast, the more panels can be loaded on[6] so ever-more kilowatts can be added without needing additional real estate.

As Wilson told Valutus, his inspiration to build vertical solar was looking up at New York City’s skyscrapers one day and realizing their height created more space while actually saving precious room on the ground.

Indeed, “Wilson says his system can generate two megawatts of electricity in a one-acre area, compared with just one megawatt in a 4.5- to 5-acre area with horizontal systems.”[7] 

“We believe this technology will change the way solar power is delivered,” Wilson continued.”[8] These systems are listed as “grid-tied, off-grid or a combination of both and scalable,” according to Wiltech’s website, and the Los Lunas power unit is closed circuit, neither taking from nor feeding into the grid.

It’s also the first of its type deployed commercially, so all eyes are on it awaiting results. If it is successful, we will see more power requiring less real estate… and more work for the guys who like to calculate how much solar is needed to power the planet.

3D Solar Towers
Meanwhile, in 2012 an MIT working group designed a truly radical prototype that uses conventional PV materials technology but, like the polygonal towers discussed above, configures them differently for the purpose of “collecting solar energy in three dimensions,”[9] as opposed to overhead light striking a single flat panel.

Placing double-sided squares of accordion-folded PV materials in a vertical frame – with or without external cuboid scaffolding – the researchers found these babies were capable of generating “between 2 and 20 times” more output than traditional materials.[10] Twenty times? Jumpin’ generators!

Like their polygonal cousins, the key to these solar towers – which resemble the compact disk racks of old – is not better materials, it is simply about capturing far more sunlight and for longer.

“By going vertical and collecting more sunlight when the sun is closer to the horizon, the team’s 3D modules were able to generate a more uniform output over time. This uniformity extended over the course of each day, the seasons of a year, and even when accounting for blockage from clouds and shadows,” noted New Atlas [11]

When tested on an MIT rooftop for some weeks, the researchers confirmed the folded materials could make energy at lower solar angles.

And, according to Wiocor Energy, which has now commercialized this design, the panels also receive a “boost from reflected and diffuse light” that flat panels can’t use.[12] In other words, once light hits a flat panel, some is absorbed and some bounces off and is lost. With stackable panels on the other hand, light reflecting from the ground, and light bouncing off panels above and below, can be absorbed by another panel, thereby raising the level of power these stands can generate.

As with the old image of humanoids learning to stand upright, vertical just might be the next step in the evolution of solar.

It’s clear there’s a long way to go before real racial and gender equity and equality is achieved. On the other hand, many companies – though they are working hard on this – simply aren’t sure how to proceed.

As an example, we highlighted research demonstrating that companies focused on non-discriminatory hiring methodologies are not having the success they expected. Why? Their hiring practices, it seems, are only half the problem. The other half is creating the right kind of pipeline in all areas of the business so top female candidates – and especially women of color – are in a good position when higher-level jobs become available. Without a strong pipeline, businesses will continue to have a hard time advancing toward their equity goals.

A company may look at their overall workforce and say, “hey, we’re doing great! Our staff is 54% female! They might even say their management group is more than half women, and that’s terrific!

But what level of management? What about their Executive Vice Presidents? Partners? What about their C-Suites and corporate Boards? By those measures, most companies still have a long way to go.

It has long been a truism that top executives – CEOs and COOs for example – were selected almost exclusively from the operational, sales and finance tracks[1] but rarely from the ranks of IT or HR.

How does this intersect with equity? Recent studies have found that HR managers were overwhelmingly women (72%)[2] while HR generalists were an off-the-scale 86%[3] female, which means this way of selecting top execs reduced the percentage of women on the road to the corner office.

This may be part of the reason why McKinsey found that the representation of women fell from 47% in entry level positions to 31% at the VP level and 24% at the C-Suite level – and the representation of women of color in particular dropped from 17% to 7% and then to just 4%.

That men are disproportionately in departments that are “fast tracks” to the C-Suite – while women are not – affects the pipeline of new leadership. As a result, the true state of a company’s equality efforts needs to include the Fast Track element:

• What are the departments / roles that generate the majority of top execs?
•  Are there racial and gender imbalances in those departments?

If you haven’t seen the Fast Track element in most discussions of equity, you’re not alone. But it needs to be there, along with other key metrics such as the percentage of the workforce that is female, the women company leadership, the pay gap, and others. In looking at this issue, we wanted to both (a) make visible more of the key factors that matter for progress and (b) created a combined metric that’s easy for executives to understand and track. That’s where the RISE Index comes in.

RISE includes a larger set of elements, so that important ones don’t get overlooked.

If that seems like more elements than you’re used to, it probably is. (And there are additional details under some elements, such as under leadership, percentage of managers, directors, top execs, and board members.) It’s important to get this right, and that means thinking more broadly and deeply about what determines a company’s true level of gender equality.

However, only some people will want a high level of detail when it comes to tracking the company’s progress, which is why we’ve combined the factors into a single, weighted index.

RISE Index Visual

We think of this as similar to people’s interest in the stock market – while some people want to know about lots of individual stocks, most people just want an answer to, “did the market go up or down?” That’s why we have stock market indexes – and that’s why we have the RISE Index.

Look, this is not a drill: this is existential. Research has shown again and again that equity is at stake – and so are profits.[4] Women are good at this stuff and female CEOs, owners, and partners are garnering tremendous success – for themselves and their companies – in high-level roles… when they can get them. Likewise, companies with female founders also do better than those without.[5]

So competitive incentives alone suggest this is mission critical, and companies need it addressed, with the vast majority needing to do better. But what, exactly, must they do to make that happen?

Our approach is to examine each of the elements in turn, looking for data and talking with key individuals. In the past, this would have been followed by a long and complex analysis, carefully weighting various factors, and sifting the numbers to arrive at an indexed number that shows – explicitly – how the company’s gender equity rating stands.

It will not only be clear how the company is doing overall, but the specific areas that need improvement will be laid out clearly as well.

From there it’s up to the company to set goals and decide how far and how fast they wish to proceed. (We also assist with designing solutions and implementing them, when asked.)

A core belief of ours is that if there is a good, easy-to-understand measure, then once people understand how to move the needle on it, that will catalyze progress. And that is what the RISE score provides.

If you want to hear more about this, or discuss how you could use it, just let us know.

References:
[1] Forbes/Erik Savitz, The Path to Becoming a Fortune 500 CEO, Dec 2011
[2] Study.com, Why is the HR Profession Dominated by Women?Dec 2019
[3] Ibid
[4] Quartz, Companies with More Women Directors Generate a 36% Higher Return on Equity, Dec 2015
[5] Crunchbase News, Q1 2019 Diversity Report: Female Founders Own 17 Percent of Venture Dollars, April 2019

Being cautious, however, you decide to use the traditional risk model to calculate how much damage the Pacific Coast rain might cause. So, you first identify the likelihood of rain and find that it rains about 42% of the time, averaging 152 days a year.

Likelihood: 42%

Seems like a reasonable risk, so you set off confidently.

Naturally, you’re soon in the lobby, your soaked and bedraggled new suit in need of reshaping. The loafers are brimful after that bus hit the puddle just right. Your I.D. papers and the company handbook were in a pocket and will need to be replaced, and you’re juggling the apple, sandwich, and cookies which broke through their soggy paper sack. Security is eyeing you suspiciously.

Aside from self-respect, and the bad first impression you’ll make at the office – what we call ‘submerged’ risk, which we’ll discuss later – the actual damage is about a hundred bucks.

Magnitude: $100

Using the classic model, we now have the equation:

The Vulnerability Model
But the model above is incomplete. It identifies bad things that could happen, certainly, and it tells you how expensive the outcome will be if they do. But it doesn’t account for vulnerability.

Unlike Likelihood – an external phenomenon not in your control – vulnerability is internal, something you can manage. (Magnitude is a combination of factors. Some costs of damage may not be in your control while, as we’ll see below, there are ways to control and minimize magnitude.)

Let’s reset the above scenario. As you’re walking out the door in Seattle, you grab an umbrella and set off down the street to go meet the team.

This won’t impact the likelihood of rain at all, so the level of threat is still the same 42%.

External Threat Level: 42%

However, your umbrella has dramatically reduced your vulnerability to a rain shower. Only a major downpour, heavy winds, or an umbrella failure, can seriously damage you now. Collectively, you calculate, the chances of one of those happening is around 7%.

Vulnerability: 7%

You can also reduce the magnitude by protecting certain specifically vulnerable areas. Rubber boots or overshoes for your loafers; a raincoat for the suit, and a waterproof valise for documents, will limit potential damage greatly. Your protection isn’t perfect, and if the umbrella fails you’ll get wet here and there, but you will still arrive at the office in good condition. You might have lost the lunch, and your trousers will need pressing, a total of about twelve bucks.

Magnitude: $12

Now we’re talking! The risk has been reduced dramatically.

This is how things generally work. Most people understand there are basic vulnerabilities and that they can protect against most of them. But they don’t always do the work to assess their level of vulnerability. This model forces an examination of vulnerability and it can illuminate risk in ways that the old ‘likelihood’ model can’t.

In Arizona, where the likelihood of rain is minimal, you might get away with using that model even though it’s incomplete. Yet even there, downpours do happen and vulnerability in the context of specific risks should be accounted for. The threat/vulnerability/magnitude/risk model takes this into account.

A mismatch between the above elements is where the risk meets the road. As we’ve seen, a low level of threat paired with high vulnerability is probably fairly safe. High threat with very low vulnerability is also a reasonable risk. But high threat paired with high vulnerability is a recipe for disaster. That is a mismatch and action must be taken to protect assets.

Submerged Risk / Submerged Value
When you arrive for the meeting, dry and looking good, your reputation – so at risk in the first instance – will not suffer, thus wiping out the submerged risk. In fact, as others see how well prepared you were for Seattle’s inclement weather, your reputation will be enhanced. This, of course, is submerged value, secondary and tertiary value from the actions you take that, like submerged risks, are buried under the surface, invisible until raised.

Omnipresent Risk
Rain, even in Seattle, is not a constant. It is often possible to walk to work unscathed, safe and dry. But what about when the threat never goes away?

Let’s place you in your brand-new Pacific Coast office. Your new laptop isn’t ready, so you pull out your own and hotspot your way to the internet. You are now at a 100% level of threat from malware, ransomware, security breaches, data loss and equipment damage.

How do the two models compare now? When the risk is constant it’s not even close.

Old Model:

Okay, but is that a realistic assessment? How many people in 2020 don’t have some sort of protection on their systems? This model, once again, does not specifically account for that. Under the new model, the risk looks like this:

And not only does vulnerability go down, so does magnitude – because the addition of virus protection and firewall also lowers the likely damage an infection would do if it did occur, in this case to $250.

Of course, the costs of reducing vulnerability and magnitude must be factored in as well, whether an umbrella and galoshes, or antivirus protection and cloud backup. The total now becomes:

This is not just a huge difference in total risk from the likelihood model, it’s also a far more accurate description of the way the world works. All organizations know the chance of an unprotected computer being compromised is 100%, and none just resign themselves to suffering the full magnitude of the damage.

Since every organization takes precautions, and since they do so to varying degrees – and have varying degrees of sensitive or damaging equipment and data – they don’t share the same levels of risk. The likelihood model simply doesn’t match reality.

The vulnerability approach does reflect the real world, and it also works better when it comes to sustainability-related risks. The chance that global temperatures go up by, say, 1˚C, is 100%[1]. That could have all sorts of ramifications, and vulnerability must be reduced accordingly. Facilities, supply chain, water availability, working conditions, and more: all must be adjusted for climate resilience.[2] Using the likelihood model means not accounting for this (or mistaking it for part of magnitude), making it a bad fit for today’s world.

Once threat, vulnerability, and magnitude have been separated, you’re immediately better off. And you can take this a step further through actions that reduce not only vulnerability, but also magnitude.

In the computer example that means lowering the losses if you do get infected and reducing the time and expense of recovery. Backing up regularly, keeping sensitive information encrypted, etc., would reduce the damage if malware did get through your defenses.

In the climate risk example, it might mean better building designs for cooler spaces, or faster-cooling infrastructure to keep heat-related disruptions short. It could also mean extra inventory to keep downstream operations running in case of a shutdown, or a new process to shift production between facilities in case of climate-related slowdowns in one area. All these reduce the magnitude of risk and they complement your efforts to reduce vulnerability.

Missing Elements
Another problem with current models of risk is that, within vulnerability (and for the Likelihood x Magnitude model, within magnitude), they often miss key elements.

First, as we’ve seen far too much recently, there’s an enormous difference between knowing what to do, having the capacity to do it, and actually doing it. When you don’t separate these, you miss areas of vulnerability. Second, as discussed above – and as will be the topic of an upcoming article – submerged risk, by its very nature, is almost always overlooked.

Risk Tool
In order to build a true model of risk for any project or initiative, the meaningful potential threats and vulnerabilities must be identified. The magnitude must be calculated along with costs of mitigation. Done manually, this process can be complex and taxing.

When something is both necessary and difficult, making it less difficult is powerful. This is why we developed our Risk Tool, which encompasses the model described above: identifying threats, searching for vulnerabilities, calculating loss magnitudes, and diving beneath the surface to find and account for submerged risks.

Once connected to your internal systems, the tool can do in a few hours what used to take days, and gives us a thorough, comprehensive, and concise view of risk. And, as you can see, it makes risks visible, sortable (by geography, threat type, time horizon, and business unit) and, most importantly, more actionable. (If you’d like to know more, drop us a line).

We will deal with submerged risk in… well, in depth, in an upcoming article. For now we’ll simply say, using an incomplete model for assessing risk carries big risks of its own.

References:
[1] Bloomberg Green, Global Warming Prediction Sounds Alarm for Climate Fight, December 2019
[2] Wikipedia, Climate Resilience

By Daniel Aronson and Dan Kempner
(Adapted from a July 24, 2020 interview with Andrew Gottlieb, Founder of The School for Humanity podcast series and digital marketing firm No Typical Moments.)

Recently, we spoke with Andrew Gottlieb, Founder of the purpose-driven online marketing and branding company No Typical Moments.

The topic was Gottlieb’s other passion, a podcast series called The School for Humanity wherein he speaks with thinkers and strategists from all over the spectrum, with a focus on entrepreneurs and those working on sustainable projects. (One of the entrepreneurial ventures highlighted happened to be Valutus and, if you’re interested, you can hear the results here, or read a portion of the interview in Sustainable Brands here.)

The worm had turned, however, and we were able to ask Andrew to share some of the things he’d learned through interviewing so many interesting and, often, CSR-driven executives. Here are the highlights.

Q: Why did you create the School for Humanity?

AG: So, just as an idea to test out this concept – because I’ve built a lot of friendships and connections in this space – I sent 15 emails to people I knew to see if they’d be interested in appearing on a podcast (thinking maybe five would want to say yes).

Before I knew it, 14 of them said they were. So it came about very quickly. And I started to realize how individuals who are doing something to make the world a better place really want to share their wisdom. And there’s also a part of them that really wants to empower and inspire other entrepreneurs to take this leap of faith: not just to create a widget, but to create a business with an intention of advancing the lives of people, and the environment, and big issues that are facing the world.

Q: I’m curious about the name, The School for Humanity. How did that come about?

AG: I didn’t want to have a podcast called, like, ‘how to build a purposeful business,’ that just doesn’t inspire anyone. The word ‘school’ is in front because it sets it up to be a learning environment. And I felt like ‘of humanity’ was a great kind of tail into that, because it really depicts the types of messages that we’re desiring to share through the podcast. It’s not a podcast of “Hey, come and learn how to scale your business to a million dollars in revenue per year!” It’s really focused in on how are you doing and being an individual in a business to make the world a better place.

Q: How do you feel the School for Humanity is making the world a better place?

AG: I see us continuing to interview and speak with leaders and organizations who are creating change and even greater scale. So I’d say with that, I see us as an entity building up educational products. I also see this really as a covenant community for these business leaders.

Q: Do you see a difference between passion-based entrepreneurs who want to make the world better, and regular entrepreneurs? And do you think there’s a difference in what you need to provide them versus what they get elsewhere?

AG: [For the passion-based people] it’s really a connection to the ‘why.’ That’s what gets them through the good and the bad. And whatever they’re creating, whether it’s a consulting agency, a book, a service product, nonprofit, whatever, yeah… there’s a very deep why for their continued devotion to this cause.

Q: You migrated more into purpose-driven entrepreneurship, have you experienced additional difficulties from that?

AG: I have, and I’ve also learned over the years that there’s certain elements of business that I can try as hard as I want to find a conscious business approach but, at the end of the day, filing taxes is just filing taxes, so there’s definitely certain dimensions of it that I’ve grown to just accept.

There are a ton of other areas in which I try my best to filter through the lens of social- and-conscious entrepreneurship and leadership. For instance, how do I treat the people on my team?  Or in terms of our agency, and the types of clients that we on- board, I definitely am held to a high standard by the rest of my team, to make sure that we’re bringing in clients that our values align with.

We have a handful of best practices set up. For instance, we donate one percent of gross revenue through 1% for the Planet, and we allocate a certain number of pro bono hours to support nonprofit causes over the years.

Q: You’ve had the experience of talking to… how many interviews is it now?

AG: We’re over 200. I didn’t think we had done that many. I had a lot of time on my hands during COVID, so there’s been a lot added over the last couple months!

Q: Well, first of all, that’s impressive. I’m curious if there was any theme to the type of leaders you were interviewing? Were you looking for people with particular disciplines, or just anyone who was attempting to impact the world in a positive way?

AG: I find it really inspirational to bring to light these stories, these authors, these companies that are doing amazing work in the world and aren’t necessarily getting the recognition that they probably deserve in some of the mainstream publications.

I enjoyed bringing their founders, their C-level execs, CEOs, whatever it is, into really authentic conversations and I’d say the commonality I’ve seen through all of these is that everyone is pretty much just like this normal, random dude who graduated from high school or college, and decided to get very serious about their impact, their success, and the legacy they were going to be building.

And it shows me time and time again that, man, no one is blessed with this superpower as a kid, and had always been a co founder and entrepreneur. It’s something that almost every person had grown into as they progressed with their career.

The only person I’ve interviewed who, I think, was that ‘kid wonder’ was Andrew Yang[1], well before he ran for president. I met him when he was still leading the organization called Venture for America. He may be the only one who was just, like, a whiz kid. Otherwise, it’s pretty much just normal people who decided one day that they wanted to make a positive impact.

Q: You’ve talked to all these fascinating people who are doing all these interesting things. And most of them came to it in sort of the same way, there’s some spark that took place. And how do you see the School for Humanity sort of being a forum for that?

AG: That’s a great question. It’s just something that I think will emerge. So the best way I know how is to try my best to interconnect the community, as many introductions as I can on a weekly basis.

I don’t really know but it’s there for something to emerge into. I always had this idea that there would be some type of in-person event or conference, or something would emerge one day – obviously on the back burner for a couple of years due to COVID-19. So maybe when we’re allowed to touch and interact with human beings again…

Q: You said some interesting things about the kinds of people and sort of their real-world struggles and everything. Were there any lessons that you learned, or interesting perspectives that you gained? If so, what would they be?

AG: The first is the question I ask at the end of almost every interview, which is, “how do you define success?” And I haven’t had one person say anything about money.

Q: Wow, that’s great stuff!

AG: I’d say the second thing – and maybe this isn’t something that you would learn in an episode but more about how people get on the episode. So, most of the time I’m reaching out cold via cold email to these individuals. And I think it shows the power of persistence. If you have some compelling copy to entice someone’s attention, it’s very possible to get into the email inbox of people you might believe are hard to reach.

Q: Hmm, interesting.

AG: The third would be that I’ve never interviewed someone who hasn’t described entrepreneurship as a roller coaster. Every single person talks about it. There’s definitely a lot of things to be proud of that you’ve achieved and accomplished over the years, but it doesn’t come without some major setbacks in that process.

Q: Got it. Finally, what’s the one thing you want to leave people with?

AG: On the podcast I asked one person something along the lines of “I’m sure you’ve had a lot of wins and losses: can you share what keeps you going through the good and bad times?”

The guy stopped me and said, “I definitely have had some great accomplishments and I’ve had some breakdowns and losses along the way. The thing though, is that each of those losses were moments in which I had to choose how I was going to respond: I can respond to it out of fear; I can respond out of anxiety; or I can look at it as a challenge and an opportunity to become better. That new framing – not viewing the losses and breakdowns as so personal – allows me to not beat myself up over the challenges of entrepreneurship.”

That really resonated, so I guess my final thought would be that achieving your goals is a lot easier when you get out of your own way.

[1] Author, Entrepreneur and former presidential candidate, Andrew Yang

Perched atop the world’s third-largest ocean, wedged between the Arabian sea to the west and the Bay of Bengal on the East, India has regularly dealt with tropical cyclones, averaging five or six per year, with just under half of them considered ‘severe.’[1]

Yet that number has been trending up and last-year’s Indian Ocean cyclone season was the “most active” ever recorded. This is a bland way of saying the country got slammed with “12 depressions, 11 deep depressions, 8 cyclonic storms, a record 6 severe cyclonic storms, a record 6 very severe cyclonic storms, a record 3 extremely severe cyclonic storms, and 1 super cyclonic storm.”[2] All within one year.

Then again, historically, most cyclones near the subcontinent occur on India’s East Coast in the Bay of Bengal – over nearly 130 years there have been 520 on the Bay to the West Coast’s 126[3] – due to complex geographical and meteorological nuances. However, in 2019 five of the twelve roamed the Arabian Sea, which last happened in 1902. This new penchant for battering the West Coast “indicates a surprise element in the behaviour of the Arabian Sea, which has long been known for being pacific.”[4]

In addition, though some storms do make landfall on the subcontinent in the summer months, they almost never do so in June.

On top of that, even when a rogue cyclical storm has gone roving through the Arabian Sea, it generally drifts west towards North Africa or the Middle East. Such cyclones do not hit India’s largest city, Mumbai. It’s not that they rarely hit Mumbai. They never hit Mumbai.

Which is why it’s seriously anomalous that a major cyclone just made landfall on the West Coast, in June, within spitting distance of Mumbai which, once again, miraculously – and just barely – escaped.

So, what’s up with this? Random chance? Did the Hindu God Varuna, astride his crocodile mount, intervene and pull the cyclone towards the coast?

Perhaps, but according to scientists, it’s just due to your friendly neighborhood climate change.[5]

Warming temperatures in the Arabian Sea have been on the radar for some time. Temps in that area have been rising by close to the world-wide average of .1˚C every decade.[6] (That average is about 40% faster than scientists recently thought.[7])

But it is not warming alone causing these shifts in cyclone behavior. The tropical waters around India, and in the Arabian Sea in particular, are already quite warm – in summer as high as 33˚C (91.4˚F) in some places.[8] Rather it is the combination of warmer waters – the perfect breeding grounds for tropical cyclones – and the gradient between temperatures near the ocean’s surface and air higher up in the atmosphere, that is changing the frequency and patterns.[9]

As the sea continues to warm, scientists predict, that gradient will be reduced, and the number of storms may eventually wane. Those that do occur, however, are likely to be whoppers.[10]

This is no longer theoretical, by the way. Cyclones are well understood and have been for some time. But the forensics involved in climate change’s impact on weather events – known as ‘climate change attribution’ – is still evolving. However, it has already come so far that, as we wrote in April, “experts can now sit in courtrooms just as DNA experts do, and say with “increasing statistical certainty,” that X event was increased in likelihood and severity by anthropogenic climate change.”[11] 

A new method using satellite data is adding certainty to the field, as detailed in a new National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) study. “The analysis, of satellite images dating to 1979, shows that warming has increased the likelihood of a hurricane developing into a major one of Category 3 or higher, with sustained winds greater than 110 miles an hour, by about 8 percent a decade.”[12] (Eight percent each decade? That means by mid-century… holy smokes!)

Indeed, headlines such as “Cyclone Nisarga is Brought to You by Climate Change,”[15] are becoming more frequent as climate change attribution becomes more robust.

Okay, so the evidence is pretty strong, but so what?

Well, for one thing, Mumbai is home to more than 20 million people – about two-and-a-half times the size of New York City[13] – with millions more in the major cities along 4,600+ miles (7,500+ km) of mainland coastline.[14] Add in Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Oman, Yemen, the Maldives and… let’s just say increased incidence and severity of tropical cyclones in some of the poorest and lowest-lying nations on Earth will likely lead to serious humanitarian crises.

And hurricanes and typhoons going where they have rarely gone before means those areas now need to prepare for major disasters they could safely ignore in the past. New Jersey and New York, particularly Staten Island, were unprepared for the fury of a superstorm like Sandy coming that far up the coast, and the damage was enormous, some $70 billion in addition to the human toll, as a result of a storm that had the largest diameter in history for an Atlantic storm: 900 miles (1448 km).[16]

As we’ll note in an upcoming story, The Advance of Managed Retreat, from expected sea-level rise alone, “the number of people who will be forced to move is likely in the hundreds of millions…”[17] Larger, more frequent, more damaging cyclones will likely increase both that number and the distance inland required for safety. 

And of course, as we detailed in Blame: The Worm Will Turn in 2020,[18] someone is going to have to pay for all this. Insurance companies are becoming less and less inclined to insure anything at risk from climate change, particularly the huge reinsurers who underwrite the rest.

So, who will be targeted now that we know, and can prove, what is driving this? Many sights will be turned towards already beleaguered oil and coal companies, other major polluters, auto manufacturers and more, and courts have begun weighing the merits of such cases, especially internationally.

By a razor-thin margin, Mumbai’s record of avoiding cyclones stands unblemished. Given the trends however, that city – and many other places previously thought immune – might do well to begin battening down the hatches. It’s not likely that record will stand very long.

References:
[1] YourArticleLibrary.com, Tropical Cyclones in India: Notes on Tropical Cyclones in India
[2]Wikipedia, 2019 North Indian Ocean Cyclone Season
[3] MSN News: India Today, Nisarga, an Exception: Why Mumbai Does Not Get Cyclones, June 3, 2020
[4] India Today, Cyclone Nisarga is Brought to You by Climate Change, June 2, 2020
[5] India Climate Dialogue, Climate Change Will Cause More Cyclones in Arabian Sea, Dec 2017
[6] The National: UAE, Arabian Gulf in Hot Water as Sea Temperatures are Rising Faster Than Expected, Jan 2019
[7] Ibid
[8] Ibid
[9] Australian Climate Council, Tropical Cyclones and Climate Change: Fact Sheet
[10] Ibid
[11] Valutus Sustainability R.O.I., Climate Forensics and Attribution Have Arrived, April 2020
[12] The New York Times, Climate Change is Making Hurricanes Stronger, Researchers Find, May 18, 2020
[13] India Today, June 2, 2020
[14] Wikipedia, New York City, 2019
[15] WorldListMania, List of Coastal Cities in India
[16] Wikipedia, Hurricane Sandy
[17] John Carey, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Core Concept: Managed Retreat increasingly Seen as Necessary in Response to Climate Change’s Fury, May 27, 2020
[18] Valutus, Blame: The Worm Will Turn in 2020,Feb 2020