01.15.07
Premise For The Abrupt Climate Change Game for Community Planners
You are a community planner charged with regulating land use in your Northeast US community. (After I see how this one works I’ll open up other areas.) You can influence building codes, school programs and other local responses because you are an active member of the community.
Your community has not given you a war-mandate – no unlimited funds, no ‘crazy’ ideas (at least in the main proposals.) Even though God appeared in the heavens to reveal what will happen, 40% of the community was sleeping and either hasn’t woken up yet or thinks the planners have lost their minds. Get too impractical and this forty percent will convince others that they shouldn’t smoke pot in their old age – it’s just not the same as when they were kids & God’s message was really an illusion.
State & Federal programs might follow your lead but will not give seed money or support in any kind of timely fashion. Working out what you would need from the Feds and how you could get it under existing programs is legal but you need a fall-back plan in case every other community jumped on the Federal bandwagon and congress didn’t authorized enough resources. (If you are a state or federal politician reading this please repeat a mantra of ‘this is a game, this is a game, this is a game.’ We know that if God appeared to your community you would instantly try to pass all necessary state & federal laws –especially when 60% of your constituents saw the revelation – but your colleagues were all in the 40% sleeping.)
The Situation – we know that the Gulf Stream will stop in two-18 years. (This is not The Weekly World News – we did not get an exact date.) There will be 10 years of climate instability. A new climate pattern will emerge for the next 100-1000 years.
The Mission – Arks are neither needed nor appropriate. (Arks are for families and only Florida, the Gulf Coast & my brother’s house on the Chesapeake Bay might need them anyway.)
You need to come up with a plan to:
- Maximize safe, efficient housing for the new conditions
- Turn your municipality into a net food exporter
Good Luck.
