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Residents of South Florida have been living with the effects of climate change in the form of flooding due, in part, to sea level rise, for more than a decade. However, previous research has characterized news coverage of climate change impacts as concerning distant events in terms of time and place. In this study, we look at coverage of climate change at The Miami Herald from 2011-2015, a time period significant in terms of increased temperatures and flooding levels on city streets. Through a content analysis of 167 articles, this study argues that news coverage of climate change in The Miami Herald was largely pragmatic, linked to a news peg, locally focused and presented via opinion pieces rather than news articles. Furthermore, Miami Herald coverage links distant hypotheses of climate change with local realities, invokes a network of editorial responses, and emphasizes local impacts, particularly in more affluent areas. Findings from this study contribute to understanding how news coverage of climate change as a local story may provide a useful model for engaging the public in adapting to and mitigating against the impact of climate change, and creating social acceptance of climate change policy.

Modern societies are imbued with a fundamental tension of expertise, as expert status is both a source of authority and channel of wider public trust. Scholars of expertise have shown, though, that the public often lacks trust in experts, something which often occurs alongside politicized social problems. I argue that there are contexts in which expert–public interactions may facilitate trust-building processes even amidst the politicization of problems in which experts are attempting to manage. I refer to this as “negotiated expertise,” when communities with divergent sensibilities of problems (re)construct the rules and norms of expertise in ways that build trust and facilitate cooperative and collective action. This builds on an interactionist understanding of trust and expertise, focusing on the ways in which communities negotiate the meanings, rules, and norms of expert settings. Through a qualitative analysis of Miami's Sea Level Rise Committee, I identify two key factors that facilitate trust-building in expert–public interactions: an emergent socioenvironmental problem and “advocacy-experts.” I suggest that these contexts and factors enabled Miamians to work toward reciprocal practices and understandings, unexpectantly building trust in a politicized setting.

In 2001, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's Third Assessment Report revealed an important increase in the level of consensus concerning the reality of human-caused climate warming. The scientific basis for global warming has thus been sufficiently established to enable meaningful planning of appropriate policy responses to address global warming. As a result, the world's policy makers, governments, industries, energy producers/planners, and individuals from many other walks of life have increased their attention toward finding acceptable solutions to the challenge of global warming. This laudable increase in worldwide attention to this global-scale challenge has not, however, led to a heightened optimism that the required substantial reductions in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions deemed necessary to stabilize the global climate can be achieved anytime soon. This fact is due in large part to several fundamental aspects of the climate system that interact to ensure that climate change is a phenomenon that will emerge over extensive timescales.

Although most of the warming observed during the 20th century is attributed to increased greenhouse gas concentrations, because of the high heat capacity of the world's oceans, further warming will lag added greenhouse gas concentrations by decades to centuries. Thus, today's enhanced atmospheric CO2 concentrations have already “wired in” a certain amount of future warming in the climate system, independent of human actions. Furthermore, as atmospheric CO2 concentrations increase, the world's natural CO2 “sinks” will begin to saturate, diminishing their ability to remove CO2 from the atmosphere. Future warming will also eventually cause melting of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, which will contribute substantially to sea level rise, but only over hundreds to thousands of years. As a result, current generations have, in effect, decided to make future generations pay most of the direct and indirect costs of this major global problem. The longer the delay in reducing CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions, the greater the burden of climate change will be for future life on earth.

Collectively, these phenomena comprise a “global warming dilemma.” On the one hand, the current level of global warming to date appears to be comparatively benign, about 0.6°C. This seemingly small warming to date has thus hardly been sufficient to spur the world to pursue aggressive CO2 emissions reduction policies. On the other hand, the decision to delay global emissions reductions in the absence of a current crisis is essentially a commitment to accept large levels of climate warming and sea level rise for many centuries. This dilemma is a difficult obstacle for policy makers to overcome, although better education of policy makers regarding the long-term consequences of climate change may assist in policy development.

The policy challenge is further exacerbated by factors that lie outside the realm of science. There are a host of values conflicts that conspire to prevent meaningful preventative actions on the global scale. These values conflicts are deeply rooted in our very globally diverse lifestyles and our national, cultural, religious, political, economic, environmental, and personal belief systems. This vast diversity of values and priorities inevitably leads to equally diverse opinions on who or what should pay for preventing or experiencing climate change, how much they should pay, when, and in what form. Ultimately, the challenge to all is to determine the extent to which we will be able to contribute to limiting the magnitude of this problem so as to preserve the quality of life for many future generations of life on earth.

Global temperature has risen by 1°C since 1900, while since the 1990s the Arctic has recently experienced an accelerated warming of about double the average rate of global warming. Nearly all climate scientists agree that the main cause of this temperature rise is ever-increasing accumulations of ‘greenhouse gases’, especially carbon dioxide and methane, within our atmosphere. Sea level rise could easily exceed one metre this century under ‘business as usual’. However, global warming is not just about rising temperatures, melting ice and rising sea levels, but it also affects the frequency and severity of many extreme weather events. Planetary warming is not a uniform process, can spring surprises in regional climate change and is probably linked with the tendency for Northern Hemisphere mid-latitudes to have more extreme (variously hot/cold/dry/wet) weather, especially during the recent period of rapid Arctic warming. There is overwhelming scientific evidence that human activity through enhanced greenhouse gas emissions is largely responsible for recent climate change and accompanying extreme weather, and we are already clearly seeing these changes. However, it is equally evident that, although initial remedial steps are being taken, finding an adequate solution will not be easy unless much larger changes are made to the way in which we all live. Limiting global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial temperatures would require global carbon dioxide emissions to decrease by approximately 40–60% by 2030 relative to 2010 levels. This can only be achieved through a collective solution that fully involves diverse communities, among them religious stakeholders.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2007) of 2007 concluded that most of the warming of the climate is very likely driven by human activities that increase greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations in the atmosphere. Activities such as burning of fossil fuels for power generation and in vehicles, as well as increasing deforestation, result in emissions of four long-lived GHGs: carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), and halocarbons (a group of gases containing fluorine, chlorine, or bromine). The report projects that by the end of the 21st century global temperatures could rise by 1.1–6.4°C over 1990 levels, while global mean sea levels could rise by 18–59cm, depending on future scenarios of varying global emission levels. This is likely to adversely impact ecosystem resilience, putting many plant and animal species at the risk of extinction. Sea level rise and coastal erosion coupled with temperature extremes, heat waves, and heavy precipitation events that are projected to become more frequent will affect the health and well-being of millions of people around the world.

History has taught us that every aspect of the world around us is changing. Right from its formation, the earth has been evolving climatically, edaphically, and biotically to its present state. The forcing for all these changes in the past was natural, and human activities had least influence till the industrial revolution. Since the beginning of the 18th century, human activities associated with the industrial revolution have changed the composition of the atmosphere and thereby having a greater influence on the earth's climate. The use of fossil fuels like coal and oil coupled with deforestation has increased the concentration of heat-trapping “greenhouse gases,” which prevent the heat from the earth escaping to space. Because of this, the very greenhouse gases, which helped sustain life on the earth under normal circumstances, have become detrimental due to its higher concentration. Several models have predicted that the rising concentrations of greenhouse gases produce an increase in the average surface temperature of the earth over time. Rising temperatures may, in turn, produce changes in precipitation patterns, storm severity, and sea level, commonly referred to as “climate change.” The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) defines climate change broadly as “any change in climate over time whether due to natural variability or as a result of human activity.” The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) defines climate change as “a change of climate that is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity, that alters the composition of the global atmosphere, and that is in addition to natural climate variability over comparable time periods.”

Taiwan is located between the world's largest landmass, the continent of Asia, and its largest ocean, the Pacific Ocean. The Tropic of Cancer passes through the island of Taiwan, giving it a subtropical and tropical oceanic climate. High temperatures and rainfall and strong winds characterize the climate. Because of Taiwan's position in the Asian monsoon region, its climate is greatly influenced by monsoons as well as by its own complicated topography. The annual mean temperatures in the lowlands are 22–25°C, and the monthly mean temperature exceeds 20°C for eight months starting with April each year. The period from June to August is the hottest season with mean temperatures of 27–29°C. Temperatures are cooler between November and March; in most places, the coldest monthly mean temperature is above 15°C. The climate is mild rather than cold and temperatures only fall dramatically when a cold front affects the region. Average annual rainfall in the lowlands of Taiwan is in the range of 1,600–2,500mm. Due to the influences of topography and the monsoon climate, the rainfall differs greatly with different areas and seasons. In mountainous areas, average rainfall may exceed 4,000mm/yr. Rainfall is generally higher in mountainous areas than in lowland areas, higher in the east than in the west, and higher on windward slopes than on the leeward side. The northeast monsoon prevails during the winter; this is the rainy season in the north though rainfall is not intense. But the same winter period is the dry season in the south. During the summer, the southwest monsoon prevails, often giving rise to convective thunderstorms and bringing intense and copious rainfall. With added downpours brought by typhoons, this season often accounts for over 50% of annual rainfall in the south so that central and southern regions often suffer greatly. Relative humidity on the island of Taiwan, surrounded by ocean, is high, usually measuring in the range of 78–85%. In the north, relative humidity is higher during winter than during summer. The situation in the south is the opposite. Over the past 100 years, the rainfall in the north has increased, while the rainfall in the south has decreased. The trend is not as consistent as that of the temperature change (Environmental Protection Administration, Executive Yuan, R.O.C. (Taiwan), 2002).

Will Florida’s agriculture adapt to climate change? Climate disruptions to agriculture and natural resources in Florida are projected to increase in the future. These impacts will be increasingly negative because critical thresholds are being exceeded. This chapter discusses how Florida’s agriculture and natural resources may be affected by climate change in the coming decades.

Agriculture will be affected by invasive alien species, sea-level-rise flooding, and storm surges. A warmer, drier climate will place agriculture in competition with other users for limited water resources. A serious concern for agriculture is that rising sea level will cause coastal groundwater to become more saline and groundwater levels to rise. The loss of coastal wetlands increases the risk of catastrophic damage due to extreme weather events. Degradation of soil and water assets due to increasing extremes in precipitation will challenge both rainfed and irrigated agriculture without the implementation of innovative conservation methods. High night-time temperatures can reduce grain yields and animal-sourced production. Climate change also increases the vulnerability of forests to ecosystem changes due to decreased soil moisture and increased evapotranspiration. The practical implications are that increased innovation will be needed to ensure the adaptation of agriculture and the associated socioeconomic system can keep pace with climate change. Given the difficulties in predicting our future climate, we must develop new risk-transfer innovations that will facilitate damage recovery. Changes in agricultural yields and food prices could have important implications for food security.

The Indus, Mekong, and Ganges River deltas, which have created one of the world’s largest delta and submarine fan system, currently contribute a major fraction of freshwater to East and South Asia. All these deltas are those regions in the world that face major challenges in their water sector due to population growth, urbanization, industrialization, sea-level rise, and salinity intrusion into inland and water bodies, all aggravated by climate change. Among them, salinity intrusion is currently one of the key issues that directly and indirectly cause water insecurity in East and South Asia, which ultimately hamper livelihood, agricultural production, and social interference. Hence, this chapter gives a comprehensive description on the nature and extent of the salinity problem, its adverse effects on livelihood and water sector, and then the focus goes to current and future sustainable water resource management within the delta to finally move on to conclusion and suggestions.