The scope and scale of climate chaos impacts are such that the state is already and will increasingly be overwhelmed. Disaster readiness, mitigation to eliminate or reduce the hazard, adaptation to better withstand the impacts of climate chaos, all these need to occur locally, in each business and neighborhood community.
Given the frequency and range of climate chaos impacts, relying upon a centralized and oftentimes distant resource for disaster readiness – preparedness, response, recovery, mitigation, and adaptation – is simply unrealistic.
The solution is to build local capacity so that communities can be as self-reliant as possible in responding to climate change. This includes mutual aid so that when local authorities are overwhelmed by a disaster, a well-equipped and trained citizenry can be mobilized to help one another.
The capacity to deal with climate chaos must be pushed down to the local community that is being affected, all the way to the neighborhood level. This is called localization.
To be continued…