How does Yohe’s & Leichenko’s risk management approach tackle Horton, Gornitz, & Bowman’s future projections of New York City?
Risk Management in New York City
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I think that Yohe and Leichenko’s risk management approach – which consists of a mix of risk mitigation and adaptation – is a reasonable response to the facts and figures about the reality of New York City as a result of climate change that Hortong’s report illustrates. Hortong gives a number of daunting projections about the future of New York City – with examples of increased rain storms, temperature fluctuations, and much more. He writes, “future climate change for the New York City region is projected for mean annual temperature and precipitation, heat waves, intense downpours and droughts, sea level rise, and coastal flooding events” and goes on to warn that long-term measures should be taken now to prepare for these extreme events. Yohe & Leichenko’s risk management approaches seem to outline those long-term measures and plans that Hortong calling upon us to take. I think that Yohe & Leichenko’s strongest argument is their argument that any long-term sustainability measures should be a mix of adaptation and mitigation. We cannot undo what’s been done, and as Hortong points out, extreme climates changes are imminent, which means that we need to create contingency plans to deal with them before we can even think about mitigation strategies. Before the next Hurricane Sandy hits, we should have more generators, more barricades, more resources on hand ready to deal with something of this magnitude, and only once we have such measures in place can we move forward with efforts to prevent future events down the line.