By Juliette Kayyem
Despite deadlock in the federal government, local and state leaders are embracing creative policy options to mitigate the impact of a warmer earth. From state taxing policies that use the carrot-and-stick approach to promote better corporate and personal behavior to various local zoning laws that prohibit residential buildings in flood zones, this hodgepodge of efforts is coming from both sides of the aisle to prepare our society for Mother Nature’s growing wrath. And still, they will be inadequate.
It isn’t that these measures are useless; indeed, some are quite successful. It is that they rest on a homeland security and disaster management system that has barely changed with them. While resiliency efforts accept as a given that climate disasters are going to happen more frequently in the years to come, after they do, our system of remedies and relief is still based on the myth that they will never happen again.