Of Boiling Frogs, Disasters and Chronic Disasters

Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth made a large point of the boiling frog theory. You put a frog in a pot of boiling water and it will jump out. But if you put a frog in a pot of room temperature water and slowly raise the heat, the frog won’t notice the rising temperature. Before long, it will die.

Gore (and others) have used this story to illustrate climate change. Metaphorical, or better, mythically (since it does not appear to be true), I suppose it works.  Climate change is analogous to slowly heated water, and we won’t notice until it is too late. Problem is, we already have noticed.

The illustration is, of course, fraught with inconsistencies. First, we have facts relating to boiling water and frogs. Researchers are pretty uniform in saying if you throw a frog in a pot of boiling water, it will jump out if it can or die from the immediate scalding. We can accurately call that an “acute disaster.” So far we agree with Al.

Contrary to popular assumptions, when placed in a pot of water that is slowly heated, the frog will most likely get uncomfortable and jump out. That is best labeled as “chronic disaster”—one that unfolds in slow motion, so to speak. Though in the end, the summative impacts of a chronic disaster may equal those of a major disaster, they just don’t all happen at once.

Climate change (if you believe in it—and I do, by the way) can best be described as a chronic disaster.

I live on a lot that has a salt marsh in the rear—eight feet out my back door. My lot is eight feet above sea level. Over some period of time, I could, I suppose own beachfront property if some sea-level rise predictions are correct and if I am alive. Alternatively, I could have deep-water access and a lot that is (by today’s standards at least) worth considerably more than it is now. I write this because I’ll have ample time to adapt and make any of myriad decisions to deal with rising water.  

In thinking about the slow devolutions of chronic disasters, they occur in a way that is much akin to allowing me to make the decision to put up hurricane shutters in the midst of one.

Certainly the CARRI model of disaster and recovery can apply to chronic disasters. But should it and if it should, how? We can think about it, because nothing is pressing.

There are a couple of things we should focus on as we consider this question.

The first is whether or not a chronic disaster is one that suggests a community will be sustainable over time. In this sense, chronic disasters can result in a persistent downward trajectory of community functioning. In the case of climate change and sea level rise, salt water may make incursions into drinking water sources, beaches lost as recreation areas, and so on. In this sense, a community enduring a chronic disaster becomes less and less resilient and might not be able to resist even a minor perturbation as it slips downward.

The second issue is adaptation. Likely many communities will elect to build dikes or begin an incremental retreat from the shoreline as the sea levels rise. This would be akin to introducing a new species to combat a non-native invasive one.

Economic disasters are often chronic. One industry leaves, then another, and then another. Slowly, incrementally, the community’s economy crumbles. However, the warning signs are there in multiple forms. Higher joblessness, declining home values, higher crime and so on are all signs. Think Detroit. At some point, communities may breach the realm of sustainability and become entirely different than what they were, if anything at all. That is why my good colleague, John Plodinec says we need a Common Framework, now! It would allow us to see the oncoming freight train in an objective fashion.

The CARRI model can certainly assist a community in recognizing it is on a downward trajectory. We at CARRI have to decide whether the recovery model we have created “fits” chronic disasters that progressively deplete a community’s resources over an extended period of time. In the case of a community that is unsustainable, thinking out loud again and speaking for myself and not the CARRI team, I do not think it does because adaptation is one thing and unsustainability is another.