Understanding Conceptual Climate Change Meanings and Preferences of Multi-Actor Professional Leadership in New York

Abstract

This article sets out to evaluate the range of meanings and preferences for the concepts of adaptation, resilience, mitigation and coping of a variety of professionals in New York who are undertaking leadership positions in developing climate change policies and practices. This article positions a normative set of simplified meanings for each of the aforementioned concepts based on a review of existing literature. Utilizing a survey, these normative meanings are evaluated by and between the: (a) concepts and meanings; (b) concepts and applications and (c) applications and preferences, as applied to various risk-based scenarios ranging from sea-level rise to heat waves. This survey tests the hypotheses that the respondents: (i) are unable to consistently match the concept of resiliency with the normative meanings or applications: and (ii) will not consistently show a preference for resilience applications or outcomes ahead of other concepts. The results of the survey confirm both hypotheses, which is demonstrative of the inadequacy of the current framework dominated by a narrowly defined framework for resilience. It is anticipated that the results of this article will advance an argument for the necessity to develop consistent meanings for concepts which bridge the scientific, policy and popular domains.

Key Words:

• Climate Adaptation
• Urban Planning
• Built Environment
• Resilience

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank Leonie Janssen-Jansen, Tom Daamen, Hans de Jonge and Mary Rowe.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Jesse M. Keenan http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4058-1682

David A. King http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8401-6514

Notes

1 See, www.arch.columbia.edu/climatesurvey.

2 Given the limited definition of Respondent, it cannot be fully explained whether the six who do not believe in climate change qualify to be Respondents by virtue of their professional capacities or whether their answer is more nuanced in terms of their personal perceptions and/or observations.

3 For descriptive statistics of Concepts and Meanings and Concepts and Applications results, see online Appendix Table A1.

4 For examples of planning applications in for the 4th Regional Plan, see online Appendix Table A2.