The document discusses challenges and issues related to personal adaptation to climate change. It notes that climate change professionals commonly struggle with feeling like their personal problems are trivial compared to larger impacts, that they are only one person, and that climate change adaptation is not often discussed. The document also examines common concerns, like shifting focus from mitigation to adaptation and envisioning life with climate impacts. Personal adaptation challenges include uneven capacity for change, difficulties thinking about the future, and remaining positive and hopeful.

1. Griffith University - Liese Coulter – l.coulter@griffith.edu.au
Personal adaptation:
discussions, decisions and
planning
All images #CFCC15 © Liese Coulter: Creative Commons with attribution, non-commercial

2. Challenge:
Imagine a climate system that gains energy
every decade from now onward…
The IPCC Fifth Assessment Report shows that
near-term climate change will influence our
environment over the next twenty years.
Liese Coulter I Associate Lecturer I Griffith University E: l.coulter@griffith.edu.au

3. The social construction of 2035:
Communicating the imagined
future to adapt to climate change
WHO: Climate change professionals in
research, policy and practice
WHAT: How do you talk to family and
friends about adapting to climate change
over the next 20 years?
WHEN: June 2014- June 2015
WHERE: Australia and Canada
WHY: Personal conversations and plans
shape the imagined future and shared
choices.
Liese Coulter I Associate Lecturer I Griffith University E: l.coulter@griffith.edu.au

4. Personal adaptation issues
Common issues identified include:
•My personal problems seem trivial
compared with future generations,
other nations, the less fortunate…
•I am only one person. How can I
adapt to climate change?
•Dealing with climate change is not
something we talk about.
Liese Coulter I Associate Lecturer I Griffith University E: l.coulter@griffith.edu.au

5. Scaring people or
bringing up unpleasant
topics in a social
situation is not a
diplomatic approach. It is
easier to talk about
environmental ethos in
mitigation but disturbing
to talk about personal
vulnerability in
adaptation.
Personal adaptation issues
Liese Coulter I Associate Lecturer I Griffith University E: l.coulter@griffith.edu.au

6. Personal adaptation concerns
Common concerns include the need to:
• shift concern for mitigation of climate
change to include adaptation to
climate impacts;
• think beyond unpleasant possibilities
and envision future life affected by
climate change, and
• foster skills for greater cooperation in
education and planning.
Liese Coulter I Associate Lecturer I Griffith University E: l.coulter@griffith.edu.au

7. Decision makers in
prosperous nations do
not see themselves as
very vulnerable to
climate change.
Adaptation is framed as
happening to someone
else, at a distant time
and place.
Personal adaptation concerns
Liese Coulter I Associate Lecturer I Griffith University E: l.coulter@griffith.edu.au

8. Personal adaptation challenges
Common challenges include:
• uneven capacity for change on a
personal level;
• not practiced in thinking about the
future, and
• difficult to remain positive and hopeful
Liese Coulter I Associate Lecturer I Griffith University E: l.coulter@griffith.edu.au

9. Discourse and future
thinking will continue to
evolve as climate change
is differently experienced
and discussed globally.
Personal adaptation challenges
Liese Coulter I Associate Lecturer I Griffith University E: l.coulter@griffith.edu.au

10. Dangerous Futures Unfamiliar Futures
Imagined FuturesUnfolding Futures
Liese Coulter I Associate Lecturer I Griffith University E: l.coulter@griffith.edu.au

11. “…And if anything scares me about
Tasmania is the lack of good regulation on
food security, and when these outbreaks
happen, then the likelihood of someone
dying is high, because we just don’t have the
systems in place.”
(Australian 3063-practice)
“…we hear a lot… that the problems are not
going to be here; they’re going to be in the
tropics, where you have really small islands;
or in Europe, they’re going to have a lot of
flooding, and then Florida is going to be -
Florida won’t exist anymore. That’s what we
hear about.”
(Canadian 3382-research)
Dangerous Futures
climate change + narrative communication
Liese Coulter I Associate Lecturer I Griffith University E: l.coulter@griffith.edu.au

12. Unfamiliar Futures
climate change + future thinking
…my vision for the future is one where we’re
more collaborative, not less. I think resilience
for communities and for families will involve
not being isolationist, but creating networks
that are cooperative that can negotiate
appropriate and maybe firm
boundaries...(Australian 3243-policy)
…global warming is not what many of us
thought what it was going to be 15 or 20
years ago. …we were going to have palm
trees, and our winters were going to be
nothing compared to what they are now.
What we’re going to see is …more extreme
seasonal weather.
(Canadian 3380-practice)
Liese Coulter I Associate Lecturer I Griffith University E: l.coulter@griffith.edu.au

13. “Because the impacts of climate change
ongoing right now, and into this time period
that you are dealing with, has the potential to
be sufficient to really cause some disruption
in places like China, Southeast Asia, where a
lot of our food’s coming from.”
(Australian 3056-research)
“…sure, I want to get into (my) 90s. I do, I’m
in good health. But yeah, I imagine myself
there. And getting back to the climate thing…
I wonder what things will be like. I worry
about the skiing.“
(Canadian 3367-research)
Imagined Futures
future thinking + narrative communication
Liese Coulter I Associate Lecturer I Griffith University E: l.coulter@griffith.edu.au

14. “So even without climate change global
fisheries look pretty bloody awful. …But if
we do it right, we’ll still be pretty natural,
actually… So, could be a messy interval.”
(Australian 3344-research)
“I have never been in a conversation in a
professional context where anybody
actually sat down and said “We need to to
think mainly, primarily, about climate
change." Not a one. Never heard it.“
(Canadian 3384-policy)
Unfolding Futures
change over time
Liese Coulter I Associate Lecturer I Griffith University E: l.coulter@griffith.edu.au

15. I am only one person.
How can I adapt to climate change?
Liese Coulter I Associate Lecturer I Griffith University E: l.coulter@griffith.edu.au