Hello, and welcome back to Drilled. I'm Amie Westervelt. This season, we are going through the book Climate Obstruction, a Global Assessment. You know that sounds very dry, but every chapter compiles all of the peer reviewed research on climate instruction of some kind or another. So we have gone through lots
of examples. We've looked at media and the pr industry, and the psychology of misinformation and how this works at the local level and the global level, and what different industries do in particular, and how this shows up even in the UNF Triple C and COP and the IPCC and all of that. And today we are looking at
how it shows up around adaptation. So this is really interesting to me because actually the bulk of the research on climate obstruction has really looked at how different industries and actors have blocked climate policy that gets at mitigation, so reducing emissions, getting off of fossil fuels, transitioning away
from the things that generate greenhouse gas emissions. Adaptation refers to things like building sea walls, or feeding cows, seaweed, or any number of other things that people are looking at as ways that we can deal with the climate impacts that are already baked in, so whether it is moving people out of harm's way or it is building adaptations things like that, a lot of people are looking at how to protect communities from the extreme weather events
that we know are coming no matter what. And you would think that that would be kind of a non controversial form of climate action, that you know, no matter what your disagreements might be about what's causing this problem or how to stop it, that shure, you would want to protect your community from severe weather events, fires, storms, floods, what have you. But in fact, no, there is obstruction
happening at the adaptation level as well. So there is work that is going against efforts to make communities resilient to climate change as well. And today we are looking at. Those joining me to do that are Laura cule from Northeastern University and STACYN. Robinson from Emory University. They're going to walk us through what the research said so far and why there hasn't really been enough research on this subject as well. That's coming up after this quick break.
I'm Laura Coole, and I'm associate professor in the School of Public Policy at Urban Affairs and the International Affairs Program at Northeastern University.
I'm Staysan Robinson, Associate Professor of Environmental Sciences in the Department of Environmental Sciences at Emory University, which is in Atlanta. My research focuses primarily on climate adaptation and small eyelines.
I have to say, I was like so excited when I read your chapter because it was shocking to me. There's been really way less research on obstruction of climate adaptation than climate mitigation. And it's one of those things where like I hadn't thought about it until I read that, and then I was like, oh my god. Yeah, it's
so obviously out of scale. So I would like to start there and have you guys kind of lay that out a little bit and also talk about why there's less attention paid to the obstruction efforts there.
Yeah, I mean, just to get us started. This was a challenging chapter to write because we were trying to synthesize literature that really, honestly doesn't yet exist in this framework. And so we really see this chapter as kind of a first effort to explore this topic and hopefully it will pave the path forward for more research and exploration on obstruction for adaptation. But we were really struck by that.
We thought there was some potential here, but really nobody had been talking about it yet, so I wanted to try it up.
Yeah, that's a great point, Lauren, but we're happy to hear amy that you were surprised that there isn't much out there on adaptation obstruction. And when we think of climate obstruction, before we got into writing this chapter, we just imagine ourselves and other people imagining that this is really probably more focused on reducing d missions or blocking actions that would reduce DCH missions. So that's what comes
to mind when people think about climate obstruction. But we're happy to to put a focus on adaptation because we feel that, you know, an emphasis on investigating how communities are just the flood in or heat or sea level rise, that these actions can also be obstructed. So it's good to have some of that attention on this topic that we and our CO office feel is very important.
Yeah, So when we're talking about obstructing climate adaptation, what kinds of things are being obstructed and then what are the different actors that are doing the obstructing.
So this is I think part of why it's a little bit tricky because unlike mitigation where there's kind of a clear sort of object for what would be obstructed. We're obstructing reducing fossil fuel emissions, and so who benefits from that From the existing status quo is pretty obvious,
it's fossil fuel companies and their associated interests. When we start to think about adaptation, it becomes much more complex because there are lots of different actors engaged in adaptation and there's lots of different ways that it benefits them.
So one of the ways that we kind of approached it in this chapter was to think about who is benefiting from the status quo, whose sort of existing power would be disrupted by adaptation actions, and kind of follow those threads to think about who might be doing the obstructing.
Yeah, and when we're thinking about it in that way, it becomes easier to identify, you know, these actors and their alliances, etc. So some of the examples that we give in the chapter include real estate developers who might oppose zoning or building codes that limit coastal construction from a small island. You know, I'm always focused on tourism, so it was good that some of our co authors could bring in some tourism examples where tourism operators are
resisting restrictions to be trund development. But even national governments oftentimes they are able to sideline adaptation in favor of other priorities. But one of the things that we try to emphasize is that when this is in defense of the lead and their objectives and their priorities, and that's what we call obstructure.
Okay, so you talked about obstruction, barriers and resistance in the chapter, and I think this is really important, right because there are some community groups that might be opposed to an adaptation measure for some reason or another two And like where do we draw the line between an organized obstruction effort and like a community resistance thing that's going on. So yeah, I'd love to have you guys define those terms and then talk about how you navigate these great areas between them.
Well, I think this is perhaps like one of the bigger contributions of our chapter, you know, conceptually trying to detangle these string terms, and believe me, it was challenging righting it in this way. But one of the things that we want to get across is that the concept of adaptation barrier is almost well defined in the adaptation literature, and when we think of an adaptation barrier, we're thinking about things like natural, technological, economic, social, or even institutional
impediments to adaptation. So one of the most common examples is the lack of funding or limited funding or institutional luck in and these are the things that work to prevent the adjustment to new and expected climate realities. But one of the key differences with adaptation barriers is that they can be overcome. Right, if there's enough political will,
you can do it. But the confusion, as from our perspective, arises when the term barriers is used as an excuse to limit action and adaptation, making it sound impossible, which is not right. In many cases, it's actually the interests of powerful actors that make adaptation more challenging. And for this reason, we think it's really helpful to draw like clear distinctions between the barriers that actors are in good
faith working to overcome and resist dunce and obstruction. I don't know if Laura wants to take it over from there, you know, explain and how we're thinking about resist dunce and obstruction.
Yeah, so just kind of building on that, we see kind of resistance as this broad category of sort of
pushing back against adaptation action. And one of the things that we really struggled with, as you mentioned and kind of your introduction to this question, is that sometimes that can come from grassroots community groups or local organizations, and it might be from the very people or communities that are intended to benefit from adaptation, or it might be from elite actors or powerful groups that are trying to
block adaptation. And those are pretty fundamentally different reasons for resisting adaptation action, and so we really wanted to sort of tease that apart, and to do that throughout the chapter. What we relied on, which was really helpful for our thinking, was a framework that we developed along with a number of the other co authors of this chapter, for thinking
about justice and power in local adaptation. And so it's a paper on promises and pitfalls of locally led adaptation that's gotten quite a bit of attention in the adaptation space, but we also found it really helpful for thinking about
teasing apart this distinction between resistance and obstruction. So, for us, obstruction is when power flactors are blocking adaptation, and resistance is when sort of our local groups are perhaps blocking or resisting an adaptation strategy that would lead to greater injustices. Got it.
That's a nice simple way to think of it. Okay, So I want to talk about how this shows up in the IPCC.
Well, I think for us, you know, laarnet or work is multi scale. So even though we focus on adaptation, we look at adaptation at the local level, at the national level, supernational, and at the global level. So when we're thinking about ways in which adaptation obstruction might show up at the global level, the two first cases that came to mind where the IPCC, the Intergovernmental Panel and Climate Change and the Unit Triple C the United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change. So perhaps a little bit of background on the IPCC. It's that un organization that's really responsible for synthesizing the state of climate science, right. So it came about from you know, basically a project of the United Nations Environment Program and the World Lotroological Organization, and every five to seven years they put out like a big climate assessment, like here's what we need to
know about the status of climate science. But one of the things that I think many people don't realize is that the eye in the IPCC does a lot of heavy lifting.
Right.
It's the inter governmental body, right, not just an international body, which means that it's actually the countries that are the member states and the IPCC. And then you can think about just the very interests across various countries and how they can come together to really acknowledge, you know, the
state of climate science. So when we were looking at the IPCC, we were thinking, essentially whole obstruction shows up for adaptation is a sidelining of knowledge in one of the ways is one of the ways where you know, powerful actors, and here we're thinking about countries primarily control action and adaptation. So as a pre eminent authority on climate science, we feel that this matters. But one of the things that we tried to do in the chapter
was to look back at the previous assessment reports. Right now, the seventh assessment cycle just got started last year, so
we've had six of these assessment reports. And one of the things that we notice is that, well, there isn't much dedicated focus on adaptation, right, And here we're thinking about dedicated chapters as there are for mitigation, and there's a whole working group on mitigation right, And within Working Group two, yes there's a focus on adaptation, but this has to be balanced with other folk I right, so
impacts on vulnerability as well. So you have instances where member states block adaptation related findings because the assessment reports must go through line by line government approval, and I
think that's one thing that's not really immediately obvious. And another way that this shows up is just the composition of authors, because over the years we've seen where a majority of the authors are from global North countries, and you know, many global North countries are not grappling with some of the impacts that global stealth countries are grappling with,
so it's just not reflected in the assessment report. So those were I think the three things that we kind of grappled with in the platform.
One of the things I thought was interesting in the most recent report, and you mentioned this in the chapter two, was the discussion of maladaptive things too. But I guess it's again to your point, It's true that I don't feel like I see as much about effective adaptation as I do about maladaptives in the report, which is like kind of an obstructive thing in its own way. I don't know, it's interesting.
Yeah, I mean, we don't cover this in a lot of depth, but there's been some really interesting work coming out recently thinking about actually how critical adaptation scholarship is perhaps acting almost as obstruction of adaptation action, or that could be an intervertent outcome er. It's particularly concerns that kind of these acknowledgments of the ways that adaptation hasn't always been successful might be blocking particularly flows of adaptation finance.
And so I think it's kind of a critical moment for adaptation scholarship to be sort of reflecting, especially when we're in this sort of critical moment for climate finance in general and development finance where there's I think a lot of soul searching of kind of how best to move forward given kind of the pullback of donors, And is some of that scholarship actually contributing to those narratives around the lack of effectiveness of that funding.
It makes me wonder too, because we're working on this other project where we're doing a big, like a long investigation into research funding and like how it tilts the scales in different directions, right, and like there's so much in the research realm around technological adaptation like you know, carbon capture, geoengineering, all that stuff, and then somewhat on the problems with those things do, but there's not a lot on like community adaptation efforts and what's working, what
is in and all of that stuff.
Yeah, And I mean, I think part of that comes back to one of these fundamental power imbalances that we talk about throughout the chapter, of the difference between kind of the priorities of the global north on mitigation and the fact that adaptation, while obviously issues that affect everywhere in the world, does affect the most vulnerable the most and so we see that playing out in terms of policy, but also in terms of scholarship and funding for where the emphasis has been You.
Mentioned the UNF Triple C, and you know, we have got another COP coming up, so I'm curious to have you guys talk about how it shows up there too, and especially how it might differ from maybe how it shows up in the IPCC.
I mean, I think in our analysis these two are pretty tightly connected, the ways it shows up in the IPCC and the UNF Triple C, especially because of the ways that the findings from the IPCC feed into the UNF Triple C process. But it's pretty obvious if you look at the history of the UNF Triple C how sidelined adaptation has really been and when we think about what that means in terms of obstruction, if it's not on the radar for action, then it's effectively being left
off the agenda. And so the Kyoto Protocol mentioned adaptation but really didn't have any concrete actions associated with that. It was very much a mitigation focused agreement, and we've
seen that shifting over time. There's certainly more attention. The Paris Agreement sort of made statements that these should be equal priorities, mitigation and adaptation, but sort of current negotiations are still trying to figure out exactly how we're measuring a global goal on adaptation, and so we're still kind of grappling with some pretty basic questions at the international level of how we're prioritizing adaptation.
Well, just to add to that, it may find me like one of the metrics that we use is how much space is it taken up? How much space is it allowed. So that's why within the context of the IPCC, we can look back at the Assessment report, how many chapters. Is adaptation a focus of right and the same thing for the multilateral agreements that come out of the unetriple
C Right. As Laura mentioned, within the original Framework Agreement, there are only you know, a few references to adaptation, and in fact, the article that outligns the objective of the convention clearly states that it's for the purpose of stabilizing GHG emissions.
Right.
So this is like a sharp shift to the Paris Agreement where adaptation has its own article. Right, So there's dedicated attention. I mean, as adaptation scholars would love to see more attention, but we have to recognize that we've gone from a situation where we had like a few
scattered references to a dedicated article on adaptation. So we're willing to acknowledge that there's progress, right because it's now taken up more space, But we'd like it to take up more space just because of how critical the issues are for you know, countries, especially those in the global self.
That's a great point and interesting to keep an eye on. Okay, so we kind of touched on this talking about funding of research, but you get into a broader conversation about how donors obstruct and otherwise influence adaptation approaches, And I'd like to have you guys unpack that a little bit. Who are these donors? What are they doing?
Yeah, so, I mean our focus on donors is really driven by kind of this overarching framework of thinking about who are the powerful actors that have an interest in shaping adaptation and therefore, if they're powerful, what might they be doing to obstruct And donors are a really interesting example that we explore in the chapter because they're very
clearly powerful in the context of kind of adaptation. They're providing the funding and the resources to implement adaptation actions, and so it makes sense to look at how they might be shaping the agenda and what they might be supporting or not supporting. It's also a really interesting example because it really shows how complex this issue of obstruction
is in the context of adaptation. These are actors who are supporting adaptation, they're funding it, and yet we still can see the ways that the power that they have is shaping what types of adaptation receives support, whose adaptation gets supported, who's getting ignored or left off, And so we're really thinking about kind of not just adaptation as a whole, but the specific ways that adaptation gets implemented on the ground when we're thinking about obstruction in this context.
Well, if I could just add quickly and this this is the point that Laura raised earlier, but I think it's worth like emphasizing. It's also about the volume of flows. Right, So adaptation currently accounts for ten, maybe depending on the source, of the twenty percent of all climate finance flows. Right, that's a really small percentage of a pie that's already small, you know, for all intents and purposes. So one of the ways that the international community can signal their support
for adaptation is increasing the flows the adaptation. And Laura has some really great work on the Green Climate Fund.
I don't know she wants to just mention that in passing, because we weren't able to get into a lot of the you know, nitte gritted details in the chapters, but we do have some great evidence and I think that could help answer your question about who are these donors anyway, And you know, one of the donors that we focus on, I mean, donors do pass money through the dcs, so technically we're not thinking about it as a donor, but you know, just the facilitator of adaptation flows.
Yeah, I mean, we're really interested in the ways that these kind of power dynamics are shaping who's who gets to make decisions about adaptation, and so we see that that often can be sort of UN Climate funds, which, as Stace was just mentioning, the Green Climate Fund is the largest of the funds under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. But we're also thinking about sort of
bilateral donors. Until very recently, USAID as a major player in kind of an adaptation space, and perhaps in some ways some of the ways that those power dynamics and obstruction play out are most with bilateral donors, because we're very attuned to the fact that those are political relationships between donors and recipient countries, and that there's a lot of interests of donors that are shaping the types of investments that they're willing to make and what they might
not be willing to support. But what some of the research that I've done and done with colleagues, many of whom are authors on this chapter, is really also thinking about even in these kind of seemingly neutral spaces like the Green Climate Fund, where it's a technocratic process of writing proposals, and that the investment criteria and the narratives that are acceptable in these international frameworks play a really important role in shaping what kinds of adaptation is acceptable.
And therefore, what we're arguing here is that that obstructs other types of adaptation that might not fit the logic of these funders. Even though it's still funding adaptation, there are still things that are being left out.
Yeah, that makes sense. And again it's like that whole systemic global North domination all the way down that's really keeping stuff out. Interesting. All right, So you talk about these three types of obstruction, I want to kind of like go through each of them and have you explain what they are and maybe give an example. So the first one you talk about is obstruction through decision making
or what you describe as direct conflict. So what is this type of obstruction and how does it kind of show up?
Thanks for the question, Amy, you know, just to emphasize again that you know, this typology of adaptation obstruction that we're able to develop was really based on that earlier article that we wrote upbout locally led adaptation. So one of the types of obstruction that we're able to identify was the obstruction through decision making or direct conflict, right, And you know, since we've been in this conversation, you've heard us use the word power and powerful, you know,
very often. And this is like a defining feature of adaptation obstruction because within this context, sometimes powerful actors actively work to obstruct adaptation strategy. So you know, this can happen via exploitation or exclusion or dehumanization. And when this happens, you know, marginalized groups lose options as the adaptation intervention is designed for elites and not for the most vulnerable countries. So that's what we you know, mean when we say,
you know, obstruction through decision making or direct conflict. And within the chapter we give some examples. We have a great example from Fiji where you know Manager Tree, it has displaced marginalized groups and sometimes it's in favor of elite investment interest. We also have a great example from the Mohawk community in Canada where there were instances where it was difficult for them to relocate despite flooding because
they lack legal land rights. So we see this constant, you know, dispossession of the most vulnerable people in our two examples. We have, you know, coastal communities in Fiji, and we have indigenous communities in Canada.
Super interesting, Okay, So let's talk about the next one, obstruction through non decision making. So agenda setting. How does this happen? How does it show up?
Yeah, so we argue, and we've kind of talked about agenda setting throughout this conversation, but we're really arguing that even when this obstruction isn't as direct as in the previous examples, prioritizing the needs of some actors over the interests of others acts to obstruct certain types of adaptation. So the conversation around donor priorities would be part of
that agenda setting type of obstruction. But when a couple other examples that we talk about in a chapter include the ways that urban elites might prioritize city adaptation while sidelining rural communities and pushing for migration to urban settings instead of thinking about adaptation directly in those rural contexts. So again it's not so much of a direct kind of limiting adaptation for in a specific context, but by choosing to prioritize something else, it leaves adaptation off the
agenda in that ural context. Similarly, going back to the small island contexts that Stacey was talking about and the last examples, we also see the ways that patroon client politics mean that adaptation decisions often reflect really really interest instead of vulnerable population needs. And so this sometimes shows up a direct conflict, but sometimes it's a lot more subtle, just in terms of whose priorities are pushed to the top of the agenda.
Would you put the sort of emphasis on market friendlier market based solutions as an example of that type of I don't know, like framing of adaptation.
Yeah, we don't actually get into there's not a lot of examples of market approaches to adaptation in our chapter, but one that we do talk about is around sort of water policy and the ways that sort of pricing
mechanisms for water policy can shift sort of vulnerabilities. And while overall it might be addressing concerns about water efficiency and increasing drought conditions, it's also an approach that perhaps doesn't pay attention to who's going to bear the costs and the burdens of that adaptation strategy, and so it can actually end up causing more harm and obstructing justice. For some actors.
It makes me think of the abundance thing that we're seeing right now, this idea of like framing adapting to climate change as I don't know, like as a market opportunity and a job creator and this and that and whatever, and this like framing of you know, if it's not something that does that, then it's bad. So I'm curious what you guys think about that. This is like a whole I don't know. Maybe you're not as online as I am, but I feel like I'm constantly being fed
abundance bros. Content, and I wonder what you guys think of it.
I'll take a first stab in the passage to you, Stacy, But I think this goes back to our fundamental starting point of why obstruction for adapt hasn't been recognized for adaptation. I think part of that is this kind of sense that adaptation is a normative good. And of course we all want adaptation and adaptation benefits everybody, but we know, particularly as critical adaptation scholars, that it's not that simple.
We know that at its core, adaptation is about addressing vulnerabilities, and vulnerabilities are socially constructed, and they're highly political and so adaptation strategies that are attempting to address those vulnerabilities are also necessarily necessarily going to be political. And when things are political, there are winners and there are losers, and so paying attention to who's going to lose matters
a lot. And particularly when we're thinking about the ways that adaptation strategies might be redistributing power or shaping of paradynamics. That's exactly why we start to see obstruction for adaptation happening. And so for me, the abundance conversation kind of glosses over all of that potential conflict.
Yeah, it assumes that, like there's one type of adaptation that's good for everyone and that there's no conflict there at all.
Yeah.
Well, it's hard to follow Laura on that, but just to emphasize one thing that she said is that adaptation is deeply political, right, And I think many people who don't study adaptation or just have, you know, our cursory
interest or understanding of adaptation don't necessarily realize that. But Laura and I and maybe even all the authors on our chapter, we're very much focused on equity and justice, and this is why we could apply our framework that intersex power and injustice to really understand adaptation and obstruction you.
Know a little bit better.
But one of the things that al is that adaptation justice is not just doing more adaptation, right, it's also asking those very hard and uncomfortable questions, right, whose interests are serve? Who is left behind and in what condition? And one of the you know, context in which we have this discussion and it gets very lively, is on you know, manager treat and coastal relocation, where you know, some scholars would probably question why should FEMA, for example,
keep on rebuilding you know, beachfront properties. But I think in many of those instances they don't acknowledge agency of these people. And I think as adaptation scholars were very focused on people, were very focused on their livelihoods and their agency. And this is why a focus on adaptation obstructure is really critical because once we are just heavily focused on mitigation, where essentially just you know, on the
score in the interests of the most powerful people. Because when you're thinking about mitigation obstruction, perhaps the first thing
that comes to mind is the oil companies. Right, they're powerful, they're rich, you know, but what about the vulnerable communities, And this is why we're hoping that our chapter will you know, introduce this topic to persons who may not have thought about it before, and you know, encourage them to explore some of the lines of research that we have identified in our chapter.
It totally did that for me. So focus group of one success starting place. That's a good segue actually into the third type of obstruction that you talk about, which is obstruction through hegemony or ideological control. So what are we talking about there? And then I want to talk about some of the specific tools that you mentioned that come into for ideological control too.
This is always a big one for us, right because you know, here at Emory it environmental policy. I teach internet environmental law, and hegemoney is a word that comes up a lot, but sometimes it's not easy to understand, right, And one of the ways that I try to explain
it is who's the boss? Right, So a more formal definition is where we see powerful groups who are dominating or powerful cultures that are dominating and setting their agenda or setting the tone, and in this case for adaptation, so it's looking at the ways in which that might privilege their own interests. So specifically, in terms of adaptation obstruction, Hegemoney manifests when marginalized groups are included only in a non threatening way, right, in non threatening terms, when they
internalize their own marginalities. I think the phrase that we use in the chapter, and this is really about being pushed to the edges of power, or when dominant groups exert control through money, resources and cultural authority. So related to that, you know, the ideological control is a form of obstruction when the ideas and norms the values are shaped to support these dominant interests and you know, suppressing those alternative or marginalized voices or the visions that those
persons have for their own adaptation. So in these context, adaptation can be co opted and marginalized groups can you be excluded in very very subtle ways. But one of the things that we try to place emphasis on in the chapter is that this really shapes what is seen as legitimate adaptation. And that's a point that would really want to emphasize because it protects dominant interests and it
silences the alternatives. So some of the examples that we've given the chapter include infrastructure, which was quite interesting for us to explore. We've mentioned, for example, coastal developers in Barbados, how they obstructed like coastal setback laws to protect beach tourism. And we have, i think an example from the US Farm Bureau that really long denied climate change right because they wanted to love before crop insurance policies that would
lock farmers into this kind of carbon intensive monoculture. So, Laura, I don't know if you have anything to add to that.
Yeah, no, I mean, I think you mostly covered it. But I think one of the points to emphasize here is that these are operating at a systems level that they're often not visible, and so a lot of times marginalized groups are their actors are complicitly part of the substruction because the systems are employe that exert that hegemonic control.
And so this is I think why it's often hard to see adaptation obstruction, because even those actors that might be advocating have a more limited view of what might be possible because because of the ways that these systems of control shape the shape the discourse.
Okay, you mentioned infrastructure there, and I thought this section on infrastructure as a tool of obstruction was so interesting, So I want to have you explain what you mean by that and how that happens, maybe give an example of how it becomes a tool for obstruction.
Yeah, I mean, I think this really builds on a long sort of history of literature thinking about the role of infrastructure as its relationship with power. Again, and this is the themes throughout our chapters, how power is exerted and the ways that that infrastructure can be used to enable certain priorities to become sort of the top of the list and others to be sometimes literally taking off
the agenda. I think sort of hydro dams and flooding is a great example, where you have communities and villages that are literally flooded to make way for infrastructure. That's a pretty extreme example, but we also have a lot more subtle examples of the ways that they can undermine indigenous knowledge systems and livelihoods that not only shape what's happening now, but limit adaptation options into the future for
those communities. And so that's kind of a way that that infrastructural choices and those investments are exerting kind of control.
In the chapter we took their approach to infrastructure that's more physical, right, So, as Laura mentioned the case of the dums or you know, coastal defenses. You know, you could also think about it in the context of roads and buildings as well. I mean, we do acknowledge that, you know, there's quite a bit of literature and soft infrastructure. We didn't get a lot into that, but maybe you know, we could see information flows as as soft infrastructure as well.
So that's probably another framing that might be worth discussing alongside infrastructure.
Awesome, And you do mention information itself as a tool of obstruction too, so can you talk about what that means?
Well, I think the flow of information and you know the result in disinformation. Misinformation is really a focus of the Climate Social Fends network. So all these scholars from across the world have come together to really analyze this in the context of climate change and any resulting climate denial.
One of the things that we try to do in this chapter is to show how information is a political tool and that information can reinforce or hierarchies through One example that we gave is scientific uncertainty, where in the context of the unit triple C, scientific uncertainty is often used as a tool to stall climate policy negotiations so we can't do anything about this now because we don't know enough, right, and that really ties into concerns about
maladaptation that you brought up before, which is probably worth mentioning here as well. We had a great example from California in the chapter where realtors had in fact distributed flowers to oppose retreat policies, which really stoked property value fairs.
And because of this that also, you know, led to some obstruction because in many instances, you know, the homeowners, they're wealthy, they're well connected, and they have the power and power again to really delay any adaptation that might be possible on the cost. So for us, within the context of our chapter, we really wanted to show how information is weaponized to either delay or delegitimize adaptation, and that in itself is obstruction.
I mean, I think that that pretty much covers it. But just to go back to it, we do consider this in that category of kind of the sort of hegemonic control, and that it is through controlling those flows of information and the framing of adaptation that obstruction is enabled in a lot of these cases. And so those examples I think really show how that can go from something really abstract to like, oh, you control the information.
That's like, actually, it's about controlling the information about how adaptation would shape property values on the coast, that that information is actually utilized to obstruct adaptation strategies.
Yeah. Interesting, Okay, I know there's the answer to like, what are the research gaps? Is like, there's lots of them, but what are the things that you is particularly like to see more research on, or maybe even to see attention from outside the research realm with respect to this issue.
I mean, I think really building on what we struggled with in this chapter, one of the things is really continuing to tease a part this distinction between obstruction and resistance and sort of the conditions under which something counts as obstruction and when is it legitimate resistance and how do we tell the difference, especially if we're starting to think about, like how do we act to counter obstruction, we don't want to end up in a situation where
we're also countering all legitimate resistance by martialized groups SETI adaptation action and so getting a lot more clear on not just conceptually what does that look like, but from a practical standpoint, how do those show up on the ground. I think it's one of the things that really stood out to us from this structure.
I feel like that's such a recurrent theme in the renewables conversation right now, where you have like some very legitimate community concerns about certain approaches to industrial renewable development, and then you do have you know, like vested interest engaging in instruction too. It's hard on my side of the fence. It's hard to tell that story because people,
you know, are more and more allergic to nuance. So stuff. Yeah, Stacey, again, what about you, is there anywhere else you really want to see more focus or more research.
Well, I like the examples that Laura gave, and I know sometimes you know, scholars want to hear so specifically, what research question are you thinking about? Right? So, when Lara mentioned, you know, just clarifying that distinction between obstruction and resist stunts, would be very interested in that. But you know, what could a research question there look like? So something along the lines of, you know, when farmers delay the implementation of DONA driven like climate smart agriculture,
is that resistance or is it obstruction? So identifying these very specific examples I think would be good. Laura did mention you know, just where and when does obstruction occur? Right?
So for us, because our scholarship has a very large focus on you know, countries and conditions in the global celf, perhaps a specific research question there is do conditions differ in the global north where obstruction you know tends to come from you know, wealthy property owners or industries or donas from the conditions and the global sealth where obstruction
reflects like these power symmetries with donors or elites. I think the only other thing that I might add here is something that we've mentioned before is you know, mitigation obstruction and adaptation obstruction, Like what are the intersections, right,
how do they relate? If we can get more scholars who probably up to this point dar almost exclusively focused on mitigation, just sensitized to some of the new ones with respected adaptation and adaptation obstruction, just to highlight, you know, what the overlaps are and if there are any feedback loops between these two domains, I think that could be really helpful in you know, just countering the kind of obstruction that we've been able to document. In a chapter.
That's it for this time. Make sure you're subscribed so you don't miss an episode. You can find more on this season, including transcripts and lots of related articles and background information, on our website at drilled dot Media. You can also sign up for our newsletter there. Our producers for this season are Martin Saltz, Oustwick and Peter Duff. Our theme song is Bird in the Hand by Foreknown. Our cover art is by Matthew Fleming. Our First Amendment
Attorney is James Wheaton with the First Amendment Project. The show was created, written, and reported by me Amy Westervelp. Thanks for listening and see you next time.