Adverse Effects of Climate in the United States (Coursework Sample)

Adverse Effects of Climate in the United States

Overview
Adverse effects of climate change pose a significant threat to the reliability, safety, and sustainability of the United States’ critical infrastructure. Since the nation’s economy relies on water, air, and land as the primary modes of transport, any disruptions will likely cause delays and undermine essential economic activities. According to Jahn (2015), critical infrastructure assets like bridges and tunnels are vulnerable to adverse climate conditions, including tides, flooding, earthquakes, and hurricanes. For instance, flooding disrupts transportation by damaging bridges and culverts in lowlands (Weilant & Miller, 2019). At the same time, earthquakes and high temperatures deteriorate subways tracks and railroads, undermining railway transport networks. As natural disasters become frequent, the nation will likely require more resources to facilitate resilience and recovery from the risks associated with such events. Effective resilience planning helps improve a nation’s economic wellness and boosts its ability to recover from disastrous events. Apart from such economic impacts, extreme weather events undermine national security, threaten public health, and result in deaths. Despite current recovery strategies, the government should identify the gaps in climate change resilience and implement more effective policies to address the issue.
Current Strategies
Although the infrastructure in the United States was supposed to withstand historical climate changes, the frequency of adverse weather events has increased rapidly over the past decades. As a senior executive member of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for the last fifteen years, I have supported the implementation of various strategies to make the country’s infrastructure more resilient to unfavorable weather events. In 2009, former president Barack Obama ordered the DHS to develop adaptation plans to address problems associated with adverse weather events (Barr & Nider, 2015). As a result, the department published a climate change adaptation roadmap in 2012 that ensured the resilience of the nation’s infrastructure to the risks associated with possible weather changes (Hill, 2021). Therefore, the adaptation plan has played a crucial role in ensuring resilience to extreme climate events for the past decade.
Similarly, the climate action plan revealed how weather events could impact DHS’s ability to accomplish its missions. Climate change could affect the nation’s critical infrastructure, undermining trade and safe travel at the borders. At the same time, the plan warned the DHS that the disruption of the transport system could delay the delivery of goods and services and influence its response capacities. However, the department reduced its involvement in climate-related issues during the Trump administration. Despite the roadmap and action plan, the DHS has struggled to address unfavorable weather events.
National Resilience Gaps
Several knowledge gaps undermine the implementation of adaption and action policies in the United States. First, the nation lacks a broad risk-mapping strategy that can inform and educate civilians about future climate changes and subsequent risks. According to Ryan & Bustos (2019), many Americans exhibit knowledge deficits due to missing incomplete information. Without relevant and complete information, city planners and developers will likely find it challenging to mitigate risks associated with extreme weather events. Therefore, failure to inform Americans about future climate change risks undermines the department’s ability to accomplish its missions effectively.