Mark Stewart, director of the Centre for Infrastructure Performance and Reliability at University of Newcastle in Australia, will deliver “Climate Change Risk Assessment: Is Adaptation a Workable Solution to Climate Change?” on Sept. 8. Stewart is co-author of Probabilistic Risk Assessment of Engineering Systems (Chapman & Hall, 1997) and Terror, Security, and Money: Balancing the Risks, Benefits, and Costs of Homeland Security (Oxford, 2011), with Mershon’s John Mueller. The presentation will show that climate change threats are manageable at a cost to the United States of no more than $20 billion per year. However, this would amount to no more than 0.5% of the U.S. federal budget - requiring an adjustment that is not very significant. Moreover, the time frame for climate change to have an effect would be long - 50 to 100 years - so there is time to adapt.
For more information and to register for this event, visit the Mershon Center website.