Cain: Developing Climatic Capacity in Rural Places
In Developing Climatic Capacity in Rural Places, author Caitlin Cain (Vice President & Rural Director, Local Initiatives Support Corporation) explains how many rural communities find themselves at the forefront of the climate battle but often lack the attention and resources given to more urbanized areas. Cain identifies how rural communities are unique and diverse, and therefore climate-based capacity-building efforts must be flexible and structured in a way that best meets the needs of the community.
Developing Climatic Capacity is a chapter in the recent Investing in Rural Prosperity book put out by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. We previously digested a different chapter from this book on topics related to rural fiscal policy here.
In this Climatic Capacity chapter, Cain discusses how rural communities in the United States generally, but particularly in rural coastal regions, face a greater threat from climate change than more urbanized areas because they often lack the resources, infrastructure, and adaptive capacity of city centers. Further, these regions are highly vulnerable to climate change-related events such as sea level rise, heat waves, hurricanes, and drought. For example, Cain states that Louisiana loses 29 square miles of land annually to sea level rise. This is equivalent of over 14 American football fields per day. This directly impacts the livelihood of the most vulnerable populations in those communities.
This chapter proposes that rural communities must develop new skills to better adjust to evolving climatic realities, for example: economic and community visioning, more long-term thinking (i.e., complex project management development for recovery plans), and investing in climatic capacity-building supports (i.e., aids that strengthen community economic and workforce development). Cain states that communities must understand the degree of vulnerability of their community because this vulnerability is correlated with a region’s adaptive capacity – their ability to absorb the magnitude, character, and rate of extreme climatic activity.
Finally, the chapter suggests that adaptive capacity requires new skills-based support systems that focus on and solve both micro and macro community challenges. Under this two-prong approach, (1) micro addresses and strengthens the socioeconomic condition of individuals and (2) macro encourages broader re-visioning of knowledge systems, fiscal management, and governance structures at an organizational and governmental level. In sum, this chapter recognizes the value that rural America brings to this country and works to explain what steps are needed to protect these assets as the effects of climate change occur.
