In this talk, Professor Charles Waldheim will share preliminary work from a year-long climate change scenario planning study graciously funded by the TownGreen, Inc., Town of Manchester-by-the-Sea, and the City of Gloucester.

Scenario 0: The Great Storm of 2038 evaluates changes on Cape Ann that are already happening and projects a Category 3 hurricane on the centennial of the New England Hurricane of 1938. This scenario shows the potential costs of doing nothing.

Scenario 1: Ideas for Adaptations evaluates the potential of a hybrid approach to adapting coastal development using hard and soft protection, as well as strategies for relocation from the coast. Scenario planning is a method of long-term strategic planning that creates representations of multiple, plausible futures that are used to inform decision-making in the present. It is complementary to probabilistic models and shifts emphasis from statistical probability to ways of thinking about the future. 

The goal of scenario planning is not to predict the most likely or plausible outcome, but to reveal biases and blind spots in the complex decision making around climate change. A Q&A session will follow.