Navigating the Political and Emotional Terrain of Adaptation: Community Engagement When Climate Change Comes Home Chapter in: Moser, S.C. and M.T. Boykoff (eds.). Successful Adaptation to Climate Change: Linking Science and Policy in a Rapidly Changing World. Routledge, London, pp.289-305.

Understanding the challenges of communicating climate change impacts and adaptation when the global problem comes “home” is a matter of successfully navigating the political and emotional terrain of people facing inevitable change and loss. Planners and resource managers in US coastal communities are struggling to find effective approaches to engaging their communities and sometimes shy away from raising the issue due to concerns about coastal stakeholders’ responses. This chapter begins by describing this context for communicating adaptation and engaging communities in solution-finding in contemporary American society, and then reports on focus group research conducted in California to explore coastal homeowners’ understanding of impacts and solutions, with a focus on their visions of successful adaptation. Findings suggest that place attachment and emotional responses to climate change deeply color visions of a desirable future – visions that go far beyond technical solutions to intractable climate change dilemmas. The chapter suggests that starting with a place-based vision of success and meaningfully engaging people in finding adaptive responses for multiple timeframes are crucial elements of effective engagement and prerequisites for pursuing a communal goal that is larger than the sum of individual self-interests. PARADISE NO MORE: DRAWING THE BATTLE LINES IN THE SAND I'd say that this place is Paradise. Overall, it's a beautiful area. You walk down the beach sometime in the sunset and the birds and sea lions ‒ that picture is Paradise to me.

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