Estate Living Magazine Invest SA - Issue 45 September 2019 | Page 12

P R O P E R T Y
&
I N V E S T M E N T
certainty is change, and the rate of
change is accelerating.
It’s the rate of change that harms you!
Risk management
This raises the question of the
relationship between homeowners
associations (HOAs) and the
municipalities in which they are
embedded. It helps little if the
HOA develops an adequate coping
strategy, but the municipality that
provides
fundamental
services
doesn’t. This speaks to the issue of
cooperation and partnership that will be dealt with later.
The third implication is that insurance companies are way ahead of
the curve on this issue and they will be driving change long before
government or scientific organisations can get their ducks in a row.
The good news is that you don’t have to do all the heavy thinking
about the future because risk owners have already taken this on
board, and are thinking on your behalf. Anticipate big changes in
policy requirements, most notably around coping strategies and
due diligence that will need to be performed by people elected to
act on behalf of others.
So, what can home owners, bodies corporate, estate managers and
HOAs do about this?
Firstly, elect trustees or appoint directors and managing agents
that are both competent and conversant with global warming as an
issue. Denialists do not serve your best interest, and they undermine
adaptive efforts by raising alternative debates using well-honed
but false arguments. It’s not helpful if a person with fiduciary
responsibility, elected to act in the best interests of others, spends
their energy in propagating conspiracy theories about colluding
scientists enriching themselves. Your best interests will be served by
electing honest people, with an open mind, and the willingness to
forge partnerships. Einstein said that the level of ingenuity needed
to solve a problem exceeds the level of ingenuity that created the
problem in the first place. What this means is that no single entity
will be able to solve the problems arising from global warming. It will
test our collective capacity to forge partnerships, so your elected
leadership should promote this endeavour rather than undermine it.
Secondly, mandate the directors and trustees to forge partnerships.
This implies that the directors and/or trustees have the skills needed
to create working relationships that become stronger than the
individuals, and transcend personal egos. Arguably the two most
important partnerships will be with your insurance provider, and
with the municipality that provides basic services. In this regard,
engage actively with these people.
Ask the municipality to give you a written document stating the
current and projected assurance of supply levels for basic services
like potable water, sanitation and electricity. Ask them about the
design limitations of current infrastructure such as flood control
measures that will receive larger than average peak flows after
extreme events. Ask them about water supply for fire management
– a fire in Braamfontein on 17 April 2017 gutted an entire building
simply because firefighters were confronted with dry hydrants.
Finally, generate internal conversations about coping strategies,
as these will grow the support base needed for viable adaptive
responses – and keep an open mind. It’s easy to go down the rabbit
hole in one direction only – most people think of floods, droughts
or raging fires when asked about the impact of climate change. But,
in reality, none of these is the most significant risk to life and human
wellbeing. Changes in climate affect every living thing, and it’s the
changes in biology that pose the greatest threat. The spread of toxic
blue-green algae, which is releasing potent toxins into two-thirds of
our national water resource impoundments, the multi-drug-resistant
pathogens being incubated in our sewerage-overloaded rivers, and
the primitive microbes awakening from millennia of dormancy as
the permafrost in the tundra melts are likely to have effects that will
increasingly be felt across society in ways few people can currently
comprehend.
Global warming is real, folks. We all know prevention is better than
cure, but we missed that boat a few years back, so now we need to
learn how to adapt because it’s too late to mitigate.
Dr Anthony Turton