Climate shift implies a necessary change to infrastructure: cities that once did not have to deal with flash floods will, for example. Municipal trees will die. Areas that grow colder will have non-insulated water pipes burst. There is no need to form greater bureaucratic nightmares to adapt for such problems, only a general willingness to remake our urban environments before it becomes dreadfully expensive. Note the work Chicago is doing, as a function of it's normal maintenance; anticipating a hotter and wetter climate alleys and sidewalks become water permeable, tree species are changed.
> Then you do cost benefit analysis and decide the best course of action. THEN you try to talk everybody else into it.
This is overly simplistic. Who is the decision maker? Democracies function as distributed consensus makers--very little _can_ or _should_ be dictated by some benevolent cabal. Moreover, for the rather complex problem of adapting _human civilization itself_ it is hard, if not impossible, to perform a cost benefit analysis. Where do you even get the possible solutions from if:
* no one but a few know about the problem and
* domain experts you consult with might have implicit
biases against the problem without significant
preparation and
* the hypothetical cabal is composes of like minded
(hence like-blinded) individuals?
> Hell, I was one of the first people I know to understand and accept that. I just haven't seen the follow up yet. It's always "Yep, got yourself a problem there",
It's entirely possible we've gone past the point of short-term return. Still, the follow up, as you put it, has been to reduce or eliminate the primary sources of the problem:
* decrease the reliance of Heavy and Light industries on coal/oil
* decrease and reverse global deforestation
* decrease and reverse water vapor production from urban areas
Each one of these points has large cultural and economic implications. It is, however, very difficult to discuss them when so many deny the premise, or have a vested interest in convincing others of the invalidity of the premise. It is entirely wrong to assert that the follow up, as you put it, has been absent from the discussion; mostly it's drowned out. Communicating complex ideas is difficult in a culture with strong debate traditions; God have mercy on us for our Shouting Heads.
> but no solution offered other than "buy a Prius".
I think that's willfully cynical of you, or uninformed. Even ignoring the obvious vested interest car manufactures have in misinforming us that a _different_ kind of car is a viable solution, the perverse effects a Car Culture has on an Urban environment--heavily paved, strongly lateral development--is likely unsustainable in the long-term.