Thus The New York Times today. “The actions are meant to reduce risks of catastrophic weather events,” explains the newspaper. Congratulations to Barack Obama. The initiatives to be announced today are aimed at practical things, such as guarding the electricity supply at local level, improving local planning for floods and droughts, and better predicting of landslide risks as sea levels rise and storms intensify. The emphasis is on climatic catastrophes and the best way to prepare for them rather than on curbing climate change as such. The latter is beyond our reach at this stage, anyhow. The best we can do is to prepare for catastrophic weather events and manage our way through and beyond them. This is best done on the local level, and the most the government can do is to prepare the ground for local action. It is reassuring that Obama understands all this. With some luck, other governments around the globe will pick up his lead.