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1 results

  • 8 - Adaptation

  • from Section II - Responses to Climate Change
  • Wake Smith, Harvard University, Massachusetts
  • Book:
    Pandora's Toolbox
    Published online:
    24 February 2022
    Print publication:
    24 March 2022, pp 114-129

  • Summary

    If the incentives to undertake drastic mitigation remain inordinately weak, those in favor of transformational adaptation to climate change will prove very strong, so humanity will spend vast sums of effort and money in this arena. These will range from the personal (buy another air conditioner) to the national (strengthen emergency response capabilities). Agricultural and food systems will need to transform to remain productive in a warmer world. More human intervention including “assisted evolution” will be required to protect natural systems that may increasingly struggle to protect themselves. Cities will need to become more resilient to resist and rapidly recover from the stresses that a changed climate will bring. Infrastructure to hold back rising seas such as the mighty Dutch Delta Works will become common all over the globe. However, over the longer run, humanity will need to surrender lesser value portions of coastline to the waves and execute a broad and painful retreat.