Mitigation *and* Adaptation
They are not climate change alternatives
Two Responses
What shall we do about climate change? Yes, we need to keep studying it, gathering data and building models and working on technological, economic, social, and policy solutions. But what does all of this aim at? Basically two things: mitigation or adaptation.
Mitigation is defined as reducing the sources of greenhouse gas emissions and adding and enhancing planetary sinks, including technologies, for carbon removal.
It’s not like we’re going to stop the climate effects of all the carbon humans have been pouring into the atmosphere for a couple centuries, or that we can realistically reduce our emissions to zero, or that we will find enough sinks to balance all positive emissions with re-capture. Yes, we need to reduce and remove as much as possible. But there’s another job to do as well, one that hasn’t received nearly enough attention.
If mitigation is successful worldwide, then one day greenhouse gases will stop building up in the atmosphere, and the planet will slowly stop warming. Even so, we will already have created a hotter world, changed the Earth’s weather patterns, and “locked in” some future changes—like sea level rise, which may continue for hundreds of years after the Earth’s temperature stabilizes.
(Source: MIT’s Climate Portal)
The only answer to even successful mitigation is adaptation, that is, retrofitting infrastructure, restoring natural wetlands, reworking agricultural systems, actively preserving and restoring habitat for displaced species, and of course, changing human behavior, policies, investment, and patterns of continuing economic development to try to make the world more resilient to the changes that are inevitably coming. Adaptation is responding to change and getting ready for more.
Both/And
Unfortunately, climate activists are almost entirely preoccupied with mitigation, with trying to prevent what is already happening and will continue to happen. It’s almost as if the foolishness and injustice of the situation — humans are changing the planet’s climate! — cannot be borne, and to admit defeat (even if it’s already a reality) to focus pragmatically also on adaptation — doing both/and (not either/or) — is somehow to accede to BAU (business-as-usual) or turn a blind eye.
It’s not. In fact, given that most well-resourced people today will probably come out okay, leaving the world’s poor and vulnerable the most affected, along with entire ecosystems, nonhuman species, and populations — the most unjust thing would be to ignore the need to adapt.
Yet that is exactly what is happening.
Failure to mitigate climate change will only make it more important to adapt. So far, however, policymakers have not kept up with this urgent need. Most funding to deal with climate change worldwide has been spent on mitigation, with only a small share given to adaptation.
(Source: ibid.)
The World Economic Forum gives an overview in Why more funding is needed to help people adapt to climate change | World Economic Forum (weforum.org).
Important Questions
Most people concerned with climate change focus on reducing emissions (“net zero by 2030 or 2050”) or on offsetting and investing in carbon sinks: “plant trees!” They should start asking other questions as well:
What can we do to prepare our (privileged) selves?
What can we do to help others prepare, especially the less fortunate and those most likely in harm’s way?
How can we save as much habitat as possible for all the other species on the planet who do not have human ingenuity, flexibility, plasticity, and mobility to draw on as their natural environments degrade and become uninhabitable?
Saving earth’s biodiversity and ecosystems — including its carbon sinks — might turn out to be one of the most important things we can do. Human technology can evolve rapidly, especially as the need becomes great. Helping less fortunate fellow human beings is a political choice. It’s on us to the do the right thing. Saving plant and animal species is nothing less than an existential risk. Once extinct, an ecosystem’s complement of species takes hundreds of thousands of years to re-evolve to survive new ecological circumstances. What will it take truly to get to grips with events of mass extinction?
Humans can adapt, at least as a species — the injustice of unequal access by varying human populations notwithstanding. Other species, even if they harbor impressive abilities to evolve short-term, simply cannot adapt to the degree required.
