The Economist: How to live with climate change
It won’t be stopped, but its effects can be made less bad.
COMPARED with the extraordinary fanfare before the global-warming summit in Copenhagen a year ago, the meeting of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change that starts in Cancún next week has gone unheralded. That is partly because of a widespread belief that the publicity build-up to last year’s summit contributed to its failure, but also because expectations have changed dramatically. In the wake of the Copenhagen summit, there is a growing acceptance that the effort to avert serious climate change has run out of steam.
Perhaps, after a period of respite and a few climatic disasters, it will get going again. It certainly should. But even if it does, the world is going to go on getting warmer for some time (see article).
Acceptance, however, does not mean inaction. Since the beginning of time, creatures have adapted to changes in their environment. Unfortunately, such adaptation has always meant large numbers of deaths. Evolution works that way. But humankind is luckier than most species. It has the advantage of being able to think ahead, and to prepare for the changes to come. That’s what needs to happen now. ...
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