Can't we just adapt

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TL;DR

Hot take

Firstly we are going to have to adapt. We are already adapting.

Our lack of major progress is going to force us to adapt further. But not everyone in the world will have the ability or means to do so. Some changes we just won’t be able to adapt to.

Explanation

How do we adapt and when? If we’re in the middle of a rapidly changing climate we need to understand what is changing and how rapidly. Climate change is not a singular thing and different parts of the world are going to be affected at different rates.

Sea level rises

If you had 10,000 homes affected by sea level rises and you decided to move them inland or to higher ground you need to know how high the sea is going to get. If you moved them 1m higher but the seas rise 5 metres then you haven’t achieved much.

Also this isn’t Simcity, you’re not just cut + pasting these homes from one location to another. You’re building 10,000 new homes and moving the families affected. When we say affected, we mean their original house is now worthless because nobody is going to buy it, it became uninsurable a while ago because the insurance companies knew this was coming. So how are these displaced families going to afford to pay for the new homes? Who decides where the new homes are built - people who used to enjoy coastal living might not be fans of moving far inland, but thanks to population expansion that’s the only land available.

This little thought exercise was just for 10,000 homes but what if the number was 100,000, or 1 million? In reality over the decades to come millions of people will be affected by sea level rises alone.

There are mapping services available for coastal areas so you can see the projected sea level rises. An example of an Australian one is https://coastalrisk.com.au/. In a large country like Australia of course there’s room inland, but what about small island nations, how are they going to adapt?

Farming and fishing

Damn, thanks to climate change the locations of your farms and fishing zones are all out of whack. Sure you could move them, but again you’re stuck with the problem of where to and when? If you move too early you’ll have to move again. If you don’t move soon enough you’re going to have lots of hungry people.

Or one day the water is just too hot and you can no longer farm your oysters.

Just transition

Adapting to climate change requires the resources to do so. Part of a just transition is looking after those who can’t afford to adapt.