human adaptation

Adaptation Was Better Than Doing Nothing, But Nowhere Near Good Enough

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Katharine Hayhoe warns that if we continue emitting greenhouse gases no adaptation will be possible. Photograph: Courtesy of Dr Katharine Hayhoe

We have been promoting adaptation for about as long as we have been posting here.  Fiona Harvey the Guardian’s Environment correspondent, interviews a scientist who will not soft peddle how far gone we are from those options:

We cannot adapt our way out of climate crisis, warns leading scientist

Katharine Hayhoe says the world is heading for dangers people have not seen in 10,000 years of civilisation

The world cannot adapt its way out of the climate crisis, and counting on adaptation to limit damage is no substitute for urgently cutting greenhouse gases, a leading climate scientist has warned. Continue reading →

The Adapters to Climate Change

/ Jocelyn Toll / Leave a comment
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Bouyant fields made of plants and manure can support crops in Bangladesh. Source: National Geographic

Climate change is a tough reality, but in spite of its devastating impacts on the natural environment, there are people who are drawing from their ingenuity to find alternative farming methods in the affected surroundings. Alezé Carrère, a National Geographic grantee, is on a journey to study the people and communities that are adapting to climate change, and she and a film crew are documenting cases into a video series called Adaptation.

[In 2012 Carrère] learned of a group of farmers in Madagascar who were figuring out how to farm in fields eroded by deforestation and heavy rains. Instead of depending on development aid to reforest washed-out areas, the farmers adapted. Soon they began to prefer farming in the eroded gullies, which became rich with water and nutrients.

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