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

[Nevilledog]

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Tweet text:

David Wallace-Wells
@dwallacewells
“People do not understand the magnitude of what is going on. This will be greater than anything we have ever seen in the past. This will be unprecedented. Every living thing will be affected.”

theguardian.com
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
10:23 AM · Jun 2, 2022

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jun/01/we-cannot-adapt-our-way-out-of-climate-crisis-warns-leading-scientist

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https://archive.ph/jeuIx

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.

Katharine Hayhoe, chief scientist for the Nature Conservancy in the US and professor at Texas Tech University, said the world was heading for dangers unseen in the 10,000 years of human civilisation, and efforts to make the world more resilient were needed but by themselves could not soften the impact enough.

“People do not understand the magnitude of what is going on,” she said. “This will be greater than anything we have ever seen in the past. This will be unprecedented. Every living thing will be affected.”

While countries can start to adapt to some of the impacts, for instance with seawalls and flood barriers, and by making their infrastructure more resilient to extreme weather, if global heating is allowed to continue then the world will rapidly reach a point beyond what can be adapted to.

“If we continue with business-as-usual greenhouse gas emissions, there is no adaptation that is possible. You just can’t,” she said, in an interview with the Guardian.

*snip*

[ck4829]

1. The indigenous and most powerless get genocided and billionaires get new beachfront property

That's the plan I think.

[Mickju]

3. Even billionaires will not be safe.

[TheRealNorth]

5. I think you are right

[Beetwasher.]

2. Yeah, We Need to Start Mass Production and Global Implementation of Carbon Sequestration

Technology like pronto.

[hunter]

4. If we can't figure out how to relocate entire communities ahead of the catastrophes...

... we are in deep shit.

New homes have to be available before the old homes are taken by the sea or the water is shut off.

[TheRealNorth]

6. Lol

We can't even provide affordable homes for the people we have now. God knows how bad it will be when millions are displaced.

[hunter]

8. I figure the U.S.A. could quit fossil fuels in fifteen years if we took the problem seriously.

Not a World War II level of commitment, but not something the "free market" plus incentives can accomplish either.

The question is, how bad does it have to get before we do this, and will we have the infrastructure left by then to accomplish it?

[genxlib]

7. All that is true

But we will adapt.

Adaptation in this sense will mean mass migration and refugees, famine, wars, government collapse, etc.

The difference is that we can't adapt into a soft landing. We will adapt because we are forced to amid great great hardship and suffering.