Why Do We Need to Adapt to Climate Change?

Fields flooded by nearby Wallkill River during Hurricane Irene and again after Tropical Storm Lee, near Campbell Hall, NY. Photo by Daniel Case (CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons)

Dr. Ingrid H. H. Zabel, Paleontological Research Institution, Ithaca, New York 14850

March 25, 2022

As a physicist working on climate change education at the Paleontological Research Institution, I sometimes feel embarrassed by my lack of knowledge about paleontology and the science of evolution. I’ve certainly learned a lot from my colleagues while working here, and had my misconceptions corrected. My understanding has advanced beyond what I learned from watching BBC dinosaur videos with my kids when they were little, and since the last time I took a biology class. That was Ms. Ridenour’s high school biology class, in 1980!

Sometimes I look up definitions of terms, to make sure I really know what they mean. Take, for example, the word “adaptation.” My mother gave my son an old textbook of hers titled “Animals Without Backbones” [1]; it says that adaptation is “the favorable adjustment of an organism to its environment.” My Random House College Dictionary [2] defines adaptation in the biological sense similarly, as an alteration such that an “organism becomes better fitted to survive in its environment.” It also includes a sociological definition: “a slow modification of individual and social activity in adjustment to cultural surroundings.”

In the context of climate change and its impact on us, adaptation is about finding ways to prepare for climate change—to cope with it and learn how to live with it, and to become more resilient so we can bounce back from the damage of more extreme weather. We can also try to help other organisms adapt. For example, we can design culverts at road-stream crossings thoughtfully so fish and other aquatic animals can easily pass through them to get to cooler water. Well-designed culverts also help people directly, because they’re less likely to get blocked with debris during extreme rainstorms and they can help prevent road damage.

 

Deep gorge created in Ulster County Route 47 when floods after Hurricane Irene blew out a culvert below the road, in Oliverea, NY. Photo by Daniel Case (CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons)

 

Climate change adaptation really is about favorably adjusting to our environment—this new, warmer environment with more extreme weather that is different from the world of just a few human generations ago. What’s different about the examples we learn about in school of how animals and plants adapt to changing environments is that we created this environment; it didn’t just happen around us. The result was unintentional, of course; when industrialization took off and we burned more and more fossil fuels, we didn’t plan on heating up our planet.  But by the late 1800s scientists knew this could happen, and the fact that it is happening has only gotten clearer since.

The latest report from Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), released in February 2022, lays out the widespread harm that a changing climate has already caused.  Here are just a few examples from the report [3]:

 
 

This list of impacts describes a harsh reality, and we surely need to adapt—in the sense of my Random House College Dictionary definition—to become better fitted to survive in this environment. Those of us in wealthier nations and with privileges need to help others who have fewer resources. We need all of our diverse strengths, creativity, and ingenuity. For some clever and inspiring ideas, I recommend these videos from PBS Learning Media:

●       Adaptation: Floating Gardens of Bangladesh

●       Adaptation: Ice Stupas of Ladakh

●       Adaptation: Asian Carp of Kentucky

●       Adaptation: Coral Reefs of Vanuatu

Adaptation alone is not enough. We must mitigate climate change, and reduce or even reverse it. We can do this by finding ways to use less energy, decarbonizing our energy systems by moving to renewable (and maybe more nuclear) energy, and electrifying our transportation and building heating systems to use low-carbon electricity instead of gas and oil. We can restore the natural systems like forests that take in carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

If we take these and other actions to mitigate climate change, adaptation in the future will be much easier and far less expensive. A study from 2020 [4] estimated the upfront cost of taking action to keep the Earth’s temperature rise since pre-industrial times within the target of 1.5°C - 2°C to be $16-$104 trillion. On the other hand, the cost of doing nothing would be $150-$792 trillion. It’s like when you have a leak in your roof.  You can spend some money and effort to fix it now, or wait until later. If you wait, chances are the problem will be much worse: you’ll probably have a bigger leak, mold growing in your attic, and a big roofing bill for the fix.

Nobody with their eyes and heart open could seriously suggest anymore that we can avoid taking action to slow or stop climate change, and just focus on adapting. And why should we settle for adjusting to our current environment, one which is so damaged, and to future environments which will be much worse if we don’t mitigate climate change?

Let’s go back to the sociological definition of adaptation: “a slow modification of individual and social activity in adjustment to cultural surroundings.” Here’s where we could really use some innovation to shift our thinking, and cultural change to normalize talking about climate change and taking climate action. It’s common for critiques of climate action to claim that it will lead to deprivation—less money, less choice, less freedom. But climate action can lead to a better world—better health, more food security, less conflict and human migration, more energy independence, less suffering, and lots of money saved.

The latest IPCC report concludes that we need a rapid modification of our ways, not a slow one as in the dictionary definition. In my high school biology class, I remember learning that humans are a very adaptable species—we can change our ways to adjust to our circumstances, and this has helped us survive. This gives me hope.

 

See our online exhibit Changing Climate: Our Future, Our Choice for ways to adapt to specific impacts of climate change.


References

[1] Ralph Buchsbaum, Animals Without Backbones: An Introduction to the Invertebrates, University of Chicago Press, 1961.

[2] Random House College Dictionary, Random House, New York, 1982.

[3] IPCC, Summary for Policymakers [H.-O. Pörtner, D.C. Roberts, E.S. Poloczanska, K. Mintenbeck, M. Tignor, A. Alegría, M. Craig, S. Langsdorf, S. Löschke, V. Möller, A. Okem (eds.)]. In: Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [H.-O. Pörtner, D.C. Roberts, M. Tignor, E.S. Poloczanska, K. Mintenbeck, A. Alegría, M. Craig, S. Langsdorf, S. Löschke, V. Möller, A. Okem, B. Rama (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press. In Press, 2022. https://www.ipcc.ch/report/sixth-assessment-report-working-group-ii/

[4] Yi-Ming Wei et al. Self-preservation strategy for approaching global warming targets in the post-Paris Agreement era, Nature Communications 11, 1624, 2020.