A series on adaptation in honor of the fifth anniversary of Katrina

[bananas]

by Joe Romm: "I’m going to start a multipart series on adaptation — in honor of the fifth anniversary of Katrina."

http://climateprogress.org/2010/08/27/adaptation-mitigation-climate-chang/

Real adaptation is as politically tough as real mitigation, but much more expensive and not as vital.
Rhetorical adaptation, however, is a political winner. Too bad it means preventable misery for billions.
August 27, 2010

We basically have three choices: mitigation, adaptation and suffering. We’re going to do some of each. The question is what the mix is going to be. The more mitigation we do, the less adaptation will be required and the less suffering there will be.

That’s the pithiest expression I’ve seen on the subject of adaptation, via John Holdren, now science advisor. Sometimes he uses “misery,” rather than “suffering.”

I’m going to start a multipart series on adaptation — in honor of the fifth anniversary of Katrina. That disaster provides many lessons we continue to ignore, such as Global warming “adaptation” is a cruel euphemism — and prevention is far, far cheaper.

I draw a distinction between real adaptation, where one seriously proposes trying to prepare for what’s to come (i.e. an 800 to 1000+ ppm world aka Hell and High Water) and rhetorical adaptation, which is a messaging strategy used by those who really don’t take global warming seriously — those who oppose serious mitigation and who don’t want to do bloody much of anything, but who don’t want to seem indifferent to the plight of humanity (aka poor people in other countries, who they think will be the only victims at some distant point in the future).

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