This blog is born out of the hundreds of posts published in our predecessor blog, www.weconsumetoomuch.com, since it began in 2011. The bottom line conclusion of the earlier blog is that humankind’s actions, going back centuries, had already changed natural systems and created feedback loops that would likely accelerate climate change for the remainder of this century.
Climate scientists have warned for decades that more heat in the Earth’s atmosphere and its oceans; air and water chemistries changed by waste products of human industry; Earth’s lungs diminished by destruction of forests; and so forth will lead to a different natural world less kind than what man has lived through in the past 10,000 years. The United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report released October 8, 2018, titled “Global Warming of 1.5 (degrees Centigrade” repeats that warning in detail. The report gives humanity only a decade to make huge steps to prevent catastrophic climate changes while it is still possible.
Adaptationtoclimatechange.com arises from the realpolitik probability that humanity will continue to ignore, reject, or to passively accept, what science says will be the results of consuming as we do now. It is politically very difficult, and probably too late anyway, to avoid climate changes that will challenge us as our species has never been challenged. No one will be able to sidestep climate change effects totally, but some protection is better than doing nothing. Our mission is to give readers useful information on protecting themselves, their families and their communities.