| > | | | | cement manufacture should be tweaked; cap and |
| Global warming and climate change have positive | | | | trade (or tax) schemes implemented on the national, |
| aspects and present opportunities. How must society | | | | corporate, and individual levels; weather-resistant, |
| adapt to rapid climate change to minimise severe | | | | energy-conserving, and green construction |
| upheaval? | | | | technologies pioneered; the diets of livestock should |
| The question makes two explicit assumptions, both | | | | be adapted to restrict biological emissions; |
| of which are controversial and disputed: that climate | | | | deforestation and reforestation should be rationalized |
| change is rapid and that it will result in severe | | | | as should be land use; drought-related indigenous |
| upheaval. Similarly, it is not clear whether the best | | | | agricultural and water management knowledge and |
| reaction to global warming should be societal, or | | | | crop varieties should be preserved; flood defenses |
| individual (or, perhaps, global). | | | | erected or strengthened; and weather-monitoring |
| That global warming is happening has now been | | | | capacity should be extended and modernized. These |
| established. Yet, such a forcing is likely to take | | | | measures make good sense, whatever the urgency |
| centuries to induce any discernible climate change on | | | | of the problem facing us. |
| the planetary level. Moreover: self-interested and | | | | But, we should invest the bulk of our scarce |
| well-paying hype aside, we know close to nothing | | | | resources in research and innovation. We should |
| about the hypercomplex set of interactions between | | | | accept that climate change is inevitable and work out |
| various greenhouse gases, the atmosphere, the | | | | ways of harnessing it to our benefit. We should |
| oceans, the Earth's orbit, volcanic eruptions, human | | | | come up with new agricultural methods and strains; |
| activities, the unforeseen outcomes and by-products | | | | new types of tourism; new irrigation techniques; |
| of well-meaning regulation and technologies (such as | | | | water desalination, diversion, transport, and allocation |
| biofuels), solar dynamics, plate tectonics, and | | | | schemes; ways of sustaining biological diversity and |
| thousands of other factors, the vast majority of | | | | of helping the human body adapt and cope; and |
| which are yet to be discovered. | | | | global plans to cope with energy production problems, |
| Environmentalism is, therefore, poor science or | | | | poverty, and disease triggered by global warming. |
| pseudo-science: it is a pernicious and venal form of | | | | For the next few centuries, global warming is |
| faddish hubris. In our current state of ignorance, the | | | | inexorable and largely irreversible (as the IPCC |
| more ambitious variants of "solutions" such as | | | | essentially admits). To think otherwise is completely |
| geoengineering are far more dangerous than the | | | | delusional. Better to re-imagine our existence on this |
| threats of global warming. | | | | planet (adaptation). As temperatures rise in certain |
| Two things are clear, though: (a) Climate change had | | | | locales (and drop in others!), new economic activities |
| happened frequently and repeatedly, long before and | | | | and routes of commerce would be made possible or |
| ever since humans strode the scene; and (b) Some | | | | rendered feasible; new types of produce and forests |
| regions of Earth will greatly benefit economically from | | | | will flourish; new technologies will be developed to |
| global warming. Others, inevitably, will suffer and will | | | | cater to a novel and growing set of needs. |
| have to adapt. None of this sounds like a "severe | | | | We would do well to not consider global warming as |
| upheaval", let alone life-threatening as the more rabid | | | | a crisis, but as a massive change. And even if we |
| and sensationalist environmentalists will have us | | | | insist on regarding it as a cataclysm, as the Chinese |
| believe. | | | | saying goes, there are opportunities in every |
| We should take an inventory of what we know and | | | | predicament. The initial costs of every transformation |
| act upon it resolutely (mitigation): emissions from | | | | and transition in human history have been steep |
| fossil fuel combustion should be tamed, captured, | | | | (recall the Industrial Revolution and, more recently, |
| stored, sunk, and sequestered (aerosols to be | | | | the transition from Communism to Capitalism). Climate |
| further studied in conjunction with global dimming and | | | | change is not likely to be the only exception. Such a |
| ozone depletion); measures for population control and | | | | massive realignment implies severe disruption and |
| family planning enhanced; alternative and renewable | | | | great distress. But, invariably, tectonic shifts are |
| fuels should be studied and incentives provided to | | | | followed by an extended period of creativity and |
| energy-efficient, clean and green technologies; | | | | growth. This time will be no different. |