by Sheila Westfall

Created on: August 12, 2008   Last Updated: November 24, 2011

This is an issue that is not so much about what we should do as what we can do. There are many simple things that we can do every day to reduce CO2 emissions and more advanced methods are in use with more in development. We can never fully eliminate our emissions but we can greatly reduce them. By contrast, adaptation is simply not possible. The impacts of climate change are insurmountable by mere human efforts.

In recent years we have experienced more intense hurricanes, extreme drought, and massive floods. While we can be more prepared for these events, there is no true way to adapt to the devastating effects of a hurricane like Katrina or to protect farmland from floods such as the Midwest has experienced this summer. Atlanta, GA has been suffering from drought for over a year, seeing their main water source, Lake Lanier continuously drop in water level. Water use can be restricted but it is still one of the main ingredients of life. We can not do without it.

Drought is a major issue across the globe. Once fertile land in Africa and Asia is turning to desert. Poor African nations who contribute little to climate change will be the hardest hit as it progresses. Famine has been ever present in countries like Ethiopia and Somolia but as farmland disappears it will reach new heights. The absence of arable land will exacerbate the problem of world hunger; as this is already a huge problem we can not hope to "adapt" to worsening conditions.

As the glaciers melt, sea levels will rise and land will vanish beneath the waves. We can, of course, learn to live without parts of Florida and move beach front properties inland a bit. But the millions of people world wide who live along the coasts will be displaced and put added pressure on other locations whose resources may also be depleted. Rising sea levels are also credited with strengthening tsunamis such as the one that hit Indonesia is 2005.

The heat waves that accompany climate change are having both direct and indirect effects on mankind. Hundreds of Americans die each year during heat waves; in 2003, 35,000 Europeans died during a record setting hot spell. And how are we to solve this problem? With water and air conditioning? Drinkable water is becoming ever more scarce and running the AC only exacerbate the problem as it pumps greenhouse gases into the air. An indirect effect of the heat is a reduction in the snow pack in Northwestern states. Less snow falls because it isn't cold enough and what does accumulate is melting earlier in the spring. The water from the snow pack is essential for replenishing the rivers and ground water that supply water to the people.

The fact is that adaptation is just not an option. We can not change our needs for water for both hydration and agriculture. We can not change our need for food and arable land to grow it on. We can not change our body's reaction to extreme heat. We can not change the effects of extreme weather. What we can change are our actions - the amount of energy we consume and the sources from which we get that energy. And so it is what we must change.

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