Responding to Climate Change

The first rule in managing any crisis is: If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging. In order to manage climate change, we have to reduce its primary cause, the greenhouse gas emissions that are making the problem worse by the day. Mr. Koonin correctly asserts that adaptation to our new climate reality is critically important. However, it’s not enough, not nearly enough. There’s no plausible scenario whereby we can adapt our way out of huge disruption to our way of life. We must continue to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, too. Impacts from climate change are so broad and complex that all of our policy and technology ingenuity must be brought to bear. Any agreement from the Paris talks is another step, but it is certainly not the end. Continued foot-dragging and obstruction on reduction efforts will further endanger our way of life. We have to continue, and accelerate, reduction of greenhouse gases.