Can we adapt to global climate change?

Question

Global Warming is a real problem on Earth it doesn't mean like the ground will get warmer it just means that more hurricanes are likley to appear more. There is a dome shaped home that can withstand the winds of hurricanes so why aren't people making more of those dome shaped homes?

Answer 1

It really depends on how much the climate changes and how quickly. The changing weather patterns caused by Global Warming is only one of the issues. As a species we are very good at surviving natural disasters, but we might not be able to survive the loss of biodiversity. We are currently in the middle of a mass extinction of species that are not directly farmed by humans. As agricultural regions move due to the changing climate it will become very expensive to move the farms to the new locations. The overall area that will be easily farmed is predicted to decrease due to the fact that despite more rain in a warmer climate it will be outpaced by faster evaporation rates. The combination of disease dynamics caused by less biodiversity, changing agricultural, and exploding world population conditions sets humans up against vast famines. This will lead to very dangerous civil wars. The reason civil wars are so dangerous is not the people who die from fighting but the people who die from the destruction of civilized infrastructure. The world population is too great to survive at its current number without modern practices. If the world falls into civil unrest the modern practices will break down and very large numbers of people will die.

There are some much worst case scenarios that I will not discuss.

Answer 2

Yes and no. Relatively minor amounts of climate change, maybe we could adapt to. For example, when the Artic sea ice melts (predicted to occur within 10-20 years), the aboriginal people lose their traditional lifestyle, but at least there are other places for them to live. However, that won't be true for millions of others around the world.

According to research into past changes, when climate does change, it oscillates between different levels every few years. This will make the survival of civilization very unlikely. Imagine a drought in the US midwest that lasts for 3 years; where will the food come from? There are a lot more people now than there were in the 1930's dust bowl.

Worse, species with shorter lifespans will be able to adapt more quickly to climate change - species like viruses and cockroaches. This means more disease, more crop losses.

This is why the doom-and-gloom scenarios about "adapting" to climate change. We are adapted to this climate, which includes the existing plant, animal, fungi, and insect species, growing seasons, etc. Any significant change and other species will be better adapted than us.

Humans will still probably exist after significant climate change; civilization will not. Those who argue that we should not worry because we'll adapt might want to look at how humans lived before the industrial revolution.

Answer 3

To the question of adaptation, the answer is YES.. we do it every day. Our continued existence is proof that we have adapted and evolved since our beginnings. Our fear based society and the preponderance of "intellectual" superiority makes us want empirical proof that we will live on.... we've lived on this long and we'll change to meet the challenges which we are presenting ourselves when enough people realize how we are killing ourselves.

About the domed houses, cool concept. Probably came more from thrill seekers wanting to ride out the hurricanes and watch it all happen. But, it sounds like a temporary solution to a long term problem. Easier solution, don't build your home where the hurricanes can knock them down.

Answer 4

We don't have any choice do we. Humans live on Earth and for 6,000,000,000 + there really is no other choices but to adapt or die. Global warming is happening and so we must adapt. The greatest concern for our survival surrounds food and water the supplies for both may be disrupted by global warming. If food and water supplies become threatened then we can also expect wars and diseases to proliferate as well. We will survive, as a species but we may be pretty miserable.

Ironically just as we are starting to have to deal with all the disruptions that global warming will bring a separate energy related problem is emerging, which is peak oil. Peak oil means that we will not be able to keep increasing our oil output, which means that we will not be able to keep growing economically, which means we are probably entering a world wide energy related economic depression. One important implication is that the cost to transport goods around the world will get much more expensive. That will be especially bad for economies that rely on importing food or exporting goods. Another important implication is that food supply disruptions will be just that much more difficult to deal with because transportation will be constrained by energy shortages. The good news though is that Walmart is doomed.

Leaving this on an optimistic note, we are in the process of building a new energy infrastructure centered around solar power, which in the long term is the only viable energy source. Think of it as nuclear power with the nuclear generator safely placed 93,000,000 miles away. The solar industry is one of the fastest growing at 40% per year for the last five years and expected to continue to grow that fast or faster for decades. It will become the worlds largest industry and so will create millions of new jobs and wealth world wide.

Answer 5

What are the domes made of? It might too expensive for the government to build in mass quantities. Naturally, the government spends who knows what on the secret service (which is not very secret) limos, inagurable balls, planes to travel to say nothing at all, this ineffective plan and that ineffictive plan that was ineffective from the moment someone had a brilliant new and effective idea, fighting wars for nothing, fighting wars over greed, and infighting here there and everywhere. If all of the dead who were slammed by hurricanes, tidal waves and all of that could use a domed home, we'd shocked at how corpses would crawl out of the grave.

Answer 6

Humans have adapted to ice-ages and warmer climates overall with far less technology at our disposal. If the climate gets warmer, or cooler, we will do just fine. Hardship is a great motivator to be inventive.

Answer 7

Yeah that is a real problem but we could adapt to it by making those "dome -shaped homes"

Answer 8

Well just like the answer above me I don't think we could adapt to global climate change.

Answer 9

Hmmmm... I'm not sure that we can adept to global climate very much.

Answer 10

yes... we can adapt... but how to sustain the technology we develop to be used in adapting to it will be the harder question to answer.