I like to refer to John Holdren, a physicist at Harvard. When he talks about how to address climate change, he says we have three choices: mitigation, adaptation, and suffering.

We can mitigate the situation by reducing our emissions. We can adapt by preparing for a different future. Or we can suffer. That's not a word you hear scientists saying often. Holdren explains that we're going to do some of each; the question is what the mix is going to be.

The more we cut our emissions, the less adaptation is required, and the less suffering there will be. These are the choices that face all of us. Not just climate scientists, not just decision-makers, but every single person on this planet.

The big solutions to climate change look like this:

1.
Stop putting so much carbon into the atmosphere (mitigation)
2.
Take as much carbon out of the atmosphere as we can (mitigation)
3.
Build resilience to the impacts that are already here, that we can no longer avoid (adaptation)

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