# How to solve the climate crisis {% embed url="" %} 'Mitigate, Adapt or Suffer' Professor Katharine Hayhoe {% endembed %} > I like to refer to [John Holdren](https://www.hks.harvard.edu/faculty/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) > > Climate Expert Katharine Hayhoe: [Help Solve Climate Change by Talking With Others About It](https://www.hhh.umn.edu/research-centers/center-science-technology-and-environmental-policy/advancing-climate-solutions-now/speaker-katharine-hayhoe) --- # Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question. Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter: ``` GET https://docs.climatemind.org/how-to-solve-the-climate-crisis.md?ask= ``` The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language. The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation. Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.