Radical Climate change? Place your bets with care.

It no longer matters whether radical climate change is the result of human activity or just a natural cycle, it is now way too late for us to make any significant difference.

What is needed now is action to adapt to the change. Those who adapt, survive.

While we are busy playing the blame game, based on arrogance, ignorance and denial, it is unlikely that there will be any major human efforts to take precautions against something which, according to our best science, may materialize in the near future.

Instead, like the people of Easter Island, we will wait until catastrophe is directly upon us. Then, we will scramble to build sea walls and levees, develop drought resistant foods, institute population controls, and relocate a billion people from low-lying and drought-prone areas.

Meanwhile, as we run out of drinking water, can’t afford food, face mass starvation and accompanying illnesses, fight multiple wars for precious resources, and turn on our neighbors, we might finally get it. Or not.

Surely, some will see at the last minute that what is happening to us is the same thing that has happened to other societies that have exceeded the carrying capacity of their environment – extinction.

Some people will be forever skeptical of radical climate change regardless of the evidence, and some will choose to accept the evidence and adapt. Let’s look at the outcome for these two groups depending on what happens:

1. The skeptics are right, and adaptors are wrong- radical climate change never materializes, or has an insignificant effect us.

Skeptics took no action to adapt to radical climate change, and hence did not waste any time or money on unnecessary preparations. Adaptors, using the precautionary principal, wasted large amounts of time and money to adapt to radical climate change that never materialized. They are actually poorer for it, but did improve their living environment.

2. The skeptics are wrong, and adaptors are right – radical climate change materializes, and has a significant effect on us.

Adaptors, using the precautionary principal, spent large amounts of time and money to adapt to radical climate change that did materialize. Their children/grand-children continue to survive in a new paradigm, now giving nature the attention and respect she deserves. Skeptics took no action to adapt to radical climate change, and hence did not waste any time or money on “unnecessary” preparations. They are extinct.

Of course, ultimately nature is fully in charge of the outcome – our opinions are meaningless. The choices we make today are a crapshoot for the future. Place your bets with care.