Glacier Retreat: Reviewing the Limits of Human Adaptation to Climate Change
Environment 51(3): 22-34, 2010
14 Pages Posted: 29 Mar 2013 Last revised: 13 Feb 2014
Date Written: 2010
Abstract
(From the introduction) More than many other consequences of climate change, glacier retreat also is easily understood: temperatures warm, and ice melts. The negative consequences of glacier retreat for important issues — water resources, natural hazards, and landscapes — are also straightforward and clear, and significant agreement between expert and lay opinion on its existence, nature, and impacts makes glacier retreat an area of overlap between the views of the scientific community and the general public. Moreover, in recent years, public institutions have formed to address climate change, including the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), many national and regional bodies, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) concerned with sustainable development. Glacier retreat falls clearly within their stated missions. If society cannot address glacier retreat, it is very likely that other aspects of climate change will prove even more intractable. Yet the record on mitigating and adapting to glacier retreat is mixed at best.
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