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.

Suggested Citation

Orlove, Ben, Glacier Retreat: Reviewing the Limits of Human Adaptation to Climate Change (2010). Environment 51(3): 22-34, 2010, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2240463

Ben Orlove (Contact Author)

Columbia University ( email )

420 West 118th Street, room 833
New York, NY 10027
United States
+1 (212) 854 1543 (Phone)

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
107
Abstract Views
619
Rank
456,834
PlumX Metrics