Dear Adaptation Mavens,

Here’s a topic I’m surprised hasn’t gotten more attention in your column: uncertainty. It seems to me to be the number one bugaboo for getting action on climate change, and it’s what lets so many conservatives live in denial about the importance of this issue. It’s what makes climate change so much different than all the other environmental problems we face, and quite frankly it IS hard to know what to do given that we don’t know how much climate change will happen and what it will do. So how can we move beyond climate uncertainty paralysis and actually start adapting our work to climate change?

Certainly Uncertain

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Dear Adaptation Mavens,

My hypothetical goal is to develop landscape-scale adaptation strategies that will maximize the ability of wildlife and their habitats to persist in upland/inland systems under climate change.  I can imagine numerous adaptation strategies that can be employed at the project & site level in both inland and coastal sites.  I can even tentatively identify a couple of landscape-scale adaptation strategies that may be appropriate for coastal systems, despite the inherent uniqueness of every site.  However, I am having a harder time identifying landscape-scale strategies for inland/upland systems.  

What can one do beyond identifying biologically diverse "hotspots" and conserving large tracts of land that are conducive to movement and include the greatest number of these biologically/geologically rich sites? Are adaptation strategies most applicable at the project or site level?  

Sincerely, No Finger Guns

Dear No Finger,

Here is our hypothetical answer to your hypothetical question. Just as the effects of climate change are experienced differently at different scales, so too must adaptation be approached differently at different scales. Some solutions can only be enacted at the federal or even multinational scale; others can only be effectively enacted at the site or project level. There is useful work to be done at both ends of, as well as all along, the spatial spectrum. If you’re trying to figure out the right scale for your own adaptation action, we suggest that you either focus on strategies that are best implemented at the scale at which you currently work, or find yourself a new position where you can work at the scale necessary to enact the strategies you think are most important. Read more »

Dear Adaptation Mavens,

I have my botany class researching the effects of climate change on plants.  Is there research on the role of plants in mitigating climate change?  Or is this another long-term study I should think about starting?

Marya Czech, Lourdes University, Ohio

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CAKE just turned one! In celebration, the site launched a new discussion forum this month where you—the reader—can do just what we do every month—share your adaptation insights in writing. Read more »