We should save our ecosystems to avoid climate change, rather than adapt people

Tara Martin.

James Watson.

When we think about adapting humanity to the challenges of climate change, it’s tempting to reach for technological solutions. We talk about seeding our oceans and clouds with compounds designed to trigger rain or increasing carbon uptake. We talk about building grand structures to protect our coastlines from rising sea levels and storm surges.

However, as we discuss in Nature Climate Change, our focus on these high-tech, heavily engineered solutions is blinding us to a much easier, cheaper, simpler and better solution to adaptation: look after our planet’s ecosystems, and they will look after us.

Read the piece by principal research scientist with the CSIRO, Tara Martin, and associate professor at The University of Queensland, James Watson, on The Conversation - “The best way to protect us from climate change? Save our ecosystems.”