Political upheaval real risk of climate change

Adapting to climate change (“Climate-proofing our communities,” Opinion, March 15) is certainly necessary. It’s hard to argue with damage control, and it’s politically popular, since there are local and short-term benefits for voters.

Illustration by Globe staff.

But adaptation misses the greater concerns about climate change. The ultimate risks of climate change are not the floods in our coastal towns, or heat waves in our cities. Climate change will continue to produce global food shortages and starvation. It is already creating mass migration away from newly uninhabitable areas, and into areas where migrants are not welcome, causing political upheaval and xenophobia.

Read the letter from The Boston Globe - “Political upheaval real risk of climate change.”