As you saw on the preceding pages, models predict a scary future if society does nothing to address climate change. The good news is that making sound choices today can change the outcome. Scientists not only understand the problems of climate change, they also understand how to solve them.
Watch this video to learn about the three basic choices for addressing climate change. After you watch, answer the questions in the Take Notes section below.
| Keyboard Shortcut | Action |
|---|---|
| Space | Pause/Play video playback |
| Enter | Pause/Play video playback |
| m | Mute/Unmute video volume |
| Up and Down arrows | Increase and decrease volume by 10% |
| Right and Left arrows | Seek forward or backward by 5 seconds |
| 0-9 | Fast seek to x% of the video. |
| f | Enter or exit fullscreen. (Note: To exit fullscreen in flash press the Esc key. |
| c | Press c to toggle captions on or off |
NARRATOR: The path ahead comes down to three basic options. We can do nothing, and suffer the consequences. We can adapt as the changes unfold. Or we can act now to mitigate, or limit the damage. The options are connected. The more we mitigate, the less we would need to adapt. The more we adapt and mitigate, the less we would suffer.
JOHN HOLDREN, Harvard University: Society has only three options; and if we want to minimize suffering, as should be our goal, we need to maximize both mitigation and adaptation.