“We basically have three choices: mitigation, adaptation and suffering. We’re going to do some of each. The question is what the mix is going to be. The more mitigation we do, the less adaptation will be required and the less suffering there will be.” - John Holdren, Obama's science advisor in 2007 - ThreadSky

akshatrathi.bsky.social • 67 days ago

“We basically have three choices: mitigation, adaptation and suffering. We’re going to do some of each. The question is what the mix is going to be. The more mitigation we do, the less adaptation will be required and the less suffering there will be.” - John Holdren, Obama's science advisor in 2007

Comments

doctorvive.bsky.social•67 days ago

I wonder about the implicit equivalence of these three factors — the idea they're interchangeable — not to mention the lack of acknowledgement that adaptation has limits.

fisherdanar.bsky.social•67 days ago

It’s important to consider the timing of this quote and what Holden was aiming to engage with at that time: in 2007 we were before the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol, though the US had not ratified and a young Senator Obama was running for President…

johnmarkr.bsky.social•66 days ago

The triad in my head is Adaptation, Mitigation, and Reparations. And the relationship between the 3 is that all 3 are needed for any climate crisis response to be meaningful. The time when any amount of M can reduce the need for A is past. But no amount of A will ensure a future without M.
?

johnmarkr.bsky.social•66 days ago

Suffering abounds in any scenario, in the present and in the future. Sharing the suffering, enacting responses that respect the suffering of all, that accept sacrifice as a part of it, that's. where the spiritual rubber hits the social road.

jfolson.bsky.social•66 days ago

Alternatively: mitigation requires/d collective action, forbidden under capitalism. Adaptation is what people with sufficient resources do. Suffering is what everyone else does. Of course, as we fail to mitigate, "sufficient" grows ever larger, selecting an ever more exclusive elite.

jfolson.bsky.social•66 days ago

This may have been a goal.

johnmarkr.bsky.social•66 days ago

Fighting this paradigm is what reparations and just transition are all about. Mitigation can't happen when the global south is required to sell oil to have the cash for adaptation.

cityatlas.bsky.social•67 days ago

It could have been pointed out that there's no 'adaptation' without suffering. It's not like even a successful adaptation measure, whatever that is, would restore the pre-impact world.

swaziadam.bsky.social•67 days ago

Adaptation shouldn't mean preserving houses for the rich in Florida; it should mean e.g. community renewable energy & public local ownership of key resources; short supply chains (such as locally-sourced food); building housing in N Latitudes for those who are going to be displaced. Do you see this?

doctorvive.bsky.social•67 days ago

Well do *you* see that the word "displaced" implies suffering?

doctorvive.bsky.social•67 days ago

Now that I've posted that I realize I'm not sure whether you were contradicting or agreeing with and expanding on the first point! So take my post as an expression of confusion.

swaziadam.bsky.social•66 days ago

No worries. "Do you see this?" was poorly worded. I meant, "Do we see the climate movement fighting for these policies, do we see these kinds of policies being implemented?" In California, Prop 4 passed - $10 bill for fresh-water resilience & wildfire suppression, in a $4 Trillion per year economy!?

fluidsguru.bsky.social•67 days ago

And mitigation costs less than adaptation.

luvbirdbaby.bsky.social•67 days ago

This is a serious question: is there a resource that informs people in each jurisdiction or part of the country as to what the predictions are and what the mitigating policies would be? I would like to have the information that insurance companies have and businesses have as to what is coming.

luvbirdbaby.bsky.social•66 days ago

Yes. I found it.

https://projects.propublica.org/climate-migration

subu.bsky.social•67 days ago

Always bet on more suffering.

charliesc00.bsky.social•67 days ago

Now, 3 choices: suffering while saving the best parts of civilization, suffering with collapse of most of civilization, a Mad Max world.

andrewclimate.bsky.social•67 days ago

Spot on. And costs and suffering escalate the more we delay.

individkid.bsky.social•67 days ago

We've done exactly zero mitigation so far, because all the fossil fuel companies, including PeabodyEnergy, are still going strong. Biden is the worst so far on climate, because he increased fossil fuel production the most.

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