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Adaptation and Mitigation

Ways to Address Climate Change

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What is Mitigation?

  • To prevent the worsening of destruction
  • To decrease force or intensity. To lower risk.

  • Earthquake mitigation
    • Build buildings to withstand shaking better
  • Flood mitigation
    • Build dams to hold back overflowing rivers
  • Climate change mitigation
    • Reduce carbon dioxide emissions

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What is Adaptation?

  • Reacting or changing to fit the new circumstance
  • Coping with impacts that cannot be avoided

Examples:

  • farmers planting different crops for different seasons
  • wildlife migrating to more suitable habitats as the seasons change.
  • Building levees against sea level rise

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A clever colleague once said

"Mitigation helps us avoid the unmanageable, while adaptation helps us manage the unavoidable."