Adaptability and hopeful dodging are the new strategies, but you won’t get away with these either. What the Climate Rupture world is going to look like is those videos of refugees, twelve across in miles-long lines, snaking their desperate way towards countries which won’t take them. Syria is a war disaster area, but the breakdown of that society followed a long, punishing drought. Get ready for more, as much of the Middle East is now forecast to become unlivable.
Go ahead and dispute reports like this one. The comments under the story indicate that the capacity for continuing denial and dismissal is still in its own ‘pause’. But even if this particular forecast for this particular place proves imprecise, be sure the same will apply elsewhere. Cities aside, if you know anything about farming, you know how vulnerable it is to rainfall fluctuations even in normal times. It doesn’t take very many years of out-of-pattern rainfall to devastate a local agricultural region, its people and its economy. This can lead directly to refugees, or to unrest that produces even more refugees. The fabric that ties people to their homes is not as robust as we’d like to imagine. If you don’t believe it, there is a long line of displaced people heading your way to explain it to you.