“Rich northern countries will adapt easily to climate change.
It’s the poor, tropical countries that will suffer.” That’s been
the mantra of many authors who have speculated about how people
will adapt to rising sea levels and changes in our weather
patterns. It’s assumed, correctly, that Southeast Asia and sub-
Saharan Africa will be ravaged by floods and famines and will
have few resources with which to adapt. It’s also been assumed
that the more-developed countries will be less affected by
climate change because of their fortunate location in the
Northern temperate zone – where less-severe climate effects have
been anticipated – and because of their greater wealth. America,
for example, can afford to build dikes to protect its harbors
from rising seas, install pipelines to move water from the
Midwest to the Southwest for drought mitigation and plant
southern crops farther north to take advantage of increasingly
mild climates. According to the “It’s-easy-to-adapt” crowd,
climate change is no big deal. Unfort