system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Is the science community actively looking at ways to live with global climate change?

I ask because what I mostly hear in the media is how we have to stop climate change and how we should be preventing from getting worse. To my mind, there isn't a way of stopping it or preventing it at this point. I don't think there is supposed to be. This planet works in cycles and we are in a climate cycle.

I'm just curious if we as a planet are doing enough to understand how to live here when climate change continues.
gpt
There's a few things to deal with here.

First off, while the earth's climate does indeed cycle, the rate of change being observed now is not matched in the climate record (there are some unresolved questions about resolution).

This isn't just a matter of record, but a matter of process; we *know* that CO2 is an extremely effective greenhouse gas, and we *know* that by burning coal and oil we have been releasing vast amounts of it into the atmosphere from what would otherwise have been stable geological storage; coal and oil-sourced carbon would not have naturally been released into the atmosphere at anything within orders of magnitude of this rate (it would have taken tens or hundreds of millions of years as the crust recycled and the volatiles got outgassed - a process which already contributes to our base-load carbon cycle).

So, the changing climate we are seeing is *not* part of a natural cycle. You are welcome to hold your opinion that it is, but that opinion is not supported by the science, so at this point is akin to claiming that cigarettes are good for you.

Now, having dealt with that - the overwhelming role of scientists is to provide data. We can measure and observe things, we can forecast and interpret things. What we cannot do is enforce population-wide change. All the work over the last three decades has failed to get populations (and particularly politicians and industry) to take climate change seriously, and until we have a proper grasp on what mitigation factors *will* be put in place, there is not real way to say what the change encountered will be on what timescales. The IPCC reports have, since their inception, stated high and low ranges for climate change over the next century, with discussion of what some of the implications for this could be. We know what the effect on things like sea level will be, but in chaotic systems such as weather it becomes more difficult. It is likely that with an atmosphere which is more enrgetic (hotter = more energy available) then more extreme weather is likely, but how that will impact different localities and regions will vary. Scientists have been warning about increased rates of desertification, and limits on fresh water for decades. Migration of climate belts delivers enormous food insecurity problems as the breadbaskets move to more polar latitudes where no existing infrastructure (or soil structure!) exists. And if climate belts move sufficiently quickly that vegetation can't keep up, then mass extinction of entire biomes of fauna and flora becomes possible.

So yes, scientists have provided a great deal of information on what challenges will be faced. However, it is up to the public and politicians to decide if they wish to enact any change.