Getting hotter, get used to it

Britain's Chief Scientist (we have one too) David King warns that global temperatures will rise 3 degrees C in the next 100 years wrecking half the world's wildlife reserves, destroying major forest systems and putting 400 million more people at risk of hunger. The issue is to address these inevitable concerns with offsetting investments while continuing to work towards reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The claims are based on the Hadley Centre's, Stabilising Climate to Avoid Dangerous Climate Change.

I think it is an interesting, practical perspective. Assuming policy failure is plausible or even, given lags, inevitable what should we do? In terms of wildlife conservation I think wildife corridor strategies (and here and here) that allow species migrations are essential to avoid mass extinctions. Some are discussed in Michael Archer and Bob Beale's provocative book Going Native.

We need policies for dealing with the effects of global warming as well as, of course, policies to mitigate it.