The Institution of Mechanical Engineers’ latest environment theme report is Climate Change: Adapting to the Inevitable? It considers the possible climate changes which we may expect over the next 1,000 years due to continuing CO2  emissions, and recommends what engineers need to do to adapt to our future world so that we can cope with these changes.

Man’s activities are causing the world’s climate to change rapidly.  Although many nations will be able to cope with the impacts of climate change in the short term, albeit at a cost, long term, it will be a very different story.  Global governments will be meeting in November 2009 to agree a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, proposing reducing global carbon dioxide emissions by mitigation.

However, as global emissions are not reducing and the climate is changing, the more pragmatic approach, as suggested by the Institution, is that only by adapting our behaviour can we hope to secure long-term human survival.  We have to look at how engineers might help our world to adapt to changes over the next few centuries. (more…)