Adapting to global warming

Today the nations of the world meet in Copenhagen to attempt to forge agreements to stop global warming and the catastrophes that climate change will allegedly create. Instead of just trying to cut back on carbon emissions, as if the climate change can be prevented, the Dutch are taking steps to deal with the catastrophes should they occur. From Dutch defense against climate disaster: Adapt to the change – washingtonpost.com:

With the Copenhagen summit starting Monday, chances remain uncertain for a historic breakthrough in the fight to prevent climate change, but the Netherlands is leading a fight of a different kind: How to live with global warming.

As sea levels swell and storms intensify, the Dutch are spending billions of euros on "floating communities" that can rise with surging flood waters, on cavernous garages that double as urban floodplains and on re-engineering parts of a coastline as long as North Carolina's. The government is engaging in "selective relocation" of farmers from flood-prone areas and expanding rivers and canals to contain anticipated swells.

The measures are putting this water world of dikes, levies and pumps that have kept Dutch feet dry for centuries ahead of the rest of the world in adapting to harsher climates ahead.

Really, according to the doomsayers, isn’t it too late to do much of anything? Wouldn’t draconian cap-and-trade laws and restrictions on energy use cripple the world’s already tottering economies in a way that might be more devastating than what climate change would do? If people and nations really believe in climate change doomsday scenarios, shouldn’t the priority now be adaptation? Shouldn’t we start building dikes along the seacoast, or start selling beachfront property several miles inland? I mean, if people really believe those dire warnings.