Sink or Swim

The world needs to adapt to climate change – but how? What are the key problems and hard choices that lie ahead for the global community? This book reveals all.

Heatwaves, wildfires, hurricanes, and flooding caused by climate change are already impacting people and nature. Adaptation until now has been incremental, with governments and institutions tinkering around the edges of current systems. This will not be enough.

Sink or Swim explores the hard choices that lie ahead concerning how people earn a living, the way governments manage relationships between countries, and how communities accommodate the movement of people. Should people be encouraged to move away from the coast? How can global food supplies be managed when parts of the world are hit by simultaneous droughts? How can conflict be handled when there isn’t enough water?

Drawing on cutting-edge research, interviews with experts, and practical examples from across the world, Susannah Fisher tells the story of the tough choices on adaptation that lie ahead and looks at ways we can still have a liveable planet later in this century and beyond. Will we choose to sink or swim?