Responding to climate change
Knowing humans are warming the planet raises the one question that ends in action: what do we do about it? There is no single fix — and the syllabus verb is the giveaway. It asks you not to list responses but to evaluate them: how much each helps, what it costs, and where it falls short. Two big moves run through everything — cut the cause (mitigation) or live with the effect (adaptation) — from solar farms and cooler cities to seawalls, geo-engineering, and tens of thousands of years of land knowledge.
The interactive book above is the lesson. What follows is a plain recap you can revise from, plus the sources and how this maps to the syllabus.
The two human-induced causes
The enhanced greenhouse effect has two human causes: burning fossil fuels for energy (the largest) and land use & land-cover change. Clearing forest adds CO2 twice over — it releases stored carbon and removes a carbon sink. Naming the causes points to the levers: change how we make energy, and how we treat the land.
Mitigation vs adaptation
Mitigation reduces the cause (cut emissions, remove CO2) so the problem shrinks; adaptation adjusts to effects already locked in (seawalls, tough crops, cooler cities). Both are needed. Daily-life actions (efficiency, transport, waste) are real but limited — the largest levers are systemic. The syllabus asks you to evaluate strategies — usefulness, cost, limits — and lists them "including but not limited to", so the set is open.
Evaluating the named strategies
Alternative/renewable energy: low-emission and now cheap, limited by intermittency (needs storage and grids). Urban design: cuts emissions and cools cities (mitigation + adaptation), but slow to retrofit. Geo-engineering: carbon removal tackles the cause but is slow/costly, while solar radiation management is fast but ignores CO2 (acidification continues), risks termination shock, and is not a substitute for cutting emissions. Cultural practices (incl. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural burning): real adaptation and mitigation value, but diverse, place-specific and community-led.
The bottom line: a weighed portfolio
There is no silver bullet. A good response is a portfolio — mitigation to shrink the cause, adaptation to cope with what is locked in — drawing on clean energy, thoughtful cities, daily choices, carefully judged technology and long-standing land knowledge, with each strategy weighed for usefulness, cost and limits. So yes, the evidence shows many ways to respond; the task is to evaluate them, not just adopt them.
For HSC students
This powerbook covers the Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies thread of Module 7 (Climate Science), framed by the inquiry question is there scientific evidence that demonstrates how humans could minimise and respond to the effects of increased global temperatures? Working through it, you should be able to:
- investigate the human-induced causes of the enhanced greenhouse effect — the burning of fossil fuels for energy, and land use and land-cover change;
- investigate ways humans may minimise their contribution to the greenhouse effect in their daily lives;
- evaluate the usefulness of a range of mitigation and adaptation strategies — including urban design, geo-engineering, alternative energy sources, and using or changing the agricultural practices of a range of cultural groups, including those of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples.
The syllabus lists these strategies "including but not limited to", so they are examples, not a closed set — bring others if you can evaluate them the same way. This chapter completes Module 7 and builds on the previous chapter on the human signal in climate. Explanations here are original and are a study aid, not a copy of the syllabus.
Sources
- IPCC Working Group III (Mitigation) and Working Group II (Adaptation) — assessed evidence on response strategies and their effectiveness.
- International Energy Agency and IRENA — falling costs of solar and wind, and the role of storage and grids in managing intermittency.
- Published research and assessments on geo-engineering — carbon dioxide removal and solar radiation management, including risks such as termination shock and uncertain regional effects.
- Research and program reports on Aboriginal cultural burning, Indigenous ranger programs, and northern-Australian savanna fire management and carbon abatement — presented as community-led knowledge.
- Urban-design and heat research — the urban heat island and the co-benefits of green, efficient cities.
- NSW NESA Earth and Environmental Science Stage 6 Syllabus (2017) — used only to scope the Module 7 content; explanations above are original.
There is no single switch to flip — only a toolkit to weigh: cut the cause where we can, live with the change where we must, and judge every strategy by what it actually does. That weighing, not any one answer, is the science of responding.