Humans have been adapting to a changing climate throughout history. Whether by innovation or migration we have developed a considerable capacity for "acclimatizing" to our environment. Since the mid 19th century, however, the rate of change has been increasing and the fact that this anthropogenically forced acceleration cannot be sufficiently reduced will have a significant impact on public health in the near and medium future. How severe the impact will be depends largely on our capacity to adapt and its effective deployment. By exploring cases histories in public health, Integration of Public Health with Adaptation to Climate Change: Lessons Learned and New Directions identifies the key adjustments necessary for public health systems to effectively adapt to this accelerated climate change. Taking into consideration the large portion of the global population without access to adequate nutrition, clean drinking water, or a viable public health system, the book examines the added influence of climate-sensitive diseases, their mutation, incubation, and migration, on life expectancy, economic productivity, and quality of life. The new challenge is to develop and deploy a capacity for more rapid social and technological adaptation, and to ensure that this capacity is universally and equitably distributed in the face of global environmental change. The option of the hunter/gatherer to simply pick up and move to more attractive climes is no longer available to today's higher population densities and fixed infrastructures. Effective adaptation to this rapid climate change must come from a conscious, planned, anticipatory approach. To do this we must use what we've learned from the lessons ofour past

Climate scientists have determined that recent global temperature increases are due in large part to increased greenhouse gas emissions from human activities. Even if mitigation of these gases begins immediately, there is every reason to believe that climate change will continue to occur. Every region in the world ought to forecast, as the contributors do in this study of California (a region of broad variation and high population), how it will be affected by climate change and how it might best adapt. Models are used to estimate potential physical and biological impacts, efficient adaptations, and residual damages from climate change. The contributors cover a broad array of climate change impacts on affected market sectors (including water supply, agriculture, coastal resources, timber, and energy demand) as well as ecosystems and biodiversity. An integrated hydrologic-agriculture model is developed to explore how the region would adapt to changes in water flows. Interactions between climate impacts and population and economic growth, urbanization, and technological change are also explored. For example, the study examines how both climate change and projected land development affect the region's terrestrial ecosystems and biodiversity. The level of geographical detail, along with the broad applicability of the modeling, methodology, and conclusions, make this a unique and valuable reference for environmental economists, scientists, planners, and policymakers.

Global climate change is one of the most important environmental issues facing the world today. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC) acknowledges the potential for global climate change to have major effects on the world economy. The work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Cli mate Change (lPCC) is focused on evaluating the scientific data on climate change and analyzing the potential responses to it. One of the primary issues in the global climate change debate is how to adapt to any change that might occur. The process ofidentifying adaptation measures and evaluating their effectiveness is the focus of this book. In dealing with climate change adaptation, the sequence of events in conduct ing these types of analyses can be generalized as follows: * Develop scenarios for the possible range of climate change, * Assess the vulnerability of various sectors of the national economy and infrastructure to climate change, and * Identify and evaluate measures in each sector to adapt to the climate change It is this third step that is the subject of this book. In presenting this material, Chapter 1 gives an overview of the concept of climate change adaptation and the general principles guiding the conduct of analyses in this area. Chapters 2-7 give the results of evaluating climate change adaptation options in the agriculture, water resources, coastal resources, forest and ecosystems, fisheries, and human settlements sectors.

Martin Parry University College, London, UK The 13 country studies collected in this re Adaptations Assessment published by the port represent the first of what is likely to Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change become a worldwide, country-by-country (Carter et al., 1994) as an agreed technical estimate of the likely impacts of, and appro set of scientific methods for climate impact priate adaptations to, greenhouse-gas-in assessment and has written its own guidance duced global climate change. document, Guidance for Vulnerability and Adaptation Assessment (U.S. CSP, 1994). Under the U.N. Framework Convention on The u.S. Country Studies Program devel Climate Change (UNFCCC), signatories oped the Guidance and other reviews of agreed to two near-term actions and one ma methodology into a nonspecialist set of jor subsequent one. The two near-term ac workbooks for use at the country level, tions are to make annual estimates of the which, backed up by advice from experi emissions and sinks of greenhouse gases, enced scientists from the United States and which are now being reported as part of a other countries, enabled local scientists to country-by-country inventory developed by conduct their own vulnerability and adapta the U.N. Environment Programme, the Or tion assessments."