What would life in a warmer and ocean-acidified world be like, and how easy will it be to adapt?

Only when we can communicate a scientifically defensible but more detailed picture of what a higher-CO2 world would be like to live in, can the average person really decide how hard we should work to avoid it. We often assume that we will adapt, but without quantitatively examining whether anticipated adaptations will work, how they will interact with each other, and how they will affect human well-being. This requires an interdisciplinary push of the sciences beyond their comfort zones, aggressive use of integrated assessment and adaptation models, some storyteller’s imagination as to possible future scenarios where aspects of life that we now take for granted might no longer hold, and examination of how required adjustments would affect people mentally and physically.

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