When facing gigantic problems like climate change, the first thing we need to know is how far we have to go. What is a sufficient response? What's good enough? One way to make sure our responses are sufficient is to make sure we have no impact at all. That's the idea behind climate neutrality. By reducing energy use, using energy more efficiently, and offsetting what we do use, we can reduce our "carbon footprint" to essentially nothing. (It may not be as easy as that -- there are still complications having to do with our public footprint, but getting to personal carbon neutrality is a pretty good first step.)
If climate neutrality is about knowing that we're doing the right thing, climate foresight is about knowing what's going to happen because of what we've already done. The earth's climate impacts every living system on the planet, and essentially every human-made system as well. However, what those impacts will be, how quickly they'll unfold and what ramifications they'll have are still largely unknown to us. Answering those questions is what climate foresight is for. By using a combination of climate models and futurism tools, we can figure out, for instance, how climate change will effect our attempts to restore natural systems, or how high we might expect the fees to rise. It's still an inexact science at best, but with more and more important scientific bodies and other researchers working to find the answers, we have a better and better ability to anticipate the consequences of climate change and thus to work to make the systems upon which we depend more resilient.
Taxes, Credits and Going Carbon Negative
The Sahel: Climate Foresight for the Poorest
Letter from Sweden: The King "Shows Up"
Going Carbon Neutral at Sao Paulo Fashion Week
Terra Preta: Black is the New Green
Constructing a Foundation for 'Net-Zero' Buildings
Foresight in the Age of the Storm
Environmental Restoration in the Age of Climate Change
Preparing for Life in a Warming World
How to Think Differently About Climate
