Rising seas, droughts, deadly heat waves, floods, wildfires, ocean acidification, powerful storms, armed conflict, food shortages, and a host of other problems are the result of anthropogenic climate change. We can expect hundreds of millions of climate refugees this century to move north as the tropics and subtropics become too hot. Our only options now for dealing with the climate crisis are to mitigate the causes of climate change, adapt to its effects, or suffer the consequences of doing nothing. While we wait for some catastrophic climate event to force governments to tackle climate change we must adapt to a warming world. But adaptation without mitigation will lead to social and environmental collapse, causing terrible suffering among the world's poorest communities and for those plants and animals adversely affected by climate change. Adaptation should be seen as a temporary expedient to give humanity enough time to permanently reduce carbon emissions.