How the world needs to adapt to climate change, and the key problems and hard choices that lie ahead for the global community.

Heatwaves, wildfires, hurricanes and flooding caused by climate change are already impacting people and nature. Even if greenhouse gases stopped being emitted tomorrow, some parts of the world will still become uninhabitable, some livelihoods untenable, food shortages will spread and international conflicts will emerge.

Adaptation until now has been incremental with governments and financial institutions tinkering around the edges of current systems, without making major changes to how we live our lives. This will not be enough. In Sink or Swim, Sussannah Fisher explores the hard choices which lie ahead concerning how people earn a living, the way governments manage relationships between countries, and how communities accommodate the movement of people. Should people be encouraged to move away from the coast? How can global food supplies be managed when parts of the world are hit by simultaneous droughts? How can conflict be handled when there isn't enough water?

Drawing on cutting edge research, interviews with experts, and practical examples from across the world this book tells the story of the tough choices on adaptation, what they will mean for people around the world, and ways we can still have a liveable planet in the 21st century and beyond. Will we choose to sink or swim?