Author Description

What does it mean to adapt? Why do we need to adapt? These are essential questions that it seems like society—indeed, all of humanity—has been unconsciously tackling for its entire existence. Somehow, though, on the way to the transposing church, a major obstacle appeared: abrupt, catastrophic climate change. The planet's mean temperature has super-heated, and we only seem to be playing catch-up, and not very well, as a species as oceans rise, crops die, and human beings from some of the most affected regions have decided to get up and leave. But, arguably, this is what evolution has always been about: a long, continuous game of catch-up to forces that seem beyond our control. But what about mal-adaptation? The OED describes maladaptation as a “failure to adjust adequately or appropriately to the environment or situation,” which is not untrue. However, there is more to the concept than simply not adjusting adequately or appropriately; there’s also a connotation of an adjustment to an unrelated or less relevant situation. Is that indeed where we’re headed? Since the threat of climate change came to the fore for much of the public in the 80s and 90s—and indeed into the 2000s—a significant shift took place: adaptation started to be seen as a counterweight to inexorable changes in the way we eat, sleep, and move around in this complicated world we call home. Yet maladaptation has not really gathered steam in public discourse and only very recently in academic circles. Sure, we may recognize what it means to adapt, whether it's moving away from the coastline (or away from the equator) or implementing green building techniques or even growing as much of our own food as possible (perhaps vertically in some cases). We have a much harder time still defining when our strategies and mode of life show no capacity to adapt at all—which seems curious. Isn’t it just the inverse? An inefficient non-green building that provides little shelter from a dramatically ch