“Climate change is no longer in the future — its impacts are upon us, already.”

So begins this Keeling Lecture featuring David Victor, an internationally recognized leader in research on energy and climate change policy.

With the inevitability of climate change, we now must consider adaptation. How will we deal with its effects socially? Politically? How can we help wildlife and plant life to adapt? Perhaps most importantly, what political changes should we start making today?

“We have become incredibly skilled at designing treaties precisely so that they have no impact,” says Victor. In many cases, while some countries have reduced their emissions “on paper,” they’ve essentially outsourced those emissions to other countries. (For example, steel produced in China that gets sent to the U.S.)

While attempts to improve carbon dioxide and other emissions have been made in the last 20-30 years, it hasn’t been nearly enough. In the last decade, emissions grew more rapidly than in any decade since 1970.

Watch this enlightening (and hopefully motivating) Charles David Keeling lecture, Getting Serious About Climate Change, with David Victor to learn more.