Dear Abhinaya,

There is no magic bullet. Unfortunately, governments invest rather into military but not for helping slum communities. These society layers should become accustomed to the changed circumstances as everybody should. However, they are in an extremely bad situation. The best way would be continuous education but this is a long and slow way!

Climate change is a product of over industrialisation of developed and developing countries, not the result of the subsistence-livelihood based actions of poor communities which are largely close-to-nature..

But unfortunately these poor communities face the brunt of climate change, due to their proximity to natural living. Their lifestyle itself is a mix of innovation and ingenuity for survival. The best help is self-help.

Innovative ways to adapt to climate change in poor communities of developing countries could be:

1. Food: First increase food security by investing in long term measures; Kitchen Garden, Backyard fishponds, Bee culture, Domestic animals, Horticulture, Olericulture, barter instead of currency exchange-Getting back to basics. When food supply is assured thus, wider and bigger things can be considered.

2. Water: Check dams to recharge ground water, desilting ponds, rain water harvesting measures,

3. Flora: Raising water friendly tree species, Raising high-demand crops on small land holdings for urban markets.

4. Fauna: Encourage mini-ecosystems with wider range of species to ensure resilience through richness in biodiversity. Creating conditions for various species to breed and propagate, which can than be harvested at sustainable rates.

5. Education: Attitude change is the single most effective factor which can make or break a community's will to survive. Therefore education should be a high priority goal,even in times of hardship. Education means the capacity and maturity to put responsibilities over rights, differentiate between short and long term investments, needs over luxuries, putting the community before the "I".

6. Co-operatives: Pooling resources with similar communities and individuals can alleviate hardship in times of scarce resources.

7. Political: Good leaders are to be encouraged to lead by personal example. This will also safeguard the community against exploitation by middle men and outsiders who have no stake in the community's well being. Ordinary community members should be informed of their rights and resist urban-centred mega projects which do not give much back to the community except for grabbing their land and other resources in the name of 'development'.

8. Understand the negative effects of consumerism, urbanism, mindless entertainment

9. Take measures to keep the community together by promoting Culture, Language, Religion and nature friendly way of life.

Hope this helps.

Appropriate crop selection (drought or flood tolerant rice), soil and water conservation, fish farming in flood prone areas, use indigenous knowledge to develop local specific and long term adaptation strategies, diversification of crops. In Nepal, perhaps integrated farming would be an option for poor farmers. Awareness and education of local communities and grassroots people, including women on climate change adaptation (water, food and health security) would be vital

I quite agree with most points raised by Raveendra Yasarapu, but strongly disagree with the part "Climate change is a product of over industrialisation of developed and developing countries". The climate has being in a continual change throughout geologic time (its a natural thing), and there had been far worse extreme weather occurrence even before the industrial revolution. Linking climate change to anthropogenic activities, industrialisation as the case may be, wont do justice to the phenomenon.

Climate Change adaptation has so many facets. Now when you talk of poor communities in developing countries you also pooled everything together. Considering Climate Change effects, we have excessive rain resulting into flooding or excessive dry periods resulting into drought, all these have negative effects to the referred poor communities. I would like to suggest that you focus your question into the right angle you would like this discussion to take than just leaving it so open like it is now

Raveendra has nicely summarized various directions of action. As Masuki suggests, it would be more helpful to specify which communities in what region, since vulnerability assessments and adaptation strategies would depend upon the particular environment, natural resources, climate, livelihoods and social structures in place. In general, though, safeguarding water and food security are perhaps the most fundamental tasks when addressing climate change. The increased uncertainty in rainfall incidence and distribution spurs the need for water storage at the community and household level, as well as crop diversification. Protecting catchment forests/wetlands is also critical to buffer rural communities from climate uncertainty. Other aspects such as danger of landslides, flooding, fire and water-borne illnesses are more location-specific. The classic approach is to have village community meetings along with govt personnel, NGOs and other stakeholders, to dicuss CC threats and devise a set of possible adaptative measures.

Hi Adeoluwa,

Climate change MIGHT not be linked to Anthropogenic activities like you say, and MIGHT be a natural part of change. And agreed that there have been worser extremes in climate before.

Let us assume for a moment that both are not linked in any way.

If not for climate change, please explain what are the effects of industrialization and the related depletion of resources? How would you explain "Acid Rain" in Europe and the fact that it ended when polluting industries took corrective measures?

Can we merrily industrialize more knowing that it doesnt affect climate change in any way? Isnt this simply absolving human excesses from their repercussions, mainly resource depletion keeping natural resources beyond the reach of poor communities?

Industrialisation not contributing to Climate change might be a moot point, but the effects of industrialisation on poor climates is clear, even if indirect.

Views invited.

Sir, i think you are getting it all mixed up. i see no relationship between "acid rain" occurrence and "climate change". AGREED, the acid rain might have been a result of industrialization. But when you talk of "climate change", then you are talking of "prolonged shift/variation from the mean state of the climate. Anthropogenic activities/industrialization may have amplified the effect of climate change rather than being the cause.

And to answer your question on the effect of industrialization; global warming, acid rain, environmental pollution(land, water and air).

Yes, we can merrily industrialize more, provided we put in place the necessary measures to curb/mitigate the effect of such industrialization; greening(afforestation), emmission control, etc.

"> I strongly share this view.

I also share the view that more discuss has to be done on this issue

The evaluation of traditional knowledge, as households innovate to address the shocks and do adjustment time to time. That is these are dynamic process. These can be assessed by empirical studies at household/community level data collection and then identifying the key features.

livelihood integrated approach is the  advisable  way. This will include all the main players and actors in the target area.