In real life, the 2011 paper explained, humans “adapt proactively,” and “such adaptation can greatly reduce the possible impacts.” When adaptation is taken into account, the authors showed, “the problem of environmental refugees almost disappears.” Furthermore, “the main consequence of a large rise in sea level is a larger investment in protection infrastructure” and “it is incorrect to automatically assume a global-scale population displacement owing to a large rise in sea level.” Under realistic assumptions, the number of people displaced in an extreme scenario of high sea level rise falls
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