While there is a recognised need to adapt to changing climatic conditions, there is an emerging discourse of limits to such adaptation. Limits are traditionally analysed as a set of immutable thresholds in biological, economic or technological parameters. This paper contends that limits to adaptation are endogenous to society and hence contingent on ethics, knowledge, attitudes to risk and culture. We review insights from history, sociology and psychology of risk, economics and political science to develop four propositions concerning limits to adaptation. First, any limits to adaptation depend on the ultimate goals of adaptation underpinned by diverse values. Second, adaptation need not be limited by uncertainty around future foresight of risk. Third, social and individual factors limit adaptation action. Fourth, systematic undervaluation of loss of places and culture disguises real, experienced but subjective limits to adaptation. We conclude that these issues of values and ethics, risk, knowledge and culture construct societal limits to adaptation, but that these limits are mutable.

Public understandings and perceptions of, as well as engagement with, climate change have garnered the interest of research and policy for almost three decades. A portion of this growing body of literature examines such perceptions in-depth, using largely qualitative methodologies, such as personal interviews, limited sample size surveys, focus groups, and case studies. This area of research has been conducted on different continents, with individuals of different cultural backgrounds and ethnic groups, and a variety of demographic characteristics. It has examined various aspects of the communication process, such as audience differences, influence of framing, messages and messengers, information processing, etc.). This paper focuses on this subset of the climate change literature, highlighting similarities and differences across cultural, social, and geographical landscapes. Apart from demographic and regional differences, this literature also offers more detailed insights into the effectiveness of different communication strategies and into the cognitive and psychological processes that underlie public opinions. These insights are generally not obtained through large-scale opinion surveys. Our review highlights great variation and sometimes direct contradiction between these pieces of research. This not only points to a need for further refinement in our knowledge of public understanding and engagement, but also simply to accept that no one theory will explain the variation in human experience of climate change and action in response to it.

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