Climate Suffering

Mitigation and adaptation represent the two main ways the world is responding to climate change. However, a third response is being practiced by the most vulnerable: widespread suffering. No matter how much we mitigate or adapt to climate change, pervasive suffering is inevitable. In fact, it is already being experienced throughout the world. This article reports on interviews conducted with subsistence farmers living on the frontlines of climate change in northern India in the spring of 2013. It relates the ways in which sustained drought and then punishing rains wreaked hardship on the farmers, and the ways farmers endured such challenges. By relating farmers’ tales and describing how this experience personally influenced the researcher, the article offers and invites reflection on the many meanings of climate suffering.