Giving Compass' Take:

• Robinson Meyer explains how every ecosystem on earth will be impacted by the changing climate, leaving communities around the world in need of solutions. 

• How can funders help communities prepare for climate change? 

• The Swinomish people of the Pacific Northwest created a climate adaption action plan that can be used as a model for other communities. 

If climate change continues unabated, nearly every ecosystem on the planet would alter dramatically, to the point of becoming an entirely new biome, according to a new paper written by 42 scientists from around the world.

They warn that the changes of the next 200 years could equal—and may likely exceed—those seen over the 10,000 years that ended the last Ice Age. If humanity does not stop emitting greenhouse-gas emissions, the character of the land could metamorphose: Oak forest could become grassland. Evergreen woods could turn deciduous. And, of course, beaches would sink into the sea.

“Anywhere on the globe, the more you change climate, the more likely you are to see major ecological change,” says Stephen Jackson, an author of the report and the director of a climate-adaptation center at the U.S. Geological Survey.

“Having this kind of change occur at such a massive scale in such a short period of time is going to create unprecedented challenges for natural-resource management,” he told me.

Read the full article on climate change by Robinson Meyer at The Atlantic.