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Trains now on Uber. T's and C's apply check the Uber app. humans have been adapting to our environment as long as we've been around.

It's how we've settled everywhere from the bitter cold Arctic to the scorching desert heat.

But with heat waves, storms, and other extreme... cold Arctic to the scorching desert heat.

But with heat waves, storms, and other extreme events

fueled by our rapidly changing climate,

we're having to adapt on a scale

we've never experienced before.

And the choices we make and how we adapt can sometimes come back to bite us.

As in the case of embankments built in Monkamadesh, that were supposed to stop floods but have made them worse.

Or they can lull us into a false sense of security, as in the case of sea walls in Japan that were no match for the 2011 tsunami.

This is science quickly. I'm Andrea Thompson, Scientific Americans news editor for Earth and environment.

Even our best intentions have unintended consequences and when looking at past mistakes, as journalist Stephen Robert Miller does in his new book, over the sea wall, tsunami, cyclones, drought, and the delusion of controlling nature.

It's clear that the more we try to hold nature in our grip, the more damage we ultimately do.

Miller joins us to talk about what he learned in his reporting about these maladaptations,

and what they can tell us about the potential pitfalls of adapting to climate change.

Hi Stephen, thank you for speaking with us.

Thanks for having me on, I appreciate it.

To start, can you briefly tell us about one or two of the maladaptations that you write about in your book and how they may have yielded some short-term success that came with long-term consequences.

Sure, I'll kind of bookend it, I think, with the three case studies, I'll talk about the first and the last.

The first one takes place in Japan, and it has to do with the tsunami that hit in 2011 that killed something like 20,000 people.

...