I think that our top levels of government world wide are well informed of the exponential excalation of changes we can see forthcoming and many have been positioning for that. People need to understand that the positive feedbacks increasing greenhouses gases with methane release and increasing loss of ice reflecting heat absorption have already triggered a dramatic swing that we might not be able to prevent but anything we can do now may mitigate the outcome for life on earth, such as phasing out the old nuclear reactor technology presently being capitalized on for meeting energy demands . I think that particular short term thinking is the most threatening thing to life on earth. I see the Canadian immigration policy is giving special consideration to those with farming skills and have read reports that Canadas mass and water will be eyed for production capabilities and as we see now, just because we produce it does not mean that we do not have to compete with the world market to buy product . Yes I absolutely think that the coming climate changes are drivers in many other social and economic upsets we are seeing excalating and we are already seeing repeat 'record' situations occuring . I have said before a big wild card I personally do not understand in climate change is when the ocean currents change , as they are driven by saline and fresh water reactions at the poles. I also have some trepidation about how fast acidification in our ocean and water cycle starts to affect world food supplies. We live in the most amazingly intricate web of life and yes I believe we are going to see drastic changes in many ways within this century .

Our lives are too short to see normal cyclic fluctuations in climate.
There were decades in the early 1900's when it was warm with less snow. In the 70's it was all about the coming ice age and we had tons more snow than we do now down here. I don't buy man made climate change just yet.
I'm pretty sure we'll pollute ourselves to death before the sea levels rise too far.

Perfesser, I really think we need to be thinking outside the box and being very careful what assumptions we base our decisions on . Sea level rise is sort of a symptom, not the ultimate threat . Your idea that our lives are too short to see normal cyclic fluctuations in climate may be true, that is until positive reinforcing feedbacks start exponential changes ? What was previously thought to transpire over tens of thousands of years is now suspected to be far more immediate and we might want to read and consider the other theory carefully :

http://phys.org/news/2013-10-climate-geological-instant.html

Let's hope that theory is dispelled as inaccurate but if isn't, well then we certainly will be living in interesting times.