FUTURE HUMAN
Will Climate Change Remake Human Biology?
We may not be able to sweat our way through the heat
In 1980, a nuclear power plant in Forsmark, Sweden, began pumping cooling effluent from its reactors into “Biotest Lake,” a manmade, 84-hectare enclosed body of water jutting out from the Baltic Sea. Separated from its aquatic environs and featuring a habitat that was consistently some six to 10 degrees Celsius warmer than the surrounding Baltic, the lake provided, as one group of researchers put it, “an unprecedented model to examine the long-term physiological responses of temperate fishes facing a severe climate-warming scenario under ecologically realistic conditions.”¹
Some native species quickly disappeared from Biotest Lake,² while others persisted. The European perch, in particular, proved remarkably resilient. But it became clear that it was not the same fish it used to be. Biotest perch had apparently undergone some degree of genetic selection and physiological adaptation: These fish were larger than control specimens, had smaller organ masses, and, crucially, had a lower resting heart rate than control fish placed in a warmed environment.
The popular imagination, when thinking about climate change impacts, often focuses on sea-level rise and how coastal dwellers will adapt. The…
