How much fundamental difference does this actually make? Ding Diamond for spinning things into the most emotionally graphic scenario ("they refused to adapt and all died off"), but from my limited memories of the book and a bit of common sense, I'd think the fundamental point should be that climate change can force societies to change drastically or leave. The article says "they left", but also that they left because of climate change, and didn't turn into Inuit.

After all, there's nowhere realistic for us to go from Earth. All we can do is change, in a controlled or uncontrolled fashion...