This article proposes the concept of "perverse adaptation", where one actor or institution's adaptation to climate change in fact produces aftershocks and secondary impacts upon other groups. Drawing on ethnographic and sociolinguistic research in northern Arizona regarding artificial snowmaking at a ski resort on a sacred mountain, the author elucidates resort supporters' and others' attempts to frame snowmaking as a sustainable adaptation to drought (and, implicitly, climate change) while counterpoising these framings with narratives from local activists as well as Diné (Navajo) individuals.

The authors of the article conducted a collaborative ethnography at a tertiary care center during the acute phase of the response to the threat of COVID-19. they found that COVID-19 exacerbated pre-existing tensions and threats to the core values of emergency medicine.