Adaptation Is Not A "Trap"

I don’t understand how someone can call himself a climate change “pragmatic” and entirely dismiss the need for adaptation.

Let me see if I get Joe Romm’s logic right:

The tragedy of Katrina demonstrated that we can’t do adaptation, so why bother?

I understand that Romm and many other climate advocates regard talk of adaptation as a bait and switch tactic, but it’s not responsible. Or pragmatic. A more reasonable position would be that of this commenter at Climate Progress:

The top priority should clearly be preventing and mitigating further climate change, but aren’t we at a point where preparation for and adaptation to climate change is also necessary? My understanding is that there’s quite a bit of climate change already “in the pipeline”, based on past emissions which we cannot take back.