Several times in recent years, this newspaper has called attention to the hazards of a warming climate. The risks are increasing locally, nationally and globally, and the world must cut back on greenhouse gas emissions. Today, carbon dioxide, the most abundant greenhouse gas, is present in our atmosphere in concentrations of about 420 parts per million, rising a little each year. These are levels not seen since the Pliocene epoch more than 4 million years ago when sea levels were at least 20 feet higher than they are today. That kind of ocean rise is enough to inundate nearly all the world’s coastal cities.
Ocean rise is only one of the threats posed by climate change. More destructive winds, rain “bombs,” more deadly hot spells, more catastrophic wildfires – they’re all in our future if we can’t get greenhouse gases under control.
“But wait!” says a climate authority who spoke not long ago to an audience at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. These destructive events aren’t only in our future. They have already started. They’ll get worse if we can’t stabilize the climate, but we shouldn’t imagine they haven’t already started.
The climate speaker was Alice Hill of the Council on Foreign Relations, a former California prosecutor and judge who moved to Washington to join the Obama Administration’s Department of Homeland Security and National Security Council. Hill’s book, “The Fight for Climate after COVID-19,” outlines both her personal experience and the risk that the world faces from climate change. Among her conclusions: Increasing warming is built into the climate because we have put so much greenhouse gas into the atmosphere already. Earth is already experiencing damage. We not only have to take action to cut emissions for the sake of the future, but we must also start now to create resilience against today’s more dangerous world. Planners often assume the future will resemble the past, but that’s not justifiable in the case of climate change. The storms will be stronger, the rains will fall harder, the heatwaves will be more intense, the wildfires will burn hotter and longer, new kinds of microbes may spread into regions that have never seen them before. Local efforts will be essential for success, but regional and national planning and coordination, along with performance monitoring, will be required to ensure fairness and efficiency.
There are no magic bullets to solve the long and short term climate problems, but prompt government action is essential. The longer we delay, the higher and more dangerous the climate hurdles we will face. As Hill writes, we need a national adaptation plan to improve disaster response, prioritize public investment and identify both research needs and meaningful markers of progress. We need resilient building codes and standards that can protect against the more powerful consequences of a warmer world.
We must not wait for catastrophe to strike to start the process. All of us can play a part, and the Tri Valley with its powerful scientific and technical resources can help lead the way. Watch The Independent for future descriptions of projects aimed at making society more resilient now while reducing future greenhouse gas emissions.
