Golis: Creating a climate for change

Nineteen months have passed since we last watered our front lawn. As you would expect, the scraggly remains won’t be featured in a garden magazine anytime soon. Hoping to pacify the neighbors, we posted a sign left over from the last drought. It reads: “Water Conservation - Doing Our Part.”

There is a drought on. You may have heard. We Californians find ourselves on an uncharted (and arid) landscape, where the economic losses will be measured in the billions of dollars and the environmental damages may be incalculable.

So - until it becomes something else - our weed patch will serve as our tiny contribution to a sustainable future.

Here’s the thing: In the midst of a catastrophic, four-year drought, the risks associated with climate change stop being theoretical.

Yes, people will argue about whether the current drought is caused by climate change, but what we know for sure is this: (1) scientists say extreme weather will be one of the impacts of the build-up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and (2) this drought is not like the others; it’s like nothing else in the recorded history of California.

Scientists and Sonoma County leaders came together last week to talk about efforts to forecast the impacts of climate change and to develop strategies for dealing with those impacts. Two hundred people attended the day-long forum on the campus of Sonoma State University.

In broad strokes, experts understand the risks. Research meteorologist Marty Ralph of the Scripps Institute of Oceanography said climate change would be characterized by “extreme events … with larger periods of drought in between.” In the midst of an historic drought, he noted, several Sonoma County communities experienced flooding from a December storm. How weird is that?

Climate models project average temperatures as much as 10 degrees higher, according to Lisa Micheli, executive director of the Pepperwood Preserve and one of the founders of the North Bay Climate Adaptation Initiative.

In more extreme heat, wildfires will become more frequent and dangerous.

And more days with extreme heat will place the most vulnerable populations - seniors, children, the disabled and low-income people - at risk. “We need to figure how to help these communities adapt and survive in the future,” said Supervisor Susan Gorin.

Of course, rising ocean and river levels also would threaten nearby residents and nearby public facilities.

Efforts to understand and catalog all the potential impacts remain a work in progress. How will a more extreme climate affect farm production, emergency services, land use? The list goes on.

In a room full of people dedicated to managing the impacts of climate change, I thought about the rest of us.

After all, these testimonies from scientists and government officials won’t mean anything unless we are willing to change how we live.

In Sonoma County and in California, most people recognize the need to make changes, but saying and doing aren’t the same thing.

Are you OK with ripping out your front lawn? Are you ready to move on from that gas guzzler? Notwithstanding the weed patch in our front yard, we still use more water than we should.

California may be leading the way, but last week’s drought news reminds us that many California communities and more than a few farmers continue their old wasteful ways.

The news of the drought still hasn’t reached many elite communities in Southern California.

On a national level, the story is different.

“While (Californians) are leading by example,” said Josh Fryday, chief operating officer of NextGen Climate, the activist group founded by billionaire Tom Steyer, “our national conversation and our political leadership leaves much to be desired.”

Many politicians continue to pander to interest groups that want to pretend that climate change is only a theory.

The funny thing is, we shouldn’t need extra incentives to conserve water, reduce energy consumption, cut down on air pollution and escape our dependence on foreign sources of energy.

“Many of these things we need to do, we should do anyway,” said Suzanne Smith, executive director of the Sonoma County Transportation Authority and the Regional Climate Protection Authority.

Meanwhile, the buzz in the backs of our brains is the fear that the drought may go on for another year.

We live in an era that seems to celebrate its shortsightedness. Who cares if the next generation of taxpayers faces a mountain of debt? Why bother to pay taxes to support the universities, freeways and water systems that brought us prosperity in the first place? Why worry that groundwater resources may be depleted?

As we understand the consequences of doing nothing, our response to climate change becomes the latest test of our willingness to give a damn about the world we pass down to our children and grandchildren.

Pete Golis is a columnist for The Press Democrat. Email him at golispd@gmail.com.