The average global temperature is much higher and rising more rapidly than “anything modern civilization has experienced,” according to David Easterling, one of the authors of a new US government report that delivers a dire warning about our future. Thousands more could die, food will be scarcer, and the US economy could lose hundreds of billions of dollars — or, in the worst-case scenario, more than 10% of its GDP — by the end of the century.
In 2009, Jeff Denholm was making a living as an adventure athlete, competing in stand-up paddleboard races and riding giant waves at Mavericks, the famous surf break near his home in Santa Cruz, Calif. Denholm was sponsored by Patagonia Inc., but to generate extra cash—“Adventure athletes don’t make a ton of money,” he says—he had a side gig leasing a fire truck to state and county crews that had run out of equipment battling wildfires.
In a legal battle between a Californian tribe and the state’s water agencies, experts are seeing a turning point in the history of United States water rights, potentially affecting how water is controlled across the entire country. In November of last year, the Supreme Court declined to hear a case that the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians, concerned about the effects of climate change and the quality of the water in the aquifer, brought against the Coachella Valley Water District and the Desert Water Agency. This Supreme Court decision left standing a Ninth Circuit ruling, which established—for the first time—the principle that tribes have priority over their reservations’ groundwater.
In the bitter battle over the future of the California WaterFix Project, opponents recently scored a victory in their effort to stop the construction of Delta Tunnels. The development occurred when the Delta Stewardship Council (DSC) staff issued a preliminary finding stating that WaterFix, as it exists today, is inconsistent with the Delta Plan. Without a certificate of consistency, the Department of Water Resources (DWR) cannot move WaterFix forward.
A major weather pattern change has arrived on the West Coast, bringing relief for California’s wildfires and choking smoke, but it may also unleash enough rain to trigger dangerous debris flows in recently burned areas of the state. Northern California’s Camp Fire, the deadliest and most destructive wildfire on record in state history, is still not fully contained. Smoke from the fires has hung over millions, fouling air quality since last week in the Central Valley and Bay Area. Air quality has begun to improve but remains unhealthy for sensitive groups on Wednesday in the Central Valley of California.
Small water and sewer utilities in California will struggle to recover after wildfires, especially if they’re near wilderness areas or far from large cities, according to a new report from S&P Global Ratings. After major natural disasters in the state, utilities are typically required to front the costs of repairs and are only reimbursed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and state government afterward. Utilities in towns that are small or poor, on the edge of flammable wilderness, or far from a major city will have particular trouble in paying for those costs upfront or reestablishing service quickly so they can resume collecting revenue, according to the report by credit analyst Tim Tung.
In the not-too-distant future, disasters won’t come one at a time. Instead, according to new research, we can expect a cascade of catastrophes, some gradual, others abrupt, all compounding as climate change takes a greater toll. While all regions of the globe face compounding threats, the study cited California and Florida as two prime examples close to home. “Facing these climatic changes will be like getting into a fight with Mike Tyson, Schwarzenegger, Stallone, Jackie Chan — all at the same time.”
The rain that’s forecasted for later this week may give California some much-needed relief from the deadly and destructive wildfires plaguing the state. But too much sudden rainfall may pose its own dangers for land that has been burned. The National Weather Service has issued a flash flood watch for the Butte County area, which is fighting the Camp Fire, for Wednesday afternoon through Friday morning. The warning states that there’s a chance of heavy rain which could trigger “flash floods, rockslides and/or debris flows” in a areas near the fire.
As the Civil War raged, William Brewer, a young botanist from upstate New York, spent five years cataloging California’s natural attributes for its Legislature. As he and his crew traversed the state by mule in their annual sojourns, living off the land, Brewer found much to commend. But in letters to his brother, decades later assembled into a must-read book, “Up and Down California,” Brewer also wondered whether its climate would impede its development.
As rain moves closer to fire-ravaged communities in Northern California, federal search-and-rescue team member Brian Ferreira said the pressure was on to find remains of victims of the Camp Fire. Almost 700 people were reported missing, and at least 79 people are dead. “The material that we’re dealing with it’s heavily, you know, ash and soot, and when the water touches that, it kinda turns to sediment, almost like soil again,” Ferreira said. “It is kinda urgent, yeah, that we get through this as quick as we can.”
