When it Comes to Climate-Change Adaptation, As Goes California, So Goes …the World

It’s almost biblical: Apocalyptic images of fires sweeping through communities. The worst droughts in recorded history, followed by floods overwhelming dams and levees. Homeless encampments. Power outages for millions of people. Is this the “end of California as we know it” and the result of a “failure to live sustainably” as New York Times opinion writer Farhad Manjoo suggested? Is the state “ungovernable” (the Economist) and a failed, “collapsing” experiment (Forbes)? Are we suffering the inevitable consequence, as some right-wing pundits have gloated, of a “series of foolish, unrealistic policy choices” (Rich Lowry, National Review) and democratic attempts at social engineering (Travis Allen, San Francisco Chronicle) ? In another era, Joan Didion poetically described a future in California that “always looks good in the golden land, because no one remembers the past. Here is where the hot wind blows and the old ways do not seem relevant.” That hot wind is still blowing, now spreading burning embers that threaten to consume us all. Californians remember the past only enough to understand how it has failed us and that it can no longer be a guide to our future. What we thought we understood about yesterday’s climate, energy and water systems, housing, transportation, and education, no longer serves us. But the idea that California’s failures and challenges are unique is wrong. What&rsqu...
Source: TIME: Science - Category: Science Authors: Tags: Uncategorized climate change Source Type: news