Unless and until we understand the difference between natural disasters and climate disasters there will not be the kind of action necessary to stop climate change, a global phenomenon.
The 5.1-magnitude earthquake on Aug. 20 was a natural disaster. In other words, it occurred without any input from our changing climate.
The “atmospheric rivers” of rain last winter and the recent hurricane/tropical storm that struck Southern California were climate disasters.
These are two entirely different kinds of things. One, earthquakes, have been occurring over the Earth’s history, the other is a “new” existential threat to life as we’ve known it.
The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has repeatedly warned that “climate change is a grave and mounting threat to our well being and a healthy planet … To avoid mounting loss of life, biodiversity and infrastructure, ambitious, accelerated action is required to adapt to climate change, at the same time as making rapid, deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.”
Perhaps the best way to understand the distinction between climate and natural disasters is to consider that the kind of climate change adaptation the IPCC warned about involves adjusting to a new set of conditions that include a warmer planet, higher sea levels, unprecedented extreme storms, droughts and human displacements.
Disaster risk reduction, on the other hand, is focused on reducing the risk of natural hazards without transforming society to adapt to a specific environmental change, e.g. reduction of fossil fuel emissions, which emit 33,621.5 million metric tons of CO2 annually, causing our atmosphere to dangerously overheat.
Tropical storm Hilary was the latest climate-related disaster to wreak havoc in the United States, Mexico and Canada.
The storm shattered daily rain records in San Diego and dumped the equivalent of a full year’s worth of rain on Death Valley National Park, closing the park indefinitely.
Moreover, Maui is still reeling from a wildfire being driven by hurricane-force winds that killed more than 100 people, making it the deadliest U.S. wildfire in more than a century.
And, firefighters in Canada are battling that nation’s worst wildfire season on record.
These are not natural disasters; they are climate disasters.
Santa Barbarans are among those working to stop climate change by personal actions that include moving toward 100% renewable energy and carbon-free electricity, reduced usage of oil and natural gas, accelerated adoption of electrified buildings and vehicles, et al.
But these personal actions, while necessary and very important, will not by themselves stop climate change, which remains 13th on Americans’ list of policy priorities.
The global scope of climate change and the fact that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, once released into the atmosphere, are not contained in the local area of their emission means we must distinguish between natural disasters and climate disasters if we are ever to reach the kind of critical mass necessary to address global warming.
Equating the two is yet another kind of climate denialism.
There is an army of climate activists out there who understand the climate threat.
Four in 10 Americans say they are environmentalists concerned about climate change. Majorities in most countries say climate change is a major threat to their countries, including Greece 90%, South Korea 86%, France 83%, Spain 81% and Mexico 80%.
Youth around the planet routinely engage in climate strikes. They need to be organized into collective action.
The California Supreme Court has acknowledged this need for collective/cumulative action in the fight against climate change.
In Cleveland National Forest Foundation v. San Diego Association of Governments, the court declared in 2017, “With respect to climate change, an individual project’s emissions will most likely not have any appreciable impact on the global problem by themselves, but they will contribute to the significant cumulative impact caused by greenhouse gas emissions from other sources around the globe.”
In the first instance, this requires distinguishing between climate and natural disasters.