We are now living in the hottest year on record and will reach the 1.5C (2F) “tipping point” in the next decade.
For me it’s as if we’re living in the movie, Don’t Look Up, in which the world ignores a coming comet that destroys the world.
The recent U.N. Climate Change Conference (COP 28) in Dubai, with the head of the United Arab Emirates’ natural gas and oil corporation as the host, was itself an oxymoron.
Listening to him say “there’s no science” behind the push to phase out fossil fuels is really all you have to do to cause you to “look UP!”
If you need to know more, consider what U.N. Secretary General António Guterres said at the same conference: “The science is clear. The 1.5 degree (2.7 degree F) limit is only possible if we ultimately stop burning fossil fuels — not reduce, not abate, (but) phase out with a clear time frame aligned with 1.5 degrees.”
Still more? There were 2,456 oil lobbyists registered for the conference along with ExxonMobil’s CEO presenting unproven technical solutions like carbon capture and storage as THE answer to global warming.
If we are ever to get a handle on climate change, we must understand that it is a “game changer,” changing everything we thought we knew about our dependence on and use of the environment.
It’s not just understanding that fossil fuel emissions are warming our atmosphere to the danger level. It’s being clear that this is impacting all of the environmental resources and services we need to survive — including water.
While we live on a water planet (70% ocean), only 3% is fresh water.
2.5% of that fresh water is unavailable. It is locked up in melting glaciers and polar ice caps, or lies too far under the earth’s surface to be extracted at an affordable cost.
That leaves 0.5% of the earth’s fresh water available for a planet with a population of 8.1 billion people.
Drought is one of climate change’s signatures. The severe drought California experienced from 2012 to 2016 was not only part of a much wider 20-year climate change-related phenomenon extending regionally throughout the Southwest, it was caused by climate change, which means fossil fuel emissions.
Despite the “atmospheric rivers” of rain that the Pacific Northwest is now experiencing or those that we in Santa Barbara County experienced last year, we cannot assume that we are now immune from drought.
Granted, there have been substantial improvements in drought conditions throughout California and the Southwest.
However, pronouncements that the drought is over, and Santa Barbara removing stage two water restrictions, are premature.
Currently, 74% of the Western United States is experiencing moderate drought, 18% is experiencing extreme drought, and there are pockets of exceptional drought in the San Joaquin Valley, central Oregon and central Utah.
As we are now living in the hottest year ever recorded, it would be reasonable to assume that drought conditions will become worse in California and the West with the winter forecast beginning on a hot dry note.
Southern California, including Santa Barbara County, is dependent on imported water.
Los Angeles imports more than 85% of its water, Orange County 50% and San Diego 80%.
Sant Barbara County imports 12% of our water. This water comes from both the State Water Project, i.e. the Sierra snowpack and the Colorado River.
The State Water Project water is shared with 25 million Californians. Colorado River water is shared with 40 million people throughout the Southwest and Mexico.
This water is not drought proof. It is dependent on rain, snow and climate change. A hotter environment means less snow and water, and therefore less water to Southern California.
There are only three kinds of drought-proof water: conservation, recycled water and desalinated seawater.
Santa Barbara’s conservation water is 9% of our supply. Our recycled water, which is not potable, is 4%, and our desalination plant provides us with 30% of our water.
The majority of our water (37%) is stored in Lake Cachuma. It is surface water and is not drought proof. Cachuma is “filled” from a variety of sources, including the Santa Ynez River, rain, runoff and a mix of State Water and Colorado River water, when it is available.
Cachuma’s water is legally shared with Carpinteria, Goleta, Montecito, the Santa Ynez Valley, endangered steelhead trout, and some 38,000 acres of downstream agricultural lands.
So, in our semi-arid desert environment, in the midst of the hottest year on record, why are we lifting stage two water restrictions (shut off nozzles for hoses, refraining from hosing down hard surfaces with potable water, only irrigating between 6 p.m. and 8 a.m., irrigating only between 6 p.m. and 8 a.m., and banning potable water from irrigating ornamental grasses)?
Climate change is crashing down on us. The world is not reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
What we should be doing is creating more drought-proof water that would include conservation and water restrictions, recycling and treating our sewage water to potable standards, stormwater capture, and an explanation to our citizens of why stage two (if not stage three drought notices in public spaces) water restrictions must remain in place.
This is needed because climate change has created a “new normal” wherein our fresh water supplies have become threatened and limited.