Paw'd Defiance
Paw'd Defiance
Climate Change in the Pacific Northwest
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Warmer temperatures and rising sea levels are only part of the story when it comes to climate change in the Pacific Northwest. Decreased mountain snow pack could lead to drought and more wildfires. On the flip side, heavy rains may lead to more frequent and intense flooding. We'll talk about the local impact of climate change and climate resiliency
with the University of Washington's Amy Snover. Snover serves as both director of the Climate Impacts Group and university director of the Northwest Climate Adaptation Science Center. She is also an affiliate associate professor. Joining us in the conversation is UW Tacoma Senior Lecturer Ellen Moore.
Many of the consequences of climate change are going to be pushing on our sore spots, making things that are already hard for us, worse
Speaker 2from UDaB Tacoma. This is pod defiance. Welcome to pod defiance where we don't lecture, but we do educate. I'm your host Sarah Smith and today on the pod the impacts of climate change on the Pacific Northwest with dr Amy snubber from the university of Washington. Dr snubber is the director of YouTube's climate impacts group. She's also the university director of the Northwest climate adaptation science center. Joining us in the conversation is UDaB Tacoma, senior lecturer, Alan Moore , Dr. Moore studies media including how climate and the environment are presented by news outlets and the larger world of pop culture. She's also a member of UDaB Tacoma's chancellor's advisory committee on sustainability. Dr snowbird, Dr. Moore and I will discuss how climate change will impact us locally as well as the idea of climate resilience, which is the ability to anticipate, prepare for and respond to hazardous events. Well, hello everyone and welcome to pod defiance, the podcast for the university of Washington Tacoma. I'm Sara Smith . I am a student here at the university of Washington, Tacoma and the communications major. And we're joined today by Dr. Amy Snow over and senior lecturer Ellen Moore . Welcome to you both. Amy, I would love to start with with you, dr [inaudible] . Um, could you please briefly introduce yourself and just tell us a little bit about what you do?
Speaker 1Yes. I , uh, so my name again is Amy Snow over and I'm here at university of Washington in Seattle where I am the director of the climate impacts group. I'm also the university director of the Northwest climate adaptation science center, which is in department of the interior climate adaptation science center, one of the eight in the country. And I'm also a affiliate associate professor in the UWU school of Marine and environmental affairs. Great. So can you ,
Speaker 2um, start off by just telling us a little bit about , uh, the UDaB climate impacts group.
Speaker 1The climate impacts group , uh , was founded in 1995 and we have been working since then, so almost 25 years to understand and help the region prepare for and cope with , uh , the impacts of both climate variability and change. So when we talk about climate change, there are sort of two sides to the coin. There's the side of, you know, slowing or stopping or reversing the problem by reducing greenhouse gas emissions for example. And then there's also a, unfortunately the other side of the coin where , uh, because of past greenhouse gas emissions and our current emissions, we've already set some climate change in motion and enough that it will have impacts right here in the Northwest. So the climate impacts group , um, works to sort of translate, you know, big , um, anonymous global science into local impacts, local consequences. And we have the mission of helping the region develop climate resilience. And we do that by advancing awareness and understanding of climate risks. We also work closely with public and private entities across the region to apply this information as they act to shape our future. So can you describe a little bit the term climate resiliency? Yeah. So climate resilience or resiliency refers to our ability, our as in society and you know, the ecosystems that we depend on. So it refers to our ability to thrive in the face of changing conditions. Say a more specifically, it's about um, evaluating our and improving our ability to prepare for climate changes, to cope with climate changes when they occur. And then to adjust and respond to , um, changes in a way where the quality of our ecosystems, our lives and our livelihoods are not diminished and hopefully improved . So climate resilience , shorthand, right , is dealing with a change in a , in a way that , um, we're going to be happy with that . And it has all those details about preparing for coping with responding to , um , because climate change will continue to unfold. So part of it is being ready and part of it is dealing with it when it happens.
Speaker 3Amy, this is Ellen and I had a followup question for you. When it comes to life in the Pacific Northwest, what would we need to be, this is going to sound like an oddly phrased question, but how would we need to adapt to what changing conditions specifically do you anticipate that we would need to adapt and uh, be resilient for?
Speaker 1Yeah. Climate change , uh , will unfold in many different ways across the Northwest. And um, you know, it's, I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that every part of the region and every sector of our economy in every community will be affected in some way. So the main things , if we sort of trace the impacts as we think about what we know, climate change is going to cause warmer temperatures, right? It already is in fact. And um, so we're likely to see, you know, sort of average temperatures, the 2050s warmer than the warmest years of the previous a hundred years. So we can trace through them the impacts of increased temperatures and there's a lot of them. A major one is decreasing our mountain snowpack. We depend a lot on mountain snowpack , uh , for drinking water, for water, for farms and towns, for water, for fish, and also water to feed the eat forest ecosystems of the region. So when it gets warmer, there'll be less snow, right? It'll still be precipitating in the winter, but it'll be coming more as rain and less this snow. So that means higher river flows in me and likely higher floods, especially West of the cascades in the fall and early winter. It means lower snow pack . So that's, you know, a problem from, as I said, you know, we might care about skiing or we might care about summer water supply for irrigation and all other things. Um, and uh , so increased , uh , droughts as well as floods. So that's just one example of like specifically tracing the increase temperature, the warming through snowpack , but maybe a shorter way of saying this is climate change is going to , um, give us more water when we don't want it during floody wet times, less water when we do want it during dry summer periods, for example, we also are expecting C-level to continue increasing, so that'll cause increased flooding. And in addition, along the coastal areas, erosion , um, we have lots of ecological changes that we expect impacts on human health. Uh, and then as we keep tracing these impacts, we see that they're super important for, you know, the essential systems that we depend on, like our transportation infrastructure or our power infrastructure. We've , uh , been experiencing a lot of wildfires in previous years. Luckily for our region, this past year wasn't particularly bad, but climate change is going to increase the risk, the frequency, the size of a wildfires across the Northwest. So it's a very long list and I could keep going. But I think the , the simple thing to remember is that our ecosystems that are in this region developed under a previous climate. Our communities were built under a previous climate. We built our roads and bridges with an expectation of a different climate. So under almost anything we can find a climate relationship. And that's the concern is that the climate is changing and will disrupt all of those systems that are based on a previous climate. Yeah. And that sort of led into my next question was what sort of , um, impacts are going to see in metropolitan areas like Seattle and Tacoma? Um, and the cities in the, in the Pacific Northwest. You touched on that a little bit about , uh, our , our cities being built under a different , um, I guess expectation of what our climate looks like. Um, do you have any idea of what we're going to see? Um, well, I guess what we're seeing now and what we're going to see in the near future. Yeah, I do. So, you know, climate change will unfold or affect our cities or metropolitan areas through both changes that happen right there in the city. And through, you know, the way that climate change affects everything, the city depends on. So, you know, local impacts are, we expect , um, climate change will bring heavier rainstorms. So when it rains hard, it'll rain harder. Uh , or you could think about heavier rainstorms happening more often. So that's an issue for storm water management. Um, for, you know, the way we manage actually storm water both locally, you know , within a neighborhood. And then , um, in terms of it's released , uh , Puget sound, sea level rise affect our coastal areas. And so that's everything from, you know, homes to railroads, to parks, to infrastructure like wastewater treatment plants. All of those are located along our shorelines . Uh, we expect more, you know, heat events , um, heat waves. So , uh , that is, can be particularly stressful for especially elderly super young or , um, otherwise, you know, ill populations. And then we can think about , uh, impacts that will come from outside the city. Right. So I mentioned increase frequency of wildfires and we have experienced a couple of years ago quite bad , uh , smoke in the Puget sound metropolitan areas that were not really , uh, used to seeing. It's pretty common East of the mountains, but we're not used to it here. And so, you know , we just expect as wildfire frequency increases not only in Washington, but in Oregon, in British Columbia, and as we see in California that all of that will affect our air quality. So , um, you know, there again, there's more I could say more, but that just gives you a sense maybe of some of the particular things that , um, folks are thinking about.
Speaker 3Amy, this is Ellen again. And you had just mentioned California. And I know that California has been in the news , uh , because of course all of the wildfires, the blackouts and, and everything associated with that . My question is a lot of people have been saying, well, California's us in 10 or 20 years. What would you say to that? I know that we're a unique area, but is, are there some trends that are discernible?
Speaker 1I think there's a lot that we can learn from what's happening in California. Um, and in some ways, you know, California is like a mirror forward or a window into the future. I think that, you know , um, wildfires in California are pretty terrifying right now. Uh , they're happening because of a combination of factors, both sort of no normal patterns of wildfire in wins but exacerbated bypass decisions , um, in some of those forests potentially about, you know, fire management , um, but also exacerbated by, you know , uh , hotter temperatures and drier drier fuels. So that's the same kind of thing that will drive increased wildfire in Washington state in particular on the East side. Um, although we also expect wildfire risks to increase on the West side. You know, there's lots of other things going on in California around climate change , um, around there , um, attempts to cope with sea level rise in the San Francisco Bay area , um, in their really hard work they're trying to do to recover endangered salmon as the streams get drier and hotter in the summers. So there's lots of things. We have a lot of commonalities in terms of the impacts and changes we might expect. Um, and also I think the, we can learn a lot of lessons from seeing, you know, the vast stream in on public resources. The , at these conditions create the, I mean we just see the , um, difficulties that utilities are having and the difficulties, you know, local and state and federal government is having responding to these fires. All of those things are part of the reason that I think folks are very rightly concerned about the impacts of climate change and , uh , wanting to make sure we're dealing with them. So dr [inaudible] , you were one of the lead authors for the Washington, Oregon and Idaho section of the 2014 national climate assessment report. Can you give us a little background about, about what the report is and who puts together , um , what it's used for? Yes. The , uh, there's a congressional , uh, congressionally mandated , um, requirement for the U S government to put together a national climate assessment on a periodic basis. It's meant to, you know , summarize what we understand about how climate is changing in the nation. How , uh, what we expect to see in the nation and across, you know, as a whole and then in specific regions and for specific sectors and to help , uh, inform decision making to address those issues. And so , um, for the 2014 , um, national climate assessment, as you said, I was one of the lead authors for the chapter on the Northwest. And so we were part of, I think there were maybe eight of us, I don't remember exactly, but there were 20 to 30 chapters , um , in the national climate assessment. So one for every region of the nation, one for lots of important sectors of the economy , um, and our environment. So for example, coasts are water resources, transportation, they were , um, and then , uh , some other overarching , um, chapters. And so if you imagine each of those have eight or so authors, there were a lot of us involved in writing these assessment reports or the chapters for the report. And so our job was to look at what we knew, what had been published in the scientific literature, what scientific observations had been made, and also to formulate a report that was not just a dry recitation of observations and model results, but to talk about the ways that climate change is unfolding and is expected to unfold in ways that are relevant for , um, decision makers or planners or resource managers. And so the chapter teams actually had combinations of folks. We weren't all scientists. We also had water resource managers and folks from NGOs and , um, folks from the business community , uh, on different chapters. So it's a, it's a big effort of a rapport. You know, it's a federal rapport where we essentially all volunteered our time to work for, I don't remember, a couple of years , a year and a half , um, to review the state of knowledge, to write a concise and yet dance chapter two, the chapter was sent, the whole report was sent out for public review and for review by the national academies of sciences. And then we needed to reply or respond one by one to every review comment. And justify our response. Lots of hurdles, lots of steps in order to produce a document that you know, was very fully vetted and reviewed and very credible. So these come out, you know, every four or five years and just last Thanksgiving. So , uh, it was actually the day after Thanksgiving, black Friday of 2018 , uh, the most recent national climate assessment was released. Um, so that was uh , a great update , uh, for the Northwest talking about , uh, the way that climate change will continue to affect , you know, our region and the things we care about here. I wasn't an author on the most recent one, but , um, one of my colleagues here at the climate impacts group was, and were there any notable changes from the 2014 report to the 2018 report? So there are no important changes in the science. I mean, I have been involved in doing this work since 1996 now and I joke that I've basically been writing the same report since then, every year since then. Because the basic structure of how climate change will affect the Northwest is the same. Right. We know about the sensitivity of our snowpack and the impact on droughts and floods. We know about warming temperatures and their impact on human health. We know about sea level rise and how it'll affect coats . So the basic sort of backbone or structure of what we expect has not changed at all. What's changed is that we have much more detail and we can talk about changes in one place and how they might be different than changes in another place. We have been able to develop projections for changes in stream flow or flood frequency that are specific to a specific river that planners and decision makers can use to assess local risks and to help prepare for it. And the other thing that's changed is a lot of folks are taking up this information and thinking about what risks climate change poses to our cities and our towns, our communities, our forests, our coasts and our working to incorporate that information in their planning and decision making to help ensure that we are less vulnerable to the changes that are coming. Hey everyone, it's, I wanted
Speaker 2to talk a little about UDaB Tacoma's chancellor's advisory committee on sustainability. The committee is a collaborative effort between faculty, staff, and students. The goal is to create and promote a sustainable university through different methods, including advocating for policies that address environmental, cultural, economic, and social responsibility, as well as the promotion of a culture of sustainability both on campus and in the Puget sound region and the development of resources that can be used to achieve sustainability for this and future generations. You can find more information on the UDaB to come a website by typing sustainability in the search bar. So the big message that I feel like I'm receiving is that climate change is here. It's not this thing that's impending, it's not coming at an undetermined date in the future. It's here now and that it's been here and that we're seeing, we're seeing these effects more acutely than we have in the past. Would you agree?
Speaker 1I do agree the climate changes here , um, that I think the challenge with that statement is that we don't have scientific proof and we probably keep , couldn't have prove it for every single change that we've seen. Right? So we, there's always a combination of effects going into why it's warming or why there's less snowpack or why. Um, I dunno , you know, why stream flow is changing in a particular way. We have a very variable climate here in the Northwest, more variable than other than some other regions. And so, you know, we know we have wet years and dry years and wet decades and dry decades, and that's caused by natural variations in climate. So those are still important in some of the trends that we're seeing. It's still kind of a mixed bag for some things. Another example is wildfire increases. I think people are pretty aware that, you know, wildfires have become more frequent and larger and that this is a common, this is due to a combination of climate related drivers and change , you know, past decisions to suppress fires, which has led to a buildup of fuels. So in many cases , uh, climate change is here and it's affecting many of these important things, but it's not always the sole driver yet.
Speaker 2Some of them, my next question would be, is there still time to lessen the impact? Um, you talked about , uh, you know, kind of how , uh, our community can be resilient to climate change. Can you, can you speak to that a little bit?
Speaker 1Yeah . So I get this question a lot about whether it's too late and , um, the short answer is no, it's not too late. It's actually more urgent than ever. And the reason I say it's not too late is there sort of, there's two reasons to this. One is that to say it's not too late to reduce emissions, to stop causing climate change , um, to make the changes necessary to limit or reduce global temperature increases. The simple fact is that as long as we keep adding more CO2 to the atmosphere, then we take out temperatures will continue to rise, which means it's never too late because we're going to continue to drive temperature change to drive warming until we stop driving warming. Yeah. And then , um , on the, on the impact side of things , um, you know, we can see a lot of changes coming. Uh , and we have a lot of locally specific data to use in our planning to know how much is C-level expected to change in specific places along Washington coast. And how fast might that happen, you know, until we're , um, I would argue that we are not ready for these changes. We're getting ready in some places, but we're not as ready as we should be. Um, and , uh, therefore it's absolutely time to be getting ready for those changes.
Speaker 3Hi, Amy. It's Ellen again. I wanted to ask, following up with what you were just saying about we might not, well, we're almost definitely not ready for these changes. I'm really curious if you know, the work in controversy surrounding dr Jim Bendel who writes about deep adaptation.
Speaker 1I actually don't, I'm not, I, you know, I'm vaguely familiar with the term, but no, maybe you could tell me more about that.
Speaker 3Of course. Uh , so what was I believe last year or 2017 , um , that he's a scholar and he had written a paper that basically made the, the statement that if we look at the data, we recognize that yes, we can reduce emissions and perhaps that staves off some of climate change, but climate change is here. And because climate changes here, we need to think about and what he's calling deep adaptation. And a deep adaptation for him is the sense of it's what you talk about, which is resilience. Um, and also the sense of how do we come together as a community to hold onto our values during a changing climate. And just so that, you know, when he submitted his, you know , paper to this journal, the, it was actually by the journal for being, and I think this is a direct quote too depressing and a , and so they, then he just chose to self publish it. And now the deep adaptation has become a movement. Um, but I guess the reason I bring him up is because I'm, I'm really curious what you think of his idea of deep adaptation in the sense that we need to decide not simply what our infrastructure will be and how it will change as a result of a changing climate, but also how do we come together as a community to think about how do we adapt and become resilient? I'm just curious what you think of that,
Speaker 1that I think there's a lot of really important , um, ideas in that and a lot of it really resonates with me. Um, climate change, many of the consequences of climate change are going to be pushing on our sore spots, making things that are already hard for us. Worse. I talked already about floods. You know, floods are hard. There'll be bigger droughts or hard, there'll be bigger. Um, and in many cases, you know, what you do about that isn't obvious. If there isn't enough water in , um, streams that need to supply irrigation and flows for fish and drinking water. If they're already isn't enough water during drought periods and we are gonna see more drought periods, then what do we do when that happens? That's a choice that we have to make as a society when sea level rise is , and you know, coastal lands are lost and it , some folks, personal property is a lost or damaged. Some of our public resources are lost or damaged and these changes are happening all over. Where do we deploy our resources to address these issues? All of that are choices that we have to make as a society. And so I often think about climate change and adaptation as requiring a whole heck of a lot of the small P politics, which is people negotiating, discussing, developing, envisioning together what we want as a future. And all of that is easy to say, but it's really important to recognize that there is another super important dimension of this, which is that there is a whole lot of , um , society that isn't currently well-represented in any of our small P or large P politics. There's plenty of communities that have been historically marginalized or oppressed who are not priorities for dealing with issues today, let alone tomorrow. And so it's an additional imperative that as we think as we work for resilience, that we ensure that we are, that there's a really big wee that's dealing with this and um, that the concerns of many of the frontline communities who are more exposed to climate impacts or less able to adapt to them because of historical reasons that their concerns and impacts are centered and not left to the side.
Speaker 3I'm so glad to hear you bring up the social aspect , uh, dimensions of climate change as well. Um, I did want to ask a question about , um, adaptation and resilience as related to higher education. And that was, how do you see the role of universities and other educational institutions changing as the climate changes? How do they stay relevant? How do they serve their students in their communities? Do you have any thoughts on that?
Speaker 1I do. I think I have spent a lot of my career helping to ensure that current professionals have the knowledge and tools and capacity to prepare for climate change because a large part of our, you know, regional resilience or vulnerability to climate change is going to depend on decisions that are being made right now. Right? So another way of putting it is decisions are being made every day to invest our money and in our names , um , that are, that could worsen or ameliorate climate impacts, right? Every day we talked about their zoning decisions and there's , um, community development decisions and all kinds of things. And so it's crucial that the people making those decisions who are today's professionals are empowered and ready and , um , able to incorporate climate thinking into their decisions. So that's why our group for almost 25 years has focused very intentionally on existing professionals. That's one part of it. Right? And your question was about universities. And the thing that frankly just really scares and silvers me is that everyone in college now, for example, is, and everyone in college to come is going to be living in a climate altered future. And I've already argued that climate change is going to affect every region of the world and every sector of the economy. And I don't see anybody being prepared for that. It doesn't matter whether you're going to be a medical doctor or an urban planner or a transportation engineer or a school teacher. Climate change will matter, will affect what you do. And without preparation, we're not, people aren't going to be effective in that altered world. And I don't see that preparation being prepared. I think that information about climate change, but more importantly how it affects and is likely to affect every part of society and the economy is an essential part of everyone's education.
Speaker 2So I just have one last question and I'd like to ask both of you this question actually. And I'll start with Dr. Moore. Um, we touched on the need for changes on a societal level and a policy level and even a community level. But I was kind of curious if there are any , um, actions we can take or changes we can make in our day to day lives as individuals , um, that can have an effect or can help , uh, the impact of mitigate the impacts of climate change. Ah,
Speaker 3I'm happy to shield that one first. Um, so this is something that I've thought about a great deal. Simply being an environmental communications scholar. The , the question that I just pose to Amy is one that I really think about a lot because I teach at the college level and I want to know that, you know, I increasingly feel that as the climate changes, I want to be relevant to my students and I want the education to serve my students because as Amy was noting , uh, it's the climate change is going to change everything about the way that we live economically and environmentally and the like. And so I'm where I'm headed next , um , with the way that I teach in myself. I'm living here in Tacoma is , um, is one, we're actually starting a climate , um, or not, not a climate, but a resiliency and adaptation group. And now I feel like I'm going to be emailing Amy right after we do this because I'm going to be inviting her to join us, but it's a tri-campus group now. Um, but for me, I think , um , I worry , um, that any adaptation that we do in any way in which we become resilient is only going to be for those who have money, you know, for those who have money now and it's insecurity. And so something that we're considering right now is a lot of what's happening around the world, which is trying to get the city of Tacoma to do what Paris is doing right now, which is having vertical gardens that will feed an entire neighborhood. Um, and thinking about the ways in which we can grow food locally, perhaps have wa , you know, rain tanks and water barrels and like that to try to make our neighborhoods as resilient as possible. I'll end my answer by saying I do believe that adaptation, deep adaptation revolves around how do you, what values do you have as a community? And you have to think about what do we value as a community when you think about how to adapt and be resilient to climate change. So that's my answer.
Speaker 1Dr snubber. Um, what do you think about changes we can make as individuals in our day to day lives? I like to remind people that I think everyone has both personal and a professional term related opportunities to address climate change. And whether we're talking about reducing climate change in the first place. So what we call climate change mitigation or reducing emissions or we're talking about coping with the impacts, the adaptation. There's things we can do as individuals to reduce our energy use or to think about what we plant in our garden. And those are important. Those can motivate us to, to , um, feel like we're engaged with the issue instead of ignoring it. They can help inspire our friends and neighbors if we tell them what we're doing and why and show them how awesome it is. And they can give us sort of fuel , personal fuel for doing more. But I never want anyone to stop there because climate change, addressing climate change requires systemic change. And it's super important for everyone to remember their role as a citizen and the power that can come from demanding the change you want to see and supporting those who are making the changes you want to see. And I'll just give one example on the adaptation side, cause that might not be as obvious folks as to what some of the changes might need to be. There's a lot of folks in our public agencies, in our cities and counties who are thinking about climate risks and are trying to include this information in their decision making when they either when they design a bridge or when they decide what , um, you know , uh , how to restore an ecosystem for example, or where we need, you know, community cooling resources. A lot of times they're doing this without a lot of recognition or without a lot of resources. If we daylight those efforts and applaud those efforts and thank them for their efforts, more will happen. And even more importantly, if we notice where this work needs to be done, where somebody is making important decisions about the future and pretending that the climate will be the same as it was in the past, we need to demand that they rethink things and that they think about the climate of the future. So an example that I always like to give is, as I understand it, Okanagan, when NACHA national forest, which is just East of the mountains or on the East side of the cascades, right? I don't know, I think it might've been 20 years ago or 15 years ago, they were updating their, their , um, their forest plan. And that's, this is something they do every, I don't know, decade or two in a guides, all the decisions in the forest. And they had to have public meetings, scoping meetings. You know, what's important to you is we think about how we're going to plan and manage this forest. And people come and they talk about the ways they like to recreate and the ways they like to get into the forest. But a lot of people came and said, we want to know how you are going to manage this forest in the face of climate change because we know it's increasing risk of fire, me know is increasing all these other risks and we want to know what you're going to do about it. So they were the first forest in the country to include climate change in their forest plan. So that's another thing we can do and I would argue that ought to be in our day to day lives is demand the change we want to see and celebrate it when it's happening.
Speaker 4[inaudible] thank you to our guests and thank you for listening. Be sure to like and subscribe. You can find us on Spotify, Google podcasts, pocket cast , Stitcher, and Apple podcasts.