Leadership long overdue on climate

My husband is an epidemiologist, which means he studies the causes of disease. He used to begin his classes by telling his students a fable about an orthopedist who got a lot of business because the sidewalk in front of his office was cracked. So passersby would break a leg and he would fix it. One day, an epidemiologist determined the cause of all the accidents; the sidewalk got fixed and the doctor was put out of business.

I think of this story when I think of the tremendous loss of life and property due to the climate-related disasters people in the U.S. have suffered in the past decade or so — $300 billion just for the disasters of 2017, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. That’s droughts, floods, forest fires, and three major hurricanes.

In 2017, forest fires hopscotched down the West Coast, from British Columbia to San Diego; in California, it was the worst wildfire season on record, and in Santa Barbara was followed in early 2018 by horrific, deadly mudslides down the denuded hills due to an extreme rainfall event. Scientists say the rains last winter that ended that state’s multi-year drought led to record growth of grasses and undergrowth that in turn became fuel for the fires once dry conditions returned. Climate modeling shows that while the eastern U.S. will get heavier rainfall, the West will experience continuing drought.

If our leaders had initiated serious steps to address climate change 25 years ago — when the absolute necessity to do so became apparent and before climate change became the continuing crisis it is today — they could have invested in resilient infrastructure like rebuilding wetlands to absorb sea level rise; in renewable energy that would have slashed greenhouse gases; and in creating millions of good jobs in the process that could not be outsourced.

Even though these disasters are right in line with what climate scientists have been predicting for decades — and are happening even sooner than predicted — it’s well known that when reality collides with one’s pre-existing dearly held beliefs, reality most often loses.

Twenty-five years ago, I hoped that our country would take steps to pre-empt climate disasters before they happened. Then I thought that when the disasters kept coming fast and furiously, people would see the need for action — and demand it.

Now I see the number of concerned Americans is on the rise, but I also see our Congress and Oval Office captured by politicians who point to cold weather during a few weeks of winter across our northern states and ridicule the idea of a climate crisis — despite the fact that the overall global temperature continues to rise.

The climate science “epidemiologists” have identified the problem. Now, we must demand that our climate “sidewalk” be fixed.