Golden state loses its lustre as the effects of climate change bite

With wildfires raging across the state, threatening homes and turning the air a dystopian choking orange, the Californian Dream looks increasingly untenable.

The home of healthy outdoor living and aspirational wellness has had its vulnerabilities exposed by this year’s wildfires, which have already burned through 2.5million acres just days into the wildfire season.

The link with climate change is simple, though quantifying it is harder: hotter air means drier vegetation, which acts as a tinderbox.

Wildfires are common in California, but as the state warms they are burning further and for longer.

Parts of the sunshine state have warmed 2C over 100 years, compared with the global average of 1C, and earlier this year Death Valley,

California, had the highest global temperature on record, reaching 54.4C (130F). The 10 largest California fires since 1932 all occurred after 2000.

Residents now face something of a reckoning for their way of life. It has been exacerbated by Covid-19, which means people can’t socialise indoors, while the state of the environment means they can’t be outdoors either.

Instead, they go from airconditioned home to air-conditioned car, to office and back. Purifiers have sold out as smoke makes the air a health hazard, even hundreds of miles from the fires.

Demand for air conditioning has contributed to the pressure on the electricity grid, causing blackouts.

The state’s national forests and many of its state parks, which for many are the big draw to life in California, have had to close.

The fires are also exacerbated by Californians’ growing desire to live closer to nature, both putting them in the line of fire and raising the risk of starting one through an abandoned barbecue or a gender reveal mishap.

Californians now face the question of whether to leave – if they can afford to – or stay and try to adapt to what is likely to be a new normal. It’s something that will face more communities as the effects of climate change become clearer.

Climate risk will become a factor we must consider when we decide where to move, or what kind of house to buy.

Homeowners are already struggling to get insurance against fire risk in California, just as many do in the flood-prone areas of the Humber, or along the UK’S crumbling coastline.

This year’s UK heatwave caused a run on air conditioners and came with warnings that the new risk of fuel poverty will be a summer rather than winter one, as people try to stay cool.

But climate change is not yet part of our everyday calculations. We still build poor housing on flood plains or next to forests, and homes and offices we know will overheat. We also continue to delay action on climate change that will limit these effects.

Californians who can leave are relatively lucky. Rich countries and their wealthier residents are not immune to climate change but they do have more options when it comes to dealing with them.