The state has had a comprehensive water planning process since 2003, utilizing the regional plans from 16 different water districts. This year, the State Water Plan is being revised, but the process has offered few indications that it will take climate change into account.

Since the plan shapes how resources will be allocated to water management for many years to come, there is a risk that the state might spend its precious financial and water resources unwisely.

“Water is the common denominator of New Mexico’s future and is indispensable to the quality of life of the state’s residents,” according to the 2013 New Mexico State Water Plan Review. Yet water resources across the West are changing with changes in the climate. Winter snowpacks tend to be smaller, while summers tend to feature more heat waves.

In 2013, the Elephant Butte Reservoir reached its lowest level in 40 years (right)—just 3 percent of its storage capacity, compared with a nearly full reservoir in 1994 (left). As a result, farmers received less than 10 percent of their typical irrigation water, forcing them to turn to groundwater and other sources.

Rainfall, when it occurs, tends to happen in more extreme deluges, leading to flooding. And the timing of precipitation over the course of the year is shifting, creating mismatches between water supply and water demand, especially for agriculture.

Such trends have been well documented, and they’re projected to continue as the global climate becomes warmer. The record-breaking temperatures in New Mexico already reported this summer may eventually become the new normal.

One might expect a state like New Mexico, where water is such a precious resource, to pay close attention to climate projections and to plan carefully for its future water security. Unfortunately, this does not appear to be the case, at least not at the state level. This omission in the current water planning process puts the state at risk of squandering the state’s financial resources implementing a plan that is mismatched to the state’s water security needs.

Evidence of absence

Water planning in New Mexico takes place through the Interstate Stream Commission, which organizes planning activities and delivers guidance to the 16 water regions in the State. The ISC is currently accepting revised water plans from the regions, with the aim of pulling them together into a revised State Water Plan later this year. In 2013, the ISC completed a review—approved by the governor—of the 2003 State Water Plan, aimed at informing an update of the state and regional water plans.

Unfortunately, the 2013 review made no mention of climate change, despite the governor’s acknowledgement that year that “Unprecedented drought, wildfires, and floods have put further stress on New Mexico’s aging water infrastructure, in communities large and small across the state.”

These effects can all be linked to climate change, and are expected to worsen over time. The Southwest regional component of the 2014 National Climate Assessment made these points very clear, reinforcing the previous 2009 National Climate Assessment, and provided an opportunity for the ISC to make sure the planning process took these trends into account. However, the acceptance criteria approved by the ISC in December 2015 offered no such guidance to the regions and failed to mention the importance of climate change for water planning.

The main product of the 2013 review was the development of a common format and set of requirements for the regional water plans. In the Updated Regional Water Planning Handbook issued by the ISC, there is a section calling for climate information, in relation to water supply issues. The problem is that the Handbook only calls for a “general summary of the climate conditions in the region, including … any new studies or information that are indicative of changed climate conditions.”

Such a “general summary” is unlikely to be sufficiently detailed for water planning purposes, and the indications of “changed climate conditions” is inherently backward-looking, rather than forward-looking.

Here’s the text of the guidelines for this section, quoted in full:

This section will include a general summary of the climate conditions in the region, including average and ranges of precipitation, evaporation, general climate patterns, and any new studies or information that are indicative of changed climate conditions. Climate data will be reported in a consistent format as follows:

•  Station name, number, location, elevation, period of record, average annual temperature, average annual precipitation, average summer and winter temperatures and precipitation, and minimum and maximum temperatures and precipitation.
•  Precipitation and evaporation data will be based on National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) monitoring station records and can be supplemented by other valid research if available.

• Important data gaps (temporal or spatial) will be noted.

Recent studies that discuss trends in temperature, precipitation, or evapotranspiration within the region will be referenced.

While the station information and NOAA data are helpful, they are not sufficient to predict the future supply of water for individual regions. Furthermore, the inclusion of recent studies about climate trends does not appear to be mandatory, nor is there a process indicated for how to take these studies into account when projecting future water supply. Overall, there is an absence of guidance about how to access and utilize information that could be helpful to regions in projecting their further supplies of water.

Later, the Handbook describes how the state will calculate surface water supply, both for “average” and “drought” conditions:

• Average annual historical amount of surface water diverted for beneficial use (average surface water supply) based on the NMOSE [New Mexico Office of the State Engineer] Water Use by Categories The diversion data are available statewide and will be the basis for a common technical approach for all regions. However, in areas where interstate stream compacts or court decrees specify the legal entitlement, these data will also be presented.
• Annual drought surface water supply based on the NMOSE Water Use by Categories reports adjusted for drought indices that reflect the relationship between the most recent data from the OSE report and long-term records.

Note that these calculations only take into account historical amounts and past records. No projections of future water supply are included.

The draft regional plans each contain a section developed by the state, summarizing recent studies related to climate trends. The language is similar across the various regional plans, and it cites the evidence of climate change in the IPCC reports and the National Climate Assessment. These reports don’t provide the necessary level of detail to plan for the expected impacts for each region in New Mexico. As a result, the plans instead list general impacts from a 2006 report, along with a note highlighting the urgency of taking these effects into account:

[T]he effects of climate change that are likely to occur in New Mexico and the planning region include (NMOSE/NMISC, 2006):

• Temperature is expected to continue to rise.
• Higher temperatures will result in a longer and warmer growing season, resulting in increased water demand on irrigated lands and increased evapotranspiration from riparian areas, grasslands and forests, and thus less recharge to aquifers.
• Reservoir and other open water evaporation are expected to increase. Soil evaporation will also increase.
• Precipitation is expected to be more concentrated and intense, leading to increased projected frequency and severity of flooding.  

To minimize the impact of these changes, it is imperative that New Mexico plan for dealing with variable water supplies, including focusing on drought planning and being prepared to maximize storage from extreme precipitation events while minimizing their adverse impacts.

What should the process look like?

A few things would be needed at the regional and state level for New Mexico to adequately account for climate change in its State Water Plan update.

First, the ISC would need to make climate projections available—from state or national sources—at a level that can be used by the regions. These projections should include information about the changing likelihood of future climate conditions, based on downscaled climate models. Depending on resource constraints and in-state capacity, the governor may find it useful to request better decision support from federal government agencies working with Western governors to help state agencies incorporate these projections.

Second, the state government should support the regions with technical assistance in utilizing these projections as each region develops and implements its water plan. The regional steering committees may need such assistance to effectively interpret and incorporate projections into the water plans. Also, the ISC may need to take concrete steps to build capacity for increasing the understanding of technical details within the regional committees in order to make it easier to synthesize the State Water Plan.

Third, the ISC should develop additional guidance about how to incorporate climate projections into regional water plans. This guidance should be included in the next update of the Regional Water Planning Handbook in order to make the process more streamlined the next time around. In the meantime, the ISC could use the current round of planning to explore what approaches work best.

Fourth, the State Engineer who oversees the ISC should ensure that the State Water Plan is not merely a bundle of regional plans loosely stitched together, with proposed projects, programs, and  policies left to the regions to implement without any accountability.

Climate effects that occur in one region can have a cascading effect on other regions, and this means that a comprehensive state plan needs to explore such interactions. Because the ISC is already in charge of bringing together the 16 regional plans, it seems to be the right place for a comprehensive assessment to take place.

A comprehensive assessment would allow the state to deliver feedback to the regions, in the form of regional water budgets. But with thin resources and no specific mandate to do so, it appears unlikely that the ISC would undertake this difficult—but necessary—task.

What’s at stake?

If New Mexico’s current water planning process doesn’t robustly include expectations about the effects of climate change, the state and regional plans could plan for projects and infrastructure that fall short of future needs. The result could be that regions are left high and dry—inadequately prepared for the coming climate.

At the same time, the state may invest its financial resources in measures that are mismatched to its needs. Those resources won’t come back after they’re spent. Instead, the resources could be used in support of robust investments that anticipate future conditions and help the state become more prepared for what’s to come.

New Mexico is a resilient state, and New Mexicans have a long history of adapting to scarce water resources. The state can honor that legacy by building a resilient approach in its water planning, using relevant information about climate change. Fortunately, there is still time to do so before the state plan is complete—but the planning agencies must act quickly.

These questions always surprise me—it’s a bit like a smoker asking a doctor “how soon should I quit?” The only correct response is “don’t wait, you should quit as soon as possible.” Recent science and new developments have highlighted the urgency of reducing global warming emissions to “net zero” as soon as possible.

It’s my job to pay attention to what’s happening on the climate science and policy front, and nowadays the volume of information makes it hard for me to keep up. Every day, it seems that there is a new groundbreaking study, another record broken, a new dire threshold approached, or a new innovation announced that brings us closer to solutions.

In the past few months, things that seemed far out of reach just a few years ago—including the possibility that we could reduce our total emissions to net zero within a few decades—now seem not only possible, but absolutely necessary.
“Net zero” emissions means that all the sources of heat-trapping emissions (such as burning fossil fuels) would be in balance with all the processes that remove heat-trapping gases from the atmosphere (such as the growth of forests).

A balanced financial budget makes good sense for a household, and a balanced carbon budget makes good sense for the planet—in fact, it’s a fundamental part of our climate strategy. Nevertheless, since the advent of the Industrial Revolution, the world has been far overspending its carbon budget, and the result has been a rise in the concentration of heat-trapping gases and a consequent rise in global temperatures.

For everyone who doesn’t spend their days tracking climate science and policy, here’s a short list of some of the many reasons why we need to bring our emissions to net zero as quickly as possible.

1. Our current path will lead to irrevocable changes to the climate system and sea levels that will last for several thousand years.

An article in Nature Climate Change (paywall) recently looked far into the future, asking the questions “how long will climate impacts continue, and what will they look like?”

Most of the results reported from climate modeling efforts look at scenarios through the year 2100, but this analysis looked 10,000 years into the future—and the results were staggering. On this time scale, the effects of climate change are driven by the cumulative emissions of human activity, and the longer we emit heat-trapping gases, the more severe the future changes.

For higher levels of cumulative emissions (in line with our current trajectory), “the resulting sea-level rise reaches as much as 45 m [about 150 feet] in 10,000 years” just from the loss of the Antarctic ice sheet alone. Contributions from the Greenland ice sheet and other sources could add several more meters.

The implications are difficult to fathom. Most of Florida would be underwater, and the Mississippi delta would be inundated north of the Louisiana-Arkansas border. Around the world, ancient cities like Cairo and Shanghai would disappear. Coastlines would shift dramatically, and low-lying countries like Bangladesh would face drastic reductions in area.

Where will future populations reside? How will they think of their history—and today’s legacy—when parts of cities like London, New York, Tokyo, and Mumbai are lost to the rising waters? According to the article, “The only means to prevent a further commitment to [global mean sea level] rise is to achieve net-zero emissions.”

The maps show areas of submergence for countries with at least 50 million people living on land affected by long-term sea level rise projections, including large municipal areas. Source: Clark et al. 2016.

2. If we reduce our emissions, we’ll feed more hungry people and save more lives.

A recent modeling study in The Lancet looked at a shorter time horizon, examining the impacts of climate change on human health over the next few decades. The focus of the study was on global food availability and induced changes in consumption patterns.

The overall results were positive: in almost every area of the world, projections showed that more food and greater nutritional quality would be available. But climate change created a drag on our progress toward alleviating global malnutrition and hunger, resulting in more than half a million climate-related deaths worldwide by 2050. These are deaths that would have been avoided in the absence of climate change. We’re on track to produce more food of higher quality, but climate change will undercut our efforts, jeopardizing the global goal to eliminate hunger by 2050.

The map shows the change in the frequency of climate-related deaths projected to occur by 2050 as a result of climate disruptions to the global food system. Source: Springmann et al. 2016

3. We should follow through on our global commitments—besides being worthwhile in themselves, they’re likely to strengthen other areas of progress, too.

The UN climate agreement reached in Paris in 2015 marked a turning point in international efforts to combat climate change. There were many high points to illustrate, but the most fundamental shift was that nearly every country agreed to take some level of responsibility for addressing the problem.

We are now all in the same boat together, paddling toward a common goal of avoiding disruptive climate change, captured in the agreement as “Holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2 °C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels.”

“In order to achieve the long-term temperature goal,” the agreement says, countries will “aim to reach global peaking of greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible … and to undertake rapid reductions thereafter in accordance with best available science, so as to achieve a balance between anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals by sinks of greenhouse gases in the second half of this century….” In other words, all countries will work to reach net zero emissions sometime after 2050.

The US and China were key to the agreement, as the two countries with the largest annual emissions. The path to reaching agreement in Paris was paved well in advance, through months of diplomatic efforts on both sides, culminating in a joint announcement that sent far-reaching signals other countries.

Now that countries have put their commitments on the table, we could see a snowball effect of cooperation. Countries that make progress on their own could find that their efforts would be amplified through cooperation with others. This could come in the form of sharing expertise, collaborating on technology, or harmonizing terms of trade. All of these examples could have positive spillover effects, such as boosting food security, accelerating electrification, or preventing “leakage” of emissions through trade.

4. Decarbonizing our economy is a path to innovation, rather than stagnation.

In past international climate negotiations, I used to hear countries talk about the “burden” of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and how the costs of reductions would put countries at an economic disadvantage relative to those who continued to emit. In fact, this kind of thinking drove the Byrd-Hagel Resolution in 1997, which helped to justify the US pulling out of the Kyoto Protocol.

Now, I don’t hear that argument much, and a recent article may illustrate one reason for this change: more than 20 countries—including the US—are using policies to actively push down the carbon intensity of their economic growth—the so-called “decoupling” of emissions from economic growth (though the complexities of the relationship might mean a “slipping clutch” is a more accurate metaphor).

The more progress they make, the more it means that emissions reductions are no longer a perceived obstacle for economic growth. The successful countries cover a range of scales and economic circumstances—from economic powerhouses like the US and Germany, to those that are still emerging or have recently weathered troubles, like Romania and Portugal. Thus, it is clear that countries at all levels of development can turn their economies away from high-emissions pathways without fear of losing their competitive edge.

In fact, they may actually gain an economic edge. In country after country, I’m hearing many people quietly say that a transformation is underway, and that once it is complete, there will be no going back. The transformation involves recasting economic development plans so that they don’t create dependence on high-emissions approaches. This was the approach undertaken in the European Union, Northeast states participating in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, and the economy-wide cap on emissions in California.

These many examples are a testament to economic growth in the context of falling emissions. Colleagues in these countries tell me that taking high-emissions pathways off the table actually spurred innovation, new technologies, and new economic opportunities. The same thing is happening in the US, but it is uneven across the country. We need an approach that can help lift all boats —starting with those that currently face the most difficult economic challenges, such as coal country and other vulnerable communities.

5. We’ll take better care of our land.

If emissions continue, we will see serious and ongoing disruptions of ecosystems we care about and depend upon.

This was illustrated in a recent paper (paywall) that looked at the tolerance of forests to an array of climate-related stressors, especially drought. Using the most recent family of climate change scenarios, the authors found that our emissions matter for the future of our forests. Their approach corroborated what others have found, including projections for the Rocky Mountain states.

However, one surprise was that Northeastern forests were found to be especially vulnerable to the drier conditions expected with high emissions of heat-trapping gases. Many of us had expected the forests in that part of the country to fare relatively well, and to continue to deliver the much-needed service of absorbing carbon from the atmosphere. This study suggests that those expectations may have been too rosy.

Disturbingly, the paper also projects that some ecosystems across the south and in the Pacific Northwest will be replaced by entirely new ecosystems not currently found in the US. Are our universities training today’s students to manage such forests? Are they training them in how to manage the transition to these new ecosystems? I would guess that we are not adequately preparing for these changes.

The map shows areas where unabated climate change would cause forest ecosystems to change to types that are not currently found in the United States. Source: Lienard et al. 2016

On the other hand, we could avoid such bizarre and disruptive outcomes if we reduce emissions quickly, and better land management can actually help us accomplish that goal.

A little less conversation, a little more action please

When I look at the possibilities, it seems very clear to me that we should make every effort to reduce our emissions to net zero as soon as possible.

We can minimize damaging and irrevocable effects of climate change, save lives, strengthen each others’ successes, spur economic growth, and leave future generations with a better place to live.

The US has a key role to play, and it’s time for us to make this a priority.

“There was good overnight humidity recovery in the fire area last night, which will delay the burn period today. However, as temperatures warm and vegetation dries out, pockets of heat may become more active in the afternoon.”

These excerpts from the incident reports of the Sherpa Fire in California and the Dog Head Fire in New Mexico, respectively, highlight the relationships between weather and wildfires. Over the past few decades, climate change has driven an inexorable trend of higher summer temperatures across the West—a trend that is expected to continue for years to come. This year, some states may see relief if the El Niño pattern shifts rapidly to La Niña—and if Congress passes legislation that provides sufficient resources to manage wildfire risk effectively.

Hot enough for ya?

Temperatures on Father’s Day tied the record high temperature of 103 degrees in Albuquerque, New Mexico, further contributing to the heat fueling the Dog Head Fire raging nearby, and making conditions miserable for firefighters.

With the fire exceeding 17,000 acres and only 9 percent contained, Governor Martinez declared a state of emergency and mobilized the National Guard. Fortunately, on Monday, weather conditions began to change, with higher humidity moving into the area, bringing peak temperatures down into the upper 90s (!) and allowing firefighters to improve their fire lines. But this was cold comfort to the owners of the two dozen homes that had already been lost to this fire.

Meanwhile, another fire was blazing near Santa Barbara, California—the Sherpa Fire. By Monday, it had burned nearly 8,000 acres and was more than 50 percent contained. More than 1,200 firefighters worked night and day, preparing to defend fire lines in the midst of an excessive heat warning, with maximum temperatures exceeding 100 degrees. “Sundowner” winds were expected to blow from the Santa Ynez Mountains at speeds up to 40 miles per hour in the evening, potentially fanning the flames overnight. Already several communities had been evacuated, and Highway 101 had been closed at times.

These were just two of the 16 active fires burning over the weekend, which had consumed a total of nearly 100,000 acres. The problem is not limited to the West – brushfires in Florida closed a major highway early in the week – but the Western states are where we’ve seen the most fires breaking out. And the wildfire season is just getting started, and might be worsened by the climate phenomena known as El Niño and La Niña.

El Niño and La Niña: Children shouldn’t play with fire

I’m often asked how El Niño and La Niña affect wildfires in the West, and the answer is complicated.

On top of the rising temperature trend driven by climate change, we have other patterns that affect global temperatures. El Niño and La Niña (“the boy” and “the girl” in Spanish, respectively) are used to describe a pattern of global climate conditions that tend to alternate every few years.

Among other features, El Niño is characterized by warmer-than-normal water in the eastern Pacific, which tends to bring more moisture and precipitation to the southwestern US and leaves the northern tier of states hot and dry. In contrast, La Niña exhibits cooler waters in the eastern Pacific, leading to drier conditions in the Southwest, while wetter conditions prevail in the Pacific Northwest and the northern Intermountain West.

Last year we were in the midst of a powerful El Niño—possibly the strongest measured since 1950. And, as we would expect, the Northwest was abnormally hot and dry, setting the stage for a record-breaking wildfire year, with over 10 million acres burned in the US.

The effects of El Niño lingered through the spring in most places, bringing record heat to the Southwest, but failed to provide much-needed moisture to southern states, including California, Arizona, and New Mexico. As a result, southern California is still suffering through an extreme drought, estimated to be affecting more than 33 million people. It should come as no surprise, then, to see wildfires breaking out in the hottest, driest areas.

Much of California is still experiencing exceptional drought, worsening the risk of wildfire. Source: US Drought Monitor

Climate scientists are now saying there is a strong likelihood that the El Niño conditions could rapidly flip to La Niña conditions by autumn. If La Niña follows its usual pattern, it may bring some relief to the Pacific Northwest, Alaska, and the northern Intermountain states.

Unfortunately, it could also exacerbate the dry conditions in the Southwest, prolonging the drought in California and potentially expanding it to other states. On top of the drought, if the record-breaking heat of June is a sign of a hot summer to come, we could see another extraordinary fire season—putting many communities at risk and stretching our capacity to cope.

Congress has taken notice – but will it act in time?

Policy makers have taken notice of the situation, and some are working to help us become better prepared for wildfire risks. It’s a complex problem to solve, with several factors involved.

First, decades of fire suppression have led to a buildup of flammable materials—living and dead trees, litter, grasses, etc.—in many areas, and these materials act as tinder once a fire starts.

Second, the warmer and drier conditions have spurred a wave of tree mortality in Western forests, accelerated by climate change, leaving dead trees that are vulnerable to fire.

Third, more people have moved into forested areas, putting themselves and their property in harm’s way, and making fire suppression more costly because firefighters spend more time and effort protecting developed areas.

And fourth, we have climate change itself creating conditions that increase the likelihood and extent of wildfire.

The Forest Service, which is responsible for managing 193 million acres of public land, primarily in the West, has been grappling with this problem as it unfolds. Administrators have recognized that recent fire seasons are regularly breaking their budgets, perversely forcing them to take money budgeted for fire risk reduction activities and use it for fire suppression instead.

After a collective face palm, Congress began to put together legislation aimed at fixing this problem. The latest bipartisan draft legislation in the Senate is called the Wildfire Budgeting, Response, and Forest Management Act of 2016. A hearing on the draft legislation is expected in the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources on Thursday, June 23. The hearing is organized around two panels of witnesses, representing a range of government, private sector, and civil society viewpoints. It should be an informative discussion.

Regardless of whether this legislation moves forward or not, the wildfire problem is not going away.

Year by year, the factors contributing to wildfire risk continue to increase—with climate change potentially becoming the most important factor of all.

Hopefully Congress will pass legislation that can help us get a better handle on fire-fighting and land management to control the risk of wildfires for the next few years. Maybe some of us will get a break from La Niña or some other short-lived phenomenon. But ultimately these fixes will be temporary, unless we can stop the inexorable rise in global temperatures by reducing our emissions of heat-trapping gases. And on that point, Congress has yet to take any serious action.

Climate change is leaving fingerprints all over New Mexico

UCS has assembled the evidence of climate change impacts in a new report on New Mexico, which has been warming at a rate of more than half a degree per decade since 1970. Recent years have seen record summer heat, acute water shortages, and devastating wildfires. These are the telltale signs of climate change, easily interpreted by experts. There’s a fingerprint to climate change, and in New Mexico, it looks like this:

Temperatures in summer have been rising steadily for over 100 years, with faster increases in recent decades.

Unfortunately, many New Mexicans are still unclear about how the risks of climate change could affect key aspects of their lives and what could be done to protect the fundamental identity of their state. Actions today could make them less vulnerable to these impacts, but only if policy makers take pragmatic steps to protect them and the things they care about.

Security starts with the home

The home is often the place where we are most ourselves, the setting for many key events of our lives, and our personal sanctuary within the busy wider world. Unfortunately, climate change is threatening the security of many New Mexicans’ homes.

Of all Western states, New Mexico has the highest proportion of homes at “high” or “very high” risk from wildfire, and climate change is making wildfires larger and more frequent over time. Many will remember the devastating wildfire seasons of 2011 and 2012, when the Las Conchas Fire burned over 150,000 acres, followed by the Whitewater Baldy Complex Fire the next year, which was almost twice as large. In those years, fires destroyed hundreds of homes and buildings, threatened water supplies and nuclear facilities, triggered the evacuation of whole communities, and sapped the state fire suppression budget. For many, the devastation and destruction caused by these fires have left a sense of violation in their wake.

Wildfires will pose an increasing threat to homes in New Mexico.

Stealing water means stealing agricultural livelihoods

Climate change is also threatening to steal away the livelihoods of New Mexicans who are connected to the agriculture industry, which is worth billions of dollars to the state every year.

Since 2000, the flows of major rivers across the West—including the Rio Grande—have diminished significantly, usually due to shrinking snowpacks in their headwaters. When temperatures stay warmer in the winter, more precipitation tends to fall as rain rather than snow, quickly running off into the river systems. Then, when temperatures warm earlier in the spring, the snowpack melts even more. The valuable water flows away long before the hot days of summer, when crops need it most.

New Mexico has only recently broken a prolonged drought that lasted five years and included the two hottest and driest years on record (2011 and 2013). During this drought, water allocations to farmers were cut by as much as 90 percent, and reservoirs like Elephant Butte reached historically low levels.. Some cities and towns were forced to rely on groundwater or even bottled water for their drinking water supply. Farmers and ranchers have faced hard decisions about drilling deeper for water and reducing the size of their herds.

In 2013, the Elephant Butte Reservoir reached its lowest level in 40 years (right)—just 3 percent of its storage capacity, compared with a nearly full reservoir in 1994 (left).

Touchstones of New Mexico’s history may be snatched away

Through wildfire and floods, climate change poses a threat to some of the most precious and iconic features of New Mexico’s heritage. In 2000, the Cerro Grande Fire, accelerated by bone-dry drought conditions, raced through areas of Bandelier National Monument and the adjacent property of Los Alamos National Laboratory, destroying structures from the Manhattan Project era and threatening access to ancient rock carvings and cliff dwellings made by some of the earliest inhabitants of the Americas. Later, in 2011, the Las Conchas Fire burned thousands of acres of forests in the same area. Beyond the destruction directly caused by the fires, they also baked the underlying soils, causing rainwater to run off rather than percolate down. This set the stage for disastrous flooding in successive years, when severe thunderstorms arrived and caused flooding that washed out trails and threatened archaeological sites.

Even the continued existence of the state tree, the piñon pine, is threatened by climate change. Recent droughts, high temperatures, and insect infestations—all hallmarks of climate change—have caused hundreds of millions of piñon pines to die across the West, with mortality rates exceeding 90 percent in the middle Rio Grande Basin. Projections of the future climate suggest that large areas of the piñon pine’s historical range could become unsuitable for the species within the next few decades.

The degree of climate change will affect the amount of western land suitable for piñon pines in 2030. These maps depict areas modeled to be climatically suitable for the tree species under the recent historical (1961–1990) climate (left), conditions projected for 2030 given lower levels of heat-trapping emissions (center), and conditions projected for 2030 given medium-high levels of emissions (right).

Robbing long-standing communities of their traditions

The tribal and acequia communities that have sustained themselves in New Mexico the longest are perhaps the most at risk from climate change. Diminishing water resources could affect the viability of the acequia water management systems and the communities that depend on them, while culturally important forest and wildlife resources will face growing risks from heat, drought, wildfire, and other stressors.

These communities have shown resilience and adaptability in the face of past challenges, but their capacities may be strained by the changes now underway. The impacts we expect from climate change are likely to make life more difficult for these communities, potentially forcing them to make hard choices about how to sustain their traditions and cultural practices.

New Mexico can take sensible precautions to safeguard its identity

While New Mexico can’t reverse climate change on its own, the state can take steps to limit the risks and prepare for the expected impacts. It can help limit the risks by shifting away from a fossil-fuel-dependent energy system that contributes to the problem and instead make better use of its vast renewable energy potential. Developing and strengthening its policies on renewable electricity, energy efficiency, and emissions reductions would pave the way for this transition and send the right signals to the energy sector.

At the same time, New Mexico could invest in climate resilience. Communities within New Mexico are already building innovative approaches to protect their water security and reduce their risks from wildfire. The lessons from these approaches should be shared throughout the state. Furthermore, statewide support for monitoring systems, water infrastructure, and groundwater measurement will help New Mexicans protect their water security. Critically, water planning should take climate change projections into account, rather than basing plans on outdated historical information.

Editor’s note: This post was revised on 4/28/16 for clarity and to add additional hyperlinks.

What makes this agreement a “new era”—haven’t we had climate agreements before?

Yes, we have. Under the United Nations, the two most important previous agreements were the Framework Convention on Climate Change in 1992 (the “Convention”), and the Kyoto Protocol in 1997 (the “KP”). The Convention set out some fundamental goals, principles, and a structure for addressing climate change. It called for developed countries to take the lead, and under the KP they pledged a set of commitments, which took effect in 2005. Many of the countries re-upped for a second round of commitments that extend through 2020.

The Paris Agreement will pick up where the KP leaves off: it creates a looser structure for registering the “contributions” that countries make toward reducing heat-trapping emissions, as well as a “global stocktake” to see whether we’re collectively on track to avoiding dangerous climate change. These features and others opened the door for developing countries to participate. That’s the primary reason why this is a “new era” – because virtually all countries are on board.

Why did we need a new agreement?

The KP was an important step, but over time it became obvious that it wasn’t sufficient to solve the global problem of climate change. It was partly effective, in that heat-trapping emissions began to fall in the countries that had made commitments, but in the meantime global emissions continued to rise, driven by a surge from developing countries. As Secretary of State John Kerry pointed out in Paris, about 60% of emissions now come from the developing world, so even if all developed countries stopped emitting tomorrow, the world would still have a climate change problem. We needed a new policy to confront this undeniable scientific reality.

Besides having more countries on board, what else is different about the Paris Agreement?

The Paris Agreement needed some new elements to help cope with the burdens that climate impacts were creating for developing countries. Many countries were prepared to invest in adaptation efforts, and they wanted those to be counted as “contributions” to the climate effort—and also to describe their needs so they could seek support from other countries. Some countries also wanted a way to have the “loss and damage” attributable to climate change to be recognized and, potentially, compensated. These issues are now addressed in the Paris Agreement.

Furthermore, the agreement sharpens the climate goal originally established under the Convention, recognizing updated science that says the world may need to stay below a temperature increase of 1.5 degrees Celsius in order to prevent dangerous impacts. We’ve already seen about one degree of warming, so there’s no time to waste.

Does a global agreement undermine our U.S. sovereignty?

The Paris Agreement allows flexibility to each country to enact its own policies or approaches, in a way that is “nationally determined,” not imposed from somewhere else. Every country will be able to develop its own policies, and at least 185 countries have already submitted a description of their intended contributions. The agreement provides a way to communicate those efforts to the rest of the world in a somewhat standardized way that helps to deliver transparency to every other country.

Everyone—including large emitters and petro-states—recognizes that avoiding dangerous climate change is in their national interest. Under the agreement, they can track who is contributing the most effort, and who might be lagging behind. That information will be assessed periodically and publicly, so that everyone can see who’s doing their part, who’s not doing enough, and who needs help. But there are no penalties levied through the agreement.

The U.S. pillar outside the entrance of the COP venue.

If there are no penalties, no price on carbon, and no global “cap” on emissions, how will this help to solve climate change?

Probably the most significant effect will be the signal this sends to key players, particularly governments and the private sector. The agreement makes the future direction clear, and it is obvious that fossil fuels will play a diminishing role in the future global economy.

Also, even though there isn’t a centralized cap on emissions, the nationally determined contributions (or “NDCs”) collectively make up a de facto cap on global emissions, due to the near-universal participation of countries. Some countries have different kinds of caps, and not all emissions are covered everywhere, but we can now say that emissions will be limited globally. The commitments will be backed up by a process of evaluation, and they will be supported by the mutual interest of other nations. Together, these elements will spur innovation, and those racing to the top will find themselves in an advantageous position down the road. Laggards will find themselves increasingly isolated and left behind in the global economy.

What are all these different pieces aiming to achieve? How will we know if it’s succeeding?

The agreement establishes a process that will help to harmonize the efforts of all the different countries. Every five years, they will come together to assess their collective contributions and measure progress towards a single long-term goal. That goal says that they will work to balance the emissions from sources and the removals by sinks in the latter half of the century. “Removals by sinks” is a clear reference to the vital role that farms and forests play in absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Unfortunately, these “sinks” are now far outweighed by all “sources,” by a factor of nearly 10:1. So we will need to make steep reductions in emissions from sources, while protecting and enhancing the crucial ability of sinks to continue to take up carbon.

Now that the U.S. has signed up, is this going to hamstring the growth in our economy?

Far from it. The entire Paris process, including the agreement, has really changed the way we think about addressing climate change. One delegate captured it succinctly when she said that we have transformed the climate change issue from an existential threat to the world’s biggest opportunity. What she meant is that we’ve largely closed the door on the threat that countries will use high-emissions approaches to gain economic advantages.

This means that the only way forward is to exploit low-carbon approaches, and this is an area where the U.S. is a global leader. Building out these approaches and marketing them to other countries will be a huge opportunity for economic growth, if we can capitalize on it effectively.

Once this is in effect, how might the U.S. deliver its contributions after 2020?

The U.S. has a number of ways it can deliver its contributions. Four big ones come to mind. First, we can continue to innovate in low-carbon technologies and renewable energy. Second, we can eliminate waste from our economy and reduce emissions through higher levels of efficiency. Third, we can take advantage of different opportunities within and across states, through emissions trading, as California and others are now doing. Fourth, we can enhance our stewardship of our natural resources, especially forests, in order to boost their ability to absorb carbon from the atmosphere.

Are other countries ahead of us? Are we in danger of being laggards?

Every country has different opportunities and strengths. One important component of the Paris Agreement is that it sets the stage for countries to learn lessons from each other—through both successes and failures.

The U.S. has made headway in a number of respects, but some other parts of the world are ahead of us in terms of experience. The European Union has been operating an emissions trading system across all of its member states for several years, and it has helped them reduce emissions overall. They have also learned some lessons about the flaws they built into the early design, and many of these have now been corrected. New Zealand, South Korea, China, and other countries are also at various stages of implementing emissions trading systems.

Some other countries are also ahead of us in building out their low-carbon energy systems, and they have encountered a few challenges along the way. Germany, for instance, now receives so much of its energy from wind and solar sources that it is rethinking the way it manages its electricity grid. The U.S. is rapidly accelerating its use of clean energy, but many of these challenges still lie ahead of us. We will need to make deliberate, accelerated progress to avoid falling behind.

Some people are saying that this agreement will help stop deforestation – is that right?

Yes, the Paris Agreement operationalized a framework in its Article 5 for countries to receive support for reducing their emissions from deforestation. After ten years of work within the UN, many environmentalists believe that this will be a critical turning point for global deforestation. All of the countries with tropical forests endorsed the framework, and many countries that have been supporting them, such as Norway, pledged to continue their support. The hope that deforestation will be virtually eliminated by 2030 now seems within reach.

Are these climate negotiations just a big boondoggle for the participants?

My personal experience is just the opposite. Most of us work incredibly long hours and almost completely set aside our personal lives for two weeks. The work itself requires intense focus, since a sentence, phrase, or even a single word can mean the difference between an agreement that’s accepted or rejected at home. The Paris process—and indeed, the whole UN climate enterprise—has been aimed at finding a positive “landing zone” that can accommodate all countries.

In terms of coordination and compromise, this is perhaps the most difficult challenge that the world has ever undertaken. As a result, progress can seem tentative and slow from the outside. But in this case, the Paris Agreement accomplished a major breakthrough and has the potential to be an unprecedented success, because of the delicate balance of its structure. It has enough flexibility to allow each country to determine its own contribution to the climate effort, but enough accountability to keep everyone on track, through a process that regularly evaluates the sufficiency of the global effort.

This breakthrough was only possible because of the high-level signals and momentum that heads of state delivered at the start of the negotiations. All of them acknowledged the threat of climate change and the fact that a solution was in their national interest. All of them accepted the science of climate change, as documented by the IPCC. These statements provided the necessary fuel for the negotiations, while sketching out the rough boundaries of the “landing zones.” Then the negotiators got to work, filling in the rough outlines and piecing together the intricate structure of the agreement.

What is a typical day like at these negotiations?

My routine in Paris was to leave my hotel before 8:00am, pick up a pastry and coffee on the way to the train, and then switch to a shuttle bus that took me to the COP venue. Once inside, I went through a security checkpoint—just like at an airport—before I could enter the area where the negotiations took place. Most of the activity occurred in five main buildings (or “halls”) on the COP campus, some of which were temporary and some of which were repurposed hangars from the defunct Le Bourget airport. Each building, in turn, had meeting rooms, cafes, computer work areas, and other facilities to meet the needs of over 40,000 participants.

The plenary hall where all nations adopted the Paris Agreement.

The UNFCCC schedule set the agenda of official meetings for the day, and in between I had impromptu meetings and hallway conversations. With luck, I would have time to grab a quick lunch at one of the onsite cafes, usually late in the afternoon. In a break with the past, the Presidency of this COP established a rule that no official meetings would be scheduled to start after 9pm. In practice, that’s when the real work begins, in informal drafting groups who meet to try to hammer out legal language about specific issues. These groups often meet late into the night, aiming to produce text that they can present for official consideration the next day. Fortunately, my issues tended to finish by midnight on most nights, and then we would all return to our hotels. (I’m grateful for the kebab shop near my train station, which provided me with a few late-night dinners.) The next day, the whole cycle repeated, building up to the final day.

Successful negotiators have to work incredibly hard to meet the competing demands on them. They must frequently share up-to-the-minute status reports with their delegations and allies, so that each tiny tectonic movement can be analyzed in order to gain a sense of the overall seismic shifts that are occurring.

The most difficult part is that negotiators must be watchful and prepared to make a compelling case for each and every aspect of their positions, at any moment, knowing that they are likely to face a strong, equally compelling case on the other side. This might sound like a mashup of courtroom drama and a high-stakes game of Risk, with a bunch of technocrats determining our global fate, but that’s not the case. Negotiators are responsible for signaling to others the boundaries of their own country’s “landing zone,” and they need to find ways to do this clearly and efficiently. Everyone knew the overall priorities, as set out by the heads of state: their job was to work out the devilish details to meet these priorities.

What role do non-governmental groups like UCS have at the negotiations?

Environmental groups have a profound impact, in a variety of different ways. Some, like me, are requested to join country delegations as technical advisors, giving us direct access to the negotiations. Others work tirelessly outside, to coordinate and target their messages as the issues unfold. We work through various forms of media to amplify and empower the voices defending environmental integrity and vulnerable peoples.

The COP is also a venue to share new findings, highlight innovative projects, and raise new concerns over emerging challenges. So, even though we are not always inside the negotiations, everyone acknowledges that we play a crucial role in shaping and influencing their outcome.

Any interesting anecdotes from the negotiations? What was the dynamic like there?

Despite the intensity and seriousness of the Paris negotiations, there were moments of levity and humor. Many of us began referring to this as the “butter COP,” partly as a tribute to the unprecedented smoothness with which it was conducted, but also in reference to the ubiquity of butter in the French cuisine. Somehow, in spite of the busy pace, many of us were feeling a little plumper when we returned home.

Minister Laurent Fabius, who presided over the negotiations as COP President, also brought a few moments of amusement along the way. During one late-night session, he forgot how to formally address his own home bloc. “Now I call on Europe … er, I mean … the Unified Europe … em, the European Union,” he stammered, then grinned. During the closing session, he got so excited with the growing momentum that he carried on his speech in English, breaking with diplomatic convention. “I seem to have forgotten my French!” he exclaimed, at which the entire hall broke out in laughter.

Throughout the two-week meeting, Fabius was universally praised for his hands-on approach, his level-headedness, and his skill in moving the negotiations forward. At one point, a delegate praised him by saying “I think, sir, that your efforts may succeed in getting us to reach an agreement, and if so, you should be awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace.” On Saturday, Fabius delivered that agreement, and the world moved one important step closer toward peacefully resolving climate change. Now the baton passes to Morocco, the host of next year’s COP, where we will all take the next steps toward making the Paris Agreement operational by 2020.

Following the attacks in Paris, after feeling an outpouring of empathy and grief, I imagine many of us sought something solid to hold onto amidst the irrationality of such violence. Grasping for stability, I recalled the words of a prayer for serenity: “Give me the strength to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the ones I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

Then I boarded a plane and flew to Paris, along with thousands of others, to face the challenge of a different issue: climate change. Representatives of nearly 200 countries converged at the UN climate meeting in Paris, which aims to complete the latest round of climate talks. If successful, we will emerge with a new, global agreement for preventing dangerous climate change – but success will require an unprecedented display of strength, courage, and wisdom from our leaders.

The entrance to the United Nations climate meeting in Paris.

When words become action

Like many here, I have spent years building my knowledge and honing my understanding in order to be prepared for what will happen at the meeting. Yet in spite of such intense preparations, the activities at the UNFCCC negotiations will seem mundane from the outside, and quite often boring. Much of our time will be spent poring over words, parsing their meaning, debating formulations – even punctuation. It has always been easy to dismiss these efforts as merely a foolish exercise in wordplay.

But words are given meaning when they guide action. And we can already see actions underway around the world, signaling and supporting the intent for the future. Nearly every country has offered its own contribution—some modest, some ambitious—to reduce climate pollution and shift to a less harmful source of economic growth and well-being. Some countries already have deep experience in this regard; others will be taking steps for the first time. Their actions will help to protect and nurture future generations. Our future is cradled in their actions.

There is an attitude of seriousness at this meeting, at a level I have not seen for several years. In his statement to the conference, President Obama commended the French government for its perseverance, then said “Let nothing deter us from building the future we want for our children.” The spirit of working for something better that will last beyond our lifetimes echoed the call from Pope Francis earlier this year, and has been taken up by many other world leaders.

President Obama addressed the climate meeting, along with many other world leaders, calling for a renewed spirit of cooperation.

Acting together, with a new level of cooperation and effort

The intensity of focus has already made it clear that Paris is no fool’s errand. The attention of our highest religious leaders, our most careful scientists, and our most powerful political leaders will be fixated on Paris. They have heard the cry of the vulnerable. Standing with them, thousands of civil society activists will speak out around the world, to say “There is a better way. We demand a change.” Business leaders will stand up and say “We can’t continue on our current course. We want to be part of a different path.” Innovators will step forward, saying “We want to find the solutions and build a better future.”

Combined, our strength is formidable.

The path will be surveyed, prepared, and paved by a cadre of professional diplomats, scientists, lawyers, activists, and policy makers. At each meeting, I become more and more impressed by the skill, patience, and dedication of these people. And I feel honored and humbled to be counted among them, to contribute my tiny piece to the work they are creating. Many of them have far more experience than I do, with expertise constructed over years and tested by experience.

Collectively, our wisdom is vast.

From the building blocks contributed by each nation, we will assemble a global agreement that can accommodate everyone, and take us into the future. It is a delicate enterprise. The risk of failure is real, and failure could be catastrophic. As the president of the Marshall Islands said: “Everyplace I know, and everyone I love, is in your hands.” For those in Paris, there is no way to ignore the possible risks to our own safety and security—but the places and people we love will be foremost in our minds. We have come, we will face the risks, and we will do our work.

Together, our courage is undaunted.

An art installation at COP 21 flickers with light and hope, like the city of Paris.

Shaping the future

And what if we succeed? What if the words we craft in Paris spur unprecedented action? Then, perhaps, our children and grandchildren may live long lives and not witness crippling droughts that lead to the horrors of famine. They may live to see conflicts sputter out, instead of being intensified by the desperation that comes with vanishing resources. They may live to see vast forests rejuvenate, rather than be consumed in the ravaging fury of wildfires. And one day their descendants may hear reports that the seas have stopped rising, that the glaciers have stopped retreating. Perhaps billions will live to experience a sense of serenity.

For those of us in Paris, and for those around the world whose future is cradled in our actions, we ask for strength, courage, and wisdom. We may be among many in Paris who seek serenity, yet we will seek it not for ourselves, but for the generations that come after us. Let today’s hard realities spur us to change the things that we know must be changed.

What’s going to happen to the carbon stored on federal lands?

For the first time, the US Geological Survey (USGS) has published an estimate of ecosystem carbon stocks and sequestration potential of federal lands across the conterminous US. The term “carbon stocks” refers to the total amount of carbon found in living and dead components of ecosystems, including trees, shrubs, grasses, dead wood, and soils; “sequestration potential” refers to the capacity of living plants (especially trees) to take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and store it in their tissues for many years, through photosynthesis.

The US government owns about 23.5% of the land area in the lower 48 states (plus a large fraction of Alaska), and one goal of federal policies at the Department of Interior and the Forest Service is to increase the carbon stocks on these lands. The purpose of the USGS analysis was to evaluate how carbon stocks are projected to change as a result of future climate scenarios. These projections aimed to account for the demographic and economic impacts associated with the scenarios, in addition to the biophysical impacts of climate change. The study used an older generation of climate scenarios developed by the IPCC, comparing carbon stocks from 2005 with those estimated for scenarios A1B, A2, and B1 in 2050.

At first blush, the news seems to be good. The analysis projected an increase in carbon stocks on federal lands for all three scenarios, relative to 2005. A map figure (below) illustrates where gains and losses are expected, with maps showing estimated carbon stocks in 2005, as well as the projected changes in carbon sequestration rates by 2050, for the three climate scenarios. Most of the gains are projected to occur in the Rocky Mountain states and California, some scattered federal lands in the Southeast, and a few places in the upper Midwest and Northeast. The Pacific Northwest is expected to see significant reductions in sequestration — for reasons that are unclear — with smaller reductions across other areas, such as the Basin and Range.

Spatial distribution of the baseline ecosystem carbon stock (in vegetation and the top 20-cm depth of soil, averaged from three GCMs and three models) in federal lands across the CONUS and its changes from 2006 to 2050 under three scenarios, A1B, A2, and B1.

The study estimated that the carbon stored on these lands would increase between 2006 and 2050 by 2153 – 2404 million tons. If we convert this additional sequestration to its carbon dioxide equivalent, it would represent 7894 – 8815 million tons CO2-equivalent (Mt CO2-e) taken out of the atmosphere. How much is that? For comparison, that’s substantially more than the 5791 Mt CO2-e emitted by the entire US economy in 2013 (the latest year for which we have verified data). So that’s great, right? Climate change unfolds, and we bank more than a year’s worth of carbon on federal lands. What’s the problem?

The global emissions trajectory really matters

As usual, the story is a little more complicated than it first appears. First, let’s take a closer look at those numbers, and then we’ll look at what’s underpinning them.

Look again at the range of carbon stocks spanning the different climate scenarios. At the low end, the higher emissions associated with the A1B scenario would result in 2153 million tons of additional carbon stock, whereas the lower emission associated with the B1 scenario would result in 2404 million tons of additional carbon stock. The difference between these scenarios, when converted to CO2-equivalents, is about 920 Mt CO2-e. That means that a higher global emissions scenario could prevent the US from storing almost a billion additional tons of CO2 emissions in federal lands by 2050. To put that in perspective, the EPA’s recently finalized Clean Power Plan (CPP) for the power sector is estimated to achieve a reduction of 870 Mt CO2-e in 2030 compared with 2005 levels. Also keep in mind that climate change would also affect private lands, which account for the remaining ¾ of the land area of the lower 48 states, so the total effect might be much larger.

Some processes that reduce carbon stocks might not be modeled well

Furthermore, we have good reasons to think that the USGS estimates of future sequestration may be too optimistic. One reason is that the researchers used a modeling approach that projects future land-use changes and changes in carbon stocks by extrapolating trends from a relatively short period, 1992-2000, and then using 2000-2005 as a base period. To estimate changes in emissions from forests due to disturbances like fire, pests, and drought, they adapted the approach taken by another USGS study, focused on Western states. Those estimates were conservative, according to the authors; in addition, they may not have fully captured the impacts of drought and pest outbreaks that accelerated in the West after 2000. Another source of bias may be the active suppression of fires that occurred during the reference period of the study – this may have dampened the model’s projections of future fires, which are expected to become much more extensive and costly.

In our own analysis of data from the Forest Service, UCS found growing impacts from fire, pests, and drought in Rocky Mountain states – the very states where USGS projected substantial increases in carbon stocks. Those three factors can trigger systemic changes in ecosystems, changing the underlying processes that affect carbon stocks. As a result, the extrapolations conducted by USGS may be based on a time period that simply doesn’t represent the dynamics of the future. Cascading impacts of drought, pests, and fires may put the western forests on a much different trajectory, potentially leading to higher emissions and lower carbon sequestration. Other regions will face their own complex climate impacts, and federal lands in the Southeast, upper Midwest, and Pacific Northwest may also fall short of the study’s projections.

The USGS study also may not have accounted for the turnover of forest species that is expected with climate change. If we look more closely at the Rocky Mountains, for example, we see that the future climate may become unsuitable for several of the most common tree species found there today, including lodgepole pine, ponderosa pine, and Douglas fir. If so, those species may be in decline by 2050. It’s unclear what new species, if any, would move into those areas to replace them. Areas that USGS projected to see sizeable increases in carbon stocks – such as western Montana and central Colorado – are going to be less suitable for the species that currently dominate those forests. Can carbon stocks really increase if the dominant species are in decline?

Areas of recent historical suitability for four conifer species in the Rocky Mountain states.

Areas of projected suitability for four conifer species in 2060, under the A2 IPCC scenario.

The changes in climate that drive these declines may be manifested in tree-killing droughts, pest outbreaks, extensive wildfires, or some unforeseen combination of these impacts. The wildfires of 2015 have exceeded our expectations in their number, size, and ferocity – with veteran firefighters reporting that this year has been unlike anything they’ve ever seen. If this year becomes the norm, we may be entering a much different era of climate-driven changes in our western landscapes.

What should we make of all this?

Perhaps the most useful pieces of information to take from the USGS study are the projections related to the more optimistic climate scenarios. The study suggests that if the world coordinates its efforts to reduce heat-trapping emissions and if the US takes active steps to anticipate the impacts of climate change on federal lands, we might preserve and even enhance our vital carbon stocks. These two actions need to happen in tandem. Our actions in the energy sector could actually lead to a windfall benefit in the land sector, if we manage it successfully – a windfall that might be comparable to what we expect to achieve through energy sector reform under the Clean Power Plan. And there’s an extra benefit: our children and grandchildren might have the chance to appreciate the same kind of the beauty and value we currently enjoy on our public lands today. That would be a huge win for everyone.

Extreme downpours

Here in Chicago, rain has been so common that it has become a running joke between me and my wife. “It’s raining again,” she says. “Oh good,” I say. “It will break our 12-hour drought.”

We weren’t laughing, however, when a strong storm blew through a few weeks ago. A tornado warning threatened our neighborhood, and flooding in our basement damaged some irreplaceable family pictures we had stored down there.

That storm contributed to what was the wettest June on record for three states – Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio – with precipitation levels above average for much of the Midwest. And July has shown no signs of slowing down.

Illinois, Indiana and Ohio just experienced their wettest June on record, and much of the Midwest was wetter than normal. Shades of green show higher-than-average precipitation; shades of orange show drier-than-average precipitation. Numbers indicate the ranking of June 2015 relative to other years in the historical record, ranging from the driest year (rank of 1) to the wettest year (rank of 121). Source: NOAA

Soggy fields lead to late planting and poor crops

We often think about drought as the biggest threat to farmers, but wet conditions can also have a damaging impact. Heavy and frequent rains have kept farmers from planting their fields this summer, or have drastically reduced the yield of crops already in the ground. In central Missouri, for example, acres planted in corn and soybeans are far below normal for this time of year, due to wet conditions. And wheat harvests have been hit hard, dealing a double whammy to farmers: yields on each acre are far below normal, and the poor quality of the grain is fetching low prices for whatever wheat they manage to glean from the fields.

Trend: heavy rains are becoming more frequent and intense in the Midwest

For the Midwest, the conditions we’re seeing this summer are part of a longer trend: heavy rain events have become more common over several decades, with a trend toward larger events since the 1980s. The heaviest rain events have also dropped more water than in the past – the most extreme Midwestern storms in 2000-2012 dropped more than 30% more water than the most extreme events in 1901-1960. So if you think storms are happening more often and they’re getting more powerful than they used to be, you’re right.

It’s an indication that something weird is going on, like when baseball players suddenly started hitting a lot more home runs. In this case, it’s a sign of a climate system on steroids, and it’s pumping a lot more water into storm systems.

In recent decades, the heaviest storms of the year have been dropping much more precipitation than in previous decades. The bars indicate the percent changes in the annual amount of precipitation falling in very heavy events, defined as the heaviest 1% of all daily events from 1901 to 2012. The far right bar is for 2001-2012. Changes are compared to the 1901-1960 average. Source: NOAA NCDC / CICS-NC

Cultural heritage at risk

My flooded basement put my personal heritage at risk when my family photos got soaked. The same thing is happening on a much larger scale with our cultural heritage. In 2008, floodwaters devastated several cities in Iowa, including extensive damage in historic downtown Cedar Rapids. Many compared those floods to the much more extensive floods of 1993, which damaged towns across the Midwest. The floods that year were so severe and widespread that ten years later, FEMA compiled a retrospective look at the lessons learned from the disastrous flooding of 1993. Those lessons called for better floodplain planning and management, greater emphasis on flood insurance, and flood mitigation efforts to “end the desperate cycle of repetitive flood losses.” Those lessons may become even more important in the future, as precipitation events become more extreme.

Heavy precipitation events will become more common if heat-trapping emissions continue to increase. The map shows projected changes in the number of days with very heavy precipitation (top 2% of all rainfalls each year) for the middle of the current century (2041-2070) relative to the end of the last century (1971-2000) across the Midwest under continued emissions (A2 scenario). The highest part of the range implies that heavy precipitation days would become at least 20% more frequent under this scenario. Source: National Climate Assessment

With climate change, it will get worse

The trends toward heavier, more frequent storms in the Midwest, and the damage that they cause, are consistent with what we’re seeing globally. A recent global study found that the warming climate led to 12% more record-breaking rainfall events than expected in the period 1981-2010, a significant increase over the time period from 1901 to 1980. The Midwest is one of the regions where heavy precipitation is projected to increase and heavy storms will become more frequent (see map below) if heat-trapping emissions continue to grow. Prudence would suggest that we begin planning for this today, even as we seek ways to slow the pace of climate change.

Vulnerability doesn’t have to mean that we will lose the things we love             

A detailed documentary by the University of Iowa explains how the floods of 2008 threatened much of the university campus, but thanks to the incredible efforts of thousands of volunteers, university employees, the National Guard, and others, the damage was limited and the most important assets were saved. This kind of effort exemplifies communities at their best, coming together in the face of adversity. The places we love are worth saving, and most of us would gladly lend a hand to help protect them.

But if these risks are allowed to increase, there will come a point when repeated storms, crop damage, and flooding outstrip our capacity to respond. People will have to face hard questions about what is worth saving, and what will have to be abandoned. Will this be the year that farms are sold off and converted to a wildlife refuge? Will this be the flood that makes an historic church unusable? Will flooding finally force us to sever cultural landmarks like the Farnsworth House from their historical context? These are real, irreplaceable, and disruptive losses for the communities where they occur. While it’s true that we live in a world of constant change, it’s heart-wrenching to think that these losses might have been avoidable with a little more foresight. By using better foresight today, we can safeguard our heritage for the future.

Future losses aren’t a foregone conclusion: we can take action to protect ourselves

I recovered most of my soggy family photos and moved the most valuable items high off my basement floor. The governor of Iowa called in the National Guard and other resources to protect the University’s most valuable assets. From our own individual homes to the planning of our cities and watersheds, we can learn the lessons, take more precautions, and make better preparations for the future.

At the same time, we face limits to how much we can protect ourselves – affected communities will need outside assistance, while the rest of us begin to tackle the root of the problem. We can support steps that diminish the pace of climate change by reducing the activities that add greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. The federal Clean Power Plan is a step in the right direction, but it won’t be enough on its own. We will need the U.S. to do more to shift its support away from fossil fuels and into emissions-reducing technologies, if we are all going to reap the benefits of global action on climate change.

As a commentator said about steroid use in baseball: “It was good fun while we were all ignorant. Now that we’re not, we should all be able to agree with the following sentiment: Let’s not go through all that again.” It’s an apt sentiment for the climate, as well. Summer storms can be good fun, but we should all be able to agree that we don’t want to jeopardize our heritage and put our kids and grandkids at greater risk. Let’s move our climate past the steroid era.

Let’s start in an unlikely place to think about warming: Alaska. The Alaskan interior experienced a relatively warm and dry winter this year, followed by a rapidly warming spring and summer. This left vast stretches of the boreal forest especially dry – and a recent spate of “dry thunderstorms” has ignited an enormous number of fires.

This fire season has already surpassed the number of fires seen by this time in 2004, which was the worst Alaskan fire season in recent memory. Already, more than 2 million acres have burned, and neighboring Canada is experiencing similar conditions and a record-setting fire season.

Source: Alaska Interagency Coordination Center

Unfortunately, these are exactly the kinds of conditions we expect to become more frequent with climate change. Higher latitudes (near the poles) experience faster warming than lower latitudes (near the Equator), so even a small amount of global warming can translate into much higher temperatures in the far north. Warmer winters mean less snowpack; warmer springs mean earlier melt; warmer summers mean drier forests and soils – the result is a tinderbox. Add in a few lightning storms, and we can witness a conflagration that threatens lives and property.

The scary part is that these fires in the far north are converting vast stores of carbon into even more heat-trapping emissions, adding to the global warming problem. Several years ago, I spent a summer researching the effects of fires in the Alaskan Interior. My colleague, Dr. Merritt Turetsky of the University of Guelph, along with others, has now documented that these northern fires are burning deep into stored peat and contributing to the breakdown of subsurface permafrost, making even more carbon vulnerable. Fire is just one of the pathways that this carbon can end up being emitted to the atmosphere, where it contributes to further warming.

And if you think what happens in the far north can’t affect those of us down here in the lower 48, think again: the smoke plumes from northern fires have traveled through the upper Midwest, down into the Ohio Valley, and along the East Coast to Long Island. That hazy 4^th of July sunset wasn’t the result of grills and fireworks – it was due to wildfires blazing throughout Alaska and Canada.

Plumes of smoke from wildfires extended across much of the Midwest and eastern states in early July. (Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team/NASA)

The situation is just as bad throughout other parts of the West. Washington state is experiencing an anxious fire season, and the fires have sparked already in the unusually dry conditions have moved quickly. In Wenatchee, Washington, several people have lost their homes and businesses. The intensity of the multi-year drought in California has hardly been eased by the below-normal winter precipitation and scant Sierra Nevada snowpack. Now the state is facing the real prospect of running out of water – water for crops, water for drinking, water for fighting the inevitable wildfires. Elsewhere, parts of the Rockies are seeing record heat, and with forests already dying from past climate-related factors, they may be even more vulnerable to wildfire this year.

The Federal government is gearing up as much as possible, training and deploying firefighters and purchasing new equipment. But this may be another year when wildfire costs exceed the expected budget, and federal agencies have to pull money out of other funds to meet the need – including funds that are intended for fire prevention activities. This only leaves forests and nearby communities more vulnerable – and if recent wildfire trends continue, the risk of wildfire will continue to grow as global temperatures rise.

These kinds of reactionary measures can only keep us safe for a short time, until our resources are spent and the threats overwhelm our capacities. The only real solution is to take steps to reduce our own emissions and slow down the rapid pace of warming. Until then, communities from Fairbanks to Wenatchee to Los Angeles will continue to see the risks of wildfire grow, year by year.

Climate information is our most powerful tool in managing disaster costs

In a world with a changing climate, information has become our most powerful tool in dealing with future uncertainty. Thanks to the initiative, insight, and hard work of dedicated scientists, we have an unprecedented ability to look ahead and understand what changes to expect and how they will impact us. The good news is that our understanding and knowledge are only getting better with time.

The bad news is that the expected changes are mostly harmful, and could be catastrophic. We know with a great deal of certainty that our current choices about the fuels we use to drive our economy are putting us on a path for stronger, more frequent heat waves. We know that coastal areas will be increasingly affected by sea level rise. And we can also foresee more subtle changes that have big impacts, such as the gradual loss of Western forests, or the earlier melting of winter snowpacks, which threatens water supplies.

The Carlton Complex fire in 2014, fueled by drought and high winds, was the largest in Washington state’s history. Photo: KING5

Climate risks? Check.

Unfortunately, not all politicians get this connection. In a recent letter to the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), several senators challenged the requirement for states to consider the effects of climate change in their plans before they can become eligible for hazard mitigation grants, which are aimed at helping communities prepare for future calamities (this is not a requirement for the dispersal of aid after a disaster declaration).

This requirement seems sensible, like the checklist of health risk factors that most doctors require of us at an annual checkup. Is there heart disease in my family? How stressful is my work environment? How much do I exercise? These questions give our healthcare professionals key information about our risk factors that can tell them what to look for – and what changes they might need to recommend to us.

Just as doctors need to assess our health risks to recommend the best course of action for our health, communities need to assess their risk from climate change to decide how best to deal with it. Photo: ilmicrofono.oggion/Flickr

Similarly, “how much is my state at risk from climate change?” seems like a reasonable question for us to be able to answer before a state receives millions of taxpayer dollars to address hazards, some of which are affected by climate change. This is what businesses that are part of the insurance industry, such as SwissRe and Allianz, have been doing for years. So why shouldn’t states ask similar questions to protect taxpayers?

Some states are acting responsibly … others, not so much

Some states, like Florida and California, are already beginning to consider climate risks in their hazard mitigation plans. They understand how this helps to limit the need for spending when disasters occur. The hazard mitigation plans – and the FEMA grants that support them – are intended to help states manage their risks, by preparing in advance.

Now, if my state hasn’t thought about the role of climate change in disasters, then it no longer fully understands those risks. In a country that arguably has the most comprehensive and well-researched understanding of climate science, it only makes sense that we should take advantage of that science in our decisions about how to spend taxpayer money. Ignoring the science and hoping for the best is hardly a formula for good public policy.

Moreover, a hazard assessment that factors in changing climate conditions doesn’t need to be a burdensome task. The FEMA guidelines already require applicants to assess the likelihood of different hazards – now they just ask applicants to factor in climate change. So it is disingenuous, at best, for senators to say that these guidelines create extra red tape, when in fact it’s just about using the right information.

Furthermore, much of the work has already been done in some places. For example, a group of Nebraska scientists recently produced an independent report on current and expected climate impacts to that state. Spearheaded by University of Nebraska professors, the report was delivered to the state Senate. But apparently it never arrived on the desk of U.S. Senator Deb Fischer, who signed on to the FEMA letter. Had she read the report, she would have seen that the stakes are high for the critical sectors that drive her state’s economy – and the report itself could be used to justify far larger investments in preparedness for Nebraska.

According to the report, investments in “more efficient irrigation practices, drought tolerant crops, and increased efficiencies in urban water use, among other measures” could reduce pressure on groundwater reservoirs, which are vital for cropland irrigation in times of drought. Nebraska was already among the top 10 recipients of federal disaster aid for fiscal years 2011 and 2012, receiving more than $2 billion in aid, primarily because of the impact of the drought and subsequent crop insurance program payments.

Instead of heeding the warnings and sensible advice of Nebraska scientists, Senator Fischer and the other signatories seem to prefer to undermine and cherry-pick the science, while expecting taxpayers from other states to provide costlier-than-needed bailouts, instead of investing in protecting Nebraskans from future climate change.

Instead of undercutting science, policy makers should be assessing all the information they can get their hands on, so that they can help prepare their constituents as much as possible for what’s to come, while keeping costs low for the American taxpayer. This makes good sense, for the same reason that a periodic checkup with a doctor is a good idea for everyone’s health. We rely on these trained professionals to tell us what changes are in the best interest of our future health, and most of us take their advice to heart. Not only does it give us the best chance of preserving our quality of life, it can also help us to avoid costly and disruptive health issues that are far, far more inconvenient and uncomfortable than a periodic checkup.

When geography demands action

Some politicians are beginning to understand how this same kind of thinking can apply to the climate change problem. Congressman Carlos Curbelo gets it, because he’s representing the southernmost district in Florida. He’s on the front lines, witnessing the unmistakable and inexorable rise of the sea. He’s responsible for safeguarding the Florida Everglades, which he has called “one of the world’s great natural treasures.”

At a recent Earth Day visit by President Obama, Congressman Curbelo said “I share the president’s concerns about sea level rise, and its effects on our drinking supplies, our economy, and our way of life. I am committed to finding common ground to mitigate the effects of climate change.”

The congressman’s commitment comes not a moment too soon. In Florida, it is estimated that $35 billion in current property value and 65,000 homes exist within one foot of elevation from the high tide line. With a foot of sea level rise expected in Florida by mid-century, these assets could see daily flooding in that time frame, while a much larger – and rapidly growing – share of Floridians’ homes lie in reach of storm surge today.

None of us – not the U.S. taxpayer, not the Florida homeowner, and not even Governor Rick Scott – can wish away the changing risks that accompany a changing climate. But, with federal support, we can prepare for them.

Longer, riskier, costlier fire seasons mean it’s time for a rethink

Senator Maria Cantwell, from Washington state, also gets it. She understands that her state needs to make changes in order to prepare for more intense wildfire seasons.

In western states, wildfire season has become longer and large wildfires have become more common in recent years, driven by warmer, drier conditions. Senator Cantwell sees that this is putting a strain on the budget of the Forest Service, which in recent years has had to borrow money from programs that reduce the risk of forest fires in order to finance its fire-fighting efforts – possibly putting her state at risk, if the budget falls short.

With scientists expecting hot, dry conditions to be more common as the climate warms, Senator Cantwell sees the potential for “fire borrowing” to spiral out of control, with the taxpayer footing the bill. Forest Service research has already indicated a 90 percent likelihood that its fire suppression costs for 2015 will be between $794 million and $1.657 billion, and state costs will add even more to that total.

Instead of continuing to borrow from preventive management funds to pay for wildfire suppression, Cantwell is developing legislation to safeguard funds for the preventative measures that reduce the risk of fire and limit the impact of fires when they do occur. This approach makes sense as a way to reduce the chance of destructive and costly fires down the road – it ultimately saves taxpayers money, even if it means spending a little more today. “If we are ever going to get ahead of the problem, the Forest Service needs to respond to wildfires in a fundamentally different way,” she said. Informed changes and fiscal responsibility go hand in hand.

Two sides of the same coin: fiscal responsibility and resource stewardship

At the end of the day, demands for greater fiscal responsibility and resource stewardship from our policy makers may begin to change attitudes. These two goals reinforce each other.

The impacts of climate change are already unfolding around the country, and as the costs mount up, taxpayers will realize that they are throwing good money after bad. Senator Jeff Flake articulated this logic in his critique of another disaster-payment bill, when he said “Paying for one disaster while furthering our current fiscal disaster doesn’t make sense.”

On this point, I couldn’t agree more. Climate change may lead to a series of fiscal disasters, unless we become smarter about our hazard mitigation planning.

These three factors have probably been killing trees in the Rocky Mountains for millennia, and the forests have co-evolved in response to them. So what’s different now? In the past few decades, we’ve seen the rapid pace of climate change tip the balance in favor of these destructive elements, and as a result, trees in the Rockies have succumbed on a scale never seen before in our country’s history.

2003. Copyright: Steven DeWitt

2013. Copyright: Steven DeWitt

Fast-changing climate could transform the Rocky Mountain landscape

After months of research and work on the report, I had become a bit numb to the daunting statistics. More than 46 million acres of forest have been devastated by bark beetles, an outbreak nearly as large as the state of Colorado itself. The area burned by wildfires has increased nearly seven-fold in the past three decades—partly due to a policy change at the U.S. Forest Service, which allowed more fires to burn—but mainly due to warmer, drier conditions that have fueled larger, more frequent wildfires. And even in forests undisturbed by insects and wildfires, the tree mortality rate has more than doubled across the West, likely due to increased stress from heat and drought.

My co-authors and I also looked ahead at what is likely to happen to the forests if the globe fails to slow the pace of climate change. Working with U.S. Forest Service scientists, we examined projected areas of “climate suitability” for a few common tree species in the region. The projected areas of “climate suitability” show where future climate conditions would allow the species to persist.

When we dug into the data, what we found was staggering. If carbon emissions continue to increase at their current pace for the next 40 years, widespread species like ponderosa pine, lodgepole pine, Englemann spruce, and Douglas fir could die off in most of their current ranges. The losses of climatic suitability for these species ranged from 60 to 90 percent. The resulting change in the region’s character was hard for me to imagine.

Projected changes in climate suitability for conifer species

Tree mortality may signal that the transformation is already underway

To get a better sense of what this massive die off would look like, I joined photographer Steven DeWitt on a hike near Vail, Colorado. Over the past 10 years, Steven has witnessed the effects of climate-driven tree mortality, as well as the forest management response. “You’ve got to see it with your own eyes,” Steven told me. “You can’t grasp everything that has happened just from reading the studies.”

I’m no stranger to forests in Colorado and the northern Rockies. Over the past several years, I have hiked in a number of them. I was accustomed to seeing red-needled trees that had been killed by bark beetles, and tiny holes in the sides of trees, often highlighted by popcorn-shaped clumps of resin, or “pitch-outs,” where the trees had tried to flush out the attacking beetles.

The scene that greeted Steven and me last week, however, was much more dramatic. We were in a landscape partway through an extraordinary transformation, and the attempts to manage this transformation seemed clumsy and piecemeal in comparison to the efficiency and extent of the impacts.

An infected aspen (left) and “bleeding” aspen (right)

Entire valleys, once cloaked with vigorous, dark forest, now were drained of color, replaced by a bristly grey stubble of dead trees. As we drove deeper into the forest on a logging road, the skeletal trunks of lodgepole pines, devoid of needles, left an impression of what had been lost, reminding me of the rows upon rows of pale grave markers covering the sweeping hillsides of Arlington National Cemetery.

The few trees that were still alive were not faring well. We stopped alongside a sickly aspen tree.

“They bleed,” Steven pointed out. “When they are infected with cankers, a red fluid pours down the side of the white trunk, and it looks like blood.” I suspected this was some kind of fungus staining the sap, and the effect was indeed ghastly. Other aspens were riddled with black holes or patches of dead bark, encrusted like scabs over infected wounds.

Seeing these impacts first-hand put the projected losses of aspen into a new perspective.  Unabated climate change would mean an unsightly and disruptive change for the forests.

Forest management needs to improve, taking climate change into account

We reached a clearing with a wide-angle view of the phantom forest and distant mountain peaks. Nearby, logging equipment sat at the edge of a recent clear-cut, and we could hear the buzz of chainsaws over the next ridge. As we ate lunch, Steven explained that this was just the latest in a series of logging operations that had harvested areas of the forest to try to limit the spread of the beetles and reduce the risk of wildfire. The clear-cut looked raw and ugly, punctuated by stacks of beetle-ridden logs.

I know logging can be done sustainably to maintain forest health, but I was skeptical that this exercise would have much effect in slowing down the beetles, though it might reduce the risk of wildfire. Hitting the “reset” button on the forest might allow young trees to grow up in a few years, but it just might provide a smorgasbord for the next beetle outbreak. With each boom and bust cycle, the forest would gradually lose its regenerative capacity.

As we drove down the mountain, we passed a sparse stand of dead and dying trees. “They logged that area a few years ago, taking out the beetle-infested trees and leaving the living ones,” Steven said. “But in the next few years, the beetles killed the rest of the living ones.” Even the best attempts at management had been overwhelmed by this outbreak. “Look, those trees haven’t even made any pitch-outs,” he said. “The hillside must have dried out, and they just couldn’t produce enough resin. Their defenses were gone.”

Science is clear: we have a choice about the future of Rocky Mountain forests

To prepare our new report, my co-authors and I pored over more than 180 sources, all from peer-reviewed independent and government studies that document the links between climate change and the three agents of the “triple assault.” As comprehensive as we were, that scientific knowledge didn’t prepare me for the reality of what is happening on the ground.

Without rapid action to slow the pace of global warming, the scene I witnessed last week will only become more commonplace in the West. What used to be an unbroken landscape of trees will be replaced by gray sentinels, and the silence of the phantom forest will only be broken by the sound of chainsaws as crews salvage what remains of these once majestic forests.

This post is part of a series on the National Climate Assessment. Learn more about climate change where you live by attending a UCS webinar.

Even in the absence of these extreme events, relatively mild variations from year to year – a too-wet spring, an earlier-than-expected frost, or a hotter-than-normal summer – can significantly reduce their yields in sectors where the margin of profit is often thin.

So most farmers and foresters will take little comfort in the findings of the latest National Climate Assessment, which documents recent increases in the factors that jeopardize forests and agriculture, and projects that such risks will increase in the future.

The report suggests that with careful planning, substantial resources, and more than a little luck, some new opportunities could emerge. But for the most part, farmers and foresters will probably struggle just to keep up with the ever-changing conditions they will face.

Agriculture and forestry are important but vulnerable sectors

Forestry and agriculture together occupy nearly three-fourths of the nation’s land area. In 2012, agriculture in the U.S. alone produced nearly $400 billion, employed over 3 million operators, and managed over 900 million acres of land. Meanwhile, forests occupied over 750 million acres of land in 2010, and they store the equivalent of 25 years of heat-trapping carbon emissions for the U.S.

Each region of the country has its own predominant types of agriculture and forests, each with its own vulnerabilities to climate-related factors. For instance, cattle raised in feedlots are sensitive to the stress of hot summer days. Cherry trees in California’s Central Valley, on the other hand, must have enough cold nights to complete their winter dormant period. Corn and wheat in the Midwest need the right temperature and moisture conditions to successfully produce high yields. Western forests are especially susceptible to insects that breed prolifically in warmer temperatures, and forests everywhere are vulnerable to wildfires.

Damage is already occurring, and threatening conditions are projected to increase

Forests are already experiencing climate-related impacts. Western forests have already seen large-scale die-offs of important species, driven by combinations of interrelated factors, such as drought, water stress, high temperatures, insect pests, and pathogens. Most of these are directly or indirectly caused by climate factors. Most forest managers never really imagined these kinds of changes in their past forest management decisions, and their management choices have contributed to the vulnerability of forests in many places. So far, eastern forests have been spared these kinds of widespread impacts, but by the end of the century, they may be at risk of die-off too.

In agriculture, crop yields may fall, in part as a result of increasing pressure from weeds, insects, and diseases, as well as localized losses from extreme events like storms, droughts, and floods. Livestock may also suffer impacts from extreme heat, and supplies of feed could be disrupted by drought.

In a few places, land managers might do better, at least temporarily. Crop production in the northern Great Plains may improve until later in the century. Where soils are fertile, rainfall is abundant, and drainage is sufficient, crops might actually benefit from a little extra CO₂ in the atmosphere. New forests could expand northward and uphill, where they may encounter suitable new areas. But in general, a rapidly changing climate works to the of advantage pests and pathogens, which can move more quickly than their plant hosts. And ripple effects in the globally connected marketplace for agricultural and timber products could disrupt supplies or cause volatility in prices, jeopardizing food security and consumer well-being.

Managers can adapt, but we need to give them time

Farmers and foresters have a long history of innovating in the face of challenges, and they may see climate change simply as the next big challenge. We are now armed with more specialized tools and information than ever before, and these are helping managers anticipate, detect, respond, and recover from climate-related impacts. For instance, research and modeling are helping forest firefighters to deploy resources in the right places, ahead of fires, and to control wildfires before they get too big. Drought detection and mitigation strategies are improving, giving farmers more options for how to manage their crops and herds.

Nevertheless, losses will occur. In some cases, there will be loss of life, as occurred in the tragedy of the Granite Mountain hotshots in 2013. In other cases, it will be loss of livelihoods, as when one more crop failure pushes a struggling farmer into bankruptcy.

We can each do our part to ease the pressure on farmers and foresters. We can take steps to reduce our household emissions of heat-trapping gases. We can support the expansion of clean and renewable fuels and energy technologies. And we can work to bring the real costs of climate pollution into the decisions of governments, businesses, and consumers. Every bit of effort helps to slow the pace of change, giving forest and agricultural ecosystems –and the people who depend on them – time to adjust.