Climate
Every decision counts.
Guide to the Page
The word "climate" is often used as a shorthand for all forms of planetary crisis. We treat that polycrisis more holistically on the Explore Solutions page.
On this page, our look at climate change includes carbon in the atmosphere, increased heat, and extreme weather, how these interact with our local Southern California geographies, and how they impact the people and species who live here.
We've included data layers, mapping, graphs, as well as games, infographics, and apps. We also have included external links and resources tied to the best climate organizations around.
- How Prepared is Southern California for a Climate-Compromised Future?
- Southern California Climate Hazards & Vulnerability
- What is Climate Resilience?
- Heat and Carbon: A Vicious Cycle
- StoryMaps: Data Layers & Climate Issues for Southern California
- Predict Your City's Climate Future
- FlipGame: Carbon in Action: Sources and Sinks in Earth's Systems
- More About The Carbon Cycle
- Carbon Capture and Sequestration: Will the Real Carbon-Based Solution Please Stand Up?
- Toward a Climate-Friendly Economy
We are marginally to poorly prepared for climate change. Some people, species, and places are more resilient than others. But the entire region needs to adopt new systems and ways of thinking, ways of measuring growth and pathways for finding meaning in order to shepherd us through this period.
See the data below and remember: Building communities and ecosystems with strong networks and connections is the most important climate work of all. It is work that EVERYONE can do.
Some of the Basics: Climate resilience and vulnerability are the inverse of one another.
Below, the US Climate Vulnerability Index measures EXPOSURE to climate hazards and the projected ABILITY of an area to respond to them across four baseline vulnerability factors (health, social/economic, infrastructure, and environment) and three climate change risks (health, social/economic, extreme events) (Lewis et al 2023).
Search for your address to see if the ratings are true to your experience. And remember: data is always a lead in to further examination and conversation. It's meant to open dialogs and provide direction for acquiring new knowledge.
We can't necessarily control extreme weather or geographical hazards, but we CAN control where and how we build for humans, what space we dedicate to nonhuman habitats and species, how we approach justice and equality, creating improved and adaptable infrastructure, and supporting strong community networks that provide the ultimate climate resilience.
One weakness of climate vulnerability models is that they prioritize us humans. How can we design a climate vulnerability model that maximizes the nonhuman? How can we design a model that recognizes the strength of human social and kinship networks?
Southern California Climate Hazards & Vulnerability
Extreme weather and increased heat, fire, and flooding have put pressure on communities and landscapes. These pressures combine with hazards in existing geographies as well as with social inequality, health issues, and environmental injustice. These things together are called climate vulnerability. Some people, species, and places are more at risk than others.
[We are working on some simplified language and numbers for these graphs.]
People are just beginning to create ways of valuing the work that earth systems do. These valuations can be part of our narrow-minded vision of gross national/domestic product.
Imagine if we had to pay for all of earth's systems. It would be impossible.
Incorporating the value of ecosystems into formal indices like climate vulnerability and resilience is badly needed. But it will require a paradigm shift--and a different way of doing business.
What is Climate Resilience?
Climate resilience is the opposite of climate vulnerability.
Climate vulnerability is the impact people, places, and species will feel from our changing climate.
Climate resilience is how quickly people, species, and places bounce back under climate pressure or following disaster.
These are determined by a combination of ecosystem health, climate change, socioeconomics and social networks for humans, connectivity for multiple species, and the built environment--both its age and its value.
Building resilience means supporting the ability of the earth to recover from climate pressure, such as storms and extreme weather. When the earth can no longer recover from climate pressure, it contributes to further climate vulnerability.
Building climate resilience means working with the earth rather than trying to dominate it, giving the earth space to get back to a point of equilibrium where it can balance things out.
Building resilience means increasing the ability of people, places, and species to bounce back from climate pressure. This means ensuring connections and community, and creating systems with multiple pathways and redundancies through circular economic and living systems that create strong communities and healthy places for all.
People often confuse climate resilience with sustainability, but they are not the same thing. Climate resilience is about bouncing back from a disaster; sustainability means extending systems that we already have going so that they do less harm.
[We are developing two graphics to explain these principles].
Heat and Carbon: A Vicious Cycle
Increased carbon emissions have increased heat all over planet earth. We need to get carbon in our atmosphere down and try to hold the planet to 2 degrees of warming.
Temperature varies from place to place and is related to local geography.
Carbon emissions produced locally and globally have increased heat across the whole planet, impacting different places in different ways.
Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is 50% higher than it was since before the Industrial Revolution.
Explore this interactive tool! View fullscreen version at co2levels.org.
Heat is a killer. Heat-related human deaths/emergency room visits increased in Southern California and globally.
The number for Southern California is an average. In some So Cal cities, such as logistics heavy Ontario CA, CO2 emissions reach as high as 622 ppm.
In Brief: Key Climate Issues for Southern California
Conversations about climate change cannot just focus on what we perceive as hazards. But hazards will often guide our actions in ways that provide multiple benefits.
If we work with the earth, we will simultaneously protect ourselves, our economies, and our ecosystems while taking pressure off of earth's systems--a win at every level!
Predict Your City's Climate Future!
Search for your city in the tool below from the University of Maryland. Their app allows users to toggle between different emissions scenarios to see how things vary. Sea level rise is not part of the projection, but changes in vegetation type is included. Is your Mediterranean climate going to become more of a desert in 60 years? Explore the app to find out!
What observations do you have?
Carbon in Action: Sources and Sinks in Earth's Systems
Carbon is part of a dynamic system of exchange between various parts of earth's systems. When the carbon equilibrium gets out of kilter, it's because of us humans.
Think of carbon as being like your breath. The earth stores carbon in various ways and places but in order for the carbon cycle to be in balance, the living skin of the earth needs to be able to breathe.
Earth
The crust of the earth and the soil itself are what is known as terrestrial or landscape carbon. Different parts of the earth are carbon sources or sinks!
Bodies
From your own body to the body of a whale to the wood of a tree, biological bodies both store and use carbon. This is known as biomass carbon!
Plants
Plants breathe in carbon dioxide and breathe out oxygen, making them one of the most important elements of the carbon cycle.
Ice
Cryocarbon! When water freezes for the long term, carbon gets locked up for long periods. As ice melts, it begins to release carbon. Glacial melt is happening faster than ever, both raising sea levels and atmospheric carbon as a result/
Air
Atmospheric carbon can exist balanced exchange with other earth systems. With the rise of carbon to 420 parts per million, the desire is to get carbon back into a reasonable dynamic exchange by 2050, which means we need to stop producing extra carbon NOW.
Oceans
Ocean-based carbon storage is major, both the water itself as well as the beings that live within it.
Permafrost
Permafrost is when the soil freezes, for the long term. When it melts, gases, water, and even germs are related back into earth's system. Permafrost is a great carbon sink that is turning into a vast carbon source.
The Takeaway?
Simply allowing the earth to breathe will take pressure off of earth's systems and create a cooler planet.
If we cover the earth's skin with concrete, release and burn fossil fuels, and melt ice sheets and permafrost that took thousands of years to make, we are violating the breath of the earth. Working with and feeding the earth instead of working against it and depleting its resources is called regeneration. Learn more on the Explore Solutions page!
More about the Carbon Cycle
Increased carbon emissions have increased heat all over planet earth. We need to get carbon in our atmosphere down and try to hold the planet to 2 degrees celsius of warming.
Temperature varies from place to place and is related to local geography.
Carbon emissions produced locally and globally tend to even out across the globe, but have increased heat across the whole planet, impacting different places in different ways.
Carbon Capture and Sequestration: Will the Real Carbon-Based Solution Please Stand Up?
If you feel confused by climate solutions, you are not alone! We ranked carbon capture solutions from best to worst to help guide conversation and policy from a community first, climate first perspective. Ask yourself: is this solution doing harm elsewhere? Has it been proven at scale? Is it controversial and why? If environmentalists or communities don't support, there's probably good reason for that.
Toward a Climate-Friendly Economy
Economic mandates are often pitched against environmental benefits. Circular, donut, and regenerative economies are not only possible but essential! Check out the resources below:
Curious about how you can align with carbon-reduction goals? The good people at Project Drawdown have created a guide to help you.
Project Drawdown says that EVERY JOB is a climate job. Read the report on how to be a drawdown-aligned business and visit the many other resources on their website and in their publications.
Building Port Climate Resilience
Our supply chain is at risk. Increasing local self-reliance and relocalizing the economy would guard against supply chain breakdowns and decrease our carbon emissions. This is particularly important in Southern California, which boasts two of the biggest ports in the United States. Read the report.
Explore Green Jobs!
Many fields are attempting a green transition. Explore the resources below to see which ones interest you. Are all of them really green? You be the judge.
Environmental Defense Fund Jobs
The other thing that organizations can do is to pledge to utilize community first, climate first principles in decision making.