The consequences of climate change are progressing at a rate no one could have predicted in California, as the state enters its third successive summer of a painful drought.
Research published in February demonstrated that California’s existing drought season is correlated to a longer megadrought, which has remained since 2000.
But the 22-year period, which is the driest in 1,200 years, is fueled by human-caused environmental change, according to environmental scientists. As a result, the state is struggling with relentless wildfire seasons that smudged out the sky, compelling some people to keep their windows shut for months and others to believe as climate refugees.
Sasan Saadat, a senior policy expert for Earthjustice, told me this megadrought is nudging Californians to make environmental selections that scientists didn’t expect to arrive for decades.
“We didn’t expect these results,” Saadat notified The Climate 202 when asked about the intensifying weather circumstances that Californians confront almost every day because of human-caused climate modification. “They’re the result of the procrastination of our failures from before,” Saadat said. And, he added, “things will get much worse if we continue to procrastinate.”
According to the board, a draft of a new plan that was released last week still retains the original 2045 target because it was “the most economically and technologically feasible route to carbon neutrality,” according to the board.
The plan doesn’t stimulate any near-term solutions accessible today – like wind and solar, or more rapid electrification in our transportation and building sectors,” Saadat announced, naming the carbon removal target “wildly unrealistic” and “a failure to the communities who live with fossil fuel infrastructure in their neighborhoods.”
