What Hurricane Harvey says about risk, climate and resilience
and months that follow, we need to remember that, despite our air conditioners, our insurance and the politicized discourse that suggests that the science is somehow a matter of opinion rather than fact, we are incredibly vulnerable to natural disasters – disasters that are increasingly being amplified in a warming world.
What sensible, pragmatic, bipartisan steps can we take to increase our resilience to risks that a disaster like Hurricane Harvey represents? This question must be asked, because the current administration has proposed cutting the budget of the National Weather Service and other agencies that study and forecast weather and climate disasters and has rescinded regulations designed to address rising sea levels when constructing infrastructure.
First and foremost, we should reduce our exposure and build resilience to the hazards we already face today. We can’t continue building in places that we know will flood. We need to build and modernize infrastructure to make our water management systems more resilient to both floods and droughts. We must continue to invest in the weather forecasting systems that provided advance warning and in the public services that build community resilience and provide disaster response.
Ultimately, though, even these practical steps may not be enough. In a changing climate, building capacity and resilience to cope with today’s risks leave us unprepared for future extremes. That’s why, in order to reduce the risk of disasters both here and abroad, we need to minimize the climate change that is turbocharging these events. And that means reducing our emissions of the heat-trapping greenhouse gases.
Changing the risk equation
Here again Texas can lead the way. We’re already number one in wind power production by state, thanks to targeted investments that boosted the power grid connecting cities with windy regions. And we’ve only begun to tap our abundant solar resources.
The innovations that energy companies have pioneered to build offshore oil platforms can inform the development of, and investment in, offshore wind turbines and their knowledge of producing petrochemicals could be applied to more sustainably produced biofuels.
There will always be those who claim that the costs of moving to cleaner energy sources and reducing carbon emissions are too high. But the U.S. has improved air quality in ways in which the benefits greatly exceed the costs and replaced ozone-depleting chemicals, all while the economy has grown.
Today, wind and solar power prices are now competitive with fossil fuels across Texas. Across the country, these industries already employ far more people than coal mining. Electric cars may soon be as affordable as gasoline ones and be charged in ways that help balance the fluctuations in wind and solar power. Only someone profoundly pessimistic would bet against the ability of American ingenuity to repower our economy.
Hurricane Harvey exemplifies the risks we all face – and a more dangerous future if we don’t take actions now. More people and vulnerable infrastructure exposed to more frequent and intense hazards equals even greater risk for us in the future. The time to rethink the equation is now.
Andrew Dessler is Professor of Atmospheric Sciences, Texas A&M University. Daniel Cohan is Associate Professor of Environmental Engineering, Rice University. Katharine Hayhoe is Professor and Director, Climate Science Center, Texas Tech University. This article is published courtesy of The Conversation (under Creative Commons-Attribution / No derivative).
