Dear Mayor Wolosin and Council Members,
The saying that, "We need to adapt to what we cant mitigate and mitigate what we cant adapt to," nicely captures the complementary nature of mitigating climate change and adapting to climate change. The time when we could have just focused on mitigation and not have had to worry about adaptation is long gone.
The recent series of atmospheric rivers should serve as an urgent wakeup call. The flooding and the deaths, power outages and road closures caused by falling trees during the recent storms all had a huge impact on peoples lives. And, the flooding is far from over at this point, given the historically deep snowpack in the Sierra.
In recent years, weve also experienced severe drought, destructive wildfires and the dangerous smoke they produce, and deadly heat waves exacerbated by rolling blackouts just when power was most needed for cooling. And, unfortunately, all of this is just a preview. More, and worse, is coming.
The State, Bay Area and Menlo Park are all badly behind where we need to be with respect to adaptation and resilience to climate change. What is urgently needed is a systematic process to identify the climate related threats and challenges we face, create strategies and plans for dealing with them, and put those plans into action. Several things that need particular attention are obvious: the ability of levees and other flood infrastructure to withstand prolonged, intensive rainfall; the fragility of the electrical grid; and the health of our trees in urban, rural and wilderness settings. On the positive side, we should also be taking full advantage of heavy rainfall and flood diversions to recharge our badly overdrawn aquifers. Clearly, addressing all of this is beyond what any individual city can do on its own and will require cooperation and coordination with the County, regional agencies and the State to accomplish.
I was happy to see that the Council designated climate action and emergency preparedness as priorities for 2023. Climate action, though, generally focuses on mitigation and adaptation needs to be on an equal footing if we are to avoid unneeded suffering and economic loss. I hope this is something you will take into consideration in your deliberations.
Sincerely,
Robert Dickinson
Menlo Park resident since 1983
