**Key Sentences Extracted Based on Importance to Your Information Request:**

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**"Every year, from late spring to early fall, trade winds transport 180 million tons of dust from the Saharan Desert across the Atlantic Ocean.

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**"A noticeable change in the air will arrive to the Alamo City next week.

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**"A haze often forms on the horizon, giving an ordinarily clear, blue sky a milky hue during the day.

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**"Also try to keep windows and doors closed.

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**"San Antonians may want to stay indoors next week.

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**"May was also the hottest on record here, with five days in triple digits.

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**"The recent extreme heat has played a role in increased CPS Energy bills.

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**"‘I’m hoping that the city and county are taking steps now to prepare,’ said Oceguera.

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**"Now we’re starting to see the impact on the water cycle.

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**"HARC Program Director Dr. Stephanie Glenn explained that climate resilience is the ability to prepare for, respond to, and subsequently bounce back from impacts as a result of climate change.

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These sentences highlight the timing, recurring nature, visual and health impacts, recommendations for citizens, effect on local temperatures and city resources (like energy usage), as well as the importance of city-level preparation and overall climate resilience in response to Saharan dust storms and extreme weather.

**Key Sentences Extracted Based on Importance to Your Information Request:**

1.

Title:

Content: SHARE

A storm that moved through the Great Plains and Midwest last night set a record for the most hurricane-force winds recorded in a single day.

The massive storm system, known as a derecho, sent tornadoes into Minnesota, Iowa, and Nebraska, and left more than 500,000 households without power. The Minnesota tornado was the latest ever recorded in the state. (They’re most common May through August, and the previous record was set by a November 16 twister.) As far south as New Mexico, aircraft sitting at Santa Fe Regional Airport were damaged by the winds, according to the Washington Post.

The southern edge of the derecho whipped up dust storms in Colorado and Kansas, while lightning ignited fires in Kansas, Texas, and Oklahoma. Kansas TV station KSN reported this morning that the wildfires burned at least 153 square miles, and destroyed six homes.

The Des Moines Register reported widespread power outages, tornadoes, and the smell of smoke blowing across the plains.

A derecho is a hurricane-strength windstorm that can shoot off of a major thunderstorm system. But while a hurricane spins, the gusts from a derecho push in a straight line. In August 2020, a derecho plowed through Midwest states. In Iowa, four people were killed and 20 percent of the state’s farmland was devastated. “As I drove through the town of Cedar Rapids on Monday, I saw billboards bent in half, whole buildings collapsed, trees smashed through roofs and windows,” Cedar Rapids Gazette reporter Liz Lenz wrote about the aftermath in 2020 for the Washington Post.

[Related: Why it’s so difficult to forecast a tornado’s path]

Scientists have speculated that the severity of last year’s derecho is linked to a warming climate, which could have fed the thunderstorms hot, humid air.

This most recent event is also tied to unseasonably hot weather hitting the entire Great Plains—likely an outcome of climate change. CNN reported yesterday that 250 temperature records were due to be broken by a heat wave. Minneapolis was in the mid-50s, when it’s typically below freezing in December.

That heat, coupled with a drought, is also fueling the fires. “Out here in the High Plains, there’s nothing left that’s green. All the grass is brown and dry and ready to burn,” Bill Turner, a National Weather Service forecaster, told CNN.

Huge derechos were, until recently, very rare events, and so researchers are still trying to understand how exactly they form, and what role climate change plays in that formation. University of Northern Iowa meteorologist Alan Czarnetski told Science News last year that warmer temperatures could fuel more powerful storms, but it could also stabilize parts of the atmosphere, possibly making thunderstorms less likely to appear.

This storm may offer clues, however. Derechoes have historically impacted states in the lower plains, such Oklahoma and Kansas. But, as the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Service’s Storm Prediction Center writes, “it is reasonable to conclude that the corridors of maximum derecho frequency would shift [north] with global warming.” A hurricane-force thunderstorm across the upper Midwest in mid-December is a sign that that prediction is turning into reality.

MORE TO READ

**"Every year, from late spring to early fall, trade winds transport 180 million tons of dust from the Saharan Desert across the Atlantic Ocean.

Title:

Content: Hurricane Killer? Here are some things you may not know about Saharan dust

Dust from Africa moves across the Atlantic every year from late spring to early fall

It’s a common visitor in the summer months: dust from the Saharan Desert. Hazy skies and occasional allergies are common issues caused by the dust. But did you know that this layer of dust is more interesting than it appears? Here are some things you may not know about Saharan dust:

KEY TAKEAWAYS

  • Millions of tons of dust are transported across the Atlantic every year
  • Nutrient-rich Saharan dust plays a crucial role in the global ecosystem
  • Dust suppresses hurricane development

WHOLE LOTTA DUST!

Every year, from late spring to early fall, trade winds transport 180 million tons of dust from the Saharan Desert across the Atlantic Ocean. Impressively, that’s as much as 4.5 million 18-wheelers full of dust!

NATURE’S BEST FRIEND

Saharan dust is often rich in nutrients like iron and phosphorus. As the dust settles over the ocean, it fertilizes algae and plankton, allowing them to grow and flourish in an otherwise barren environment. These organisms are vital sources of food for ocean life.

Similarly, as the dust settles over land, areas like the Amazon rainforest benefit from the extra nutrients.

HURRICANE EXTINGUISHER

The African dust that moves across the Atlantic Ocean is also called the Saharan Air Layer (SAL). The SAL occurs in waves at the same time as Atlantic hurricane season, from June through November.

It’s known that the SAL limits hurricane development and strength. This is because tropical storms like hurricanes need deep, rich moisture from the surface to the top of the atmosphere to survive. Since the air carrying Saharan dust is usually dry, it can prevent storms from forming and suppress existing storms from growing and strengthening.

DUST’S IMPACT ON TEXAS

While a dense plume of dust sometimes causes minor allergy-like symptoms for some, the most noticeable impact is on Texas skies. A haze often forms on the horizon, giving an ordinarily clear, blue sky a milky hue during the day.

At sunrise and sunset, the horizon can appear brilliantly orange because, with dust in the air, sunlight has more particles to bounce off.

About the Author

Sarah Spivey is a San Antonio native who grew up watching KSAT. She has been a proud member of the KSAT Weather Authority Team since 2017. Sarah is a Clark High School and Texas A&M University graduate. She previously worked at KTEN News. When Sarah is not busy forecasting, she enjoys hanging out with her husband and cat, and playing music.

Recommended Videos

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**"A noticeable change in the air will arrive to the Alamo City next week.

Title:

Content: Breaking News
More () »

San Antonians may want to stay indoors next week. Here's why.

A noticeable change in the air will arrive to the Alamo City next week.

SAN ANTONIO — San Antonio skies could look quite different next week but not in the way we're hoping for.

As San Antonians eagerly wait for rain to break our triple-digit temperatures another common occurrence will pick-up next week known as Saharan dust.

The dust is a combination of sand and dust traveling from North Africa across the Atlantic that peaking in late June through mid-August.

Light amounts of Saharan dust have arrived to the Alamo City this past week but will become more noticeable. Therefore, if you have asthma, COPD or any other type of respiratory illness you will want to stay indoors as much as possible during this time.

Timing of Saharan dust:

Monday - Little changes will be in the forecast as heavier amounts of dust remain over the gulf coast.

Credit: KENS 5 Weather

Tuesday - A large moderate level of Saharan dust will move into South Texas and San Antonio by late afternoon. San Antonians may notice hazy skies and trouble breathing if you're more sensitive to dusty air. But the dust doesn't stop here.

Credit: KENS 5 Weather

Wednesday - By mid-week Saharan dust ramps up continuing to build and push farther north stretching to the Dallas area. The continuing flow of the dust is partly due to a high pressure bringing a southeasterly flow to help pump the dust toward South Texas.

Credit: KENS 5 Weather

Thursday - As the week progresses dust levels continue to rise and could affect air quality levels. For those with any respiratory illnesses they should avoid outdoor activity including vigorous exercise. Also try to keep windows and doors closed. We will continue to monitor this development next week.

Credit: KENS 5 Weather

As dust increases across the area, San Antonians will notice more vibrant sunrises and sunsets. However, during the afternoons the sky appears a more milky white color.

Before You Leave, Check This Out

What areas of the US have been affected by Saharan dust storms?

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Title:

Content: For a few months each year, the Desert Southwest transforms into a storm photographer’s paradise. Nourishing rains pour from the sky in daily deluges. Hulking thunderheads tap the desert heat to soar higher than jetliners fly. Bolts of electricity light up the sky as bursts of wind descend to the ground, kicking up vast clouds of dust.

It’s a raucous meteorological symphony that’s dazzled and drenched this summer. Known as the Southwest monsoon, it largely failed to materialize last summer. Perhaps making up for lost time, it’s cranking this year.

Strictly speaking, a monsoon is a seasonal wind shift, but when it arrives, it’s like flipping a switch. The ordinarily arid desert landscape quickly becomes a minefield of thunderstorms, with an abrupt influx of humidity arriving as the jet stream retreats north. High pressure to the east and southeast also aids moisture inflow to the region, as a tropical air mass gets shoved in from the south.

Last year’s monsoon barely showed up and only after considerable delay, but the fierceness of the storms didn’t make up for their tardiness.

On July 25, 2020, a rain shower in Phoenix ended a 103-day dry streak. Several tornadoes even touched down in the Desert Southwest, whirling ominously in an area accustomed to tumbleweeds and dust devils.

This year’s storms have been a seemingly relentless cacophony of meteorological ferocity and chaos, interspersed by more delicate, visually compelling moments. As meteorologists worked to keep abreast of the unstable conditions, photographers seized the opportunity to snap stunning shots.

“I love the lightning, which really piqued my interest,” said Mike Olbinski, a well-known storm chaser and photographer who lives in Phoenix and follows the atmosphere’s most spectacular storms.

Olbinski continued: “As for my favorite thing to shoot, I love a dust storm … it’s so dynamic. Lightning also is, if you can get it anywhere, with our landscape, cactus, mountains … it’s kind of special.”

Behind the monsoon

During most of the year, upper-level winds over the Desert Southwest blow from west to east. That keeps the area dry and sunny, starved of the moisture needed to generate storms. Once the strong upper-atmospheric winds relax and high pressure builds over the central United States, though, a more southerly flow can sneak in at the surface, bringing a humidity increase.

That added moisture actually cools temperatures back several degrees from the peak, which often comes before the monsoon begins, but it’s still blisteringly hot. It also allows for pop-up storms to appear about the area.

“We use a seasonal definition across the Southwest,” said Paul Iñiguez, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Phoenix. “It’s part of a much larger pattern across a chunk of the Southwest and Mexico [between about] June 15 and September 30.”

These dates encapsulate the entire monsoonal feature that drives storminess over the Western United States. Specific dates vary from one local region to another. The monsoon ordinarily kicks in at the start of July in Phoenix, for example.

“You kind of get ebbs and flows of moisture as these air masses are kind of moving around,” Iñiguez said. “You’ve got a more humid air mass coming up and out of Mexico, with repeated thunderstorms, repeated convection.”

To feast from famine: How this summer cancels out last year’s ‘nonsoon’

Last year featured a slow start to the season for much of greater Phoenix, a city that sees roughly three inches of rain annually during monsoon season. That may not sound like much, but the city of 1.7 million averages only eight inches a year. That means monsoon season makes up nearly 40 percent of the city’s yearly rainfall.

“On average, first week of July, with a lot of spread, is when we get those first rains,” Iñiguez said during a 2020 interview.

Last summer, Phoenix didn’t pick up any measurable rainfall until July 24. The delayed monsoon probably played a role in the city achieving its hottest July and summer on record. Last year’s average July temperature was a whopping 98.9 degrees; this July, riddled with clouds, was about five degrees cooler.

Both July and August 2021 have featured double the average amount of rain that falls in the city, a stark reversal from last year, during which hardly an inch fell between the two months.

Despite how heavily the rains come down, much of it evades collection.

“It’s not a big contributor to water resources,” Iñiguez said. “A lot of it gets recycled or goes into evapotranspiration. A little farther south and east into Arizona, in the far southeastern part of the state, 70 percent of their annual rainfall comes down this time of year.”

Ken Drozd, warning coordination meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Tucson, concurred.

“We like to get the winter rains and mountain snows, because [they] will actually soak in more,” Drozd said. “A lot of [monsoon rainfall] runs off, though some of it will certainly soak in and replenish [groundwater.]”

It’s not uncommon for rainfall rates in the core of monsoonal thunderstorms to exceed three inches per hour, overwhelming soil’s ability to absorb water.

“I’ve even seen 10-inch-per-hour rain rates,” Iñiguez said. “In the summer, we get into our more unique hazards … the topography, steep terrain, [lack of] topsoil, hydrophobic surfaces, [and] runoff” can occasionally yield debris flows after the wildfire season, Iñiguez said.

In fact, it’s the monsoon that usually brings about the end to wildfire season in the first place. Phoenix, for instance, sees its temperatures decrease slightly in midsummer as humidity ticks upward and sporadic rains arrive. July is the city’s wettest month, in stark contrast to June, which is often bone dry in Phoenix, averaging just 0.02 inches of rainfall for the entire month.

A rapid ‘greenup’ of the landscape

To show the effect the recent welcome rains have had, the National Weather Service in Phoenix posted a comparison map juxtaposing last year’s parched landscape against the verdure that’s blossomed this summer.

The maps show the relative “greenness,” or health, of the vegetation using the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), derived from data collected by NASA’s Terra satellite. NDVI maps offer the ability to contrast last year’s laggard monsoon against this year’s hyperactive one, and the results are night and day from a vegetation standpoint.

More than just rain

It’s not just heavy, localized rain and lightning that accompanies the monsoon. Dry air near the surface allows pockets of rain-cooled air to accelerate out of storms toward the ground, fanning outward ahead of the rain. Microbursts, both wet and dry, are a frequent byproduct of thunderstorms.

Sometimes, the exhaust-like outflow from thunderstorms kicks up enough dust to generate a large dust storm — technically known as a haboob. Oddly enough, much of the dust doesn’t stem from the fact that it’s a desert landscape. It actually has to do with land use that loosens the top soil, allowing it to fly free in strong winds.

“A lot of the dust we’re seeing comes from farms between Phoenix and Tucson,” Iñiguez explained. “There’s a lot of disturbed land, [it’s been] sitting there for quite a while, and can be a really big source for dust generation.”

Haboobs, particularly those paired with vibrant sunsets that bathe the stormy skies in delicate hues of Technicolor, are among the most breathtaking sights in the Desert Southwest. Olbinski says the July 5, 2011, dust storm that swallowed downtown Phoenix has been the highlight of his storm chases in the Southwest.

“It was this apocalyptic end-of-the-world scene,” Olbinski recalled. “Visibility down to probably three feet, the sun was already down. … I could see city lights and [the] freeway below me, little light on the parking garage, all glowing in the dust. But that was it. Then pitch dark … nighttime.”

The cool air that exits thunderstorms can propagate for miles, sometimes colliding with other gust fronts and generating new storms, seemingly at random. That makes forecasting during the monsoon quite difficult.

“It’s interesting to monitor day-to-day how the atmosphere will respond,” Drozd said.

Severe weather hazards

Because the upper-atmospheric winds are relaxed during monsoon season in the Southwest, it’s tough to produce rotating thunderstorms. But on July 24, 2020, one tornado did snake its way down from roiling thunderheads near Kingman, Ariz., surprising drivers on Interstate 40.

Two other “landspout” tornadoes spun up elsewhere in the state beneath other storms. Landspouts can form under any kind of convective cloud and are typically not related to storm-level rotation, but rather stretching vorticity nearer unstable air toward the ground.

This year has been quieter from a tornado standpoint across the region, but wind and hail have still battered parts of the Southwest.

Electrifying sunsets

Perhaps the most spectacular staple of the Southwest monsoon? Lightning. Sure, it’s technically the same as lightning anywhere else, but there is one key factor that makes it magnificent: incredibly high cloud bases.

Because the Desert Southwest even at its moistest is still comparatively dry, clouds form much higher up — especially during the start of the monsoon season. It’s not uncommon for the base of thunderstorms to be more than a mile above the ground.

“Many times if you’re in the valley, you can have cloud bases 7,000 to 10,000 feet above valley floors, typically earlier in the monsoon,” Drozd said. “[Thunderstorms] can have a pretty high cloud base, you can see them from a ways away, and you can get some pretty clear shots. Plus we receive a tremendous amount of lightning during that two- to three-month period.”

Approximately 1.2 million cloud-to-ground strikes occurred between June and September last year in western Texas, New Mexico and Arizona, a record minimum; the previous lowest total was about 1.9 million strikes for a monsoon season. Records date back only to the mid-1990s, but the data highlights a significant anomaly.

This year, strikes are way up in places like Arizona but still close to the pre-2020 average. We’ll have to await the final tally, although we’ll probably see similarities across the region as this monsoon wraps up over the next few weeks.

**"A haze often forms on the horizon, giving an ordinarily clear, blue sky a milky hue during the day.

How does Saharan dust affect immediate weather?

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4.

**"Also try to keep windows and doors closed.

How can people protect their health during Saharan dust storms?

How does Saharan dust affect immediate weather?

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5.

**"San Antonians may want to stay indoors next week.

How can people protect their health during Saharan dust storms?

How does Saharan dust affect immediate weather?

What areas of the US have been affected by Saharan dust storms?

"**

6.

**"May was also the hottest on record here, with five days in triple digits.

Title:

Content: Editorial: A supreme blow to addressing climate change

It’s summertime, and one way to beat the scorching heat is to head to the cool confines of a movie theater to catch the latest blockbuster.

Now, imagine a story about how humanity faces an existential threat, but the heroes trying to save the day are stripped of their strongest and best powers. Suddenly, the story hinges on whether they can find other ways to save future generations from looming catastrophe.

If only such a plot were fiction. But this is, essentially, the story of climate change following the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent 6-3 decision blocking the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating carbon emissions from power plants.

Carbon dioxide is the leading contributor to climate change, lingering in the atmosphere for as long as 1,000 years. The burning of coal and natural gas at power plants releases vast amounts of this heat-trapping gas (as well as methane). The Biden administration had sought to prepare sweeping rules to limit the power sector’s carbon emissions under the Clean Air Act, but the U.S. Supreme Court said it was beyond the EPA’s scope to do so.

Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts found that due to the magnitude of the regulation and the potential impact on the larger economy, not just the power sector, such direction should fall to Congress, not unelected officials.

“Capping carbon dioxide emissions at a level that will force a nationwide transition away from the use of coal to generate electricity may be a sensible ‘solution to the crisis of the day,’” he wrote. But “a decision of such magnitude and consequence rests with Congress itself, or an agency acting pursuant to a clear delegation from that representative body.”

The consequences of this decision are wide-ranging. First, let’s be honest about Congress. It is, in this political moment, incapable of passing any meaningful legislation to address climate change. Second, the ruling potentially puts the clamps on other regulatory actions well beyond environmental concerns. Third, it leaves no room for agency expertise, much less for Congress to delegate regulatory powers to these experts.

As Justice Elena Kagan wrote in her dissent: “Congress knows what it doesn’t and can’t know when it drafts a statute; and Congress therefore gives an expert agency the power to address issues — even significant ones — as and when they arise.”

Climate change is often written about and discussed on a global scale — terrifying United Nations reports, melting polar ice caps, extreme weather, habitat destruction and potential diaspora — but it is also a local issue.

San Antonio is warming — an obvious reality underscored by this particularly searing spring and summer. June was the hottest on record in San Antonio, with 17 days reaching triple digits. May was also the hottest on record here, with five days in triple digits.

This is in part due to La Niña, which produces warmer, drier weather. But it is also climate change. In March 2020, the Office of the Texas State Climatologist at Texas A&M University released a report showing the number of triple-digit degree days in Texas doubled over the past 40 years and would likely double again by 2036.

And this will come at a cost. The recent extreme heat has played a role in increased CPS Energy bills. Flow rates in many area rivers are nonexistent. Drought threatens the Edwards Aquifer, our primary water supply. High temperatures can be fatal.

So, what can be done?

At the local level, CPS Energy officials must move forward with a plan to repurpose and shutter its coal-fired J.K. Spruce power plant. Spruce Unit 1 should cease operations, and the idea of a carbon-neutral geothermal project there is intriguing. The newer Spruce Unit 2 should be converted to natural gas. We also support the city requiring building owners to track energy usage.

Texas — land of natural gas and methane emissions — could also be a leader in climate innovation. The state leads the nation in wind energy production, but it has yet to fully tap into its solar capacity. It could foster battery storage innovation and carbon sequestration.

And at the federal level, Congress should approve a fee-and-dividend program, as the Citizens’ Climate Lobby has proposed, that would create market incentives to transition to green energy sources.

This ruling is a blow for climate progress — but not the urgency we possess for action.

"**

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Title:

Content: Skip to Content

The architect making friends with flooding

One Chinese landscape designer has pioneered a new approach—working with water instead of trying to bend it to our will.

December 21, 2021

For years, Beijing landscape architect Yu Kongjian was ridiculed by his fellow citizens as a backward thinker. Some even called him an American spy—a nod to his doctorate from Harvard’s Graduate School of Design and his opposition to dams, those symbols of power and progress in modern China.

Yu’s transgression: he advised working with water, rather than trying to control it.

Yu is at the forefront of a movement that aims to restore the ebb and flow of water to urban environments. His landscape architecture firm Turenscape, which he cofounded in 1998, creates flexible spaces for water to spread out and seep underground, both to prevent flooding and to be stored for later use. His vision is to heal the natural hydrology that we’ve disrupted by tightly confining rivers with levees, putting buildings or parking lots where water wants to linger, or erecting dams that have, to varying degrees, dried up 333 rivers in the Yangtze area. “Those gray infrastructures are actually killers of the natural system, which we have to depend on for our sustainable future,” Yu has said. By trying to solve one problem at a time—flooding here, water scarcity there—the 20th-century approach to water management has undermined itself. “Drainage is separated from the water supply; flood control is separated from drought resistance,” he wrote in 2016 for a paper he presented at a Harvard symposium.

Since the 1700s, we’ve filled or drained as much as 87% of the world’s wetlands, which would otherwise be flexibly absorbing and releasing water. It’s a key reason urban flooding is increasing worldwide: as populations grow and cities expand, builders pave floodplains and farmland, fell forests, and channelize rivers, leaving stormwater that once filtered into the ground with nowhere to go. The land area lost to cities has doubled worldwide since 1992. When a city increases the area of roads, sidewalks, or parking lots by 1%, stormwater runoff boosts annual flood magnitude in nearby waterways by 3.3%.

In dense cities, only around 20% of rain actually infiltrates the soil. Instead, drains and pipes carry it away—lunacy, Yu thinks, in places with water shortages.

In the early 2000s, Yu and a research team created a map of Beijing showing where land was at high risk for flooding, which he called the “ecological security pattern.” His recommendation was that this land should remain undeveloped, and should be used instead to absorb stormwater.

Government officials ignored him. But then, in July 2012, disaster struck. Beijing’s largest storm in more than 60 years chucked down as much as 18 inches of rain in places, flooding roads three feet deep and filling underpasses. Yu barely made it home from work. “I was lucky,” he says. “I saw many people abandon their cars.” Almost 80 people died, most of them drowned in their vehicles, electrocuted, or crushed under collapsed buildings. The damage stretched across 5,400 square miles and cost nearly $2 billion.

“The 2012 flood gave us the lesson that the ecological security pattern is a life-and-death issue.” Yu says.

Climate change has worsened these threats. With every 1 °C increase, the atmosphere holds 7% more water vapor. So when clouds burst into rain, it pours. Meanwhile, dry areas get drier as the warmer air evaporates more water out of soil and plants.

Now we’re starting to see the impact on the water cycle. Summer and fall 2021 brought deadly flooding to New York, New Jersey, Tennessee, Alabama, Germany, Belgium, India, Thailand, and the Philippines. At the same time drought, crop failures, and forest fires plagued the American West, Syria, Guatemala, Greece, and Siberia. Global economic losses from flooding rose from $500 million annually, on average, in the 1980s to $76 billion in 2020. When it comes to drought, more than 2 billion people around the world already live with severe or high water insecurity. Researchers predict that as the climate continues to warm, two-thirds of the global population—more than 5.25 billion people—will experience progressively worse and more frequent drought conditions.

These recent disasters have brought home to many people the truth of what climate scientists have been saying for years: climate change is water change.

Less than a year after the 2012 storm, President Xi Jinping announced a nationwide program dubbed “sponge cities” (because a sponge absorbs water and then releases it slowly). The idea of giving water space was thus elevated from fringe concept to national mission. In 2015 the central government began demonstration projects in 16 cities, and it added 14 more in 2016. Each project covered at least five square miles, although some were larger, with the goal of retaining 70% of the average annual rainfall on site by 2020.

In November of that year, the state-controlled broadcaster China Central Television reported completion of the 30 pilot projects. It said they were preventing and mitigating urban disasters, increasing environmental benefits to waterways, and reducing water pollution. CCTV further reported that between 2016 and 2020, the sponge city concept had been implemented in 90 provincial-level cities and included in the master plans for 538 cities. A new goal aims for 100 cities with more than 1 million people to meet the 70% rainwater capture target by 2030.

Two views of Tongnan Dafo Temple Wetland Park in Chongqing City. Below, a structure inspired by the Dafo Temple. At right, an aerial view of the park. In 2020, Chongqing faced a 100 year storm, but the landscape protected nearby farms from flooding.

“It is, of course, a success story,” says Chris Zevenbergen, an expert in urban flood-risk management at the IHE Delft Institute for Water Education in the Netherlands and a visiting professor at China’s Southeast University. Chinese government reports are best viewed with skepticism, but Zevenbergen says he’s cautiously optimistic that the rosy assessment will be borne out.

Sponge cities are part of a worldwide movement that goes by various names: green infrastructure in Europe, low-impact development in the United States, water-sensitive urban design in Australia, natural infrastructure in Peru, nature-based solutions in Canada. In contrast to industrial management, in which people confine water with levees, channels, and asphalt and rush it off the land as quickly as possible, these newer approaches seek to restore water’s natural tendency to linger in places like wetlands and floodplains.

Yu is concerned that China may be applying a cookie-cutter approach to sponge cities: “Every patient needs a different solution.”

Because of that common thread, I’ve come to think of them collectively as the “Slow Water” movement. As in the Slow Food movement, solutions are tailored to local ecology, climate, and people. The most ambitious Slow Water projects involve conserving or restoring wetlands, river floodplains, and mountain forests, simultaneously safeguarding carbon storage and protecting homes for threatened plants and animals. But there are also small urban projects, shoehorned between buildings or in narrow corridors along streets.

In April 2018, on a day with a “very high” air pollution rating, I visited Yu at Turenscape’s headquarters in Beijing. A slim, intense man with shrewd eyes and just a bit of gray at the temples, he told me that his passion for repairing humans’ relationship with water comes from his childhood during the Mao years, spent on an agricultural commune in Zhejiang province southwest of Shanghai. The youngest of five children, he spent his days observing Chinese “peasant wisdom” for managing water, techniques that had been practiced for thousands of years. To cope with scarcity, farmers maintained little ponds and berms to help rainfall infiltrate the ground, storing it for a dry day. The seasonal creek next to his village swelled and retreated with the seasons. “For me, flood is a time of excitement because the fish come to the field, the fish come to the pond,” he said. But as the country urbanized, the Chinese abandoned that knowledge and followed the Western path. Now, he believes, they need to reclaim that ethos: “We need to make friends with flooding.”

Yu has built Turenscape into an empire, with 600 employees in three offices. The company has more than 640 projects completed or underway in 250 Chinese cities and 10 other countries. Turenscape also publishes a magazine called Landscape Architecture Frontiers, in both Chinese and English, and supports master’s and PhD candidates and postdocs who are researching hydrology or ecology, or measuring the efficacy of completed projects.

The founder and dean of the College of Architecture and Landscape at Peking University, Yu has also taught periodically at Harvard. He lectures regularly at the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, and his 2003 book Letters to the Leaders of China: Kongjian Yu and the Future of the Chinese City is in its 13th printing. He’s been asked to consult in other countries: Mexico, for example, is hoping he can help solve Mexico City’s water problems, which are similar to Beijing’s.

When planning a project, designers first must figure out what water did before people built a city. In a large white room at Turenscape’s offices, young men and women sit at desks separated by a jungle of plants, focused intently on that question. They construct models of how water behaves within the built environment, factoring in each place’s specific ecology, geology, hydrology, and culture—a kind of computational geography. The data allows Yu and other Slow Water practitioners to model how reshaping the land and available space in various ways affects how water flows and slows.

Yu is now something of a hero to young landscape architects. Accompanying us to various sites was Geng Ran, an employee who exudes intense excitement to be working for him. Throughout the day, we were perpetually trotting after Yu as he rushed ahead. “He’s always like this,” said Geng, laughing.

While Yu retains his farmer’s values, he is a man of modern China. He bought and renovated a building in one of Beijing’s few remaining historic hutong neighborhoods, turning it into a private club for fellow Harvard grads, Beijing politicians, and other power brokers. This move is in keeping with his modus operandi, according to Niall Kirkwood, a professor of landscape architecture and technology at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design who has known Yu for many years. Kirkwood says Yu is a political animal, and that this—along with his vision and ambition—accounts for his success.

I got a chance to observe Yu in his natural habitat that evening. He escorted me and Geng into the club through a set of engraved metal doors and across the courtyard, where the traditional stone floor had been replaced with thick glass. Inside he ushered us downstairs to a massive table underneath that transparent floor. As we sat in ornate, carved chairs sipping bright-green cucumber juice, I looked at the moon above. Finance ministers were also visiting the club that evening, so Yu rotated between our tables. Before we left, he gave me a souvenir: a heavy tome titled Designed Ecologies: The Landscape Architecture of Kongjian Yu. After dinner, his driver chauffeured us in a brand-new Mercedes minivan to my hotel, where Yu got out to walk home—his daily constitutional.

A week later I visited one of Turenscape’s projects in progress: Yongxing River Park, located in Daxing, a far-flung exurb of Beijing. “Before” satellite pictures from three years earlier showed a  river straightened and confined by steep concrete walls. “Now” pictures were chock-a-block with buildings around a more generous, meandering path for water.

The project was nearly complete when I saw it. About two and a half miles long and perhaps two city blocks wide, the park follows the river. Workers removed concrete along the river channel and excavated soil to widen the riverbed. That dirt was then molded into a large berm running down the center, creating two channels. The river flows on one side; the other channel has big holes of varying depths that act as filtration pools. During the dry season, the filtration side is filled with partially cleaned effluent from a sewage treatment plant. Wetland plants in the pools clean it further, and the slow pace allows some water to filter underground. During the monsoon season, that channel is reserved for floodwaters, and the effluent is treated industrially.

Geng and I walked a slim concrete path atop the central berm. Many of Turenscape’s designs feature walkways such as this, soaring above wetlands, so people can enter the landscape year-round and appreciate changes from season to season. The broader riverbanks, newly freed from concrete, are dotted with thousands of small sedges planted in closely set rows to hold the earth, like a pointillist-rendered landscape. We passed young willows, a native streamside plant that can survive flooding. Elsewhere, reeds, dwarf lilyturf, and other native plants stabilize the soil. Turenscape mostly uses native plants in its designs because they thrive on the water, weather, and nutrients available.

In summer 2020, during heavy summer rains, Yu sent me photos of Yongxing River Park. The trees and grasses had grown up considerably since I’d visited. The channel contained a lot of water but was nowhere close to overtopping. Turenscape does not yet have data on Yongxing’s flood capacity, infiltration rate, or water-cleaning services, but Yu called its management of that year’s monsoon a “great performance.”

It can be hard for people to conceive of making space for water in a populated area, but it’s possible. Taking advantage of space in growing exurbs like Daxing is one approach. Another is to stop building atop protective wetlands and coastal habitats—absorption capacity that is continually squandered.

Other opportunities to make space for water and reduce future losses are found even in city centers, where buildings are torn down more frequently than people assume. Disasters can also be a catalyst, such as when governments use emergency funds to buy and remove flooded buildings and convert the area to an absorbent park. Cleaned-up former industrial sites can offer up a lot of space too—often right alongside rivers. Other techniques to accommodate water in compact cities include bioswales (ditches lined with water-loving plants), infiltration ponds, rain gardens, and seepage wells. Where human space is nonnegotiable, designers sometimes use features such as permeable pavement and green roofs that can absorb water.

Yu has converted his house, a duplex he shares with his sister, into a living laboratory for some of these techniques. In the hallway are photos of his family back on the farm, Yu and his Harvard mentor, Yu with two Chinese presidents. Between the apartments, he built a living wall of porous limestone. Water captured from the roof dribbles down its face, from which maidenhair ferns and philodendrons sprout. The green wall cools the two homes enough to make air-conditioning unnecessary, although he concedes that it gets a bit warm in summer. Plants on decks off the bedrooms are watered with roof-caught rain, stored in tanks under the raised plant beds. “We collect 52 cubic meters of stormwater [annually], and I grow 32 kilograms of vegetables,” Yu says proudly. His efforts also reduce runoff from his building’s roof and decrease his personal water usage from city sources.

Though Xi’s sponge cities initiative is based on principles that mirror his own ideas, Yu fears that in some cases, China may be doing it wrong. The country has sometimes used cookie-cutter solutions for other programs, Yu says, but for sponge cities to be successful, each project must be place-specific. As Yu puts it, “Every patient needs a different solution.”

Monsoon rains across China have been heavy the last couple of summers, challenging not only standard water infrastructure, such as dams—several of which have failed or come close to it—but also the fledgling sponge cities. In summer 2021, one pilot project city with a population of around 7 million, Zhengzhou, suffered significant flooding when more than eight inches of rain fell in one hour and almost 300 people died, leading some to ask whether sponge cities were working.

Zevenbergen notes that designs may need to be tweaked to better match local needs. But the bigger factor may be that the interventions simply aren’t ambitious enough. Absorbing 70% of rainfall across five square miles of a city that spans 2,900 square miles won’t prevent flooding. Slow Water projects work best when they can absorb water across the full landscape, so planners need to think beyond the urban footprint. A city is part of a larger watershed. Restoring space for water upstream in natural river floodplains can lower the water levels downstream.

In this, too, Yu is hard at work. He’s creating a landscape master plan for all of China. At his office, he showed me a series of maps that document China’s elevation, watersheds, flood paths, biodiversity, desertification, ecological security, soil erosion, and cultural heritage. As urbanization spreads, as estuaries and deltas silt up, as water starts to move differently across landscapes and cityscapes, he identifies the spots where his projects will have the biggest impact.

“This is a philosophy for taking care of the continental landscape,” Yu says. “It’s time to expand the scale.”

Erica Gies is a journalist based in Victoria, British Columbia, and San Francisco. This story has been adapted from her book Water Always Wins: Thriving in an Age of Drought and Deluge, available for preorder at slowwater.world.

Deep Dive

Climate change

How rising groundwater caused by climate change could devastate coastal communities

Higher sea levels will push the water table up with them, causing flooding, contamination, and all manner of unseen chaos.

The Atlantic’s vital currents could collapse. Scientists are racing to understand the dangers.

So far, the efforts to observe the currents directly show they're weirder and more unpredictable than expected.

The lurking threat to solar power’s growth

Plummeting sunny day solar prices are undermining the economic case to build more solar farms – and putting climate goals at risk.

The Soviets turned the Volga River into a machine. Then the machine broke.

Too many dams have made Russia's most important river dysfunctional. Here's how the mother river can be fixed.

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**"The recent extreme heat has played a role in increased CPS Energy bills.

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8.

Title:

Content: Houston, TX

Houston Advanced Research Center launches RESIN, an interactive climate modeling portal

Marisol Gallagher

HOUSTON, TX — Houston-based non-profit research hub Houston Advanced Research Center recently launched an interactive climate modeling portal named Resilience Science Information Network or RESIN. This platform will deliver information to communities along the Upper Texas Gulf coast on impacts of climate change and how it will affect their daily lives, based on key environmental indicators such as temperature, heat, and precipitation in a nine-county area.

The RESIN portal provides data, information, and guidance to the forefront of decision. It also provides a foundation for Community-Based Climate Resilience planning. Drs. Katharine Hayhoe and Anne Stoner of ATMOS Research and Consulting produced the RESIN climate indicators, utilizing future climate projections and historical observations.

A holistic comprehension of social, economic and environmental impacts is required for arrangement of climate-change related impacts, to plan for resilience and adaptation.

According to Houston Advanced Research Center or HARC, communities all over the world are currently confronting impacts related to climate change. Increased frequency and intensity of storm events and drought periods, rising temperatures, as well as sea level rise are some of the most prominent impacts.

Upper Texas Gulf Coast is especially susceptible to climate-change related coastal impacts namely sea level rise and high tide flooding. Interrelated risks to critical infrastructure, social vulnerability, and natural habitat are escalated as a result of these hazards from climate change.

HARC Program Director Dr. Stephanie Glenn explained that climate resilience is the ability to prepare for, respond to, and subsequently bounce back from impacts as a result of climate change. Glenn also claimed that communities can better withstand different magnitudes of events and mitigate impacts by preparing for future hazards and risks that are connected to the changing climate.

Dr. Gavin Dillingham, HARC Program Director also stated that participation in resilient thinking from all levels of a community or region can strengthen adaption actions promoting resilience. In addition, Dillingham added that RESIN can help guide communities on potential adaptations or actions a community can take to mitigate a current or future impact of climate change.

To access RESIN Portal, click here. Fact sheets and a mapping narrative are available at www.harcresearch.org/RESIN.

For further information about the non-profit organization, contact HARC at (281) 364-6000 or visit www.HARCresearch.org.

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**"‘I’m hoping that the city and county are taking steps now to prepare,’ said Oceguera.

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Content: © 2022 Texas Public Radio
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Weekend rain provides little relief to severe water shortage on the Rio Grande

A rainy weekend across the Texas-Mexico border region provided little relief to the dangerously depleted International Reservoirs in the region.

On Thursday, a tropical wave moved inland from the northern Gulf near the Louisiana Coast. It brought heavy showers and flash flood warnings into early Monday as it moved northwest along the Rio Grande, according to the National Weather Service in Brownsville (NWSB).

While many took to social media to give thanks for what seemed like an answer to the drought in the region, experts say the weekend rain will not make a significant difference to the water shortage that community leaders along the border are calling “a threat of imminent disaster.”

RELATED | Scorched border counties downstream of depleted Falcon Lake face ‘threat of imminent disaster

Barry S. Goldsmith, Warning Coordination Meteorologist for NWSB, explained that while the current rains will provide temporary relief to local water supplies by filling up detention ponds and drainage canals, the capacity levels at Falcon International Reservoir will only see “a small percentage rise” as a result.

“In order to fill each reservoir to levels that can preclude community water supply issues, it would require several more waves,” said Goldsmith. “Waves like this one, but through September and into early October.”

Falcon International Reservoir, at only 9.5% capacity on Monday according to the Texas Water Development Board (TWDB), represents the only surface water source that connects all downstream border communities to running water, from Zapata to Brownsville.

Farther northwest along the Rio Grande, the Amistad International Reservoir, at 30.3% capacity on Monday, serves communities downstream from Del Rio to Laredo, and received no significant inflows from rainfall over the weekend.

Last week, two county judges in the Rio Grande Valley issued declarations of disaster in response to the increasingly severe water shortage and ongoing drought in the region.

Multiple municipalities throughout the region are currently under mandatory stage 2 and 3 water restrictions, with plans for increased restrictions on the way.

Texas Public Radio is supported by contributors to the Border and Immigration News Desk, including the Catena Foundation and Texas Mutual Insurance Company.

Adan Oceguera is an instructional aide in the City of San Benito in Cameron County, which entered a second stage of water restrictions on Aug. 6, currently enforced under penalty of a $200 fine.

“The restrictions are personally manageable,” said Oceguera. “But I can’t help but notice the modest response from our local government compared to the dire, impending water crisis.”

While some have expressed a wish for rainy weather to put an end to the current regional crisis in the short-term, Oceguera–like many others in the region–is becoming more concerned about the long-term prospects of the public water infrastructure that depends on the Rio Grande watershed.

“We can’t depend on hurricanes or tropical storms to save us,” said Oceguera. “We need solutions. If things don’t get better, it’s going to be really rough for communities like ours that are already in desperate need for resources and infrastructure."

RELATED | Water becomes a black market south of the border, experts say scarcity could impact Texas border communities soon

Goldsmith agrees that a different approach needs to be taken.

“The Rio Grande Valley has often been described as being in a state of perpetual drought broken by the occasional devastating flood,” said Goldsmith. “Because drought is a fact of life here, and warming temperatures are now increasing the rapid onset of drought conditions, water conservation is a persistent need.”

Goldsmith says that rainwater harvesting across the region would be a good residential starting point, while large scale approaches could include more desalination plants and smarter irrigation.

In San Benito, Oceguera says he’s also concerned about the future general stability of the region as climate change accelerates globally, and brings more severe weather conditions in the long-term.

“For the first time, we had days last year where we couldn’t take kids outside to play because it would’ve been hazardous to their health,” said Oceguera. “What’s most concerning to me is a future where extreme weather becomes commonplace. This is climate change. It’s not necessarily a tidal wave that upends society, but what we’re seeing here in the Rio Grande Valley now and across the world."

In 2010, Hurricane Alex devastated communities in North Mexico as it made landfall in Tamaulipas and moved west. But the Hurricane also delivered up to 70 inches of rain north of those areas along the Rio Grande watershed.

“There was actually too much runoff,” said Goldsmith about the effects of Hurricane Alex. “Each dam had to release large quantities of water to maintain solvency.”

But Goldsmith says even a similar event would still not be enough to return both reservoirs to full capacity today.

“A similar event this year would fill the reservoirs but be short of capacity,” said Goldsmith. “This is due to the near-record low starting levels both in the U.S. and in Mexico.“

“I’m hoping that the city and county are taking steps now to prepare,” said Oceguera. “For this crisis and the others sure to come.”

TPR was founded by and is supported by our community. If you value our commitment to the highest standards of responsible journalism and are able to do so, please consider making your gift of support today.

Pablo De La Rosa is a Northern Tamaulipas-Rio Grande Valley native where he works as a writer and multimedia producer of stories from the Texas-Mexico border region.

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**"Now we’re starting to see the impact on the water cycle.

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10.

Title:

Content: Equilibrium/Sustainability

Equilibrium/Sustainability — Presented by Southern Company — Migration, security threats run together in warming world

Today is Thursday.  Welcome to Equilibrium, a newsletter that tracks the growing global battle over the future of sustainability. Subscribe here: thehill.com/newsletter-signup.

The Biden administration issued an ominous forecast for the planet on Thursday morning, with one official declaring that “no country will be spared from the challenges directly related to climate change,” according to CNN.

The official was introducing a series of reports from key federal agencies on impacts of climate change, which ranged from a White House study on the rise in global migration, to a Defense Department review of security risks, to upcoming reports from the Director of National Intelligence and Department of Homeland Security.

The White House migration report dissects a feedback loop in which heightened migration can result from — as well as lead to —  greater instability and violence by “non-state armed groups,” creating a cycle that erodes the ability of destination countries to respond effectively to climate disruption.

The study “was very careful not to frame migration as a purely negative coping mechanism” but stressed the need for it to become a “safe, orderly and humane pathway,” the official said.

Today we’re looking at other causes and effects of that climate disruption. First, a report finds that plastics are on track to contribute more to global warming than coal plants by the end of the decade. Then, the head of disaster operations for the Red Cross discusses how his organization is preparing for a world in which we can expect crises to keep getting worse.

For Equilibrium, we are Saul Elbein and Sharon Udasin. Please send tips or comments to Saul at selbein@thehill.com or Sharon at sudasin@thehill.com. Follow us on Twitter: @saul_elbein and @sharonudasin

Let’s get to it.

Plastic will soon trump coal as climate threat: study

The U.S. plastics industry’s contribution to climate change is on course to surpass that of coal-fired power plants by 2030, a new study has found.

Plastics are responsible for generating at least 232 million tons of carbon-based emissions per year — equivalent to the average emissions from 116 average-sized coal-fired facilities, according to the report, published by Bennington College’s Beyond Plastics initiative.

In 2020 alone, the plastic industry’s reported emissions rose by 10 million tons over 2019, the authors found. Meanwhile, construction is currently underway on another 12 facilities, with 15 in planning processes — meaning that altogether, the new sites could emit more than 40 million additional tons of greenhouse gases annually by 2025, according to the study.

“The fossil fuel industry is losing money from its traditional markets of power generation and transportation,” Judith Enck, former Environmental Protection Agency regional administrator and president of Beyond Plastics, said in a statement.

‘Petrochemical buildout’ outweighs other gains: The petrochemical industry, according to Enck, is “building new plastics facilities at a staggering clip so they can dump their petrochemicals into plastics,” she added. “This petrochemical buildout is cancelling out other global efforts to slow climate change.”

Praising the recent closure of 65 percent of the nation’s coal-fired power plants, the authors stressed that the increase in plastics production is outweighing those gains.

“A severe undercounting” of emissions: Although the U.S. plastics industry reported releasing 114 million tons of greenhouse gases in 2020, an analysis by the Maine-based firm Material Research identified “a severe undercounting of plastics’ climate impacts,” a news release from Beyond Plastics said.

That analysis examined data from federal agencies, including the EPA, the Department of Commerce and the Department of Energy, and identified an additional 118 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions generated from other stages of plastics production — the equivalent of another 59 average-sized coal-fired power plants, the report said.

“This report represents the floor, not the ceiling, of the U.S. plastics industry’s climate impact,” Jim Vallette, president of Material Research and the report’s author, said in a statement.

A MESSAGE FROM SOUTHERN COMPANY

At Southern Company, we achieved our interim net zero energy goal ten years early. Today, we continue our work toward a net zero future.

MOVING TOWARD A ‘CIRCULAR ECONOMY’

Environmental benefits of plastics: In response to the report, Joshua Baca, vice president of plastics for the American Chemistry Council (ACC) — which represents major oil and chemical firms — said that the study “fails to recognize the many environmental benefits plastics provide that move society toward a lower carbon future.”

Baca touted plastic’s potential to drive forward “a more circular economy,” or one that focuses on extending the lifecycle of products and reducing waste. Advanced recycling is “gaining momentum,” while plastic packaging requires less material to perform the same function as glass, metal or paper, according to Baca.

“Like other manufacturing processes, plastics manufacturing does emit greenhouse gases,” Baca said, noting that plastics enable the production of lighter vehicles, wind turbine blades and foam insulation.

“Plastics can ultimately result in a net savings of greenhouse gas emissions over their lifecycles compared to the use of many alternatives,” he added.

An opportunity in plant-based plastics: Jessica Bowman, president of the Plant Based Products Council (PBPC), voiced her support for the report, which she said “confirms our perspective that plastics and other products we use every day have significant climate impacts.”

“Plant-based products present an opportunity to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels,” she added.Bowman, who was not involved with the study, stressed that plant-based products “are the epitome of the circular economy,” particularly when made to be compostable or recyclable.

Last words: “We’re not going to get rid of all the products that we need and use every day,” Bowman said. “We certainly could use less products — but for things we need, being able to make them in a better way, making them from renewable inputs, is really critical.”

To read the full story, please click here.

In chaotic world, planning for disaster is everyone’s job

As the country’s climate becomes more unstable and its social fabric more strained, small nonprofit disaster relief organizations are springing up to help communities deal with crises.

“Maybe they pivoted from supporting schools, or distributing supplies” to giving out meals after a hurricane, Trevor Riggen, head of disaster operations at the American Red Cross, told Equilibrium.

Cooperating with these groups is a crucial part of the future of emergency preparedness, Riggen said. “Those agencies bring huge resources to the table, and know the community much better than someone coming from outside.”

Riggen sat down with Equilibrium on Thursday to share his thoughts on preparing for the disasters of the future.

What led to the rise of these organizations? Need. Disaster has become a “chronic condition for a lot of communities,” Riggen said, forcing existing local-level organizations to adapt.

How do big agencies like the Red Cross and FEMA work with these groups? “Presence is key,” Riggen said. “It’s an age-old thing in disaster work: ‘Don’t exchange business cards in the middle of a disaster.’”

For example, relief organizations can leverage lower-scale, more frequent incidents — emergencies rather than disasters — to build a network. Among the 60,000 events the Red Cross finds itself responding to every year are 200 single-family house fires per day, Riggen said.

These give the organization “a starting point” to help gauge individual and communal readiness to inevitable disasters, and to meet local emergency responders and community groups, he added.

A MESSAGE FROM SOUTHERN COMPANY

At Southern Company, we achieved our interim net zero energy goal ten years early. Today, we continue our work toward a net zero future.

IMAGINING TOMORROW’S CRISES TODAY

What else can emergency managers do? “Understand the forecast,” Riggen said. “In decades past, we focused on fighting the next disaster like it would be much like the last one. After Katrina, we focused on averting the next Katrina.”

What’s wrong with that? The future will not be like the past, he said. Meanwhile, Riggen added, the level of vulnerability in communities is “changing every day, and in most communities it’s getting worse.”

With “inequality, food security, healthcare and education — we have to assume we’re starting from a different starting point on the next disaster,” he said.

Then there’s climate change. The 2016 floods in Baton Rouge, which killed 60 people and caused $10 to $15 billion in property damage, “were a watershed for us: since then, large-scale, complex, climate-driven disasters have been happening across the country, and it’s getting faster and more severe,” Riggen said.

There were 22 natural disasters in 2020 that cost over $1 billion — a number that Riggen predicted will be matched this year and passed in future years.

That means that plans for the 2030s and 2040 should assume many communities have to plan for a “much worse” level of local vulnerability and scale of climate disaster — and not simply how to solve current-level problems with current-level resources, Riggen said.

How do you plan for unpredictable disasters, like Texas ice storms or Northwest heat waves? You build the kinds of resilience that work whatever the disaster is, according to Riggen.

“Take a hurricane: the visible impacts are storm surge, flooding, the house that’s blown down,” he said.

But the storm itself, he explained, doesn’t demonstrate a community’s vulnerability to a hurricane. Rather, that vulnerability “starts with asking where are people starting before the disaster happened,” according to Riggen.

“Do they have the resources to evacuate? A preparedness plan? A couple days of food?” he asked. “All those vulnerabilities make us think about that response differently.”

How so? Because to some extent, it doesn’t matter if you can’t live in your house because of a wildfire, hurricane or long-term power failure.

“Food banks, healthcare, emergency housing — we can put that suite of services into almost any disaster scenario, because they’re focused on the person, not how that displacement was caused,” Riggen said.

That approach to planning, he said, “gets you out the disaster-based box,” he added.

Last words: “In thinking about vulnerability, we have to ask: how do we get people who start in a different place to end up with the same result?” Riggen said.

Thursday Throwdowns

Boris Johnson, Bill Gates ‘throwing money’ toward green energy, but provide minimal details

  • British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Bill Gates launched a £400 million ($552 million) partnership on Tuesday to boost green energy investment, with half the funds coming from the U.K. government and the other half raised from the private sector, the Prime Minister’s Office announced.
  • But Tom Peck, a political sketch writer for the Independent, ridiculed the partners, writing that they “will definitely save the world — just don’t bother with the details.”
  • The prime minister and the billionaire, according to Peck, may simply be “throwing the money at the problem, generating headlines, but with no real clue what to actually do.”
  • Peck criticized Gates for his “guilty pleasure” of flying around the world in his private jets and Johnson for writing climate denial columns just a decade ago. He also pointed out how the two men seemed confused about the amount they were investing.
  • At the end of their announcement, Johnson declared that the U.K. was “putting in £200m, I think Bill is putting in £200m,” while Gates then corrected him that it was actually “four hundred each,” according to Peck. But then, he wrote, it turned out that “Johnson had been right the first time.”

Document leaks show pushback against U.N. climate recommendations

  • A document leak uncovered by BBC News demonstrated how several countries are working to change a key scientific report on how to combat climate change.
  • Saudi Arabia, Japan and Australia have demanded that the U.N. play down the urgency to transition away from fossil fuels — pushing back on previous U.N. recommendations that could keep global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit), the BBC reported.
  • Within the documents are more than 32,000 submissions from governments, companies and other global parties, sent to a U.N. team of scientists that is collecting scientific evidence as to how to tackle climate change, according to the BBC.
  • An adviser to the Saudi oil ministry asked that “phrases like ‘the need for urgent and accelerated mitigation actions at all scales’” be eliminated, while an Australian official rejected the idea that shutting down coal-fired plants is necessary, the BBC reported.

Please visit The Hill’s sustainability section online for the web version of this newsletter and more stories. We’ll see you on Friday.{mosads}

Tags Nancy Pelosi

The Hill has removed its comment section, as there are many other forums for readers to participate in the conversation. We invite you to join the discussion on Facebook and Twitter.

**"HARC Program Director Dr. Stephanie Glenn explained that climate resilience is the ability to prepare for, respond to, and subsequently bounce back from impacts as a result of climate change.

"**

These sentences highlight the timing, recurring nature, visual and health impacts, recommendations for citizens, effect on local temperatures and city resources (like energy usage), as well as the importance of city-level preparation and overall climate resilience in response to Saharan dust storms and extreme weather.

How can the authorities prepare for a Saharan dust storm?

public awareness & education
health facilities readiness
energy system readiness

How does Saharan dust affect immediate weather?

increases temperature
lowers air quality

What are the negative effects of Saharan dust storm on infrastructure?

Worsens visibility on roads
harms solar energy production