The changing climate is likely to cause weather mayhem this winter. Let’s get ready

Winter is coming. And after the summer we’ve had — a 109-degree heat wave, and nightly national news of devastating wildfires, hurricanes, and floods — those with an eye on our changing climate are wondering what mayhem winter may bring.

The climate change forecast for our region predicts hotter, drier summers like the one we just experienced, becoming progressively more intense for at least the next three decades, and much longer if we don’t reduce carbon pollution 58 percent by 2030.

The forecasts also predict wetter, wilder and windier winters. Thurston County Emergency Services Director Kurt Hardin says winters are also predicted to be colder, and therefore likely snowier.

So, putting aside for a moment how frightening that is, it would behoove us to prepare for it. That means making emergency preparedness a much higher priority. The pros tell us we should all be prepared to cope with 14 days without natural gas, electricity or water. Think about that. How and what would you cook? How would you stay warm?

Fourteen days is a long time when life is upended. But even 14 days may not be long enough to restore all those essentials after a big earthquake, catastrophic floods or fires, high winds, or the failure of key roads or the power grid. And those are the kinds of Very Bad Things that are now more likely with every passing year.

A new, more rigorous version of emergency preparedness should be a high priority in every home and community, and in national responses to weather catastrophes such as the hurricanes, flooding, severe heat, fires and drought we’ve witnessed in the past few months.

Across the country, we need adaptations to climate change that prevent widespread failure of key energy, communication, transportation, water, sewage treatment and other systems.

Locally, Andrew Kinney, the now retired Thurston County Emergency Management Coordinator, warns that “We need to prepare for flooding at levels we have never experienced.” But weary from years of pushing against resistance to long-term prevention and preparation measures, he says “We’ve just got to change people’s thought processes. We shouldn’t have to wait until after a catastrophe strikes to feel we can justify the cost” of investments to prevent or lessen damage.

We also need more nimble adaptations to protect the lives and health of people. Catastrophe already struck last June when a heat wave killed 125 people in Washington directly, and is implicated in nearly 450 other “excess deaths.”

So far, the only state or local governmental response has been the Department of Commerce rule change that allows an energy assistance program for low-income people to cover air conditioning. But no new money has been added to the program; in fact, its funding has shrunk over the last several years.

That means if there’s a similar heat wave next year — or a worse one — we can expect more deaths. We need bold action now to make our elders and other isolated and vulnerable neighbors safe from deadly heat, and from whatever disasters may be in store this winter and in years to come.

Climate change is often called an “existential crisis,” but it’s more immediately existential for some than others. People who can afford air conditioning, air filtration systems, generators, well-stocked pantries and rooftop solar installations will be better able to weather the change, so to speak, than people at or near the bottom of the income ladder. Climate change will hit the downtrodden first and hardest both here and around the globe. But ultimately, it’s coming for all of us.

Climate change is not for sissies. But we’ve known about it for 40 years and done woefully little to address it, and there’s no going back. We need to respond to the dangers we’ve already seen and experienced, and prepare for the ones we know are coming. Sleepwalking into it will make it vastly worse than it needs to be.