What in the World Happened at COP28?
Spokane, The United States, and much of the world experienced a blistering heat wave this summer that broke numerous heat records.
Given the danger posed by extreme heat, The Gonzaga Climate Center has released a new Cooling Resources website where you can find resources for you, your family, friends, and neighbors to stay cool once the heat strikes.
Washington State Needs a New Plan for Transportation
By Andrew Kidde and Larry Luton As anyone dodging the potholes in Spokane’s roads understands, Washington State’s transportation infrastructure is failing. Traffic jams abound. Many bridges, like the Post Street bridge, are either out of commission or face deferred maintenance. Why? The cost of maintaining our roads is outpacing the gas tax revenues that are allocated […]
2020 Climate Action at the Legislature
This week our hearts are with everyone affected by the COVID-19 public health crisis, both in our state and around the world. It is heartening to see that the world can act with decisive action to respond to a crisis, if it chooses to. Yesterday was the end of the 2020 Washington State legislative session and we wanted to take a moment to share what happened related to action to address the climate crisis.
The Smoke Ahead
It was very literally a summer for the record books. Spokane went 80 days without rainfall, from late-June until mid-September, making 2017 the hottest, driest summer recorded.
The remarkable fact was that this record-driest summer followed the record-wettest winter. As Northwesterners emerged in April from endlessly gray skies, grousing and bleary-eyed, plants took the meaning of “spring” to heart, bursting forth in lush excess. Grasses and shrubs grew thick and deep — until the arrival of an infernal June and July, drying all that brush dried to tinder and baking moisture from the soil. Long before August, an epic fire season was already well under way.
Countering Narratives of Denial
Our community finds itself engulfed in a layer of smoke so thick that it bumps up against the very top of the air quality index measurement chart. Communities have been destroyed, and dozens have died due to a wildfire season that is unfortunately not unexpected. Climate assessments have largely predicted increasingly bad wildfire seasons in our region of the world. Factors such as wetter springs contribute to an abundance of plant growth, then hotter, drier summers turn that plant growth into a tinderbox of fuel for nightmarish wildfires to burn. This is indisputable, yet on social media platforms it is but one of many narratives that attempt to explain who or what is to “blame” for the wildfires. Here are some thoughts on how you can counter these narratives that seek to hide the role of climate change in this year’s wildfire season.