Guests:

• Brandy Bones - Vice President of Disaster Management, ICF
• Dr. Peter Schultz - Vice President of Climate and Resilience, ICF

If you’ve been in California in the last few months, or anywhere else in the United States really, it is becoming almost impossible to deny the impacts of climate change. For the second time in two years wildfires in the Western US have threatened millions of acres, evacuated whole regions and caused air quality so bad San Francisco could have been mistaken for Mars for almost an entire week. The World Meteorological Organization has run out of hurricane names for 2020, and it’s only September. Flooding is debilitating many parts of the southeast even some areas that aren’t designated flood plains. In September Death Valley had a recorded temperature of 130 which is possible the hottest anywhere on earth in modern times.

For many people experiencing these disasters it is no longer an isolated, once-in-a-generation event, but a frequent reality that threatens the short and long-term viability of their region as a place to live. The economic toll of these events continues to grow astronomically, not to mention the human costs of lost life and having to uproot whole communities with nowhere to go. This reality check takes place during a pandemic that has cost many people their health and livelihoods and decimated our economy with no end in sight. Not to mention a federal administration that still discredits climate change as a reality, let alone our most important global priority. Trump recently came to a still on-fire California to meet with the Governor and told gathered officials that “science doesn’t really know” what’s happening with climate change. It’s unbelievable. As usual the populations most impacted by this lack of action are the poor, communities of color and other marginalized groups who usually contribute the least to the problem.

A silver lining of this catastrophe is that what was once considered an abstract theory that only scientists understood or cared about is something is now extremely tangible, and this provides a moment for dramatic action especially when we consider the potential economic opportunities that would come with a green revolution to fight climate change. It is also a time to reexamine the systems we use to dispense relief so that communities are able to handle the immense resources necessary for fundamental change and allow for truly equitably driven solutions. To paint a picture for what this new world could look like, and how we might get there I invited two guests whose whole world is understanding the impact of climate change and how we can create resilient communities. Brandy is our first repeat guest, and this time she discusses her expertise on disaster recovery and the coordination between federal and local governments to rebuild and measure risk. Dr. Schultz brings decades of modeling experience as well as an understanding of how large a role economics and the private sector play in our ability to create an opportunity for change that can bring prosperity and sustainability to many communities.