Brace for a climate calamity as fire activity heats up
We’re in one of the most dangerous times of the year for blazes
Wildfires. Heat. Drought. Possible power shortages.
August is underway — and it could offer a nasty reminder of why efforts to fight climate change are so badly needed.
Let’s start with the electric grid.
It was two years ago this month that parts of the Golden State suffered rolling blackouts — and we could be in for more.
Officials have warned of “a high degree of vulnerability” this summer as rising temperatures drive up air conditioning demand. The risk is especially high on August and September evenings, after solar panels stop generating. Intense drought also means there’s less water behind dams to spin turbines and generate hydropower.
Asked about the odds of power shortfalls this summer, Neil Millar — a vice president at the California Independent System Operator — wasn’t thrilled about the question. He said it was like asking “how bad bad luck could get.”
“We’ve been in unprecedented times,” he said.
Overall, Millar was optimistic. He said the state has added thousands of megawatts of batteries that can bank solar power for after dark and has taken steps to secure other energy supplies — some of them polluting — that can keep the lights on in a pinch, even as they fuel the global warming that’s gotten us into this mess. A bunch of solar-plus-storage projects that officials feared would be delayed by supply chain slowdowns or other economic disruptions ended up plugging into the grid on schedule.
But the Independent System Operator can’t guarantee the lights will stay on, especially if the weather gets crazy.
“We’re as well positioned as we could have hoped to be,” Millar said.
This isn’t just a California concern. Across the country, the risk of blackouts is frighteningly high as rising temperatures strain electric grids and coal and nuclear power plants shut down.
California would resort to intentional outages only to stave off a bigger electric grid collapse.
But shutting off anyone’s power during a heat wave is painful, and potentially lethal. Extreme heat kills more Californians than officials have acknowledged, a previous L.A. Times investigation found, and global warming is making things worse — especially for people who can’t afford air conditioning.
Government agencies are trying to protect the most vulnerable. The Biden administration last week launched heat.gov to share tips on keeping cool and other information to help local officials deal with dangerous temperatures.
Closer to home, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power is designing a program that would help low-income and elderly customers — and people who depend on electricity for medical equipment — purchase air conditioning units at a low cost.
“Lives are at stake. Los Angeles residents’ health is at stake,” DWP board President Cynthia McClain-Hill said at last week’s board of commissioners meeting. “That means people we know. It means members of our families and our neighbors.”
Compared with extreme heat — which we can expect to get worse just about every year — wildfire is more of a wild card. As of last week, just 53,000 acres had burned in California in 2022 — far below the five-year average of 415,000 acres by that point in July.
But we’re now entering one of the most dangerous times of year for fire activity, as heat dries out the already parched landscape.
The Oak fire quickly became the state’s largest blaze of 2022 after igniting July 22, burning more than 18,000 acres near Yosemite National Park and destroying 25 homes in less than a week. Thousands of people were forced to evacuate, with one resident of the Sierra Nevada foothills town of Midpines saying that as the fire blew up, “it looked like Godzilla over my house.”
Eighteen thousand acres isn’t much compared with the record-breaking 1 million acres consumed by 2020’s August Complex fire — or last year’s Dixie fire, which chewed through nearly as much ground. But the Oak fire would have been considered a big one just a few decades ago, UC Merced climatologist John Abatzoglou said. And it could be a prelude to the rest of the year.
“There’s a lot more of the fire season yet to go, and things are really crispy out there,” he said.
Asked for his top three wildfire solutions, two of Abatzoglou’s answers involved more fire: setting “prescribed burns” to clear out vegetation in forests that have grown much too dense after a century of overly aggressive fire suppression, and allowing blazes in remote areas far from homes to burn themselves out — a strategy known as “managed fire.” He’d also like to see more robust funding for people to harden their homes against flames, and to clear excess vegetation from around their properties.
What about reducing climate pollution? It needs to happen, Abatzoglou said, but it’s not an immediate fire solution.
“Even though I’m a climate person, I know we’re not going to slow this down in the next 20 years too much,” he said.
As if wildfires weren’t scary enough on their own, they can also exacerbate power grid problems.
Utility companies sometimes shut off electricity during high winds to stop their power lines from sparking fires. Last summer, smoke from the Bootleg fire in southern Oregon knocked out several lines that bring power to California, nearly leading to rolling blackouts here.
Then there’s the drought. If you haven’t heard, it’s bad — and August could bring more unwelcome news.
In the next few weeks, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation will issue its latest forecast for water levels at the American West’s two largest reservoirs: Lake Mead and Lake Powell, which help supply tens of millions of people and millions of acres of farmland, from Los Angeles to Phoenix to Salt Lake City.
The August forecast typically determines whether California, Arizona, Nevada and Mexico will see their Colorado River water deliveries reduced, as they were after last August’s first-ever shortage declaration.
This month’s reservoir forecast will be grim — but that’s almost beside the point, said John Fleck, a Colorado River expert and writer in residence at the University of New Mexico School of Law’s Utton Transboundary Resources Center.
That’s because in mid-June, the Bureau of Reclamation gave the seven Colorado River states 60 days to develop a plan to reduce water use dramatically — by 2 million to 4 million acre-feet next year. If they don’t make it happen, the federal agency could order draconian cutbacks.
Everyone will need to use less water, Fleck said. But he suggested it will be especially important for wealthy cities to find ways to compensate rural, agriculture- dependent communities such as Blythe and the Imperial Valley for cutting back.
“Climate change is coming in and taking their water. But we need to help them,” Fleck said.
So far, there are no real public signs a robust plan will come together.
The river’s Upper Basin states — Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming — have declined to promise anything substantial, saying the onus should be on the Lower Basin states. And it’s unclear whether California and the other Lower Basin states are having much success in agreeing on cutbacks.
Fleck said the most “politically expedient” path forward — especially in Arizona, where water cuts are deeply unpopular — might be to punt to the federal government. He thinks that would be an unfortunate outcome, embracing conflict over cooperation.
“We’ve got to own up and take responsibility for the fact that this is all of our faults as water users,” Fleck said.
Meanwhile, water levels continue to fall. Lake Mead was at a record-low 27% of capacity last week. Human remains were found on a beach as the reservoir’s waters receded — the third time that’s happened since May.
Just like with wildfire, slashing planet-warming emissions is not an immediate solution to the long-term drying trend in the American West. But without serious climate action, there’s also no way to avoid an even worse catastrophe down the road.
It’s possible that the federal government will get its act together.
Sen. Joe Manchin III of West Virginia — a Democrat who for months blocked President Biden’s climate proposals — announced last week he’d struck a deal to support a sweeping bill focused on energy and climate, among other issues. The bill includes $369 billion for energy security and climate policies.
In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom is trying to step up on climate action, even as he supports the short-term use of fossil fuels to bolster power supplies.
He sent a letter to state regulators last month asking them to plan for a gargantuan 20 gigawatts of offshore wind power by 2045, and setting a target of 7 million “climate-ready and climate-friendly homes” by 2035. That could mean homes equipped with electric heat pumps instead of polluting gas furnaces, and retrofitted to keep people cool during heat waves.
Newsom also asked state agencies to plan for a clean-energy transition that includes no new natural gas plants — a big win for climate activists. The California Air Resources Board has recently projected a need for 10 gigawatts of new gas plants to help keep the lights on when solar panels and wind turbines aren’t generating, and to support electric-vehicle charging.
“This isn’t revolution. This should be the expectation,” said Alexandra Nagy, California director at the public affairs firm Sunstone Strategies, which works closely with environmental groups.
The climate crisis is bigger than any one policy, or any one month. But in August, it’s all magnified.
