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Climate Action Plan > Chapter 6: Adapting to a Changing Climate

Chapter 6: Adapting to a Changing Climate

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Despite our best efforts to reduce GHG emissions, some climate change is already occurring and some additional change is considered inevitable. As we ramp up our efforts to mitigate heat-trapping emissions, it is critical that our community start today to prepare for the impacts of a changing climate. Waiting until the impacts grow more severe increases the risk of being poorly equipped to manage the public health, economic, quality of life and environmental consequences. We live in a region of the world that knows well the importance of preparedness. It is time we apply our preparedness doctrine to the coming risks of a changing climate.

CLIMATE ADAPTATION ACTIONS

The efficacy of the potential actions proposed in this section rests on their being developed and implemented at a regional scale in partnership with neighboring cities and relevant agencies. Partnering with other affected entities not only enables the pooling of resources, but also ensures that a consistent adaptive strategy is applied across boundaries.

A potential set of initial preparedness actions include:

  • Conduct a regional vulnerability assessment
  • Develop a strategic plan for climate change adaptation
  • Implement the plan and continuously evaluate progress

Read entire Chapter 6: Adapting to a Changing Climate

Comments

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Sustainable landscaping should be part of the plan

Post #27 by Susan Schwartz on March 7, 2008 4:25PM

Although it is far from clear whether local rainfall will increase or decrease with warming, models seem to agree that rising temperatures and the shrinking Sierra snowpack will stress future water supplies. The draft should at least begin to deal with the implications. It seems clear that the city should use, and encourage residents and businesses to use, landscaping that tolerates heat and drought, requires little or no irrigation or fertilizer, requires little or no pruning or mowing (minimizing green waste and use of power equipment), and encourages biodiversity and easy movement of species – potentially critical, given that global warming is forecast to eliminate the current habitat of a large proportion of California native species. That is, they will have to move or die. Thanks for considering this! Friends of Five Creeks.