Typhoons & Tinderboxes

For many American’s this week, the infernos blazing up and down the west coast are a stark reminder that climate change is the existential threat of our lifetime. Eerily post-apocalyptic skies over San Francisco and ashen ghost towns across Oregon, American’s are left wondering: is there anywhere to seek shelter from the coming storm?

The sad answer to this question is simple: there is no escaping the climate catastrophe. While this week’s events are some people’s first experience with climate change, others have been dealing with these impacts for years and I am one of them.

Typhoons

Millions of Americans live in the US overseas territories: Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands. Like most islands around the world, these places contribute the least to global CO2 emissions but are often the first to experience the dire consequences.

I grew up on the island of Saipan, the main island in the Northern Mariana Islands. Climate change has been unfolding there in several ways over the past decade. In 2013, the island — along with its neighbor to the south, Guam — experienced widespread coral bleaching that decimated up to 90% of the nearshore reefs, which are traditional fishing grounds for the indigenous CHamoru and Refalawasch people. Under the best conditions, where reefs aren’t subjected to continued disturbances, recovery can take place in five to ten years. Unfortunately, the conditions that led to this decline persisted for four straight years.

While islands are rightfully thought for their marine habitats, impacts of climate change are also felt on land. After back-to-back summers of lethal water temperatures, on 2 August 2015 Typhoon Soudelor decimated Saipan in ways unexpected by even the most experienced of meteorologists. At the time, National Weather Service meteorologist Chip Guard described the storm as “unique”. Guard also went on to say, “It’s a storm we really have not seen go over populated areas” and “the rate that it was intensifying was much faster than we expected it to intensify.” These are the exact predictions that scientists have been warning the public about for decades.

Another prediction made by climate scientists is that the intensity of storms — storms like Soudelor — would become more frequent. Three short years later, Saipan was confronted with the painful reality of these predictions.

Super Typhoon Yutu made landfall on 25 October 2018. Barely recovered from the devastation of Soudelor, Yutu pummeled the island like few storms before it. Some of the island residents were still living in makeshift shelters when the storm arrived. The headlines surrounding the storm were startling:

• Typhoon Yutu spurs disaster in a remote U.S. territory (Grist)
• Super Typhoon Yutu, ‘Strongest Storm Of 2018,’ Slams U.S. Pacific Territory (NPR)
• Extreme Category 5 typhoon, the worst U.S. storm since 1935, leaves Northern Mariana Islands devastated (The Washington Post)

The aftermath of Yutu left the residence of Saipan contemplating whether to rebuild or retreat. These are the psychological effects of climate change. What do you do when your world has been turned upside down, not once, but twice?

Aftermath of Typhoon Soudelor (Photograph: Raymond Zapanta/Saipan Tribune)

Tinderboxes

Currently, I live in Corvallis, Oregon, where I’m working on my PhD in geography and study climate change impacts on the ocean and the people who depend on them (spoiler: we all depend on the health of the ocean). When I moved to the Pacific Northwest, I knew it had a reputation for being rainy and generally mild concerning extreme weather. It doesn’t get hurricanes; too warm to get blizzards; too mountainous for tornados (although one does have to worry about this). These safeguards are beginning to fail as we lurch further into the Anthropocene — the geological era where humans are the main driver of global environmental change.

The ongoing coverage and analysis of the recent fires point to two contributing factors: climate change and fire management in our forests. Predictably, these drivers are being politicized — as they usually are when climate change is a part of the equation — at a time when they need to be humanized. Regardless of which side of the aisle you find yourself on, the root cause of the problem is clear: humans have abused the natural environment and are now dealing with a tinderbox and it is our responsibility to deal with it.

Pain, suffering, and loss due to climate change are, unfortunately, unavoidable at this point. We have collectively dragged our feet on this issue for far too long. But not all hope is lost. We can still take action to make our communities as resilient as possible to the climate catastrophe. Whether we find ourselves in Saipan or Oregon, some solutions can help us weather the coming storm, reconnect with the natural world, and — perhaps most importantly — restore dignity and respect with each other.

A search and rescue team looks for victims in the aftermath of the Almeda fire in Talent, Oregon Sunday. (Photograph: Adrees Latif/Reuters)

Tools & Tactics

So, how do we make it through with heads and hearts intact? There are many choices but let’s highlight two simple solutions that we can put into place in now to give us the best fighting chance.

Learn from the past

Many of the environments that are currently being assaulted by the climate breakdown are traditional homes to indigenous people, tribes, and First Nations. For centuries these people observed, experimented, and codified the socio-environmental into a body knowledge some call traditional ecological knowledge. You might know it by another name: culture. And the process that these people undertook to develop their culture? Science! By recognizing, elevating, and integrating the cultural practices of indigenous people, we can support ecosystem resilience, whether that be on a coral reef or a fire-dependent landscape.

Plan for the future

I’m not going to tip-toe around this one: the most powerful and consequential tool we have at our disposal when it comes to planning for the future is our vote. Surviving climate catastrophe requires leadership, coordination, and a plan. The absence of a plan is nothing short of planetary suicide. The denial of the problem is nihilism. On 3 November 2020, we are tasked with whether we want a plan — a fighting chance — that brings people together to overcome this existential threat or if we’d rather wait and hope for a miracle.

We have nowhere left to run from this problem. I’ve been on far-flung tropical islands and dealt with climate change. I’ve been nestled in the foothills of majestic Doug Fir forests and climate change has found me. Running is no longer an option and if we concede to hiding, we lose. The actions we take today, tomorrow, in November, and every day after that are our only options left. Act as though our lives depend on it because they do.