COUNTY RELEASES DRAFT CLIMATE CHANGE VULNERABILITY ASSESSMENT

Source: County of Santa Barbara

The County of Santa Barbara Planning and Development Department (P&D) is announcing the release of a Draft Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment (CCVA) available HERE. The County is accepting public comments on the draft assessment through 5 p.m. Wednesday, October 22. Comments can be submitted via mail.
 
The CCVA is the result of a multi-year effort to improve community resiliency by analyzing how climate change could harm our community. The CCVA provides an opportunity for a closer look at specific climate-related hazards, like extreme heat, wildfires, sea-level rise, drought, coastal and inland flooding, agricultural pests and diseases, landslides, and extreme weather events, and how these hazards are likely to affect our communities now, and in the future.
 
It is well documented that climate-related hazards may impact people and communities disproportionately. Housing, income, education, race and ethnicity, culture, health, ability, and access to services matter greatly when assessing the extent and likelihood of harm caused by climate hazards. For this important reason, the CCVA integrates equity into the technical analyses, identifying populations that are most at risk of harm.
 

Highlights from the Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment:
  • 13 applicable climate change hazards identified in the county
  • A wide array of community assets evaluated, including economic drivers, ecosystems and natural resources, infrastructure, buildings and facilities, and key community services
  • 16 “frontline populations” identified, e.g. those groups that experience the impacts of climate change earlier and/or to a more severe degree than others.
  • 106 of 138 populations and assets were evaluated as having a “high” or “severe” vulnerability to climate change.
  • Key findings to help guide work on the next phase of the project developing adaptation strategies

For more information, the public can visit the One Climate project website and sign up to receive e-mail updates specific to the CCVA, Climate Change Adaptation Plan, and Safety Element Update. For more information about the Safety Element Update, click here.

 
For questions, please contact Project Manager Whitney Wilkinson by email or call (805) 568-2067. 

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  1. I agree. Not that climate change is a crock but that this report is. In the list of groups impacted most by climate change they list: people without high school degrees, renters, senior citizens, people who aren’t proficient in English , people who pay too much for housing , overcrowded households, people without cars, and those living on single access roads. Really? How about those living in low lying coastal areas? Or those living in the wild land urban interface? Or those living in cities with air pollution? Seems like another agenda driven report.

  2. Doomsday predictions have been around for about as long as people have. The idea is to convince people that the world is going to end, unless they spend money. Of course, no such predictions have ever come true. Despite centuries of scientific progress, human nature is still highly susceptible to this sort of thing. The result will be profit for the perpetrators, little if any impact on the wealthy, and a squeeze on the poor and the middle class. In other words, it’s a crock, a con, a rip-off, a hustle.

  3. BUMBLEBEE – huh? You say politicians say “change is good.” Climate change is not the kind of change they’re talking about. But, to follow your tangent, who knows? Maybe some good will come of it to some lucky entrepreneur or inventor, but it likely won’t outweigh the bad for our planet overall.

  4. I would like the eco-warriors to start condemning the millionaire/billionaire-class for flying private. It’s sickening when the hoards of private jets fly in to attend the all-important Climate Summit at the Bacara Spa & Resort. They they go to their next destination one-per-plane to yet another event where they will talk-the-talk….then head back to their private planes to Malibu, Martha’s Vineyard, Hawaii, and so on.

  5. A specific topic? As in, they were discussing/talking about the need to not fly private all the time? That’s what I’m talking about….wealthy and phony eco-warriors hanging out with each other telling everyone else what to do, then fly off in their climate-change jets to eat caviar off the backs of the natives. And so many of you are gobbling up their schtick. Same ol’ same ol’ ….sad.

  6. Trasnparent, I think we are on the right path here in the US and many other developed countries but this is a global issue. It also isn’t a one a done thing, like if we just pass this rule or legislation we’ll be okay, but a continual adjustment of our behaviors and society over time. It simply isn’t possible to just turn off the oil tap, that would create a shock throughout the world that would lead to significantly greater death, suffering, famine, and conflict than the worst climate change will throw at us over the next few lifetimes. Our environment is much more resilient than many give it credit for; we’ve done awful things to our planet over the past 200 years and when those bad behaviors are corrected the planet heals rather quickly. Humans are a much greater threat to our own future than anthropogenic climate change and when we do wipe ourselves out, the earth will return to it’s natural state in a blink of the eye (on a geologic timescale). When you think about it, nature doesn’t care about climate change, it has been adapting to a wildly changing climate for millions of years, if it wasn’t for its impact on humans, climate change wouldn’t be an issue.

  7. @Sacjon, I think you called me a nutjob a while back because I feel our progressive policies around the homeless are actively harmful (not just benign) for the community and actually for the homeless folks themselves. [In short, I feel we are on the “actively enabling” side of things as it stands and discouraging use of existing services.] When that issue comes up again, remember that to me it’s all about telling the truth, studying systems, and what practical, long-term impact our actions have on helping people… whether or not it’s convenient, PC, or easy.

  8. TRANS – hmm, well if you were one of those proposing to put them in camps so they could kill themselves, I probably did call you that. Either way, good points about climate change. You’re right, we can not wait any longer. Throwing our hands up and saying “it’s not perfect, so let’s not even bother” is only going to make it worse, in everything from global warming to covid. We don’t have time to wait for 100% “green” energy or perfect solutions to overconsumption, we have to do what we can now. Just throwing in the towel because it’s too hard or it’s not perfect is failing our future generations.

  9. “Nothing to see here” guaranteed. Go look at a list of all the predicted “climate change” disasters going back to AL Gore and you will plainly see that not one of them ever even came close to being true. Every one of them were wrong. But, the hundreds of legitimate climate change scientists who have come out against “climate change” and whose truth has been totally suppressed and censored are not wrong.

  10. Folks, it turns out there nothing to worry about with regards to the environment or climate change. JamesB (an EdHat poster) has declared that the entire scientific community is dumb and that he is the the smartest, most bigly stable genius and the only one to know the truth. He also claims that environmental science and climate change did not exist before “Al Gore’s stupid libtard movie” came out… When asked about his education, background and experience on these matters, JamesB stated that he had done “lots of research on the internet” before coming to these conclusions…

  11. Sound an awful lot like Covid James B; horrendously inaccurate “models” that drove policy yet never even came close to being true and legitimate scientists whose opinions were totally suppressed and censored. The common denominator is clear, politics have no place in science!

  12. Excuse me Alex?
    “the world is going to end in 12 years if we don’t address climate change” – A.O.C. 2019
    “NYC will be underwater by 2015 if we don’t address global warming” – Al Gore 2009
    Again, this doesn’t mean I don’t think humans have had a negative impact on our climate but these sensational and extreme positions aren’t based in reality and not derived from science. (just like so many of the horrendously inaccurate covid predictions like “millions of California’s will die”, “just wait two weeks…”, and “15 days to flatten the curve”.

  13. Just as the city councilmembers, safe in their free City Hall parking spaces, opine and rule how new developments should have very limited parking spaces, “let ‘em ride a bike to work, …or take the bus, “ they murmur, so the eco warriors fly higher and yon, leaving trails of GHSes, and shake their caring heads.

  14. Climate change is real. Always has been, always will be. Thank goodness we did not get stuck in other less hospitable ancient climate times this planet has faced. Who would trade the Ice Age for the very incremental climate change that is now naturally occurring as we move out of the Ice Age. Now we have the Climate Change Industrial Complex ,just like the Education Industrial Complex, the Medical Industrial Complex, the Homeless Inc Industrial Complex and only weakly in comparison the mother of them all Military Industrial Complex. Do you see the trend? Tax dollar wealth transference. Big government produces nothing of value. Just like this latest iteration of tax dollar wealth transfer – this Climate Change Industrial Complex

  15. I never understand what climate change deniers get from their illogical stances. You can’t look around at the crazy way we live and say- this is going to end well. And if we are lucky enough to escape the most severe consequences, your kids and grandkids certainly won’t. Do we just toss them in the toxic algae soup and hope they survive?

  16. There is anthropogenic climate change and then there is the doomsday we’re all going to drown by rising sea levels and our kids/grandkids will be swimming in toxic algae soup. One is occurring, is being addressed, and manageable, the other is greatly exaggerated sensationalism used to elicit an emotional response rather than a logical response. One is based in reality and derived from scientific study, the other is based in politics and derived from emotion.

  17. Pit, come on man… what happened to climate vs. weather? That’s like me posting an article of someone freezing to death and saying “see, we need global warming.”. Sensationalism/alarmism, like you’re prior comment, doesn’t help get us where we need to go.

  18. from your article:
    We can’t eliminate blue-green algae from a lake — they are an inherent part of the overall algal community. What we really want to do is control their overall intensity and the frequency of the blooms. Since we can’t control the water temperature, the best thing we can do is to reduce the amount of nutrients getting into the lake. This can best be accomplished by reducing the amount of phosphorus and nitrogen from man-made sources such as lawn fertilizer, and runoff from cities, cultivated fields, feedlots, and a myriad of other sources.

  19. VOICE – “That’s like me posting an article of someone freezing to death and saying “see, we need global warming.” — Umm…. isn’t that exactly what you DID do yesterday at 2:36? “Correct Bumblebee, a fact often ignored is that a warming climate has actually saved lives. Over the past twenty years temperature increases have yielded more heat related deaths, but at the same time there have been significantly fewer cold related deaths.”
    You literally said that increasing temperatures have the positive effect of decreasing deaths by freezing….

  20. VOICE – when? Yesterday when you said “a fact often ignored is that a warming climate has actually saved lives” or today when you said “That’s like me posting an article of someone freezing to death and saying “see, we need global warming.” Just curious.

  21. CHIP – great, did you read the whole thing? Looks like you didn’t even make it past the Summary or Key Points….
    Last paragraph of the Summary – “The GBR remains exposed to the predicted consequences of climate change…”
    Last of the Key Points: “However, the reefs of the GBR continue to be exposed to cumulative stressors, and the prognosis for the future disturbance regime is one of increased and longer lasting marine heatwaves and a greater proportion of severe tropical cyclones. ”

  22. Sac, I will concede the report is still predicting doom and gloom n the future. I was hopeful that the latest data might finally put a stop to the doomsday predictions, but clearly I was wrong. The fact remains, there is more hard coral coverage today then there was when they started monitoring it in 1985. This is completely inconsistent with the dire predictions we have been hearing for decades now. I can still remember people telling me years ago that I should go see the reef as soon as possible because it would be gone soon. Today the reef is larger than it was in 1985.

  23. CHIP – not much of a concession, nor was I asking for one. Fact remains, the reef is still vulnerable. The short term coral growth is fragile, albeit alive. Again, the point here, and with everything related to global warming, is that we need to protect our planet for the LONG TERM. Short term and unsustainable improvements shouldn’t be considered a “win” and “proof” that global warming was all hype. We still need to make an immediate effort to avoid future calamities.

  24. The BS people that post science denial, whether it be vaccines or climate, don’t care whether what they post is factual or not – only that they get some verbiage out there that supports their agenda. Don’t expect any followup except the spewing of more disinformation.

  25. There is a rational middle ground between the ‘don’t care /don’t do anything’ side, and the ‘its the apocalypse if we don’t take drastic action now’ side, with both extremes being driven more by politics and propaganda than actual science or data. But let me ask you this Marcelk: How many people can Earth sustain in a manner that you feel adequately protects our environment?

  26. VOICE – the whole problem is, while you acknowledge the “changes” we’ve made are working, you refuse to accept that we need to do more. THAT is the point here. We need to do more, not the same or less. Global warming is an indisputable threat to our planet. We can’t just clap our hands and pat ourselves on the back and say “we planted some trees today, global warming is fixed.” Gotta put in a little more effort, as a planet.

  27. @4:45 google is great:
    The United States is a world leader in protecting the environment and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. From 2005 to 2018, total U.S. energy-related CO2 emissions fell by 12%.
    In contrast, global energy-related emissions increased nearly 24% from 2005 to 2018.
    https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/latest-inventory-us-greenhouse-gas-emissions-and-sinks-shows-long-term-reductions-0

  28. The craziest thing is we have the technology and resources to bridge the gap until wind/solar/battery and other alternative energy generation can be produced on a large enough scale to negate the need to burn fossil fuels, but the science denying anti-nuclear crowd won’t have it.

  29. VOICE – how many nuclear powerplants would we need to build to “bridge” the time until wind and solar can be implemented on that scale? Better question, why can’t we utilize renewables on a larger scale in order to negate oil/coal?

  30. Sac, Diablo powers nearly 10% of California so we’d need 9 more for all of California. The power-producing part of Diablo is 12 acres. Obviously there is additional buffer for security reasons. So we need 120 acres and 9 more plants to power CA with zero emissions 24/7.

  31. If climate change was truly the impending armageddon they claim, the risks associated with storing and, sometime in the distant future, disposing of, the relatively very small volume of radioactive waste produced wouldn’t be much of a concern. The best time to have built modern reactors was 20 years ago, the second best time is now and we can start with not shutting down the ones we have.

  32. CHIP – how do you explain all these articles that say the opposite of what you claim?
    https://phys.org/news/2021-07-barrier-reef-outlook-poor-coral.html
    https://reefecologic.org/coral-shows-strong-recovery-across-the-great-barrier-reef/
    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/great-barrier-reef-coral-recovery-b1886569.html
    Seems to be, despite what your opinion piece says, the reef is still in danger, even though there has been some recovery. Once again, short term does not equal long term. All those saying “oh, there’s no visible proof of global warming” or “looky there, trees are still growing” or my favorite, “global warming is good because it’s decreasing deaths by freezing” are missing the big picture. We’re not concerned (well a little) about right now, we’re concerned about the future. LONG TERM consequences of our failure to take SHORT TERM (immediate) steps.
    It’s not all about you and now, it’s about our kids and their kids. I wish people would stop being so selfish.

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