IE 11 Not Supported

For optimal browsing, we recommend Chrome, Firefox or Safari browsers.

Climate Change Went by the Wayside Like So Many Other Issues in 2020

Did your five-year work plan include a pandemic in 2020?

How far ahead do you plan? It is not uncommon for agencies to have five-year plans. More recently, people bowing to history have found that it is hard to plan five years in advance because things happen to derail those plans. What was on your agenda for 2020 that didn't get done because of the pandemic? For instance, Seattle's Office of Emergency Management was going to get their Emergency Management Re-accreditation done this year, but that went by the wayside. Likely, you too had a big exercise to conduct or a plan to redo. At least that is what you where thinking in December 2019.

This article is about the lost year of emphasis on climate change: "2020 Was Supposed To Be Our Best Last Chance To Save The Planet. So How Did We Do?"

Ah, not so good — other than a little bit of carbon reduction due to fewer commuters on the roadways in metropolitan areas.

The idea that we can do something "radically different" in the next 10 years to reverse climate change is highly unlikely in my opinion. We would need some calamitous event like one of those hundred-mile-long ice shelfs breaking off down in Antarctica and floating up to Miami to get people's attention, and then there would still be people saying "the earth is just in a warming phase, none of this is human caused." 

To my feeble mind, I'm just thinking about all the permafrost that is melting and letting off greenhouse gasses from the decaying materials. This type of event will turbocharge the increase in temperatures, accelerating predictions — I would think. Unfortunately, I won't be around in the year 2100 to see if I was right or not. 

 

Eric Holdeman is a contributing writer for Emergency Management magazine and is the former director of the King County, Wash., Office of Emergency Management.