Environment & Sustainable Development Blog Area

by Hyon K. Rah – Chair, Environment & Sustainable Development Committee

November 2020

Wildfires, a natural part of life in many parts of the United States, were typically expected during the annual wildfire season, which started around May and ended by September or October. Until recent years, with some tragic exceptions, the fires tended to happen in uninhibited areas and remain largely under control. Not anymore.

As many in the western part of the country would tell you from experience, wildfires have become larger, more intense, more frequent, and more prolonged. In California, the phrase “wildfire season” has become almost obsolete as the fires are raging year-around. Between the beginning of the year and early September, over 3.2 million acres of land—an area close to the size of the entire state of Connecticut—burned in California. Colorado is having a record-setting wildfire season in late October, which is normally the end of the wildfire season.

The lack of forest management in wildfire-prone areas, many of which are protected national forests, is a part of the problem, but there are other important factors. For one, the western U.S. has been experiencing a severe drought (Figure 1). This has been caused by growing water demand, less rainfall and snow, and rising temperatures (Figure 2). Climate change is a root cause of the trend toward more frequent and severe droughts. One of its effects is the lower moisture level in the soil, which translates to drier trees and plant species reliant on that soil. This turns heavily planted areas such as forests into potential tinderboxes filled with dry bushes and shrubs at greater risk of burning.

The dire consequences of wildfires reach beyond those directly affected by losing their homes, possessions, and loved ones. In parts of California and Oregon, the air quality index has shot up to over 600 because of the fires. To put that into perspective, the average air quality index in 2019 in Delhi, Indian, which arguably is one of the most polluted cities in the world, was 98.6. The threats to people’s respiratory health this poses is grave, especially during a pandemic that is known to degrade respiratory systems.

PG&E, one of the biggest electric utility companies that serves over 16 million customers in northern and central California, announced its plans to shutoff power in over 360,000 homes and businesses in late October—the fifth time such a decision was made this year. The shutoffs are aimed to prevent worsening the on-going wildfires by removing the risk of downed electric wires during a powerful windstorm. Being plunged into darkness for wildfire safety is starting to become routine.

So, what can we do? First, learning about wildfires and the interconnectedness of their causes—including forest management, water use, and the rising temperatures and changing precipitation patterns caused by climate change--and sharing that information with others is important because t solutions will require changes in behaviors and policies. Communicating the risks with people you know, including your elected leaders, and encouraging them to take steps to conserve water is imperative. Contributing less to products and activities that generate greenhouse gas emissions would help address the root of the problem, which is the trend of heatwaves and droughts due to climate change.

To be ready for wildfires, here are some resources for making an emergency plan and packing a “go-bag”. Also included here is a piece of advice from Marikay Shellman, a valued member of the Environment & Sustainable Development Committee and an avid gardener/rancher, on something simple you can do to help keep more moisture in the soil while helping pollinators thrive (more on pollinators later).

If you want to share any of your ideas, tips, or feedback, we’d be happy to hear from you, at: environment@nfbpwc.org.

Figure 1: Many areas under threat from wildfires fall in the zones with persistent or developing drought conditions.

Figure 2: Many areas under threat from wildfires fall in the zones with rising temperatures.

by Hyon K. Rah – Chair, Environment & Sustainable Development Committee

October 2020

To say that the year 2020 has been extraordinary would not be an understatement. For me, reflecting on the year to date from an environmental perspective has stirred up a sense of alarm and urgency I have never felt before.

It started in early July when I came across an announcement from NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) that reported the U.S. already had ten (10) billion-dollar disasters in 2020 as of July 8^th. Just to put that into perspective, the average number of billion-dollar disasters in the U.S. between 1980 and 2019 was 6.6 per year. The number about doubles, to 13.8 events per year, for the most recent five years (2015-2019). Then, this August, four (4) more billion-dollar disasters joined that list over a span of just one month: the derecho storm that hit the Midwest, Hurricanes Isaias and Laura, and the wildfires in California and Oregon.

These numbers tell us the frequency and severity of weather and climate-related disasters are rising rapidly. Depending on the location, common threats include wildfires, heat waves, hurricanes, extreme rainfall, sea level rise, and water stress. Each can wreak havoc in differently, and the impacts can be subtle and gradual or sudden and devastating. Either way, they can cause disruptions to our daily lives in ways large and small.

The image below maps the intensity of different types of climate-related threats for each county in the U.S. I urge you to take a look to get an idea of the types of threats (yes, there can be multiple) where you and your loves ones live.

Source: The New York Times. You can search for your county by typing in its name here: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/09/18/opinion/wildfire-hurricane-climate.html

Starting next month, I will take a deeper dive into the risks mentioned above, and how they could impact—or already have impacted—our daily lives. A number of you have reached out to me recently about water stress and infrastructure, so I will start there.

You are welcome to contact me with any questions or local observations related to this topic at: environment@nfbpwc.org.

by Hyon K. Rah – Chair, Environment & Sustainable Development Committee

September 2020

I am writing to encourage you to consider participation in the NFBPWC’s Environment and Sustainable Development Committee and to introduce myself as the new chair of the committee. Sustainable development has been a central part of my career, and I am excited to help promote environmental sustainability at NFBPWC, especially since it is one of the advocacy platforms for 2018-2020.

As I write this, we are in the middle of a pandemic which has presented numerous challenges to us all. The pandemic also brought to the fore the inextricable connection between environmental, economic, and social sustainability through a revealing picture of inequity in the U.S. Owing to the advice of health experts to wash our hands often to prevent the spread of the virus, there is growing attention to the inequity in access to clean water.

Today, over 2 million people in the U.S. do not have access to safe drinking water and sanitation¹, and this number includes 1.4 million people that live in homes without indoor plumbing (running water, a sink, a shower or a bath, and a flushable toilet). That is not to say that the other 328 million U.S. residents that do have access to treated water and indoor plumbing can rest easy. The American Society of Civil Engineers gave the safety and quality of the U.S. drinking water system a "D" grade in its 2017 assessment.

This stark reality is often attributed to a combination of factors. Contamination at the sources of the water supplies is a significant one, as shown in communities near coal mines or fracking sites in the Appalachian region due in part to relaxed wastewater management regulations. Cities such as Flint, Michigan are still paying for the lack of government investment in infrastructure with their health and lives. Forty percent of the nearly 180,000-person strong Navajo Nation does not have running water, which has been detrimental to their pandemic resilience. In many communities such as Baltimore, Maryland, water prices have increased dramatically, and many people simply cannot afford to pay their water bills and maintain their water access.

On top of all that, weather and climate-related disasters have placed even more strain on our water resources and systems and the critical infrastructure that supports them. The U.S. had already had 10 billion-dollar weather disasters by the first half of 2020, well before peak hurricane season².

These things matter because they affect us all in the end, one way or another. But first, we need to be clear on the facts and how they connect.

To put the issues of water quality and access into your own context, I encourage you to check out the two resources below:

1. A map of the U.S. showing the percentage of housing units lacking plumbing by county – Where does your county stand?
2. A link to check the quality of drinking water in your (or someone else’s) area by zip code: https://www.ewg.org/tapwater/

If you have any questions or are interested in joining the Environment and Sustainable Development Committee, you can reach me by email at: hyon@rah.solutions.

Percentage of Housing Units Lacking Plumbing by County

Hyon Rah, the Principal of RAH Solutions, is a sustainability and resilience strategist based in Washington, DC. For more information about her work, visit https://rah.solutions/about/

¹http://uswateralliance.org/sites/uswateralliance.org/files/Closing%20the%20Water%20Access%20Gap%20in%20the%20United%20States_DIGITAL.pdf

² https://www.noaa.gov/news/june-2020-was-relatively-hot-and-dry-overall-for-us