CLIMATE CHANGE
PREDICTIONS ARE DIRE
California’s 2018 Climate Change
Assessment report predicted a long
drought could cost the state $3 billion
and that Californians will eventual-
ly be paying $200 million per year in
increased energy bills, mainly for air
conditioning, as temperatures rise. The
report also warned that stifling heat
waves could cause 11,000 heat-related
fatalities statewide each year by 2050.
That’s three times California’s current
annual death toll from motor vehicle
accidents.
And the Agronomy paper warned
that extreme weather events, includ-
ing heat waves, f loods and droughts,
and a shift toward warmer winters
and earlier springs, would affect Cal-
ifornia’s agricultural production,
worth about $50 billion.
Snowpack,
which
historically
has contained and slowly released
through the summer months 80 per-
cent of California’s precipitation,
could shrink by an average of 65
percent. More rapid melting of snow
“causes reservoirs to fill up earlier,
increasing the odds of both winter
f looding and summer water deficits,”
warned the Agronomy paper authors.
They found that yields of wine
grapes, strawberries, walnuts, al-
monds and cherries, among other
important crops, are likely to decline,
and by mid-century “virtually no ar-
eas will remain suitable” in the Cen-
tral Valley for the production of pears,
apples and cherries. These and other
impacts, they added, will hit at a time
when the growing human population
and shifting diets require a doubling
of crop yields by 2050.
In anticipation of climate-related
impacts to water supply, Gov. Gavin
Newsom issued an executive order
in April calling on state agencies to
create a Water Resilience Portfolio,
essentially a plan for building a more
resilient system for storing and dis-
tributing water while maintaining
healthy river ecosystems. The Natural
Resources Agency, California Envi-
ronmental Protection Agency and De-
partment of Food and Agriculture are
expected to produce this portfolio by
the end of the year. n
Alastair Bland is a freelance journalist
whose work appears in NPR’s food blog
The Salt, Smithsonian.com, Yale Envi-
ronment 360 and Comstock’s.
2019 Chairman’s Award Winners
Each year, InterWest recognizes broker performance excellence
with our Thomas G. Williams Chairman’s Award. Tom Williams
provided the visionary leadership of the formation of InterWest
in 1992. We proudly congratulate our 2019 recipients.
Brandon Muskopf Brett Faulknor Cain Medina Cameron Rappleye
Chip Arenchild Craig Houck Dave Dias Greg Clauser
Jim Bulotti John Hopkins Matt Bauer Renee Ramsey
Steve Carmassi Steve Williams Taryn Bacon Tony Grego
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