Helene proved ‘climate havens’ don’t exist, but we can still prevent and adapt

If there’s one thing we can all learn from the devastation Hurricane Helene inflicted on Southeastern states last week it is that there are no safe spaces in this age of climate change. 

In 2022, the small city of Asheville, North Carolina — with its mountain location and 300-mile buffer from the Atlantic Ocean — was billed as one of this nation’s “climate havens.” 

As The New Lede stated in an article about Asheville in 2022: “The climate haven label implies that the city is relatively more resilient to climate change than other places across the country, a reassuring safe space in the face of uncertainty.”

The article quoted the city’s sustainability director as saying, “Asheville’s long standing commitment to mitigating and adapting to climate change both in the public and private sector is a contributing factor in others labeling us a climate haven.”

Today, Asheville and other western North Carolina communities have been decimated by a category 4 hurricane that dumped historic amounts of rain on the region, leading to washed-out roads, flooded homes and businesses and dozens of deaths. On Tuesday, the Associated Press reported that search crews with cadaver dogs are currently “wading through muck of communities wiped off the map by Helene.” 

Unfortunately, the speed in which Asheville went from a climate haven to a climate-change nightmare is not an anomaly. In fact, climate change scientists have been warning the world for years that we will see more of these apocalyptic scenarios if we don’t come together and end our dependence on fossil fuels. 

In 2012, for instance, New Scientist warned that climate change was worse than previously thought and would lead to a greater number of “historic” weather events and weather-related deaths. 

“In a warming world, shifting rainfall and increased evaporation will lead to more droughts. A warmer atmosphere holds more water, making rainfall at times more intense,” the New Scientist article warned adding that, “not only are these trends continuing, but the weather is also becoming even more extreme than was predicted.”

In 2023, a study showed that the amount of climate warming we were told would be absolutely catastrophic if we crossed it — 1.5 degrees Celsius — will be here sooner than we thought and that Earth could even go beyond 2 degrees Celsius warming by 2050. 

In 2018, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), showed the impacts of 1.5 and 2 degrees of warming. At 1.5 degrees, we will lose 70% to 90% of the world’s coral reefs and fisheries will decline by 1.5 million tons. At 2 degrees, we lose 99% of the coral reefs and 3 million tons of fisheries. At 1.5 degrees, 14% of the population will be exposed to severe heat at least once every five years. At 2 degrees, that number jumps to 37% of the population. We can also expect 0.4 meters of sea-level rise at 1.5 degrees warming and 0.46 meters rise at 2 degrees. 

As the Natural Resources Defense Council has pointed out: “Rising seas threaten a series of disasters. And it’s important to point out that sea level rise can have vastly uneven effects, not only because water levels are rising faster in some places, but because some communities are more vulnerable to political and economic instability. Without help, inequality will be worsened in areas that have the least resources to adapt.”

And while we must still be proactive about fighting the rise in global warming by calling for a shift to fully renewable energy and a rapid transition away from using fossil fuels, we must also push our local, state and federal leaders to help us adapt to this changing world, because, as Asheville just showed us, there are no “safe spaces” when it comes to climate change.

In Camas-Washougal, one of the easiest ways we can adapt to a changing climate is to protect what we already have. In 2022, the Trust for Public Land (TPL) put out a report showing how parks departments can be a first line of defense against climate change. 

“As damage from climate change escalates in the form of extreme weather, parks and green spaces have an outsized role to play in making cities safe and more livable. Increasingly intense heat waves and heavier rainfalls are becoming more frequent. Cities can design parks with abundant tree canopy and shade structures that keep residents cool in summer and with rain gardens, bioswales, retention ponds, and other nature-inspired solutions that capture stormwater to reduce flooding and improve water quality,” TPL stated, adding that they also realized that “transforming parks and green space with climate in mind is expensive.” 

The group called for federal and state funding as well as a shift in thinking from city officials. 

“Federal and state funding must be available to cities as they strive to protect residents from the impacts of climate change, especially in vulnerable communities,” TPL stated. “City governments — largely responsible for funding local park systems — can pursue ballot initiatives and other mechanisms, such as dedicated fees, to generate revenue for their climate projects.”

In Camas, a revenue shortfall — caused in part by a slowing of housing development and sales amidst higher-than-normal interest rates but also by a historical over-reliance on property taxes and an unwillingness on some city leaders’ part to increase or add new taxes to fund the City’s general fund services — is likely to put pressure on Camas’ parks department, which is already short-staffed,  underfunded and struggling to keep up with Camas residents’ hopes and expectations for the City’s hundreds of acres of trails, parks, open spaces and natural areas. 

Over the next two months, as Camas officials debate increasing tax revenues — which would also likely set the City up to compete for more state and federal grant dollars — or cutting services, keep in mind the vast benefits our green spaces, wildlife corridors, tree canopies, wetlands and parks provide in the face of a rapidly warming planet. 

As a Portland State University professor of climate adaptation told TPL in 2022: “We really need to think about parks as a climate refuge. They can improve our resiliency to hotter summers and more extreme precipitation and help us in these times of uncertainty. Especially for communities that don’t have many options for staying cool, parks play a significant role.”