Eddie Moore/The Albuquerque Journal via AP
The Calf Canyon/Hermits Peak Fire burns in the mountains near Pecos, New Mexico, May 25, 2022.
The coverage of the January 6th Committee, the impending reversal of Roe, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, $5-a-gallon gas, and gun massacres have knocked the devastation of the West off the front pages. But the climate crisis that is upon us right now is the most terrifying of all of these.
Take the case of New Mexico. Unprecedented wind-driven fires east of Santa Fe destroyed over 300,000 acres. The fire burned so hot that it killed bacteria that are part of the usual process of recovery of the soil. That in turn means rainwater runs off at a pace that leads to flooding and contamination of drinking water.
Elsewhere in the West, water levels are so low that they threaten not only the supply of water for drinking and bathing but the viability of hydroelectric dams. The interaction of floods, fires, and droughts is only going to get worse.
Climate activists have long called for increased public investment to accelerate the transition to a zero-carbon economy. The blockage of Build Back Better means that nothing like adequate investment is forthcoming.
But the news out of the West suggests something even more urgent. We need massive public investments to restore a measure of resilience in the face of damage already done, right now.
Systems need to be rebuilt. People need to be resettled. A new kind of society needs to develop that can coexist with a natural environment already ravaged, even as we help that environment to heal and shift to a more sustainable energy future.
And of course it isn’t just the West. The great coastal cities of the East will need massive public investments to adapt to sea level rise and inevitable storm surges.
Before too long, the kind of public outlay being debated in 2021–2022 will seem like chump change, and citizens of both parties will be clamoring for a lot more.
Won’t that mean a massive diversion of funds and a reduced standard of living? Maybe not.
The last time America spent huge sums on a collective enterprise was during World War II. We spent about one-third of GDP making war. But even though most of that output was blown up, at the end of the four years of war, there had been so much development of new technology that GDP was 50 percent higher than when the war began.
That was a war for survival. So is this one.
