Global Courant
While California continues to experience fluctuations from one extreme weather to another, a majority of residents say they are increasingly concerned about the state’s changing climate, and some worry that weather events may affect them in the future. could force you to move.
Nearly 70% of registered voters say they expect volatile fluctuations between severe drought and periods of heavy rain and snow — what some call weather whiplash — to become more common in the future due to climate change, according to a new UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll co-sponsored by the Los Angeles Times.
The poll comes on the heels of a shockingly wet winter that ended three years of drought, killed nearly two dozen people and flooded the long-dry Tulare Lake Basin.
While the reactions were sharply divided along political lines, they seemed to reflect growing uneasiness among residents about the current and future impacts of global warming on California.
Thirty-one percent of voters said they were somewhat or strongly affected by the heavy rain, snow and flooding that occurred this year, including 8% who said they experienced a “major” impact.
Of those who reported a “major” impact, two-thirds said they were somewhat or very concerned that extreme weather events in their area might force them to leave their homes in years to come.
Residents of California’s North Coast/Sierra region reported the most impact from winter storms, followed by the Central Coast, the Sacramento Valley, and the San Francisco Bay Area.
This year’s wet winter was particularly acute in those regions: In the Monterey County town of Pajaro, levee breaches spurred evacuations and floodwaters poured into people’s homes. In the San Francisco Bay Area, powerful storms have downed trees, caused widespread power outages and sent glass from skyscrapers crashing into city streets.
Esteban Sepulveda holds his dog Milo as he left his home in the Pajaro Valley after severe storms flooded the area in March.
(Shae Hammond/Associated Press)
And in the Tulare Lake area, floodwaters and melting snow spilled over low-lying fields and farms, refilling the dormant basin for the first time in decades. Officials say the area could remain underwater for at least two years.
Regional differences aside, most answers to climate questions “permeated major partisan differences,” said Mark DiCamillo, director of the IGS poll. Forty percent of Democrats said they were somewhat or strongly affected by the winter storms, compared to 16% of Republicans.
There was an even wider gap among those who fear extreme weather will get worse — 91% of Democrats compared to just 28% of Republicans, the poll found.
“I think Republicans have a different mindset, and maybe that leads to more tolerance for some of the hardships they see around them,” DiCamillo said. “That probably also leads to a much smaller proportion of Republicans saying, ‘I’m very concerned about these weather events in the future that could make me want to move away from where I live.'”
Ellen Hanak, vice president and director of the Water Policy Center at the Public Policy Institute of California, said concerns about worsening extreme weather events are warranted.
“California precipitation patterns have always been volatile, with fluctuations between wet and dry spells, but we are already starting to see signs of increasing weather whiplash – with more intense dry and wet spells – and this is expected to increase over the coming decades,” Hanak said.
The poll’s findings are broadly consistent with annual surveys conducted by PPIC that track Californians’ views on the impacts of climate change, she said.
From the institute survey from July 2022 found that nearly 7 in 10 Californians believe the effects of climate change have already begun, and 8 in 10 say climate change poses a serious threat to California’s future economy and way of life.
Flames from the 2021 Dixie fire destroy a house and car near Greenville in Plumas County.
(Noah Berger/Associated Press)
It’s likely that more Californians will have to leave their homes because of changing climate conditions — particularly the increasing risk of wildfires, Hanak said.
“In my view, the increasing risk of wildfires may drive some of the biggest shifts in this regard, especially as it becomes harder and more expensive to get insurance,” Hanak said.
just last week, State Farm stopped selling home insurance in Californiaciting rising costs and wildfire risks.
Hanak noted that the risks are often greatest for lower-income communities and residents with fewer resources and less adaptability.
Despite some divisions, IGS survey respondents across the spectrum were a little more aligned when it came to one of California’s most ingrained environmental principles: water conservation.
Eighty-one percent of respondents – including 95% of Democrats and 61% of Republicans – said that despite this year’s unusually wet winter, it is still important for the state to continue its water conservation policies and residential, commercial and agricultural programs. water users in the coming years.
Among such efforts are two bills passed by the state assembly on Wednesday. AB 1572 would prohibit the use of drinking water for pure ornamental grass along roadways, in medians, at public and institutional properties, and at businesses and multi-family homes. AB 1573 would require non-residential projects to eliminate the use of non-functional sod and switch to low tide and local native plants from 2026.
“This is real grass that you can only walk on to mow,” said Tracy Quinn, president and CEO of Heal the Bay, which supported AB 1572 along with the Natural Resources Defense Council.
“There is broad agreement among stakeholders, including many water agencies, that there really is no place for non-functional turf in our communities,” said Quinn. “We just don’t have the water to waste, to keep grass alive when it serves a purely aesthetic function.”
The ban on ornamental grass would take effect in phases between 2027 and 2031. The proposal would create permanent measures that California water regulators have temporarily imposed.
DiCamillo said the broad agreement on the issue speaks to Californians’ water conservation ethos.
“I believe Californians are now conditioned to appreciate water and to conserve as much as possible because there may be years when we don’t have much,” he said. However, he noted that Democrats were more than twice as likely than Republicans to view water conservation as “very important.”
The poll was conducted from May 17 to May 22 — just days before California and six other states reached a tentative agreement on how to drastically cut the use of the Colorado River, a lifeline that supplies water to nearly 40 million people in the West. be reduced.
About 60% of respondents said they favor reducing water supplies from the Colorado, while 14% said the status quo should continue. Twenty-seven percent said they were unsure.
The poll also anticipates the expected return of El Niño later this year. The tropical Pacific climate pattern is associated with wetter winters in Southern California and warmer temperatures around the world.
Forecasters say there’s a 98% chance that at least one of the next five years — and the five-year period as a whole — will be the warmest on record on Earth.
The poll was conducted online in English and Spanish among 7,465 California registered voters.
The poll sample was weighted to match the census and voter registration benchmarks. Accurate estimates of the margin of error are difficult due to weighting, but the results are estimated to have a margin of error of 2.5 percentage points in either direction for the full sample.
