Climate Resilience - Sierra Business Council

Climate Resilience

Sierra Business Council works to increase the region’s ability to withstand the impacts of climate change, advocating for policies that address climate impacts at the state, regional, and local level.

Climate change increasingly threatens the health, welfare, and safety of all Californians. While the state has made tremendous strides to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, we cannot relent in our efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and enhance the state’s resilience to climate change impacts. In addition to addressing the critical threats of wildfire, water security, and drought, it is vital that decision makers address threats to community resilience in both natural and economic disruptions by investing in renewable energy expansion and natural resource and working lands protection and restoration.

Adaptation, Mitigation, and Resilience:

Mitigation is the act of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to slow the effects of climate change. Examples of mitigation include adopting and implementing an Energy Action Plan, investing in carbon sequestration and other projects relating to energy efficiency and renewable energy.

Adaptation is preparing for the current and projected regional impacts of climate change to reduce their intensity. Examples of adaptation include reducing tree mortality, creating drought-tolerant communities and ecosystems, and building fire breaks.

Resilience is the ability to withstand the impacts of climate change. Examples of climate resilience include eliminating damage to infrastructure and homes from extreme flooding through green infrastructure, forest restoration, and flood walls.

Climate Impacts in the Sierra

The general decrease in the Sierra snowpack in recent years, projected to continue in the coming decades, will continue to have a significant impact on downstream users. Warmer temperatures cause the snowpack to melt at a quicker rate rather than seep into the ground, both failing to replenish California’s critical groundwater supply and creating greater flood risk in the region.

Additionally, frequent and severe wildfires have led to many communities experiencing hazardous air quality conditions and have imposed great costs on Californians. With warming temperatures resulting in decreased snowpack, continued drought, greater flood risk, and more numerous and damaging wildfires becoming the new “normal”, we need to act now to protect California communities and the resources they depend on.

Related Work:

View of donner summit in rear view mirror

2020 in the Rearview Mirror

I know I am not the only one glad to leave 2020 in the dust. At Sierra Business Council we talk a lot about turning challenges into opportunities, about implementing actionable steps that don’t just temporarily solve one-off problems but offer alternative ways of doing business, interacting with the environment, and existing in the Sierra to eradicate what causes those problems in the first place. As an organization, we’re proactive rather than reactive, and our goal is to build a region that is as well.

No one saw 2020 coming, though. Over the course of the last year, everyone has been asked to react to the unexpected, the unimaginable.

Dying trees and overcrowded forest in the fog

Healthier Forests, a Stronger Workforce, and Reduced Wildfire Risk: A Win-Win-Win.

The scale required to meet California’s wildfire crisis is massive. Millions of acres are in need of forest restoration, millions of homes are in need of retrofitting, millions of Californians are threatened by unprecedented wildfire risks.

And yet, the state does not have the workforce capacity to meet that scale, not even close.

forest and grass in summer light

The Sierra’s National Forests: Critical to the State yet Critically Underfunded

Did you know that approximately 20% of California’s land — a total of 31,250 square miles— is managed by the U.S. Forest Service? For the Sierra Nevada region served by SBC, the share of Forest Service land reaches nearly 90% in places such as Alpine County.

Join Us In Creating A More Resilient Sierra.

To learn more about our services, contact:

info@sierrabusiness.org
530.582.4800