In early January, one of Los Angeles’s worst wildfires in recent history ripped through the city, burning 23,000 acres and destroying around 5,000 structures. The crisis was exacerbated by the region’s recent drought, misplaced spending priorities and poor water management. This tragedy in our nation’s second-biggest city should be a wake-up call to the rest of America. Cities across the country must look inward to best protect their residents from the worst of future climate crises.
The effects of climate change will vary from city to city, but here in San Antonio, we will face an increased risk of extreme heat, drought, fire and flooding. Even in the best-case scenario, San Antonio will experience nearly 50 more days of temperatures over 100 degrees and three fewer inches of annual precipitation by the end of the century. As Texas becomes drier in the next 75 years, most properties in the suburbs of San Antonio and the surrounding communities and towns in Central and South Texas will be highly prone to wildfires.
Climate change will strain our city’s infrastructure. While San Antonio is an in-land city and won’t suffer from the rising sea levels, our city will be blasted with extreme heat, rainfall and wildfires, as well as refugees and evacuees from our neighboring cities that will suffer from rising sea levels, such as Houston and New Orleans. Flash floods after long droughts could take out roads, wildfires may burn down homes and businesses and extreme heat will likely strain the city’s healthcare system with sickness and deaths.
Faced with this reality, what is San Antonio doing to counteract these threats? In 2019, the San Antonio city government formed the “Climate Action & Adaptation” committee. The committee then put together a plan later that year to adapt San Antonio to our climate future.
The plan includes updating our knowledge of floodplains, increasing preparations against wildfires, building more low-income housing and flood-proofing our roadways. As the weather becomes more extreme and unpredictable, access to healthcare will be important in the future, with the city preparing for this by building more public water fountains and healthcare clinics.
The future of our climate is uncertain. Still, unless strict environmental policies are implemented tomorrow, it’s safe to assume that the world of the next decade will not look like today’s. The current precautions are for the best-case scenario, where emissions stay relatively low. In the worst-case scenario, San Antonio could become nearly unlivable as days above 100 degrees Fahrenheit become the norm throughout most of the year. As the current administration withdraws from the Paris Agreement, promises to slash environmental regulations and chants “drill, baby, drill” at rallies, it looks like the worst-case scenario could become reality.
Climate adaptation measures will be expensive, and they will only get more expensive as disasters become more extreme. They could also uproot communities to make way for construction and become eyesores across the landscape. However, climate change will most certainly have the same effects, but ten times worse. We should be prepared to invest however much money is necessary to best guard ourselves against extreme disasters.
While the precautions listed above are a great start, it’s important to stay flexible and prepare for the worst. As southern United States heats up and dries out in the coming decades, San Antonio will not be the safest place to live. The CAA’s first proposal did the job for the moment, but as climate scientists report concern that climate change is accelerating faster than expected, San Antonio will need to adapt much more quickly and radically to maintain its status as the seventh-largest city in the country.