You’re out of free articles.
Log in
To continue reading, log in to your account.
Create a Free Account
To unlock more free articles, please create a free account.
Sign In or Create an Account.
By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy
Welcome to Heatmap
Thank you for registering with Heatmap. Climate change is one of the greatest challenges of our lives, a force reshaping our economy, our politics, and our culture. We hope to be your trusted, friendly, and insightful guide to that transformation. Please enjoy your free articles. You can check your profile here .
subscribe to get Unlimited access
Offer for a Heatmap News Unlimited Access subscription; please note that your subscription will renew automatically unless you cancel prior to renewal. Cancellation takes effect at the end of your current billing period. We will let you know in advance of any price changes. Taxes may apply. Offer terms are subject to change.
Subscribe to get unlimited Access
Hey, you are out of free articles but you are only a few clicks away from full access. Subscribe below and take advantage of our introductory offer.
subscribe to get Unlimited access
Offer for a Heatmap News Unlimited Access subscription; please note that your subscription will renew automatically unless you cancel prior to renewal. Cancellation takes effect at the end of your current billing period. We will let you know in advance of any price changes. Taxes may apply. Offer terms are subject to change.
Create Your Account
Please Enter Your Password
Forgot your password?
Please enter the email address you use for your account so we can send you a link to reset your password:
More Californians have searched for news about “floods” in 2023 than “wildfires,” which seems in keeping with this summer’s series of out-of-left-field climate disasters. The worst smoke pollution hit … the East Coast. The deadliest wildfire in modern U.S. history leveled … a former wetland in Hawaii. Naturally a hurriquake in Los Angeles and catastrophic flooding in Palm Springs would come next?
But California’s reputation as the land of drought and fire has obscured the fact that extreme flooding is the other player in the state’s deadly climatological triumvirate. From the atmospheric rivers this winter, which caused some 500 mudslides and inflicted as much as $1 billion in damage, to Hurricane Hilary dumping record-breaking rains over the southwestern United States this weekend, floods are understandably top-of-mind (especially with a relatedly somewhat slow start to the state’s fire season).
Here’s what you need to know about the future of extreme floods in the Golden State:
Former Hurricane Hilary was the first tropical storm to make landfall in California in 84 years, easily snapping the practically nonexistent late August daily rainfall records around L.A. In fact, hurricanes making landfall in the lower lefthand corner of the U.S. is so rare that there isn’t actually much of a data record for scientists to use as a point of comparison, Inside Climate News reports — which makes forming future projections and establishing links to climate change actually rather difficult.
What we do know is this: California has largely avoided hurricanes in the past due to the generally cold waters off its coast, which NBC News describes as acting as a sort of “shield” for the state. Hurricanes get their strength and moisture by forming over warm waters, and the eastern Pacific has historically been as much as 9 degrees cooler than the same latitude in the Gulf of Mexico.
But California’s shield has a crack. July was the hottest recorded month on planet Earth and the waters Hilary passed over on its journey north were 4 degrees warmer than usual, the Los Angeles Times explains. Sure enough, research shows that hurricane landfalls in the eastern Pacific could increase dramatically along with global and oceanic warming — bringing more rain and floods along with them.
There are certain conditions that made Hilary particularly unusual, however: A heat dome that formed over the central United States, for example, helped tug the storm directly over California, as opposed to a more typical path of a hurricane or tropical storm being pushed out to sea by easterly winds off the continent. So while hurricanes might be more intense and wet in the future, they won’t necessarily continue to make it over to California the way Hilary has.
Yes, to some extent. In addition to greenhouse gas emissions making the oceans warmer, the weather pattern called El Niño is likely responsible for some of the warming of the waters off of Baja California, which intensified Hurricane Hilary. But again, there were also unique conditions that contributed to Hilary’s unusual path over the southwestern United States, including the prevailing wind patterns. Strong El Niño years, as a result, don’t necessarily mean more hurricanes for Southern California.
El Niños have tended to bring higher winter rainfalls to Southern California, though that is also not necessarily a guarantee. NOAA’s outlook for the coming winter doesn’t currently show above-average precipitation expected for the state. Some El Niño years are actually drier than average, which goes to show that “El Niño is just one hand on the atmospheric steering wheel,” Weather Underground writes.
California isn’t a land of droughts or floods — it’s a land of both. A better way to think about the future of weather in the state is as one of extremes.
That’s because, “[i]n a seeming paradox, drought and flooding are two sides of one coin,” Governing explains. “A warmer atmosphere can hold more water, and higher temperatures cause more water on the Earth’s surface to evaporate. This can result in bigger rainstorms.”
The good news is, most of California is now free of drought conditions and this year’s fire season has been quieter because of all the wet vegetation. But while Tropical Storm Hilary apparently only inflicted minor damage and no known deaths this weekend, floods have been a devastating fixture of life in the Golden State before and they will be again.
As Yale Climate Solutions warned earlier this year, “Given the increased risk [due to climate change], it is more likely than not that many of you reading this will see a California megaflood costing tens of billions in your lifetime.”
California doesn’t need 40 days and nights of rain to experience its worst-case flood event, researchers have found. If a 30-day rainstorm similar to one that hit the then-unpopulous state in 1862 were to strike again today, it could potentially be a $1 trillion disaster — “larger than any in world history” — UCLA’s “ARkStorm 2.0” scenario modeling found last year.
“Every major population center in California would get hit at once — probably parts of Nevada and other adjacent states, too,” Daniel Swain, a UCLA climate scientist and co-author of the paper, said in a statement at the time.
Unlike a tropical storm, which passes in a number of days, the ARkStorm flood event would last a month in the form of sequential atmospheric rivers, like the kind that battered the state this past winter. The link between climate change and heavy precipitation is well understood, and the researchers found that “climate change has already doubled the likelihood of such an extreme storm scenario,” with “further large increases in ‘megastorm’ risk … likely with each additional degree of global warming this century.”
Log in
To continue reading, log in to your account.
Create a Free Account
To unlock more free articles, please create a free account.
Today’s conversation is with Chris Moyer of Echo Communications, a D.C.-based communications firm that focuses on defending zero- and low-carbon energy and federal investments in climate action. Moyer, a veteran communications adviser who previously worked on Capitol Hill, has some hot takes as of late about how he believes industry and political leaders have in his view failed to properly rebut attacks on solar and wind energy, in addition to the Inflation Reduction Act. On Tuesday he sent an email blast out to his listserv – which I am on – that boldly declared: “The Wind Industry’s Strategy is Failing.”
Of course after getting that email, it shouldn’t surprise readers of The Fight to hear I had to understand what he meant by that, and share it with all of you. So here goes. The following conversation has been abridged and lightly edited for clarity.
What are you referencing when you say, ‘the wind industry’s strategy is failing’?
Anyone in the climate space, in the clean energy space, the worst thing you can do is go silent and pretend that this is just going to go away. Even if it’s the president and the administration delivering the attacks, I think there’s an important strategy that’s been lacking in the wind and other sectors that I don’t think has been effective. There was a recent E&E News story that noted a couple of wind developers when asked for comment just say, “No comment.” This to me misses a really big opportunity to not get in a fight with people but talk about the benefits of wind.
Not taking advantage of milestones like ground breaking or construction starting is a missed opportunity to drive public opinion. If you lose support in public opinion, you’re going to lose support from public officials, because they largely follow public opinion.
And there’s no way that’s going to change if you don’t take the opportunities to talk about the benefits that wind can provide, in terms of good-paying local jobs or supplying more electrons to the grid. By almost any measure the strategy employed so far has not really worked.
Okay, but what is the wind industry strategy that isn’t working? What are they doing to rebut attacks on the technology, on property values, on the environment?
We’re not hearing them. We’re not hearing those arguments.
You can’t let criticisms go unanswered.It would better serve the industry and these companies to push back against criticisms. It’s not like you can’t anticipate what they are. And what do you have to lose? You’re in the worst position of any energy sector in this political moment. It would be nice to see some fight and sharp campaign skills and strategic effort in terms of communication. And there’s no strategic value from what I can tell in [being silent].
I understand not wanting to pick a fight with folks who hold your fate in their hands, but there’s a way to thread a needle that isn’t antagonizing anybody but also making sure the facts have been heard. And that’s been missing.
You’d specifically said the industry should stop ‘being paralyzed in fear and start going on offense.’ What does that look like to you?
Taking every opportunity to get your message out there. The lowest hanging fruit is when a reporter comes and asks you, What do you think about this criticism? You should definitely reply. It’s lifting up third-party voices that are benefiting from a specific project, talking about the economic impacts more broadly, talking about the benefits to the grid.
There’s a whole number of tools in the toolbox to put to use but the toolboxes remain shut thus far. Targeted paid media, elevating the different voices and communities that are going to resonate with different legislators, and certainly the facts are helpful. Also having materials prepared, like validators and frequently asked questions and answers.
You’re trying to win. You’re trying to get your project to be successful and deliver jobs and tax revenue. And I think it would be wise for companies to look at the playbooks of electoral campaigns, because there’s lots of tools that campaigns use.
How do renewable energy developers get around the problem of partisanship? How do you get outta that through a campaign approach?
These projects are decided locally. It’s deciding who the decision-makers are and not just letting opponents who are getting talking points through right-wing media show up and reiterate these talking points. Oftentimes, there’s no one on the pro side even showing up at all, and it makes it really easy for city councils to oppose projects. They’re losing by forfeit. We can’t keep doing that.
And more on this week’s most important conflicts around renewable energy.
1. Chautauqua, New York – More rural New York towns are banning renewable energy.
2. Virginia Beach, Virginia – Dominion Energy’s Coastal Virginia offshore wind project will learn its fate under the Trump administration by this fall, after a federal judge ruled that the Justice Department must come to a decision on how it’ll handle a court challenge against its permits by September.
3. Bedford County, Pennsylvania – Arena Renewables is trying to thread a needle through development in one of the riskiest Pennsylvania counties for development, with an agriculture-fueled opposition risk score of 89.
4. Knox County, Ohio – The Ohio Power Siting Board has given the green light to Open Road Renewables’ much-watched Frasier Solar project.
5. Clay County, Missouri – We’ll find out next week if rural Missouri can still take it easy on a large solar project.
6. Clark County, Nevada – President Trump’s Bureau of Land Management has pushed back the permitting process for EDF Renewables’ Bonanza solar project by at least two months and possibly longer .
7. Klickitat County, Washington – Washington State has now formally overridden local opposition to Cypress Creek’s Carriger solar project after teeing up the decision in May.
It’s governor versus secretary of state, with the fate of the local clean energy industry hanging in the balance.
I’m seeing signs that the fight over a hydrogen project in Wyoming is fracturing the state’s Republican political leadership over wind energy, threatening to trigger a war over the future of the sector in a historically friendly state for development.
At issue is the Pronghorn Clean Energy hydrogen project, proposed in the small town of Glenrock in rural Converse County, which would receive power from one wind farm nearby and another in neighboring Niobrara County. If completed, Pronghorn is expected to produce “green” hydrogen that would be transported to airports for commercial use in jet fuel. It is backed by a consortium of U.S. and international companies including Acconia and Nordex.
One can guess why investors thought this rural Wyoming expanse would be an easier place to build: it’s an energy community situated in the middle of the Powder River Basin and the state’s Republican governor Mark Gordon has supported wind projects in the state publicly, not just with rhetoric but votes in favor of them on the State Board of Land Commissioners.
Wind is also often proposed on private land in Wyoming, which is supposed to make things easier. You may remember the Lucky Star and Twin Rivers wind farms, a pair of projects whose progress I’ve watched like a hawk because they’re tied to the future of wind permitting at the national level. As we first reported, the Trump administration is proceeding with potentially approving the transmission line for Lucky Star, a project that would be sited entirely on private land, and Twin Rivers received its final environmental review in the last days of the Biden administration, making it difficult for anti-wind advocates to curtail.
Unlike those projects, Pronghorn has created a fork in the road for wind in Wyoming. It’s because the people in its host community don’t seem to want it, the wind projects were on state land, and there’s politics at play.
Despite being considered an energy community, Converse and Niobrara are both areas with especially high opposition risk, according to Heatmap Pro, largely due to its low support for renewable energy, its demographics, and concerns about impacts to the local ranching economy. After Gordon and other members of the state land use board approved two wind facilities for the hydrogen project, a rancher living nearby sued the board with public support from the mayor of Glenrock and the area’s legislators in the statehouse. A member of the Converse County zoning board even published a “manifesto” against the project, detailing local concerns that are myriad and rooted in fears of overburden, ranging from water use and property value woes to a general resentment toward an overall rise in wind turbines across the county and state.
What’s probably most concerning to wind supporters is that this local fight is bubbling up into a statewide political fracture between Gordon and his secretary of state Chuck Gray, who is believed to be a future candidate for governor. Grey was the lone dissenting vote against the two wind projects for Pronghorn, saying he did not support the projects because they would be assisted by federal tax credits Trump is trying to gut. Gray then took to mocking the governor on social media for his stance on wind while posting photos of broken wind turbines. Gordon wound up responding to his secretary of state accusing him of being the “only member of the state land board to vote against individual property rights and Wyoming schools.”
“That is his prerogative to be sure, but it demonstrates his disregard for the duties of his office and a determination to impose his personal preferences on others, no matter the cost,” Gordon stated.
I’ve been reaching out to Pronghorn and its founder Paul Martin to try and chat about what’s happening in Wyoming. I haven’t heard back, and if I do I’ll gladly follow this story up, but there’s a sign here of an issue in Wyoming whether Pronghorn gets built or not – areas of Wyoming may be on the verge of a breaking point on wind energy.
I heard about the Pronghorn project in conversations this week with folks who work on wind permitting issues in Wyoming and learned that the Gordon-Gray feud is emblematic of how the wind industry’s growth in the state is making local officials more wary of greenlighting projects. Whether Gordon’s position on private property wins out over Gray taking up the mantle of the anti-wind conservative critic may be the touchstone for the future of local planning decisions, too.
At least, that’s the sense I got talking to Sue Jones, a commissioner in Carbon County, directly southwest of Converse County. Jones admits she personally doesn’t care for wind farms and that it’s “no secret with the county, or the developers.” But so far, she hasn’t voted that way as a commissioner.
“If they meet all our rules and regs, then I’ve voted to give them a permit,” she told me. “You can’t just say no to anything. It’s a good thing that we value private property rights.”
Jones said the problem in Carbon County and other areas of Wyoming is “saturation level.” Areas of the state where only a handful of landowners hold thousands of acres? That’s probably fine for wind projects because there’s a low likelihood of a neighbor or two having a genuine grievance. But as wind has grown into population-denser areas of the state the dissent is becoming more frequent.
My gut feeling is that, as we’ve seen in many other instances, this resentment will bubble up and manifest as sweeping reform – unless the wind industry is able to properly address these growing concerns head on.