Last week’s Malibu Library Speaker Series event brought together a panel of experts to explain how the sea level rise and shifting sands associated with climate change could affect Malibu, the Southern California region and the world. A turnout of nearly 200 people filled the Malibu Civic Theater at City Hall, including a class from Pepperdine University.
The event was moderated by local Randy Olson, Ph.D., a biologist-turned-filmmaker and Point Dume resident, who introduced the topic by noting three major climate events that have occurred in the world this year: The continued vanishing of the ice sheets, bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef corals because of warmer ocean temperatures and the acidification of ocean water.
Olsen also noted that the wildfires and droughts in our part of the country are the result of climate change. He explained there are two ways that humans can react to climate change — try to stop it (mitigation) or learn to live with it (adaptation).
Gary Griggs, distinguished professor of earth and planetary sciences and director of the Institute of Marine Sciences at U.C. Santa Cruz, regularly visited Zuma Beach as a child and has been a consultant on the Broad Beach sand replenishment project.
He explained the proof for global warming with evidence that includes scientific studies of core samples taken from the ocean floor going back millions of years, ice samples and tree rings, showing how carbon dioxide levels spiked as soon as humans began combusting fossil fuels.
He said the current rate of sea level rise is 3.3 millimeters per year, precisely measured by satellites and radar. By the year 2100, sea levels here will have risen anywhere from 16 inches to four and a half feet, “depending on what people do” in response to greenhouse gases between now and then. In a worst-case scenario, sea levels would rise 225 feet if all the ice on Greenland and Antarctica melted.
“Most of California’s coast was developed during a period of calm,” Griggs pointed out, adding that we are now starting to undergo more extreme short-term weather events that are going to cause more extensive damage along the coast due to simultaneous large waves and high tides.
In his studies of the reasons for the disappearance of sand on Broad Beach, Griggs said he feels a large part of the reason is that sand that used to flow out from rivers north of us in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties and end up on Malibu beaches is now — due to various factors including dredging — flowing straight into the deep underwater Hueneme and Mugu Canyons.
Jonathan Parfrey, who grew up in Malibu West, founded Climate Resolve and co-founded CicLAvia, was the panelist focusing on regional issues, and billed himself as the “good news guy,” talking about what the state legislature is accomplishing in terms of slowing the emission of greenhouse gases.
“SB 379 requires cities to take climate change into account in their general plans, and prepare for the future, including sea level rise and extreme heat days,” he said, adding, “SB 350 commits California to get half its energy from renewable resources by 2030.
“SB 32 requires the state to go 90 percent below 1990 levels of emissions, which is State Senator Fran Pavley’s bill,” Parfrey continued. “We’re in for a wonderful ride to meet the climate challenge because of her. California is acknowledged as one of the world’s great leaders in this area.”
“By 2035, LA wants to reduce the urban heat island effect by requiring cool roofs on new buildings,” Parfrey said.
In addition, Santa Monica is “aiming for zero net emissions by 2030, and they want to stop importing water and to buy 100 percent of their power from renewables,” he said. Various local communities are trying to improve public transportation and encourage biking. But it hasn’t all been smooth sailing.
“The oil companies have gone to war opposing all of these,” Parfrey noted.
In addition to oil companies, some members of the public are also skeptical about climate change.
An audience member in the crowd Tuesday asked the panelists whether climate change could be explained as a cyclical heating and cooling of the earth’s temperature. Panelists replied that scientists have been able to collect data stretching back even further into the earth’s history, showing the current warming to be unprecedented.
Sarah Myhre, Ph.D., a post-doctoral paleoceanographer at the University of Washington and part of the “Future of Ice Initiative” for polar research, gave a world overview of climate change.
“The decisions we make now as individuals, communities and nations will set the trajectory of climate warming for the next thousand years,” she said.
Myhre explained the various negative consequences of greenhouse gases include loss of the arctic ecosystem, sea level rise, ocean acidification, ocean hypoxia, fires, planetary warming, ecological collapse, the spread of new diseases like the Zika virus and drought.
“It’s remarkable that [global warming] hasn’t gotten the kind of attention it deserves,” Parfrey said. “It seems our reptile brain isn’t communicating to our cognitive brain, and we aren’t protecting ourselves sufficiently.”