The San Diego Foundation and Climate Education Partners Provide Leadership on Regional Preparedness for Climate Change

Picture your favorite childhood escape or a vacation destination you frequented with loved ones.

Now, you are surprised by a child tugging at your sleeve asking, “What are you doing to address the impacts of climate change?”

Most of us would never have imagined the tragedies that faced the country in the last decade -- hurricanes Catrina and Sandy, droughts like California is experiencing and the frightening wildfires that plague the west.

The San Diego Foundation and Climate Education Partners with funding from the National Science Foundation released a new study last month. It’s not a typical ‘the sky is falling’ environmental study. Sure, it includes science from Scripps Institution of Oceanography – world-renowned for its research on climate change. This report, “San Diego, 2050 Is Calling: How Will We Answer?” however, is an unprecedented effort among scientists, community leaders, business, public agencies, tribal communities, healthcare, community activists, environmentalists and others outlining specific regional impacts and the effective actions leaders are engaged in, and ways to continue to expand their engagement.

By working together, being willing to talk and even disagree, we arrived at strategies that will make us stronger, better prepared and wiser in how we approach the future. Already all 19 local governments have adopted greenhouse gas emissions testing, making San Diego the first region in the nation to do so.

2050 Report Success and Best Practices:

• A growing number of local governments are taking concrete steps to reduce heat-trapping emissions
• The San Diego region developed the first-of-its-kind collaborative plan for adapting to sea level rise in San Diego Bay, involving the Port, Airport, Navy and cities around the bay
• The San Diego County Water Authority is one of the few metropolitan water agencies nationwide working with local scientists to integrate climate change projections in future water supply and demand planning
• Business leader, Qualcomm, with over 15,000 employees locally, has increased energy efficiency in its California facilities, taking the equivalent of over 1800 vehicles off the roads

Now, we are inviting you, the rest of the country, into the dialogue. Read the 2050 Report. Ask how leaders from every aspect of your region, and perhaps the nation, can come together to prepare for the very real and tangible economic and other impacts of a changing climate.

The 2050 Report can provide a blueprint for you to engage business leaders, environmentalists, scientists and other community leaders to build on our country’s great traditions of innovation, which better positions regional and national leaders to solve critical economic and environmental problems.

Act now. Then, you’ll be proud to answer that child tugging at your sleeve.