This Week on Earth: Feb 11-17
Looking south from the Northwestern Lakefill on a foggy day. (Lula Fox/ION)
California
Mudslides forced the closure of the Pacific Coast Highway this week, following the heaviest rainfall Southern California has seen in over a year. Mud and debris covered several major roads in parts of the city.
Occurring just a few weeks after the devastating Palisades and Eaton fires, the communities of Altadena, Pacific Palisades and Malibu were among those most affected. The fires brought about ash and debris that make the ground slick and increase the likelihood of mudslides, according to the California Department of Education.
“We are leading an all-hands-on-deck approach to keep people safe across the city and to stem mudslides and similar impacts that could slow down rebuilding in the Palisades,” L.A. Mayor Karen Bass said at a press conference just hours before the storm on Thursday.
Mayor Bass received a barrage of criticism last month as the wildfires raged. Some aggrieved Angelinos argued that the city was underprepared for the disaster, as the Los Angeles County Fire Department was understaffed and firefighting infrastructure was deemed inadequate.
The New York Times reported on one of the most harrowing scenes from the storm; a Los Angeles Fire Department vehicle washing away into the Pacific Ocean with an inspector inside. After his vehicle turned upright, the inspector made it to safety.
Worldwide
The dismantling of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) will have a significant impact on how developing countries are able to respond to climate change. The agency, which distributed a quarter of the world’s foreign aid ($40-60 billion a year), recently created a strategy that has assisted in addressing climate shocks. As these shocks exasperate natural disasters, food insecurity, and deplacement in developing regions, foreign aid is only becoming more important.
Before the Trump administration took down the USAID website this month, the agency’s climate page said that they were “partnering with more than 45 countries to implement ambitious emissions reduction measures, protect critical ecosystems, transition to renewable energy, build resilience against the impacts of climate change, and promote the flow of capital toward climate-positive investments.”
In Sudan, for example, environmental crises like persistent drought have worsened the country's deepening humanitarian crisis.
“Sudan reached stage five famine more than three times over these two years,” said Sudanese climate and environmental activist Nisreen Elsaim, “and all of this is quite impacted right now by the stop of USAID.”
Among the programs, the agency’s renewable energy efforts might be some of the most resilient. Instead of relying on continued involvement, USAID has helped foster systemic change in some countries — for example, they’ve implemented renewable energy auction systems which allow governments to auction development contracts to private companies.
However, disaster mitigation was USAID’s largest spending category, and some fear that these high-risk projects won’t receive the same amount of private investment in the future.
West Africa
This Valentine’s Day, the price of chocolate was especially high as farmers in West Africa have struggled to produce cocoa amid record high temperatures.
According to researchers at nonprofit news outlet Climate Central, in some areas, climate change has added three extra weeks of temperatures above 32 degrees Celsius (89.6 degrees Fahrenheit), the temperature at which cocoa production becomes suboptimal.
The West African countries of Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Cameroon and Nigeria account for nearly 70% of the world’s cocoa production. Climate disruptions in the region have greatly reduced the global supply of cocoa. Since the 2022/2023 harvest season, gross global production is down 13.2%.
As a result, consumers in America should expect to see prices that are 10-20% higher than normal.
A rise in prices doesn’t necessarily mean more profit for farmers. Often, warming temperatures mean rising production costs. For example, climate change has increased the spread of the cocoa swollen shoot virus. Such conditions harm existing cocoa fields and make establishing new fields more difficult.
As one cocoa farmer expressed to Grist, “We need a different approach that puts sustainability and farmers at its heart.”