April 2022 - Parks & Recreation - 34

CLIMATE CHANGE
According to the World Meteorological
Organization (WMO), which
tracks multiple datasets of global
weather records, the past seven years
have been the hottest years ever recorded.
Every decade since 1980 has
been hotter than the previous one,
and that trend is expected to continue
for decades to come despite all efforts
to mitigate increasing temperatures.
Long-term warming trends are now
greater than the annual variability in
global average temperatures of natural
climate cycles. A new technical
report on sea level rise issued by the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA) in February
2022, states that by 2050, damaging
tidal and coastal flooding will
be 10 times more likely on average
than it is today.
In addition to warming temperatures
and rapidly accelerating sea
level rise, 2021 saw 20 $1 billion
weather disasters, second only to
2020, which had 22 $1 billion events.
These included extreme rains and
floods, intense winter storms, hurricanes,
droughts, heat waves, wildfires,
and wide-spread derechos, or
wind events, according to NOAA.
Paradoxically, a rapidly warming
climate does not mean that it will
just continue to get hotter, but rather
that weather and climate cycles
will become more unpredictable
and more severe. Importantly, those
who are least able to withstand these
extremes will be most vulnerable to
them. " Climate change impacts and
weather-related hazards have had
life-changing and devastating impacts "
on communities everywhere,
according to WMO Secretary General
Petteri Taalas.
There are many indirect effects
of climate change as well. While
causal links are not yet fully proven,
they are highly indicative
of being climate related. Threebillion
birds
have
disappeared
from North America in the past
30 years, nearly one-third of all
birds
(tinyurl.com/fudwssda).
The coming of the so-called " insect
apocalypse, " in which insect
populations that are foundational
to ecosystem health will crash,
has been documented already in
certain areas of Europe where the
abundance and diversity of insect
species have declined 75 percent
in less than 30 years. Along with
these factors indirectly attributed
to climate change are the explosion
of invasive species;
increases
in
human health risks from extreme
heat, drought, air pollution and
floods; and the accelerating loss of
biodiversity in developed areas and
natural landscapes.
Whether park and recreation
leaders have planned sufficiently
to anticipate future conditions or
not, the pace of climate change will
now affect every aspect of the field,
from park planning to park design
to park management to recreation
programming. When viewed as strategic
assets of cities and counties in
adapting to the impacts of climate
change, parks serve vital functions
- as buffers to extreme heat, storage
areas for stormwater, refuges of
biodiversity, and places of respite
to maintain human health. As the
pace of climate change accelerates,
parks can no longer be just singlepurpose
public amenities. Parks
must become multi-benefit assets to
their immediately surrounding communities
and the regions they are in.
The Role of Parks
What are the greatest threats from
climate change right now? " You cannot
really single out one standalone
factor, " says David Rouse, former
research director for the American
Planning Association and co-author
The Seattle Parks and Recreation (SPR)
climate resiliency report can serve as a
model for any agency's climate resilience
planning. The photo shows The West
Point Light located on the shore of
SPR's Discovery Park in Puget Sound.
34 Parks & Recreation | APRIL 2 0 22 | PARK S ANDRECRE AT ION . OR G
REPORT COVER COURTESY OF SEATTLE PARKS AND RECREATION;
COVER IMAGE BY SHUTTER RUNNER, CC BY-NC 2.0, TINYURL.COM/YCKAV5YB
http://www.tinyurl.com/fudwssda http://www.TINYURL.COM/YCKAV5YB
April 2022 - Parks & Recreation

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