Editorial: Feeling the Heat

Feeling the heat in Del Mar? July 22, 2024, was the hottest day on record, according to a NASA analysis of global daily temperature data. July 21 and 23 of this year also exceeded the previous daily record, set in July 2023. We may be blessed with a cooler coastal climate, but the impacts of global warming are becoming more obvious every day, and many directly impact Del Mar residents.

There are more and bigger forest fires in California than ever experienced that lead to unhealthy air quality for even distant communities. These now more frequent wildfires also contribute to economic impacts for our local residents. The costs of the disruption to the power grid are passed on to local customers as higher electricity bills. Even regions like Del Mar that are not in high-risk areas for fire damage are seeing major increases in the cost of home insurance. Some insurance carriers have left the state and are no longer issuing policies in California. Have a vacation home in the mountains? Good luck getting any carrier to insure it.

You have probably noticed how crowded the Del Mar beaches are this summer. As inland temperatures soar, many seek refuge on our beach. Parking and traffic impacts are serious, and the city recovers only a small fraction of the cost of providing beach safety for over 2 million visitors per year. Most of these are daily visitors who don’t stay, eat, or shop in Del Mar, so their contribution to city coffers is negligible.

Del Mar adopted a comprehensive Climate Action Plan (CAP) in 2016. That plan has not been updated since, and it depended on regional energy consumption data gathered in 2012. Joining the Clean Energy Alliance has been Del Mar’s only major step forward in the last decade. There seems to be a prevalent view that climate change is a huge challenge that can only be met with federal and state action. Unfortunately, the federal action has been tied up in a deeply divided congress, and the few positive actions are now being challenged in federal courts. The state has optimistic goals that will not become binding until 2045, and climate change experts now say that date will be too late.

So rather than this top-down approach to dealing with problem, why not commit to local actions that will help fuel bottom-up solutions. Local coastal cities  have updated their CAPs or are in the process of doing so, tightening their building codes, electrifying their municipal fleets, and using current data on energy consumption to make better choices. Our city council keeps kicking the can down the road. Our CAP update was due in 2021. Maybe the council members (and candidates) should start feeling the heat like the rest of us, and finally commit to taking meaningful action. Every year we delay makes the problem much harder to address and saddles our children and grandchildren with the harsher impacts and higher costs.