Climate change is becoming a reality. According to NASA, over the next century, our planet is likely going to see some pretty significant changes. We’re already seeing rising sea levels due to the melting ice caps, along with storms that are stronger and more frequent.
For people living in the American West, the snowpack is becoming less predictable. Summers are longer and hotter, and severe droughts are pushing us to become more reliant on water reserves. Perhaps most notably, those hotter, drier summers are resulting in more and more wildfires.
2018 was among the worst years ever when it came to wildfires. Roughly 8.5 million acres of land burned across the US. In California, 98 residents and six firefighters were killed from wildfires last year alone. It’s still up for debate on whether humans can reverse the global warming trend, but what is clear, is that this world is at a tipping point. So, as the world around us literally changes before our eyes, how can we begin to fix the issues?
In our first Science Distilled episode, we are going to talk about resiliency. The topic was discussed at the Science Distilled Lecture series produced by the Terry Lee Wells Nevada Discovery Museum and the Desert Research Institute.
Scott Thomas, an ecologist at the Desert Research Institute, and Kevin Badik, a rangeland ecologist with The Nature Conservancy, spoke at the event, and with KUNR, about resiliency and what that means for our planet.
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