As extreme weather intensifies, with droughts, floods and rising sea levels, governments and corporations have backtracked on their climate commitments while misinformation about clean energy grows and takes a toll.

During the video conference “Climate Change, the Issue Falling Off the Political Radar,” organized by American Community Media (ACoM), three experts spoke about how communities are adapting and building resilience today and in the future.

“Even though we have reduced discourse about climate change, people around the world are feeling the impact of extreme weather,” said Karen McKinnon, associate professor of statistics and environment at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).

“So we are facing an interesting moment in which, if anything, we can be more aware of climate change, and potentially, respond better in the midst of a kind of political resistance.”

He said some people may be aware that we are predicted to enter a relatively large El Niño event, which in turn causes extreme weather conditions globally, raising local temperatures and precipitation.

“The El Niño we are expecting now adds to the fact that we already have a warming climate.”

That is, he explained that it amplifies the impact of climate change with extreme heat, and a drier atmosphere, so we are going to have more, larger and faster-spreading fires.

“There are a lot of things happening right now when it comes to climate that are affecting people's quality of daily life as well as their livelihoods,” he said.

So, he questioned, why are we not talking about climate change when as it progresses, the signs are more evident.

“As we all experience these impacts linked to climate change, there is the potential to change the narrative.”

Community Resilience Centers

Shina Robinson, resilience project director at the Asian Pacific Environmental Network, an environmental justice organization, said that despite what is happening at the federal and state level in terms of resources and threats, they are working to come up with collective visions around new projects.

“In response, a very important focus of our work has been resilience centers, a type of community institutions with year-round access to services and programs, which serve to connect after a disaster.”

He explained that they can be a library, a recreational or community center that become collective spaces for the working class who do not have the means to implement some of the mitigation or adaptation measures on their own.

“We have a project right now, the Lincoln Recreation Center in Oakland's Chinatown, intended to be one of the first resiliency centers in the country serving about 1,000 people a day,” he said.

He specified that this includes older adults who attend tai chi, table tennis and dance classes in the morning, and then offer after-school programs and in the evening, activities for teenagers with basketball courts.

“It is an intergenerational center open seven days a week; and it has been a welcoming place for new immigrants who arrive and connect with all the social services as they settle into their new homes; and to which entire generations continue to arrive.”

Connect the dots

Mark Valentine, advisor to the innovative Omega Resilience Awards scholarship program and founder of ReFrame It, said they work from a perspective of how to promote resilience at the community level.

“In most of the world it is not only the impact of climate change that matters but also that of supposed climate solutions, but when looking at regional and local benefits, things get very complicated once you delve into these projects.”

So he said the goal is to support people who look at these issues from different perspectives to connect them with various types of artists and other storytellers to enhance their stories.

“All of this is to bring to light the knowledge that people have to face the pressures of global polycrises and localized environmental and economic stress.”

But also to explore how to promote more resilient communities from the bottom up and build a global community.

“There really is a disappearance of coverage of the climate change phenomenon, but there is an abundance of coverage on wildfires, heat and drought.”

Therefore, Valentine said that we need to connect the dots so that people can identify real and lasting opportunities and solutions at the community level to get involved, and hopefully, build a more resilient future.