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Foundation recommendations: Community brigades, solar power and water storage, and services to the disadvantaged
A new report released last week from the Malibu Foundation, titled “Our Climate Crisis: A Guide for Communities in the Wildland Urban Interface,” outlines how Malibu and other local communities surrounding the Santa Monica Mountains can adapt to the climate crisis. The report was written by Dean Kubani and Shea Cunningham, but many local experts and key stakeholders were also consulted.
In a press release, the nonprofit said it recognized the local area was still having difficulty recovering from the 2018 Woolsey Fire and saw “an urgent need to bring key stakeholders together to focus on how to proactively be more climate-resilient.”
“It’s essentially a guide to assist our communities in achieving what many are calling the great reset,” wrote Cunningham.
“With increasingly extreme weather fluctuations, from flooding to extreme heat, fires and wind, communities must adapt in order to thrive within our new reality,” Evelin Weber, executive director and co-founder of the Malibu Foundation said. “Los Angeles saw the hottest summer on record in 2021 … Our goal with the report is to provide … a much needed model plan of action on how to move forward.”
Referred to as a “community resilience guide,” the report can be used by individuals, neighborhood groups, local governments, agencies, and other stakeholders in the area to create an individualized Climate Action Plan, assess problems and follow the “High Priority Action Recommendations.”
The Pepperdine University Sustainability Program hosted a virtual public presentation on February 8th, and around 120 people tuned in.
Chris Doran (moderator/host), a Pepperdine professor, stressed that it is time to act now.
“Our atmosphere now contains the most carbon dioxide its had in about 3 million years, when there was no human life on our planet,” he said. “What that means is that we’re living in a climate emergency today.
“For human beings to learn to live with the climate emergency, we have two choices: We can just let it happen to us, or we can try to do something about it,” he continued.
The report recommends that local communities work together to develop a regional “Climate Action and Adaptation Plan” to prepare for the multiple hazards that climate change is already bringing, and make a plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions significantly. Malibu is already a member of the Las Virgenes – Malibu Council of Governments (COG), a Joint Powers Authority for Agoura Hills Calabasas Hidden Hills, Malibu, and Westlake Village.
The report then recommends that each municipality update its emergency response and evacuation plans as well as plans to reduce the impact of floods, fires, landslides, and debris flows.
This plan could contain the following elements:
- Building community brigades
- Identifying where additional fire-hydrant hydrants may be installed
- Reduce water consumption
- Installing micro-grid solar energy system
- Provides hand-crank AM/FM radios, two-way radios and other services to low-income and elderly households
- Communication systems for emergency information
- Helping those who are in need of financial assistance with home-hardening
- It is possible to create a system that allows you to check on your elderly or disabled neighbors.
A few of these tasks are already being pursued by Malibu’s Public Safety Department.
The report recommends that residents and businesses offer incentives to replace inefficient water fixtures, and to plant drought-tolerant native species. Malibu residents can get rebates from the West Basin Municipal Water District for water-saving products, such as grass replacement, washing machines, rotating sprinklers, weather-based irrigation controllers rain barrels, and cisterns.
Cunningham said a 6 1/2-foot sea level rise scenario is now possible, which would cause Malibu to lose “a significant amount of infrastructure, especially in the Civic Center area.” All along the coast, as well as inland along the Malibu Creek, a total of 1,642 properties are predicted to be impacted, she said, along with primary roads.
Madelyn, a local water expert, stated that Malibu imported 100 percent of its water and is therefore highly susceptible to drought.
“We need to reduce our demand and figure out how we can use more recycled water resources.” she said. “Water District 29, which supplies most of Malibu’s water, just provides drinking water, and doesn’t have enough water storage tanks. So I think we have to really look at ways of increasing water captured at the individual home level.”
Kubani stressed the importance of being prepared for rainy weather.
“Most all the major roads will be majorly vulnerable to landslides, debris flows and flooding when we have major rain events, just like last month, where we saw five inches of rain come down in 24 hours,” he said.
The Climate Crisis project is funded in part by the Malibu Foundation, along with collaborating partners Climate Resolve and Pepperdine University Sustainability Program. Resilient Palisades and Resource Conservation District of Santa Monica Mountains are also supported by the Malibu Foundation.
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