Letter best: We saw it coming, so what will we do now about climate change

In the early 2000s, I was part of a group of scientists that investigated how climate change would affect water-dependent ecosystems in the West over the succeeding 50 years. These are some of the things we predicted:

• Decreased, and more highly variable, mountain snowpack.

• More uncertain summer water supply in smaller, snowmelt-driven rivers like the Yakima.

• Changes in seasonal water flow and temperatures in the Columbia River and its tributaries, increasing the conflicts between power production and salmon reproduction.

• Longer fire seasons and larger, more intense, and expensive, wildfires.

As it turned out, and recently reported in the Tri-City Herald, these changes are already occurring.

So what should we be doing in response? We have long passed the point where we can “stop” global climate change. The options now are adaptation and long-term elimination of the source of the problem. This means increasing our ability to cope with drought, for example. And it means transitioning from a fossil-fueled economy. Both – adaptation and elimination of the problem – will take time and money. But the longer we wait to act, the fewer options we will have and the more expensive and destructive our failure to act will become.

This story was originally published March 17, 2018 at 8:06 PM with the headline "Letter best: We saw it coming, so what will we do now about climate change."