Ryan Sendejas | Facing Climate Change: Building Community Resilience Together
In this episode of the Healthy Desert Healthy You podcast, host Will Dean welcomes Ryan Sendejas, a climate change assessment lead author with UC Riverside Environmental Science. Ryan shares insights on the significant impacts of climate change in the Coachella Valley and the broader inland deserts region. He explains the difference between natural climate variations and anthropogenic climate change, emphasizing the urgency for communities to build resiliency against its effects. Listeners will learn about the health implications of climate change, including respiratory illnesses and heat-related conditions, particularly affecting disadvantaged populations. Ryan discusses the need for collective action and advocacy to address these pressing issues and shares practical steps individuals can take to contribute to a healthier environment. Join us for an enlightening conversation on climate resilience, community health, and the importance of hope in the face of challenging environmental changes.
Takeaways:
• Climate change is primarily driven by human activity, particularly greenhouse gas emissions.
• The Coachella Valley faces increasing temperatures and extreme heat days due to climate change.
• Communities must focus on resilience strategies to mitigate climate impacts.
• Disadvantaged populations are disproportionately affected by climate change and extreme heat.
• Air quality issues in the Coachella Valley are linked to climate change and weather anomalies.
• Advocacy and community engagement are crucial for addressing climate-related health issues.
• Individual actions can contribute to reducing greenhouse gas emissions over time.
• Building coalitions among residents, experts, and leaders can foster effective climate action.
#HealthyDesertHealthyYouPodcast #WillDean #DesertHealthcareDistrictAndFoundation #CoachellaValley #RiversideCounty #RyanSendejas#UCRiversideEnvironmentalScience #ClimateChange #CommunityHealth #Sustainability #EnvironmentalJustice #PublicHealth #Resiliency #GreenhouseGas #AirQuality #HealthImpacts #Advocacy #SocialEquity #ClimateAction #Hope #EnvironmentalScience #ClimateResilience
Transcript
WILL DEAN: Hello friends. Today I have a very special guest. Name is Ryan Sendejas . He is a climate change assessment lead author with uc, Riverside Environmental Science. Welcome, Ryan. I.
RYAN SENDEJAS: How. Howdy.
WILL DEAN: your title, that's a mouthful. Would you tell us the gist of what you do?
re doing to build resiliency.[:And coordinating with the researchers working with community partners like yourself pretty much.
WILL DEAN: That's really important work. We have an environmental health initiative and so we are dealing a lot with climate change and every. Year. We have a environmental health summit in September. So I hope that you can be a part of that.
RYAN SENDEJAS: I register today.
WILL DEAN: Excellent. Love that. So for our listeners, how do you define climate change?
It's a term that we hear a lot, but I, from an expert like you, how do you define it?
RYAN SENDEJAS: So first off, I like to distinct, climate change and atherogenic climate change. Naturally, our. Planet has oscillations between heating and cooling periods. Yeah. Which is, can be statistically proven to be like a cycle. But what we are experiencing currently with as progenic climate change is a little different.
e change we are experiencing [:WILL DEAN: Predominantly greenhouse gas. Okay, so the big question or one of the big questions for you today. Is global climate change reversible? And I ask that because for decades now we've been hearing the warning messages about we have this much time to reverse it. So I wanted to find out from you what your thoughts on that.
RYAN SENDEJAS: It's a very complex question and even more complex answer. But to get to the gist of it no.
WILL DEAN: no. Interesting.
RYAN SENDEJAS: climate change as we know it, like it, it's already happening. We're already experiencing it. We're already seeing it. It's something that is observable and measurable. Think of it as we have a giant boulder that's rolling down a mountain.
Okay, we can't move the [:WILL DEAN: Can we slow it down? We can't slow it down. We can just prepare for it.
RYAN SENDEJAS: We can slow it down, but it's gonna take a lot of effort. We're gonna have to be reducing of our overall greenhouse gas emissions slow down of deforestation and actually do reforestation. But. Climate change as we know it is here. Polarized caps are melting. Temperatures on average are getting a little bit warmer, and we're starting to see more weather systems that are not as, as how do you say common.
WILL DEAN: Okay, so what is the most impactful deterrent to reversing climate change? Just something, it is too late or,
e. It's, I think it's always [:WILL DEAN: I'm glad you said that about hope, because I think a lot of people get scared, anxious about it, especially when they hear the reports and the experts talking about it.
RYAN SENDEJAS: Climate fatigue is a thing. And it's, it's hard.
WILL DEAN: For our listeners, in their everyday lives, what can they be doing to help eliminate, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, other ways of actually slowing this down.
picture of like our society [:And agriculture systems by making small changes here and there over, decades if not centuries. That's how we are gonna be able to adapt.
al storm, Hillary, in August,:RYAN SENDEJAS: So tropical storm, Hillary is like, like a once in 50 to a hundred year storm, but due to the warming in the oceans and. Increased greenhouse gas emissions. Those like anomalies, those rare occurrences are becoming more frequent. It's not that like Hillary was like, caused by climate change necessarily, but it was [00:06:00] like, hi, the impacts of Hillary really opened up people's eyes of oh, like climate change.
Is a thing, right? Climate change is here. And it's something that we should really be more mindful of when we start to see of, these weather occurrences that we don't experience all the time. And in regards to air quality in the Coachella Valley we have some of. The worst air quality in California in this area.
Rates of respiratory diseases amongst children are twice as high compared to the rest of the country. The Salton Sea, there is a lot of issues with the Salton Sea that we should be really working on here. And now I'm not sure if you guys know about the dust from the Salt Sea. Yes.
WILL DEAN: we've had a few guests on the podcast talk about
reath, like a, being also an [:WILL DEAN: So it sounds like many factors were already at play, and so tropical storm, Hillary had a lot to work with when that rare occurrence happened,
RYAN SENDEJAS: Yep. It's compounding tectonic pressures from all the way.
WILL DEAN: and because of the conditions that we have now, would you say, you can't predict what's going to happen, but would you say we might have more frequent occurrences of a tropical storm, Hillary?
RYAN SENDEJAS: I, I can't predict it with like my, I can't predict that those things will occur, but we do have climatologists that are building models to who look at, climate and weather patterns and it's likely that they will happen. I can't tell the future. I.
WILL DEAN: So we are a very diverse community here in the Coachella Valley. So I wanted to ask you about the role that, so social equity, excuse me, has and how we're impacted by climate change.
would be climate or economic[:WILL DEAN: Life.
RYAN SENDEJAS: life, those you know who, socially disadvantaged or come from a minority group tend to be impacted heavier than other groups of people. Some people might have the resources and the means to leave from extreme heat places or from areas that where that fires, but not everyone could get on that arc and leave.
Right? And so those, you know who. Come from the migrant community, those who might be socially economically disadvantaged so on and so forth will definitely feel the impacts more. For those who are migrant workers in the fields who deal with the heat all day and every day, they will definitely be filling the heat as time progresses.
those impacts there's really [:WILL DEAN: So it seems to me that the desert is definitely getting hotter during the summer as well. So we think about the desert being hot in general, but I've been here a while more than 15 years. And so I have noticed it myself. I. Every summer we tend to have more days that are one 20 and above.
RYAN SENDEJAS: Yep. Extreme heat is a huge factor within this current. Assessment that we are doing, historically in this area. I don't have the numbers right here in front of me, but for extreme heat days, any day that's above one 10 historically this area has had I think it was about 10 to 12 days on average in about 50 years.
We are predicting that there'll be about a third of the year will be over one 10 or higher. And this past summer you guys had one extreme heat, day of one 20. We're predicting that you guys will at least have a month in the next 50 years to a hundred years, that will be, one month
WILL DEAN: A [:RYAN SENDEJAS: And also looking at your guys', social structures, the power grid. Can it handle that? Can your guys' hospitals handle that? Like on average, like when not on average, but like in the city of Coachella, like last year, 27 people died due to extreme heat.
on average it was about like:WILL DEAN: 1000 people here in the valley, Coachella Valley. Oh wow.
RYAN SENDEJAS: Yep.
ost effective thing they can [:And by advocacy you mean what?
RYAN SENDEJAS: I think just like beginning by having an honest conversation with people I. I think that's like the number one thing with any problem that you have is, to reach out to those in your community to talk about it. Get everyone on the same page and then, start to build, coalitions behind it that might take an intersectional approach.
Have maybe having working groups or discussion groups who talk about, what we can do here locally. What we could do with our local governments and say in national level as well.
WILL DEAN: I was gonna ask about that. So when you say work together, you mean bringing together residents, but also city leaders and also environmental experts and advocates and bringing everyone together?
RYAN SENDEJAS: Yes. With with such a large issue, we are gonna need everyone.
WILL DEAN: Collaboration. Yeah. So tell me what's next for you? What are you working on?
RYAN SENDEJAS: We [:WILL DEAN: Okay.
RYAN SENDEJAS: or them personally.
And we are asking people what do they imagine for building climate resiliency here in our area.
WILL DEAN: Impact on health. You mentioned how we see, I think twice as many respiratory illnesses as a result of the climate here. What other impacts are you seeing in terms of health?
there's adverse effects when [:WILL DEAN: oh, wow. It's pretty widespread. You mentioned eyesight, what happens in
RYAN SENDEJAS: it's it's like the so when it gets hotter particularly in this area a lot of dust is aggregated into the atmosphere and it's not really good for your eyes.
WILL DEAN: right. Okay, that makes a lot of sense. Where can our listeners learn more about your work that you're doing with UCR Environmental Science? I.
RYAN SENDEJAS: Yeah, so you guys could go to our website, inland deserts climate assessment.com. To learn more. If anyone has any particular questions you could drop on the page to ask a question. It goes directly to our email server list and we respond there. We will be hosting events throughout the area over the next year you could look out for our events page.
appreciate you. For all you [:ANNOUNCER: Thank you for joining us on this episode of Healthy Desert Healthy You. This podcast is a production of the Desert Healthcare District and Foundation in Palm Springs, California. For more information, please visit the website, dhcd.org. Our annual conference site is Healthy Desert healthy you.org. This podcast is available at most major podcast portals, including Amazon Music app.
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