Postcards from a Climate-Changing World
RMIers weathered 2024’s record-hot summer and worsening climate change impacts on their work, families, and travel. Here’s what nine RMIers witnessed and how it inspires their work.
The effects of climate change can be seen everywhere, from the increasing severity of hurricanes to more destructive wildfires and more rapidly melting glaciers. The summer of 2024, with its record heat, saw many RMIers witness extreme weather and other dangerous impacts first hand.
While RMIers’ experiences varied — from short-lived inconveniences such as blackouts to witnessing life-and-death impacts of sustained drought — the events galvanized their commitment to the work RMI does for a safer, cleaner world. The experiences offer a reminder that climate change is here, now.
Below some RMIers recount how they weathered the summer of 2024.
These impacts underscore the urgent need to adopt innovations such as solar-powered irrigation, improved crop varieties, and good agronomic practices to build resilient economies.
Ayodeji Ojo — Bwari, Nigeria
Associate, Africa Program
The adverse impact of climate change is more noticeable than ever, particularly in rural communities like the one I live in. Rural farming households in Nigeria, whose livelihoods depend on rainfed agriculture, experienced delays in the onset of rain early this year, creating uncertainties in their ability to establish cropping calendars and plan farm operations. This situation was exacerbated by the sudden cessation of rains between July and August, a period typically marked by peak rainfall. As a result, some crops are drying up, severely constraining the productivity of smallholder farmers who produce the majority of Nigeria’s food.
Removed in May 2024, “Stumpy”, a cherry tree on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., suffered due to repeated inundations of brackish water driven by rising tides. Photo: Barbara Lantz
There are people working hard to solve these symptoms of climate change and working at RMI feels like I’m helping to address the underlying root causes.
Barbara Lantz — Washington, D.C.
Social Media Content Lead, Communications Team
The Tidal Basin near the Martin Luther King Jr and Jefferson memorials on the National Mall floods during high tide due to the interplay of sinking land and rising tidal levels. To upgrade the sea wall, 300 cherry blossom trees are being cut down, including “Stumpy,” a tree that went viral for its resilience and haggard appearance. In the Washington D.C. area, we frequently get hit with the remnants of hurricanes and tropical storms. By the time they get to us, they aren’t nearly as devastating as they are on the Gulf Coast, but the increasing frequency of the storms gives us less time to bounce back in between and more quickly erodes our roads and other infrastructure. With sea levels continuing to rise, the National Parks Service and other federal agencies are racing to develop plans to protect public lands and preserve irreplaceable resources. In the case of Stumpy, the ailing tree was felled over the summer along with 140 other cherry trees, but cuttings from Stumpy have been preserved to someday regrow in safer climes.
Climate change is changing the face of Alaska. As a guest in the state, I feel it’s my duty to steward this land as best I can.
Charlotte Emerson — Anchorage, Alaska
Strategic Communications Lead, Climate-Aligned Industries
Fueled by climate change, Alaska is warming twice as fast as the lower 48 states. The impacts of climate change are all around me: in the wildfires, melting permafrost, spruce beetles inching up the state. But for me, nowhere is climate change more felt than in the shrinking glaciers. In June, I drove down to Seward to go camping, celebrate Pride, and visit Exit Glacier, where many of my friends spent their summers guiding. We slept out on the outwash plains and awoke early for a trip to the glacier. I’ve learned by now to see glacier trips for what they are: sobering reality checks about the state of our climate. Starting in the 1800s, markers have been posted along the trail as a reminder of the glacier's retreat — since 2010, the glacier has been melting at a rate of roughly 162 feet per year. With each step I took, I thought about a version of Alaska I never knew — and never will know.
Amped by climate change, Hurricane Beryl downed trees across Houston and neighboring communities, knocking out power for weeks during a record-hot summer. Photo: Scott M. Ladd
Resilience is being replaced with frustration in Houston. Anecdotally, you hear people talk of moving.
Scott M. Ladd — Houston, Texas
Design and Brand Manager, Communications Team
Houston’s Summer started with a derecho — a rare, powerful windstorm, but a phenomenon that is happening both with more frequency and with greater intensity because of climate change. Across Houston, the US’ fourth largest city, winds ripped through old-growth trees, twisting electrical Infrastructure and smashing through the glass towers of downtown's high-rises of the "Energy Capital of the World." Outages were frequent for the next few weeks. Just six weeks later, Hurricane Beryl hit. A weaker storm that rapidly intensified because of the Gulf of Mexico's hot-tub warm waters, Beryl came ashore as a Category 1 and rushed through Houston. Power went out again. This time for five days in my Northeastern suburb. Trees not taken out by the derecho snapped like twigs. But more importantly, our grid failed again. This time Houston's patience was tapped. For weeks after the power returned, outages still occur. Resilience is being replaced with frustration in Houston.
A 2020 fire in Rocky Mountain National Park, in a color-enhanced satellite image. Source: Maxar Technologies
This was the closest we have ever been to immediate wildfire danger, and it showed us what is at stake in our work cutting climate pollution.
Christian Fong & Sasha Bylsma — Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado
Senior Associate, Carbon-Free Electricity; Senior Associate, Climate Intelligence
Sasha and I planned a backpacking trip at Rocky Mountain National Park over a long weekend. However, our original route was canceled due to wildfires in the area. And while we selected an alternate path that was filled with beautiful alpine lakes, we were thoroughly warned that we may need to evacuate in a moment if the winds shifted and the wildfire spread our way. The park has seen major fires repeatedly in recent years, most recently in 2020. Unfortunately, this is going to become more common as climate change increases the length of wildfire season and the number and severity of wildfires throughout the US west.
The view onto France’s Mer de Glace, where melting ice has retreated to reveal rock rubble. Photo: Kingsmill Bond.
The melting of the glaciers is the most obvious sign of the damage that burning fossil fuels is doing to the life-support system that is nature.
Kingsmill Bond — Mont Blanc, France
Senior Principal, Strategy Team
In early August 2024 my family and I walked across the mountains in Mont Blanc to see the Mer de Glace (“sea of ice”), France’s longest glacier, and a famous tourist attraction for over a century. But where the sea of ice once dominated, now what you see is a washout of rocky rubble as the glacier melts. What was once a marvelous vista of natural beauty has become a crime scene. Accelerated by rapidly rising alpine temperatures, the glacier is melting so fast that it has destabilized the mountain and rock pours down the slope. Meanwhile the nearby Trient Glacier — that just a century ago provided Europe with ice for cooling drinks — is now only reached by hiking a day up the valley.
This might not be a once-in-a-lifetime disaster; we need our grid to become more prepared for climate change.
Qarina Raissa-Vashti — Cleveland, Ohio
Digital Marketing Lead, Communications Team
The frequency of tornados in the United States is rising, in sync with climate change. And as the twisters multiply, Ohio is one of several states impacted by Tornado Alley’s eastward shift. In early August, five tornadoes tore through multiple cities across Northeast Ohio in a single day — unheard of in the region, especially around Cleveland’s urban center and along Lake Erie’s shoreline. While the region does get occasional tornado warnings, the grid and infrastructure are ill equipped to survive high winds or to be repaired quickly. In mid-August, approximately 400,000 people in and near Cleveland were left without power for days — or even longer. In my neighborhood, power lines and cell phone service were down for nearly a week. With this new wave of severe weather, Northeast Ohio has now seen nearly as many tornadoes in the past four years as we did over the decade though 2019.
Rain-heavy monsoon clouds roll over Goa, India. Photo: Vindhya Tripathi
It is worrying how extreme the monsoon has been this year, but it also serves as a motivation to ramp up my efforts at RMI.
Vindhya Tripathi — Goa, India
Senior Director, International Communications
Living in Goa, a tiny coastal state in South India, I welcome the arrival of the southwest monsoon every year. After scorching summers where temperatures can soar to above 40°C (104°F), the wet and humid rainy season not only brings cooler weather, but also revives our reservoirs, and irrigates the rice paddy fields that are iconic throughout Goa. Yet climate change is warming the atmosphere, which in turn means it carries more moisture — and rains are growing heavier around the globe. This year, India’s monsoon brought with it unprecedented rains, and a leaky roof atop my brand-new house, with water pouring down from the ceiling and from windows and door frames that have been perpetually soaked for two months solid. By early August, the state had already received 94 percent of its annual average rainfall, with two months of the rainy season still ahead of us. While I’ve had to place buckets and mops throughout the house, other parts of India have fared worse. New Delhi, Gujrat, and numerous northeastern states have experienced extreme flooding in recent days. Thousands have been stranded and scores lost their homes, farms, and livelihoods.