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In my last newsletter, we talked about what climate resilience means. This week we’re going to explore what it means to put that into practice.

Addressing climate change is usually defined as either mitigation (what we can do to reduce emissions) or adaptation (what we can do to protect ourselves and others in a rapidly warming world). Some actions can be both.

This post will focus on short-term adaptation strategies to help you navigate perhaps the hottest climate in all of human history.

This El Niño is obviously going to present us with some challenges, but there is a silver lining. For a year you get to look into the future of a much hotter world. You get to see what’s about to become normal and prepare for it.

The Top 4 Things to Do to Prepare for El Niño

One of the reasons the pundits spend more time trying to warn you about climate change rather than talking about “what to do” is that climate resilience factors make each place and personal circumstance very different. That gives us options in how we build resilience for ourselves, which is good, but it means it’s really hard to be prescriptive, which can be frustrating.

So I’m going to focus on the things I think will impact most of us, regardless of where you live, and try to provide options for different financial situations. As much as possible, I’m avoiding calling out specific products unless I have used them myself and recommend them. The best way to use this guide is as a starting point for your own research. (Here I will beg you, beg you, not to use environmentally destructive and frequently misleading AI for this task.)

I know this might feel like a lot. This is all work I’ve been doing myself over the last couple of years, so I get feeling overwhelmed. Take it one action step at a time if you need to. Keep this as a reference as you work your way through the list.

On the other hand, I also don’t want you to feel limited by these suggestions. I encourage you to do your own brainstorming and research. Go back to your climate resilience assessment from the last newsletter to generate new or more relevant action items. My hope is that I can help you start seeing the world through a lens of climate resilience (and later climate mitigation) that allow you to make smart choices for you and your loved ones.

I want to reiterate this line from the last newsletter: Resilience doesn’t mean you’ll get everything right or always know what to do. Resilience is about having lots of safeguards in place so that you can protect yourself and your loved ones in a variety of situations, many of which will be unprecedented and thus hard to imagine ahead of time.

Now let’s get to work.

Action Step #1 - Protect yourself from the heat

If you do nothing else, do this. Extreme heat events claim more lives than other natural disasters like hurricanes, floods, and tornadoes combined. This means you don’t want to wait until the temperatures are already soaring to complete this task. Get it done in advance, and get the best systems you can afford. It could literally save your life.

I’m particularly worried about people in hot, humid climates who might underestimate how different things are going to be in the near future. This is the one case where experience can actually be a weakness.

Actions to consider:

- Avoid activity outside when the Wet Bulb Globe Temperature (WBGT) for your area is above 88°F or 31°C. For reasons I don’t understand, weather apps only report ambient temperature and heat index, a “feels like” temperature measured in the shade. What you need to be aware of is the wet bulb globe temperature, which takes into account factors like wind speed, solar radiation, cloud cover, and the sun angle. It’s an especially important metric during El Niño, which will increase humidity levels even in places that are typically dry.

A WBGT above 88°F (31°C) indicate the body is no longer able to effectively cool itself through sweat. Even young, healthy people are at risk of dehydration and heat exhaustion with prolonged exposure, particularly if they are exerting themselves. When the WBGT exceeds 95°F (35°C), even if you are resting in the shade and have an IV in your arm to prevent dehydration, you are at risk of developing hyperthermia (and therefore death).

I know it’s a hassle to check something other than your weather app, so I recommend switching to Weatherbug (they have a free phone app in addition to the website), which includes hourly WBGT readings for your location under Outdoor Sports. Get into a habit of checking this any time it’s projected to be hotter than 80°F and you need to be outside for an extended period of time.

Yes, this means sporting events (for both kids and adults) shouldn’t be held during extreme heat events. You should limit your errands outside the house, or any activities that increase your rate of breathing.

During especially extreme heat waves, cities may shut down for “heat days,” just like we do for “snow days.”

But don’t just think of yourself! There are going to be prolonged periods where it is simply unsafe to ask workers to perform tasks such as mowing your lawn or fixing your roof. If you must hire people to do this work, build in extra time for the job so that workers can take frequent rest breaks in a shaded area and provide cold beverages like Gatorade.

- Have the ability to cool yourself inside. If a genie gave me three wishes, one would be to gift air conditioning to every home on the planet. This is a big reason I’m so against AI and their energy hungry data centers—if I had to choose between generative AI and air conditioning, there’d be no contest (and make no mistake, that is exactly the trade-off some communities will be making if the data center buildout goes forward at hyperscale).

If you don’t have air conditioning or your system is on its last legs, now is the time to invest. There are many options here for every price point, including heat pumps, swamp coolers (great for traditionally dry climates), and mini-splits (which allow you to target individual rooms at high efficiency and often include rebates from your utility company). Renters can explore window-mounted heat pumps and portable air conditioners.

In addition, everyone needs a fan, regardless of your home’s HVAC unit. Power outages are more frequent during extreme heat events and it’s much easier to power a fan than an air conditioner (see section 3). Never drape a wet towel on a fan, as this can be dangerous due the risk of electrical shock or fires. In dry climates, it’s more effective to put the wet towel on your body. Where it’s humid, try freezing your towels or taking ice baths to cool down.

Whatever your cooling mechanisms are, you should also look at how to reduce heat from entering your home in the first place. If you own your home, consider replacing south and west facing windows with low-E glass and/or investing in exterior awnings or shutters. Lower cost options include thermal or honeycomb blackout shades or the application of reflective films to the widows themselves.

Everyone should also know the locations of cooling centers in the area if they are available. Libraries, grocery stores, and other public areas with air conditioning can provide a needed respite if you don’t have adequate cooling at home. This is also a good time to open your home to friends and family who may not have access to cooling if you do. Remember, the heat will kill you first (the title of a fantastic book by Jeff Goodell).

Action Step #2 - Protect yourself from smoke

As recent events have shown, wildfire smoke and the microscopic particles embedded in it can create toxic breathing environments hundreds of miles from the forests that are burning. Recent research shows that the air from wildfires is far more dangerous than previously thought.

Short-term exposure can be unpleasant, causing coughing, burning eyes, headaches, and chest pain. But the real danger is repeated exposure, particularly to microscopic particles called PM2.5, which causes cumulative damage to the heart, lungs, and brain. Research shows that repeated exposure increases your risk of cardiovascular disease, systemic inflammation, and neurological conditions such as stroke.

This means your goal must be to limit lifetime exposure to air with poor air quality indices (AQI). To do that, you have to know when air quality is poor. Most weather apps list current AQI values, which provides a rating from 0 to 500 based on the concentration of five different pollutants in the air. An AQI over 300 is considered hazardous. I personally start adding layers of protection when the AQI is over 100 outside or over 50 inside.

AQI is another metric that you need to get in the habit of checking. You can’t count on being able to smell smoke to know if the air is unhealthy. In addition to checking the outdoor AQI on your weather app, I highly recommend getting an indoor air quality monitor that shows you both AQI and PM2.5 in order to know when you need to take precautions, even inside your home or office. We use a Temtop, but there are many brands on the market. You might be surprised at how much unhealthy air is getting inside unless you measure it.

The cheapest and easiest layer of defense is a well-fitting N-95 mask (NOT a surgical mask, which leaves big gaping holes on the sides for unhealthy air). There are many brands of N-95 masks for every shape and size. Find one that works for you and stock up (again, ideally before your neighborhood is blanketed in smoke). You can absolutely reuse masks from day to day, but you should throw them away when the straps become too loose and the mask no longer offers a tight fit OR when it becomes visibly dirty.

The next layer of defense is large area filtration. We actually invested in a whole house HEPA and air scrubber this year that’s attached to the house’s air handler. This is a great solution if you’re looking to replace your HVAC system anyway, as we were (we ultimately decided on a Daikin Fit heat pump with a Clean Comfort HEPA return duct—it is amazing).

Portable HEPA filtration devices also work well and you can move them from room to room with you. The site HouseFresh includes fantastic reviews of a wide range of commercially available home air filtration devices to choose from. Two things to keep in mind: 1) be sure to size the unit to the volume of air you’re trying to clean, and 2) avoid devices that use ionization, which can release ozone and actually worsen air quality.

Another inexpensive option that you can build yourself is a Corsi Rosenthal box, essentially a set of filters taped to a box fan. Full instructions on how to make one can be found here.

Also make sure your car is equipped with a HEPA filter and is changed regularly, especially after prolonged usage in poor air quality.

If you’re still struggling to get the indoor AQI down (and you should still be checking your indoor meter, even if you have HEPA filters running), consider air sealing your home. Side benefits are a reduction of both hot and cold drafts and lower energy usage.

There are cases where air sealing is not recommended—primarily for those who simply can’t afford any sort of electric cooling and must rely on ventilation and cross breezes to stay cool. In this case, your best bet when the AQI is unhealthy is to mask continuously while running portable HEPA air cleaners, or to leave the area until the air quality has improved.

Action step #3 - Get equipped for power outages

Power outages are likely to become more frequent almost everywhere due to things like: extreme storms, high usage during heat waves, competition for energy with big users like data centers, and loss of hydroelectric generation during extreme droughts. Ideally you’d have a way of generating power yourself, even if just enough for the essentials.

The trick is finding a solution (or better yet, a set of solutions) that provides reliable power without relying on the fossil fuels that got us here in the first place. Having power in certain conditions can be life saving, so I’d never suggest not using a gas powered generator, for example, if it’s all you have. What I would suggest is limiting its usage to critical situations (e.g. extreme heat or cold, power for medical devices, etc) and working your way up to more renewable options as you learn, experiment, and can afford them.

This action step is the most difficult, in my opinion, and I’m by no means an expert. Nor can I even hope to do this topic justice in just a few paragraphs, especially given how fast technology is changing this space. I plan to do a deep dive in future newsletters.

Although solar panels mounted on a home’s roof are increasingly common, most systems are designed to feed power to the electric company for a discount. This means when the grid goes down, your solar panels aren’t available to power your home. An alternative is to also get a solar battery system, so that your solar panels charge a bank of batteries during the day that you can then draw power from at night, on cloudy days, or during an outage. An investment of this scale is significant and is only an option for homeowners. Another option is to look at electric vehicles that offer Vehicle to Home (V2H) bi-directional chargers, which can pull energy from the car battery to power your home during outages, essentially serving as a mobile backup generator.

When we were renting in an area prone to outages due to high winds, we set up a portable solar panel in the backyard which we used to charge two batteries, a Jackery Explorer and a Bluetti Power Station. We never fully optimized this system, but it did allow us to keep the essentials working—our phones, the wifi, and an induction hot plate—over a multi-day outage. Through this experience we also learned the importance of properly accounting for all the devices you hope to power, and the weight of the battery you intend to use, which impacts its mobility.

You can also supplement that list with individual devices that can be solar powered. It’s amazing how many options there are now, primarily due to an explosion of luxe camping gear, like solar powered fans or ice chests.

And then there are the options that remove the need for electricity all together. A hand crank washing machine, for example, could really come in handy (assuming you also have access to clean water). Having a stash of canned or freeze dried food items mean you don’t need power to eat.

Action step #4 - Make more friends

One of the things that breaks my heart after so many natural disasters is how often you hear people say something along the lines of, “I’ve lived here a long, long time and I’ve never seen anything like this.” Intellectually we know that climate change, well, changes things. But it’s clear that discontinuity, or the fundamental break between the world we’ve known and the world we are increasingly inhabiting, is the thing we are most unprepared for. Our brains are designed for pattern matching, not disconnects.

And it’s not just the severity or frequency of natural disasters that’s changing. Soon, the very systems we’ve relied on, the conveniences, the constant availability of products we want or need, will break. Hopefully not permanently. We are, after all, a highly adaptable species. But by definition, such discontinuity means we can’t possibly have everything we’ll need when we need it. Even in the “good times,” after all, a neighbor was asking for the proverbial egg or cup of flour.

The good news is that disasters tend to bring out the best in people. Rebecca Solnit’s book, A Paradise Built in Hell, is full of heart-warming stories on this topic. But given the scale of change, I think building deeper relationships with a more diverse group of people is a key climate resilience strategy. For example, imagine these scenarios:

- If a fire or a flood made your home unlivable, do you have someone locally you could ask to take you in?

- If the air quality suddenly became hazardous, do you know someone who could give you an N-95 mask to wear?

- If gas shortages meant you couldn’t afford to fill up your car, who could give you a ride to work?

- If you had a medical issue and the hospitals were full due to a massive heat wave, do you know a nurse or doctor who could help you outside the system?

- If you felt distraught at the string of losses the world is experiencing, who could you call to help you regain emotional balance?

What I hope you considered in these scenarios is that some days you are person without a home to return to, and sometimes you are the one providing shelter. Some days you are the one at a emotional breaking point, some days you are the rock others turn to for grounding. Or maybe you’re the connector who gets people to the people they need.

We are going to have to show up for each other again and again, in ways that are hard and require a lot of trust. This is easier if you have a network of people that you know and feel comfortable calling on before a discontinuity crashes into your life. It’s also easier if you’ve already done some work to prepare for this uncertain future as well, so that you are in a position to both give and receive.

When we embrace interconnectedness, it means we don’t have to do everything ourselves. Find your strengths in this list and begin your preparations there.