There’s a slow-motion disaster happening this week as houses collapse into a canyon in Rolling Hills Estates, a city in L.A. County. But to scientists who study the geology and climate changes behind this landslide, things seem to be happening all too quickly.
The environment is changing faster now than it has in decades. We are seeing it before our eyes, and especially in the news with reports like Earth’s hottest day ever recorded (July 3, 2023), unprecedented precipitation and severe flooding in California this year, and now a major landslide on ground that was once thought to have stabilized.
What this means is that our understanding of the past — benchmarks that we have long used to guide our preparedness and decision-making about environmental risks — aren’t enough to prepare for the future. In an era of such rapid change, old thinking like the term “100-year flood” becomes almost meaningless.
