People around the world are realizing that we need to figure out how to adapt to a planet where weather and storms we formerly considered “extreme” are part of normal life. We need to build climate resilience from all perspectives: psychological, infrastructural, and social.

In September 2023, eight nations on four different continents experienced devastating floods, most notably in Libya, where as many as ten thousand people may have died. In one month, January 2020, 27.2 million acres of brush burned in Australia’s intense wildfires. This year, India and Pakistan’s summer heat arrived early with dangerous temperatures testing the limits of human survivability, especially for farm workers and pregnant or elderly people.

As Joao Texiera, co-director of the Center for Climate Sciences at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, pointed out, “Within the scientific community, it’s a relatively well-accepted fact that as global temperatures increase, extreme precipitation will very likely increase as well.”

According to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, climate change has increased the risk and severity of wildfires across the western United States over the past two decades. This happens not only because of increased heat but also because of the drying of organic matter on the ground that fuels wildfire.

These factors also contributed to the devastating Maui wildfires, which killed over one hundred people and worsened a pre-existing affordable housing crisis.

Maui experienced an extreme flash drought, where the atmosphere became so dry that it sucked water out of living plants and brush on the ground, coupled with unusually strong trade winds driven by a low-pressure area from nearby Hurricane Dora. Trade winds are a normal part of Hawaii’s climate, but the storm made them more intense. Also, invasive grasses had replaced more fire-resistant natural vegetation on land formerly occupied by sugar cane and pineapple plantations. According to Elizabeth Pickett, co-executive director of the Hawaii Wildfire Management Organization, 26 percent of Hawaii is now covered by invasive grasses, on land that’s often rocky and difficult to access.

Various aspects of Maui’s immediate emergency response have also come under scrutiny. Many residents are upset that power was not shut off early that morning, as the wind threatened to topple power lines. Maui also has sirens intended to sound the alarm for people to evacuate, but these were never used. (Officials indicated that those usually signify a tsunami, and they feared residents would move inland instead of toward the coast.) There were also few escape routes on Maui, and those few that existed quickly got closed off by the fire.

Sarah DeYoung, a core faculty member in the University of Delaware’s Disaster Research Center, spoke to the need to make disaster alerts more inclusive. She reminded us to consider people with hearing or vision loss, those who speak varying languages, and the mobility impaired. In California’s 2018 Camp Fire, one of the deadliest California wildfires on record, many of those who died were elderly or disabled.

Improved infrastructure could also have saved lives during Texas’s great winter storm of 2021, which killed at least 246 people. The state power grid could not provide enough power from any source to match demand during the storm, leading to intermittent blackouts, people freezing to death, and $195 million in damages. “Winterizing” the power grid through measures such as retrofitting natural gas wells to withstand cold or insulating pipelines is possible but expensive.

However, the cost of power system upgrades may be worth it as our global weather landscape becomes more volatile.

Katharine Hayhoe, a leading climate scientist at Texas Tech University, cited a 2018 study in Nature illustrating how a warming Arctic is creating more severe polar vortex events that can lead to intense winter storms. “It’s a wake up call to say, ‘What if these are getting more frequent?’” she said.

As with wildfires, people with fewer resources and less ability to evacuate, like the disabled, are most vulnerable during storms. The same was true for Pakistan’s deadly 2022 floods, lledwhich ki 1 739 people, many of them children, and left 2.1 million homeless.

Climate change played a role in exacerbating Pakistan’s flooding. Many regional scientists pointed out how warmer Indian Ocean temperatures led to increased rain during the monsoon season. Unusually intense heat waves in the country also brought about atmospheric conditions that increased rainfall. Local deforestation also exacerbated flood damage.

The World Bank recommended a rebuilding program for affected areas of Pakistan that went beyond repairing flood damage to “building back better,” guided by principles that incorporate climate resilience as well as social equity. These principles include participatory, transparent, and inclusive recovery; intentionally targeting the people most affected by the floods; coordination among different levels of government and implementation at the lowest practical level; synergy between humanitarian relief and recovery; and sustainable financing from national and international sources.

While not every aspect of Pakistan’s rebuilding has gone according to plan, and people continue to suffer from a lack of essential infrastructure due to the floods, the World Bank’s rebuilding guidelines touch on important issues.

Adaptation to storms and extreme weather brought about by climate change is as much about social equity, inclusion of marginalized people, and a resilient mindset as it is about being willing to make long-term investments in infrastructure.

We can look to areas already disaster prone to learn coping strategies and ways to improve the resilience of people and infrastructure.

For example, Japan experiences hundreds of (mostly small) earthquakes per year due to its location at the intersection of tectonic plates.

Seaside communities in Japan hold regular earthquake and tsunami evacuation drills and are proud of their ability to pull off calm, orderly evacuations. Research shows that participation in these drills enhances the likelihood that people will do the same during an actual disaster. Buildings in Japan also have signage clearly marking escape routes, earthquake warning systems, and they are often made from materials more likely to sway than snap.

In low-lying areas of Bangladesh, seasonal floods are a part of life. However, as floods become more intense, locals are using various community-based strategies to protect themselves and their property.

Launched by the Government of Bangladesh in the late 1980s, the Palli Karma-Sahayak Foundation (PKSF) was designed to address poverty and development issues. This year, a new PKSF project involved constructing over 1.5 km (about 1 mile) of wave-resistant flood retention walls, planting more than 1 300 flood-tolerant indigenous trees, and elevating schoolyards and community grounds to serve as safe spaces during floods. Bangladeshi community members provided the construction work and attended climate adaptation workshops.

“If anything goes wrong in the future, the villages can maintain things by themselves—without asking experts from the outside,” said AKM Nuruzzaman, General Manager for Environment and Climate Change at PKSF.

Adopting an attitude of “living with nature,” where we seek to learn from and adapt to what’s happening around us, can help with psychological resilience. As author Louise Erdrich, an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain band of Chippewa Native Americans, says, “Things which do not grow and change are dead things.”

Taking mindful action together as a community to adapt to increasingly intense conditions, while practicing self-care, can also help the many young people who struggle with anxiety over climate change. A survey of ten thousand people aged sixteen to twenty-four years in ten countries found that 59 percent of them felt highly concerned about climate change, expressing anger, sadness, powerlessness, and decreases in their ability to eat, sleep, concentrate, and maintain relationships. Mental health professionals are examining how constructive hope, a positive mindset that combines optimism with the belief in working on meaningful goals, can help improve mental health.

Resilience and adaptation aren’t simply individual processes—they involve communities working together and special care for the most vulnerable.

Back in 1995, a massive heat wave rocked Chicago, killing hundreds of residents, mainly the poor and elderly who lacked air conditioning. This July, meteorologist Tom Skilling reflected on what the city had learned in the past thirty years.

“The city opens cooling centers and will transport the elderly and vulnerable members of our population to these cooling centers, and we in the media are encouraged to remind folks to look in on the elderly,” Skilling said.

Various locals organized community efforts after the Fukushima disaster in Japan. These were mostly set up by older women and ranged from tea ceremony classes to food sharing, beach cleanups, and neighborhood mapping of safe and unsafe areas. Several community leaders expressed that government agencies tasked with disaster relief were moving too slowly, and they saw this as an opportunity to address their own needs.

Many other mutual aid networks sprang up during other disasters. Born during the 2021 Texas winter storm, the BLMHTX hotline connects neighbors, particularly women, children, and people of color, with assistance with essentials such as groceries and rent. The women who started the hotline, Secunda Joseph and Josie Pickens, initially came together in 2015 after the deaths of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown to address issues related to Black people and the American criminal justice system. During the storm and the COVID-19 shelter in place, they began checking in on neighbors to see what people needed and eventually expanded their efforts into a hotline.

Mutual aid efforts blossomed during the COVID-19 shelter in place. The Auntie Sewing Squad, a group of mostly Asian women, connected online to sew masks for various groups, including the incarcerated and people on Native American reservations. Mutual aid communities sprouted up on social media, geared toward different neighborhoods and regions.

Some mutual aid efforts encompass broader activist work. Climate disaster survivors in the United States are organizing together through a new nonprofit, Extreme Weather Survivors, which launched in 2024. The group provides peer support and access to a network of mental health professionals, as well as media and legislative advocacy training.

Mostly, though, it offers a place where people can tell their stories. “Humans are wired to understand stories,” founder Chris Kocher said. “Understanding one person’s story is easier for people to comprehend than ‘Climate change is going to disrupt our entire way of life.’”

Mutual aid can lessen isolation, provide an outlet for remembrance and storytelling, and distribute needed services in times of disaster. It can also improve mental health by giving people a sense of agency over their situation through helping others.

Urban planning that includes “third spaces” (besides work and home) where people can encounter each other and form mutual aid networks when needed helps to support climate resilience. “Third space” venues can include public parks, cooling and warming centers, and gathering spaces.

Climate resilience will require investments in both our social and our physical infrastructure.

On the physical side, governments and engineers can implement a variety of concrete policies that help communities and nations navigate natural disasters and a changing climate.

These can include updating building codes to require the use of fireproof materials for construction, elevating buildings in flood-prone regions, adding more structural supports, building or strengthening seawalls, updating emergency alert systems, and engineering critical systems such as power grids and roads to survive extreme temperatures.

While these efforts will come with a cost, research shows that they are worth the investment. MIT’s Climate Portal points out that investments in climate-resilient construction can prevent enough damage to pay for themselves in as little as two years in hazard-prone areas. They also cite other studies that suggest every dollar spent on structural climate resilience can save up to $11 in repair costs over time.

Climate risk mapping can indicate regions where people may need additional resources to prepare for or cope with climate-related natural disasters.

A good example of climate-resilient architecture is the approach the Netherlands is taking to delta and water management. This involves taking the long view, considering the climate’s potential impact on water systems over up to fifty years while continually revising plans as conditions change. The nation is also using technology to monitor water systems in real time, building rain gardens and permeable concrete to absorb water, restoring natural buffer ecosystems near dikes, and fostering cooperation among government, business, and the local community for water management implementation.

New York City’s new Climate Resiliency Design Guidelines advocate for a variety of measures to cope with extreme weather, including green roofs, reflective surfaces, and light-colored pavement. To adjust to increased stormwater, city guidelines encourage graded surfaces, natural vegetation, and tanks and other catchment systems for gray water.

The Green City pilot program in Kigali, Rwanda, integrates climate resilience into a city designed to house and welcome those of varying income levels. This combines social and economic sustainability into ecological sustainability, helping to build a community that can respond to climate-induced disasters through self-advocacy and mutual aid. The Green City’s extensive parks are filled with local trees and other native vegetation, its buildings are constructed with carbon-sequestering materials and designed to be energy efficient, and it offers frequent and reliable mass transit.

On the governance side, it’s critical to consider the needs of the elderly, young, disabled, and otherwise marginalized populations while envisioning disaster preparation and response. As we’ve learned from the Chicago heat wave, the Texas winter storm, and the Maui wildfire, some people are more vulnerable to climate-related disasters than others. Initiatives that enhance the inclusion of all people within public society could ensure that climate resilience planning becomes similarly inclusive.

In the spirit of the World Bank’s guidelines for Pakistan flood relief, and in the spirit of mutual aid, it’s critical to include the voices of those on the frontline affected by the rise of natural disasters in planning and decision making. Their firsthand knowledge of local needs and conditions can help inform policy, and their buy-in is often critical to making systems work. Improving disaster response to speed up aid delivery and provide accountability to ensure that it gets to the people in need is also vital.

More intense storms, hotter, colder, drier, and wetter weather all seem to be on their way to our planet in the near future. It’s up to us to embrace the possibilities opened up by changing our mindsets to focus on adapting and learning to work with nature.

While we can’t calm all the storms, we can shape our responses on smaller and larger levels to build infrastructure and societies that withstand them. Adaptation does not have to signify defeat but intelligent transformation.

As John Laroche said, “Adaptation is a profound process. Means you figure out how to thrive in the world.”