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At the end of October 2024, 12 inches of rain fell in one day on Valencia, Spain. Twenty inches fell in eight hours on the town of Chiva, 20 miles uphill. Flood waters 8 feet tall rushed down into Valencia, sweeping up cars like autumn leaves, piling them two cars deep from sidewalk to sidewalk. Hundreds of people drowned.
In July this year, dozens of girls and counselors at a summer camp drowned in Texas when as much 18 inches of rain fell in four days, and the Guadalupe river rose 26 feet in 45 minutes.
On Oct. 27 this year, 5 feet of rain fell in 24 hours on the City of Hue in Vietnam — 2 feet more than the most rain ever seen in a single day before in Hue.
On Oct. 28, fueled by global warming, Hurricane Melissa hit Jamaica with 185 mph winds.
On Oct. 30, 2 inches of rain fell on New York, most of it within 20 minutes, maybe in only 8 minutes. Streets flooded with up to 2 feet of water. Two men drowned, trapped in basement apartments.
These extreme weather events do not have to be dangerous. The Army Corps of Engineers deals with these kinds of things all the time. Many cities have flood walls. In Los Angeles, there are enormous concrete canals to handle flash floods safely.
Engineers look at what has happened in previous years, estimate the risks and build protection to stop anything like the dangers seen before. What they don’t usually cope with is catastrophes that have never happened before.
The New York City stormwater system was built to handle 1.7 inches of rain in a single hour. That is a quarter inch in 10 minutes. Oct. 30th’s deluge brought four times as much: a full inch in 10 minutes, maybe fewer.
In Spain, engineers put in canals to reroute the Turia river to prevent flooding in Valencia. That worked for 70 years. Last year’s 20 inches on Chiva was more than had ever fallen there in a single day before.
Why Is This Happening to Us?
Engineers can’t build to protect us from things they cannot see coming. An engineer will tell you, “I can’t protect you from things I can’t anticipate.” These unantincipated catastrophes appear because climates around the world are changing.
The deluges of rain are happening because the average temperature of our planet’s air has been lifted 2 °F since 1970. That’s like your body temperature rising from 98.6 to 100.6.
Warmer air pulls and holds more water. Hotter air makes droughts, forces farmers to apply more water to their fields, and carries that extra water around before dropping it somewhere else in deluges.
We make our air hotter and hotter by mixing more and more carbon dioxide into it year after year. Our carbon dioxide pollution comes from our burning fossil fuels — gasoline, natural gas and coal. That is why, in October, the Catholic bishops of Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean together called for an end to the global warming of fossil fuels:
“The climate crisis is an urgent reality… We must limit global warming… It is the Global South and future generations who are already suffering the consequences… phase out fossil fuels… Abandoning fossil fuels is not only necessary to reduce emissions, but also to repair an ecological and moral debt to the global South and communities affected by pollution, extraction, and climate change.”
Good News
Globally, electric utilities are switching away from fossil fuel power plants that release global warming pollution. Utilities are building up renewable generation: solar and wind.
In the first six months of 2025, global electricity production grew by 369 terawatt hours over 2024. Solar generation grew by 306 terawatt hours. Wind grew by 97 terawatt hours. Fossil fuel generation fell by 27 terawatt hours.
Around the world, if new power plants are built, chances are 90% that the new generating capacity is solar or wind.
Countries are adding solar panels and windmills and retiring power plants that release global warming pollution because climate change is unacceptable and because they want to make more money. Solar and wind provide the greatest profits for electric utilities.
Locally, people are buying electric cars and trucks for the same reasons: If you charge at home, it would cost about $4.50 for the electricity to drive up to Vancouver, BC. Buying gasoline for the same trip would cost about $23. On top of that, gasoline cars spew out global warming pollution. Electric cars do not.
Charging Your EV
I talk with people about EVs all the time. For years, a big anxiety was about charging. Most homeowners charge at home overnight, which is easy. But for some renters and condo residents, there is no electricity where they park. They have to charge at public charging stations.
Public charging is my situation now. Last month, my family traded up to a better used EV. So far, we can’t charge at home.
My first charging was at the EVgo station at Winco, but that cost over 60 cents per kilowatt hour (kWh). Since then, we have been charging for less than 50 cents per kWh at Electrify America stations, either up at Alderwood Mall or down at the Shoreline Target. Both of those stations are far from home, but not a hassle if you’re already in the neighborhood. It’s like filling up with gas at Costco: better prices, but you have to get there.
On Plugshare, I see that chargers at the Lynnwood Civic Center cost less than 40 cents, but I haven’t tried them yet.
What EVs Are Available?
As I talk with people about buying EVs, I am encouraged that two new concerns have come up in the last year. One is about what kind of EVs are available. You can see people have gotten past whether they will get an EV and are starting to think about which EV they will get.
Because EVs are a recent thing, what’s available on the used market is more limited than for gas vehicles. But for used electric SUVs, there are Toyotas, Kias, Volkswagens and more. For used electric sedans, there are Teslas, Hyundais, BMWs, and others. For used electric hatchbacks, there are Fords, Chevys, Nissans and others.
For a car that will carry seven people, there are not yet reasonably priced used options, because seven-seater EVs only appeared in the last two years. For a seven-seater right now, there is a plug-in hybrid version of the Chrysler Pacifica minivan. You can get a used 2018 plug-in Pacifica for under $20,000. A Pacifica will take you 33 miles every day without adding gasoline. If you usually drive less than 33 miles a day, you would buy gas about once a year.
Buying an EV
The other new issue I hear about now is that it’s a hassle dealing with car salespeople. This is great to hear. Folks complaining about dealerships know they want an EV and they know which EV they want. Now the issue is no longer the EV. It’s the buying.
Last month, I bought our car at a national used-car chain that offers no-negotiation pricing and no negotiation on your trade in. The price is what the price is. Take it or leave it. The experience was quick and not bad.
I recommend inviting friends to come along as emotional support. If you have three people on your side, that might feel more comfortable.
How Are We Doing in Washington State and the North Sound Region?
Since 2019, sales of new EVs have been dominated by Tesla. Tesla’s ups and downs make the total market’s metrics jump around. Since the release of the Cybertruck, Tesla sales have been falling, according to data from the Washington State Department of Licensing.
EVs from other manufacturers have risen as a portion of the new-vehicle market since early 2020.
From October 2024 to September 2025, 16% of new vehicles were EVs. Of those, 7% were Teslas and 9% were not Teslas.
Quarterly Metrics: EV Percent of New Sales
For new vehicles registered in Edmonds-Lynnwood-MLT, electric vehicles dropped from 23% of new vehicle sales in the third quarter of 2024 to 20% in 2025. In Washington state overall, EV buying in the third quarter dropped from 20% to 18%. Those drops are due to Tesla sales falling faster than the rise of non-Tesla sales.
EV Percent of Used Sales: Up 48%
EV purchasing continues rising quickly in used-vehicle purchases. For used cars and trucks in Edmonds-Lynnwood-MLT, electric vehicles rose 48% — from 3.1% of used-vehicle sales in third quarter 2024 to 4.5% in 2025. In used vehicle purchases in Washington state overall, EVs rose 32% — from 2.1% to 2.7%.
EVs on the Road: Up 27%
In September 2025, 4.3% of the vehicles registered in Edmonds, Lynnwood and Mountlake Terrace were electric. That is a 27% increase over the 3.4% of September 2024. Washington state saw the same 27% growth: EV ownership statewide rose from 2.6% in September 2024 to 3.3% in 2025.
How Are We Doing?
We’re getting there, but kind of slowly. We’re adding renewable electricity generation and we’re dropping fossil fuels. That’s good.
Getting up to 4% of the vehicles on the road is a good start. We have 96% of the way to go. The Catholic bishops of Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean ask us to get to 100% as fast as we can.
Nick Maxwell is a certified climate action planner at Climate Protection NW and teaches about climate protection at the Creative Retirement Institute. His Climate Protection opinion column appears monthly. All views expressed are those of the author.
Global carbon emissions up in 2024 at this rate we are either going to burn up or float out to sea.
Jim I am not sure if you are unhappy with rising emissions or not, but if others want to understand the potential for reducing emissions that is happening across the world, despite Trump, read the new book Here Comes the Sun by Bill McKibben. Solar and wind energy are now the cheapest on the planet and are spreading. Solar in Pakistan increased to the equivalent of 30 percent of their grid power and the government and utilities didn’t even know it was happening. It was just people buying panels on their own because it was cheaper and more reliable. There is so much potential so read the book and then jump on the bandwagon to reduce your emissions where you can.
Better get on board with building nuke power plants. There is no way wind and sun are going to provide enough power, especially with the massive demands for feeding AI on the near horizon.
Nuclear energy is the most expensive form of energy there is and it is slow to build. And who is on the hook to clean up a radioactive disaster? Not the utilities. It’s the American taxpayer. Why aren’t the Republicans outraged by that? It’s socialism for the nuclear industry. Nuclear would be impossible without the guarantee that the government will cover the costs of a nuclear accident. That is a huge subsidy.
I am glad you pointed out the extreme weather rainfall events fueled by global heating. How susceptible is Edmonds? Well I believe anywhere, even here, can be susceptible. How do we plan for it? Retain our trees and vegetation, develop wisely with good storm water management, and repair damage to our critical areas like streams and wetlands to improve their ability to manage runoff.
BUT to help STOP these extreme events, do what Nick Maxwell says: buy an EV, and also convert from fossil fuels to heat pumps, heat pump water heaters, and there’s even heat pump dryers. Get an induction stove. I have banished methane gas from my property. And my EV is so much more fun to drive than a gas car. I saved up my dollars to afford this instead of spending it on other things because I believe in voting with my money to try to keep everyone safe including the children who will have to live with disaster if we don’t fix this. It’s time for everyone to pitch in.
Nick and Arlene – You’re exactly right. And I love my used EV that I bought a couple of years ago. It’s a Nissan Leaf and, like Arlene says it’s really fun to drive. We also have a friend who converted his house from gas last year and is so happy with the result. We can’t wait to do it for our old ‘52 rambler.
Yes! Used LEAF’s are more luxurious than I would expect for the price: quick acceleration, extremely quiet cabin, and the way weight is spread across the bottom of the car makes them take corners like sports cars.
They do! It’s a very enjoyable ride. I highly recommend checking out used Leafs
Older Leafs have a very short driving range, maybe 80 miles on a full charge. Know what you’re buying. And know the cost of replacing the battery; I’ve done it twice in Prius’s, and they are not cheap.
Here’s one way to “kick gas” at your home – https://www.kickgasnow.org/
I’ve always liked the idea of geothermal. Any thoughts on that?
Geothermal is a great idea, but you have to spend a lot on maintenance and upkeep. The water is very corrosive and the pipes corrode quickly. But its the best natural energy as far as not causing more pollution, as EV cars, solar panels and Wind turbines do.
Global web icon
cosoenergy.com
https://cosoenergy.com
A friend of mine now deceased was employed by China Lake he was a physicist. He said it worked great there. He came to Edmonds to live near us when he retired. We could power the whole county here ha. Also, if we drilled would it help to reduce the Earthquake potential? Release a little steam around those plates. Just kidding about that really, I don’t know too much about earthquakes. Maybe better to drill into a Volcano?
Geothermal is worth thinking about. They cost more to install, but then use less electricity than air-source heat pumps. I think that, financially, they are most likely to pencil out for large buildings.
One online source from 2024 that looks reasonable mentioned this: “‘Geothermal,’ he said, ‘is almost always not recommended.’ Besides cost, ‘the performance differential with the top-tier air-source systems is pretty small'” (https://boulderreportinglab.org/2024/05/19/geothermal-heat-pumps-another-way-to-electrify-your-boulder-home-but-cost-may-outweigh-benefits-for-most/).
Human caused Global Warming has been proved to be the biggest money grabbing scheme in history. Nothing we do is going to change anything as long as China and India keep spewing out all their toxic pollution. The warming seen is not human caused. It’s solar cyclical. Back in the It’s scientist said we’d be underwater in 10 years. The water level in Manhattan hasn’t changed at all. NYCshould have been under water by now. If you want an electric car, fine. But don’t try to push others into the money grabbing Climate Change people.
I happened to be looking at the coverage of Jim Hanson’s 1988 testimony to congress: https://www.nytimes.com/1988/06/24/us/global-warming-has-begun-expert-tells-senate.html
In 1988, Hanson reported, “The rise in global temperature is predicted to cause a thermal expansion of the oceans and to melt glaciers and polar ice, thus causing sea levels to rise by one to four feet by the middle of the next century.”
So far, the oceans around the world have risen 9 inches. It is now rising at a rate of 1.4 inches each decade, and is speeding up (https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/climate-change-global-sea-level). Even if it weren’t speeding up, we would reach 1 foot by 2047, about the middle of the century — on the low end of Hanson’s estimate.
Was Hanson saying we would all be under water? In one foot? Maybe if you were lying on the beach. Even four feet would make little difference to most of Edmonds. It would submerge Harbor Square and require building up the ferry dock.
Electric vehicles are great, excited to see the progress. It’s important to note, EV’s have a carbon-footprint and are not ‘zero-emission’. Less impact than gas though. NPR has a great write up.
https://www.npr.org/2024/05/09/1250212212/ev-batteries-environmental-impact
Yes. That NPR article is helpful: As they say, “Batteries do more harm upfront … Gasoline’s environmental cost is ongoing.”
SNOPUD reports that more than 90% of the electricity they deliver comes from sources that do not release greenhouse gas pollution the way natural gas and coal do (https://www.snopud.com/community-environment/clean-energy/).
Ah more from the Climate and Gaia proselytizer. The one who tries to peddle China is not the leading polluter of CO2 internationally because they just happen to have a much larger population. Hint – The solution to pollution is not dilution to quote some older Earth First! slogans from 40 years ago.
EV’s DO NOT lower pollution overall. They merely remove the source of pollution from directly at the exhaust pipe of an ICE vehicle to the smokestack of the carbon based power generating plant or the infrastructure matrix of solar and wind from raw resource mining to end user. Now excuse me while I go to the store in my F-350 turbo-diesel. 😉
You bring up a cool fact: EVs emit less in greenhouse gases than gasoline cars even if the electricity the EVs run on was created 100% by burning coal (https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2023/09/electric-vehicles-reduce-carbon-pollution-in-all-u-s-states/)—even if the electricity were created by burning gasoline. The reason is that electric motors are much more efficient at turning energy into rotating wheels. When you buy a gallon of gas for $4.40, you’re spending $1.10 on turning the wheels of your car and $3.30 heating the air around your car (https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/atv.shtml; https://www.aaa.com/autorepair/articles/how-efficient-is-your-cars-engine). It’s a silly thing to do. That’s why every “diesel” locomotive since 1945 has been an electric locomotive. The diesel is burned to run a generator, and then the electricity from the generator runs the electric motors that propel the locomotive forward (http://www.railway-technical.com/trains/rolling-stock-index-l/diesel-locomotives/).
Here in Snohomish, our electricity is not created 100% from coal. For us in Snohomish, our electricity is over 90% renewable (https://www.snopud.com/community-environment/clean-energy/), and will be 100% renewable within a decade or two. When we drive our EVs, we emit a lot less in global warming pollution than gasoline cars and trucks.
Nick: I love this! “When you buy a gallon of gas for $4.40, you’re spending $1.10 on turning the wheels of your car and $3.30 heating the air around your car.” What a wonderful way to demonstrate how inefficient the burning of fossil fuel is. When I charge my car at home, my costs are so low. The same amount of money would buy less than two gallons of gas. If you have to charge at a public station and like to shop at the Shoreline Town and Country, their chargers are very cheap because they are operated by Seattle City Light. That is where I used to go before I got my home charger.
Fossil fuels are a non-renewable resource. I have read but can’t be certain of the accuracy that about a third of crude oil was easily obtained and now nearly used up. Another third is increasingly difficult to extract and is presently being consumed. The final third is very difficult, if not in fact impossible with present technology to extract or even to know if it exists. At the rate of present consumption we will run out of crude oil. Likewise coal and natural gas are in limited supply. Life without fossil fuels will not happen in my lifetime. Still I prefer to play the long game since I have grandchildren. All reputable scientists, and even companies that extract and sell fossil fuels agree that the earth’s climate is warming and human activities are in part to blame. The extraction companies had for years hidden their findings supporting climate change data. I read what is written here by Mr Maxwell. I can confirm through additional resources what he says. Then I read Mr Kaufman and find abuse and accusations of Mr Maxwell rather than rebuttal. This enhances my support of efforts to improve livability for my grandchildren by using the energies that are renewable and climate friendly.
Thanks, Mr. Molly!
It may happen that we run out of oil or natural gas, but I doubt it. Instead, I think the situation is, as Don Huberts said, “The stone age didn’t end because they ran out of stones.”
There is an industry metric, reserves-to-product, that is the amount of oil that has been discovered and can be pumped up that is still in the ground divided by how much oil is consumed each year. Since 1980, the reserves-to-product has been rising (https://ourworldindata.org/search?q=oil+reserves-to-product+&resultType=all). The reason it rises is because more and more oil is found all the time. Oil is discovered faster than we burn it (even though we burn more and more every year).
The way a person drives affects the gas mileage one gets. It is perhaps even truer for driving an electric car. In addition to acceleration and braking, how much the electrical appliances (radio, CD player, heater air conditioner) are used can also affect range. Experts say with an EV one’s driving behavior may need some tweaking.
Let’s put aside the low range of a Nissan Leaf, which makes it a great commuter vehicle rather than one for a long distance trip. Experts recommend drivers of EV’s get used to taking regular breaks during which they can recharge not just their batteries but also attention to the trip. While recharging the battery, doing one’s texting rather than texting while driving, is sensible. Driving in accordance with the countryside and the posted speed limits will extend the range of a battery.