In 2017, PetSmart sold new elastic booties, used as protective coverings to protect dogs’ paws from the hot pavement, as temperatures in Phoenix were forecasted to hit 120 degrees.
Credit: Angie Wang/AP

In every case, these “Big Ones” could be huge disasters not just because of geography and proximity to threats, but also because of decisions to build homes and offices in certain places, ignoring nature. Many other communities in the same regions have similar vulnerabilities.

For too long, we’ve been complacent about climate change and the really scary possibilities of 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) or more of average warming. Two degrees is the amount of warming we are likely to experience by midcentury, and it’s double the warming we’ve experienced to date. As David Wallace-Wells, author of The Uninhabitable Earth, put it in a Vox interview, “being scared about what is possible in the future can be motivating.”

Californians have long been taught to fear and prepare for the next big earthquake — and the state now has stronger infrastructure […]