Bold, creative imagining of the future is and should be going on now for Western North Carolina and its largest city, Asheville, in the wake of the catastrophic tropical storm on Sept. 27. Helene left our home region a war zone. That is an accurate description for the apocalyptic warlike devastation, as I can testify as a resident WNC witness and former foreign correspondent who covered wars and other disasters worldwide. Here this war zone was caused by a cataclysmic weather phenomenon resulting from climate changes.

Previously, many considered our beautiful mountains uniquely protected -- far from oceans, deserts and plains -- a refuge from climate disasters. Now that we know our place could not escape, we must ask and act: how can we best rescue and sustain our local populations, rebuild our infrastructure for sustainability, help restore our natural environment, at the same time diversify our socioeconomic foundation, renew our renowned tourism industry, work together to build a future that preserves and promotes all the good cultural traditions of all WNC people, mountainous region, city, towns, rivers, valleys, hollers?

One proposed direction can both build on our pre-storm heritage and take advantage of the instructive experience of the hurricane and its aftermath. That is by careful, comprehensive planning, we can turn our city and region into the world's climate center to benefit all the local population and contribute positively to the world's future. The whole region can become an ideal climate for a living incubator of creative innovation and change.

This idea was already in the air in WNC's scientific and civic communities. Asheville has been home to NOAA's National Climatic Data Center since 1951. One of the four NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information is located in Asheville, also the World Data Center for Meteorology and the headquarters for the North Carolina Institute for Climate Studies of N.C. State University, with its Cooperative Institute for Satellite Earth System Studies. WNC's universities and colleges all boast strong environmental, climate, sustainability studies programs.

Yet Asheville now is much more than headquarters only for climate data collection and analysis. All of WNC has valuable experience in climate disasters recovery, adaptation and designing mitigation practices. No longer are there only a few people advising on climate from an ivory tower of data collection and analysis, but today the larger population can participate from living, recovering, dreaming, rebuilding from a climatic catastrophe. It's time for WNC to claim leadership not only as data center but as global climate center.

How might we go about establishing this in a way that achieves this goal to work for our whole community? Diplomacy, working for peaceful solutions, plays a key role in all global climate work. Climate diplomacy is a key part of all global climate activities. It should also be activated at the local level, including as part of climate education programs.

All of us, including scientists and civic leaders, should be working together to establish our place as the world's climate center -- not only scientific but also economic, social, cultural, political, academic, technological. We need to use diplomatic tools to promote and establish the region as central on the world map for climate science, technology, innovation, education, traditional small and medium businesses, agriculture, academic research, citizen responses, entrepreneurial adaptation.

We need to let the world know we are ready to lead the way in applying the data with our lived experience for local and global solutions and technological advancement. Asheville and WNC are now in the news media. Timing is ideal to get the message out to the global community that WNC has the profile -- resources, lived experience and will -- to become the global climate center with advantages for all our citizens and visitors.

Letting the world know and bringing the WNC citizenry into all the plans involve diplomacy at all levels, locally, nationally, globally, and back and forth. That entails active public "glocal" diplomacy for local and global collaboration to bring all on board.

All citizens can work together to establish Asheville/WNC as the world climate center to benefit the entire regional population and contribute positively to solutions for the world's future. WNC can turn a climate disaster into a victory for all.