EcoNews Vol. 52, No. 10 – November 2022

by the Northcoast Environmental Center

Letters to EcoNews

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NEC Member Groups

• Sierra Club, North Group, Redwood Ch. www.redwood.sierraclub.org/north/

• California Native Plant Society North Coast Chapter www.northcoastcnps.org

• Redwood Region Audubon Society www.rras.org

Coordinator: Chelsea Pulliam, chelseanec1@gmail.com

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EcoNews

Elena Bilheimer, econewsjournalist@gmail.com

Kris Diamond, Fhyre Phoenix

Authors: Larry Glass, Caroline Gri th, Ivy Munnerlyn, Greg King, Ken Miller, Tom Wheeler, Colin Fiske, Carlrey Arroyo, Elena Bilheimer, Susan Bower, Andrea Pickart, Jasper Larkins, Karina Ramos Villalobos, Jamie Blatter, Sage Alexander, Alec Brown, Martha Walden, Brittany Kleinschnitz

Cover: Renewable energy sources. Freepik.com

Gregg Gold, Sierra Club, North Group Tom Wheeler, EPIC Dan Sealy, At-Large Aisha Cissna, At-Large

• Safe Alternatives for our Forest Environment (SAFE) www.safealt.org

• Environmental Protection Information Center (EPIC) www.wildcalifornia.org

NEC Affiliate Members

• Humboldt Baykeeper www.humboldtbaykeeper.org

• Friends of Del Norte www.fodn.org

• Zero Waste Humboldt www.zerowastehumboldt.org

• Californians for Alternatives to Toxics www.alt2tox.org

• Coalition for Responsible Transportation Priorities (CRTP) www.transportationpriorities.org

• 350 Humboldt world.350.org/humboldt

News From the Center

Larry Glass, NEC Board President Caroline Gri th, NEC Executive Director

Cannabis

Without a doubt one of the biggest local humancaused environmental disasters of the last couple decades has been the complete inability of the State of California and Humboldt, Mendocino and Trinity Counties to come to terms with legalized and outlawed cannabis. e voters and the state legislature condemned the whole legalization process to failure by dreaming up a scheme that only bene ted large corporations and wealthy individuals, leaving out the mom and pop cottage-industry folks.

e state has done an equally terrible job dealing with distribution and retail sales; the whole thing is just a complete unmitigated disaster and the environment has paid a heavy price. Especially considering that the cost of participation in the legal market has led to a booming illegal trade, which is notoriously bad for the environment. At just about every turn the counties have made the wrong choice and then doubled down, and even triple downed on those bad decisions, i.e., in cases involving generators, wells, greenhouses and the size and location of grows.

To be clear, the Northcoast Environmental Center has, from the beginning, encouraged enforcement of restraints against people who have been damaging the environment; this goes for cannabis growers as well as anybody else. at said, we certainly haven’t supported Humboldt County’s so-called cannabis abatement, which has resulted in unfair and uneven enforcement at best. e reliance on satellite technology without ground-truthing what was seen from the air has led to the County busting people just growing vegetables, or people that hadn’t been growing anything, who bought their land without knowing what had gone on there in the past. is gives enforcement e orts a huge blackeye and it prevents us from rooting out the real problems like greedy folks sucking the watersheds dry and using dangerous pesticides and fertilizers that are allowed to get into our watersheds.

Now we hear Governor Newsom has directed the creation of a new “Uni ed Cannabis Enforcement Task Force,” a multi-agency, cross-jurisdictional task force of enforcement agencies designed to better coordinate combating illegal cannabis operations and transnational criminal organizations. Given the state’s track record so far it’s pretty easy to predict this is going to be a giant failure. is news came right after we found out that the Institute for Justice in partnership with local landowners has led a lawsuit against the County of Humboldt, the Board of Supervisors, the Building and Planning Department and John H Ford, the Planning and Building Director. We hope these folks get justice so local government can shift its priorities to actual environmental violations.

Disinformation for Fun and Profit

Social and traditional media is chock full of made up stories and disinformation, which is false information that bad actors intentionally create and share in order to distract people from the truth. e purpose is to drive a wedge between people so they don’t unite in opposition to a real threat or bad idea, and it can be very successful. ese false narratives can make people feel powerless which makes them disengage from the processes by which important decisions are being made. ese decisions many times have direct impacts on their lives and wellbeing. is all allows the purveyor who spreads this bad information to keep pro ting from business as usual or overturn restrictions that prevent them from doing just what they want. is is used to elect political leadership, and by institutions that will support the status quo that they pro t from. Purveyors of disinformation turn our basic instincts against ourselves. e more times bad information is repeated, even when it’s a lie, the more likely it is that people will accept it as the truth. Sound familiar?

is is the same tactic used by Joseph Goebbels of the Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda. at may sound dramatic, but disinformation is on the rise and having an e ect on how people engage with important issues, and who they trust to bring them information.

Here at EcoNews we take our responsibility to our readers very seriously. We know that a well-informed public is essential, not only to democracy, but to our ability to implement the changes necessary to thrive on this planet. We strive to provide fact-based reporting and views from across the environmental spectrum so that we can better understand each other and our current reality, and so we can explore possible solutions to the challenges we face. We know that the realities of climate change and capitalism can be pretty dire, so our goal is to balance those facts with stories about how we can build a better, more equitable world together. EcoNews is a nonpro t publication and although we have advertisers, the vast majority of our funding comes from individuals. Your nancial support ensures it so that we can o er fact-based, solutions-oriented environmental journalism for free at newsstands around Humboldt, Del Norte, Trinity and Mendocino Counties. If you are able, please consider lling out the form on the back page and becoming a member of the Northcoast Environmental Center. With your help, we can continue to inform the public, hold industry and government accountable, and collectively envision a better world. ank you for your support.

Community Coastal Column

Coastal cleanup Month 2022

Coastal Cleanup Month 2022 was a huge success, thanks to dedicated volunteers and generous sponsors. With warm weather and lessening pandemic restrictions, we saw an increase from 150 volunteers in 2021 to over 600 this year. School groups, religious organizations, and local nonpro ts all got involved by hosting cleanup sites across the county.

All told, we removed over 3,500 lbs of trash from Humboldt beaches, streets, and trails. As usual, the #1 trash item was cigarette butts. Volunteers picked up 6,998 butts over the course of four weeks! Other top items were plastic food wrappers, microplastics, and nails.

Wondering where all these nails are coming from? Pallets are a cheap source of wood for bon res, but they leave behind hundreds of nails in the sand. Next time you want to burn a pallet, remove the nails rst. If you’d like to help collect nails that are left behind, contact the NEC and we can loan you a magnet stick.

We are incredibly grateful to the folks who came out to volunteer or helped spread the word. We also couldn’t have done this without our amazing sponsors: North Coast Co-op, Redwood Capital Bank, Compass Community Credit Union, Humboldt Pet Supply, Pierson Building Supply, Cypress Grove, Sierra Club North Group Redwood Chapter, and Eureka Natural Foods. See you all next year for Coastal Cleanup Month 2023!

Thank You!

Ivy Munnerlyn, Coastal Programs Coordinator

Volunteers helped remove trash from the Eureka Public Marina during a cleanup hosted by the City of Eureka.

Seaforth Elementary School students, parents, and teachers cleaned up the Hammond Trail.

Volunteers picking up trash at Hiller Park.

by the City

Redwood

Letters to EcoNews

Widespread Distributed Solar on the Horizon

Greg King, Executive Director, Siskiyou Land Conservancy & Ken Miller, Director SLC

Tom Wheeler’s “O shore Wind on the Horizon” (EcoNews September 2022) presumes that “o shore wind is necessary to combat the climate crisis,” but then he cautions that “while taking action to stop the climate crisis we don’t also contribute to the related biodiversity crisis.”

Unfortunately, Wheeler’s discussion is limited to a few windmills in a “relatively poorly studied” ocean, skipping the massive land and sea industrialization required to install and support what could eventually be multiple wind turbines towering over 800 feet high, with blades each the length of a football eld, and giant cables and ugly wires conducting electricity thousands of miles through vulnerable landscapes. Hydrogen production, which Wheeler also touts, begets even more industrialized habitat.

Imagine a completely di erent scenario, called Widespread Distributed Solar (WDS). With WDS, every available rooftop and parking space is out tted

with solar arrays that are networked in islandable Microgrids with storage, and connected to the grid.

WDS does not change existing land or sea uses (i.e. habitat), and produces electricity where it is used, obviating extra transmission lines. It can be installed in a matter of months, with available technology, by local workers, producing more local jobs, more revenue for the producer, more resilience in emergencies, and less ecological harm per kilowatt, than any other source. At the same time, the end-user’s energy autonomy will grow signi cantly.

Long-lived solar panels produce energy the way living systems do: silent electron transfer with negligible heat, no C02 production, and no need for petrochemicals.

No amount of “scienti c adaptation” can undo the second law of thermodynamics, which explains why “the climatic impacts from solar photovoltaic systems are about ten times smaller than wind systems,” according to a Harvard study. When energy is transferred from wind to turbine, some of that energy scatters, causing a desiccating turbulence in

the wake and downstream of the blades, potentially a ecting the local climate, including our precious fog, temperature and humidity.

Rather than model disruptive nineteenth century wind technologies, Humboldt could model intelligent distributed solar as the least impactful and most democratic energy source—the best local job creator that also incentivizes and powers the sustainable transition to electric vehicles and tools, heat pumps, and induction stoves, while adding bene cial shade to parking areas, irrigation canals, and some limited agriculture. Nation-wide, WDS could supply 40% of our electrical needs.

Meanwhile, the WDS industry is anxiously awaiting an invitation to help deploy systems throughout the County, if only they were given a chance. Perhaps our newly con gured Board of Supervisors will see the light and open RCEA to the solar opportunities that other communities are exploiting. Here is where Humboldt can lead by example, irrespective of the future of o shore wind.

Solar Can’t Do It Alone: How Offshore Wind Complements Solar Energy

Tom Wheeler, Executive Director, Environmental Protection Information Center

Decarbonizing the North Coast should be thought of as a form of habitat protection, as reducing greenhouse gas emissions contributes to global e orts to minimize the impact of climate change. Climate change is already impacting our North Coast environment. Coastal fog is in decline and with it the range of coast redwoods is expected to narrow and migrate north. Ocean acidi cation, caused by increased absorption of CO2 in our oceans, is already damaging marine ecosystems. Wild res have already become more frequent and severe. Stream temperatures, already dangerously warm, are expected to increase, placing cold-water species, including our local salmon runs, at risk. You get the gist. We bear a responsibility to take local action to address this global problem.

Decarbonizing the North Coast is going to require clean, renewable electricity—and a lot of it. California’s climate goals are projected to increase

electricity consumption by as much as 68 percent by 2045. Solar is going to be a workhorse in supplying that electricity but it can’t do it alone. To replace fossil fuels, we need a combination of technologies to create both a reliable and predictable supply of energy.

Matching electricity supply and demand, something called “grid balancing,” is challenging. For example, this year on May 8 around 3pm, California produced enough renewable electricity to meet 103 percent of statewide demand—a rst in our state’s history. e bulk of this renewable energy came from solar. (Let’s pause brie y to celebrate this historic achievement.)

Yet, although we had enough renewables to power all statewide demand, fossil fuel power plants, like the Humboldt Bay Generating Station, were still humming. While solar peaked, we still were releasing 931 metric tons of CO2 per hour from burning methane. Why?

Because, by 8pm, the sun was nearly down and solar production had fallen o , yet electricity demand was

still increasing (and would peak at approximately 8:30pm). To match supply with demand, methane power plants had to pick up when solar dropped o and ramping up production at fossil fuel plants takes a long time. Without something to replace solar, not only did we have to burn fossil fuels that evening but we also had to keep plants running throughout the day so that they were ready to take over from solar. How can we shutter the Humboldt Bay Generating Station and other fossil fuel power plants across the state? Floating o shore wind can help. Wind energy naturally complements solar. Modeled power production from o shore wind predicts peak production in the evening, closer to the daily peak demand. O shore wind has enormous power potential. e Humboldt Wind Energy Area has the potential for 1.6 gigawatts of power, enough for 560,000 homes.

Even solar and wind together won’t be enough. To better integrate “variable” sources of power into the grid like wind and solar — so-called because their

continued on next page

Solar Can’t Do It Alone

continued from previous page

production varies according to conditions (unlike “baseload” generators, like nuclear or methane, which are capable of providing sustained and easily planned-for generation)—we also will need other infrastructure improvements.

Grid infrastructure improvements are necessary to add exibility into our system, allowing di erent grid regions to “share” power between each other. ( ink: it might be sunny in Redding but cloudy on the coast.) Currently Humboldt County’s transmission infrastructure is old and out-dated. We lack su cient connections to share power, requiring substantial in-county production of electricity (and more methane burned at the Humboldt Bay Generating Station). With improved connections, Humboldt would be better able to rely on electricity generated elsewhere when conditions are subprime locally and we can share our excess power when we have it. Sharing excess renewable energy generated by o shore wind turbines would allow Humboldt to play an active role in decarbonizing the rest of the State by accelerating its transition away from fossil fuels. is, of course, bene ts us here in Humboldt County because every ton of CO2 generated anywhere on the planet increases the catastrophic risks of climate change.

Energy storage also has to be part of the solution. Our region has led the way in battery storage, with large battery storage projects already online at the airport and at the Blue Lake Rancheria. More energy storage projects are also planned, including a large battery array on the Samoa Peninsula. Stored energy can come in a number of di erent forms, from batteries to pumped hydro to green hydrogen, each

with their own environmental costs and practical challenges. Stored energy can smooth spikes in electricity production and provide coverage for gaps, say when solar starts to drop o but if the wind hasn’t reached its production potential yet. Energy storage, while important, also has its limitations. It stretches the imagination how stored solar alone could meet the existing demand or further enhanced demands. (Plus there’s the problem of cost, with distributed solar—without any storage—already about double the cost per MWh than is projected for oating o shore wind. Add in storage and you’ll double the price again.)

Managing our demand will also be necessary to reach 100 percent renewable energy. You may already be enrolled in a plan that gives preferential pricing to electricity when it is not in high demand. Reducing our energy usage from 4-9pm, when solar drops o and we have a sudden need for power, is particularly helpful in smoothing demand curves. Improvements to our homes can reduce the amount of energy required to heat and cool them and modern appliances can be automatically set to use electricity at times when the grid is powered by renewables.

And walking, biking, rolling or riding the bus instead of driving reduces the amount of electricity we will need as we transition to a fully electri ed vehicle eet.

One hundred percent renewable energy is both necessary to avert a climate disaster and achievable. We need to use all the tools in the clean energy toolbox to maximize our chances of success. Floating o shore wind could be our region’s biggest clean energy source. We have an environmental duty to explore this possibility to see if it will work for Humboldt.

PG&E Spraying

Oct. 8, 2022 – Recent news of PG&E spraying power poles alarmed Humboldt County residents. Gang Green talks to two veterans of the Pesticide Wars, Larry Glass of Safe Alternatives for our Forest Environment and Patty Clary of Californians for Alternatives to Toxics, about the long history of citizen activism against spraying.

New Research Calls Into Question Carbon O sets From Northwest California Forests

Sept. 24, 2022 – New research published in the journal Global Change Biology raises alarming questions about the e cacy of forest carbon programs registered in California’s cap-and-trade program. Utilizing satellite imagery, particularly of forests in Northwest California, researchers have compared the carbon sequestered by forests versus what is claimed and have emerged with a concerning conclusion: forests registered in the o set program are overcounting the carbon that they are paid to protect. Researcher Shane Co eld joins Gang Green to discuss his ndings and the implications of his research on California’s carbon emission reduction strategy.

A Love Story About the Klamath Mountains

Sept. 10, 2022 – Michael Kau man and Justin Garwood are in love with the Klamath Mountains, the rugged and remote mountain range in Northern California that is world-renowned for its biodiversity. They, together with 32 other co-authors, have published the rst de nitive natural history guide to the region. Michael and Justin explain to Gang Green why the region is so special on this week’s episode of the EcoNews.

Klamath River Woes but Progress on Dam Removal

Sept. 3, 2022 – It is tough to be a sh in the Klamath River. On the heels of a large shkill caused by a debris ow following the McKinney Fire comes another shkill, this time caused by a pathogen commonly known as gill rot. Elsewhere in the Klamath watershed, ranchers are illegally diverting water, creating perilous conditions in the Shasta River. But there is good news too. The nal environmental analysis for Klamath River dam removal is complete and dam removal may begin as early as next year. Guests Craig Tucker, Dave Webb, and Nick Joslin join Gang Green to break down what’s happening in the Klamath.

O shore wind turbines. Source: National Renewable Energy Lab, ikr

Recent EcoNews Reports:

Zoning Laws and Social Injustice

Colin Fiske, Coalition for Responsible Transportation Priorities

is is the third in a series of articles in the EcoNews about the history of how American communities were designed for cars. e rst two articles described the origins of tra c laws and the criminalization of walking in the street. is month’s article describes the origin of zoning laws and how those laws have both perpetuated social injustice and helped create landscapes that favor personal automobiles over other modes of transportation.

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, city governments in the US started creating systematic plans regulating what types of building and activities could take place in speci c areas, a practice known technically as exclusionary zoning—but usually just called “zoning.” Previously, it would have been impossible to legislate the separation of areas where people lived from where they worked, shopped, or played, because people traveled mostly by foot and couldn’t cover long distances e ectively on a daily basis. Ironically, the technological development which initially allowed exclusionary zoning to take hold was a form of public transportation—the streetcar.1 But soon the private automobile, and the extensive road network built to serve it, would allow city leaders to justify ever greater zoned separation of uses—and of people.

e story most commonly told about the rise of zoning is that it was needed to separate dangerous and polluting industries from homes—a Progressive Era response to poor living conditions in post-Industrial Revolution cities. But this is only partly true. Much of the pressure to implement zoning rules actually came from wealthy, white, property-owning residents who wanted to keep both undesirable structures and activities, as well as people of color and immigrants, away from their neighborhoods. Even in the very earliest days of zoning, this was often framed as a concern about property values2—a refrain still commonly heard in zoning hearings today.

e spread of zoning codes coincided with the spread of the automobile, which allowed cities to put greater distances between people and uses they viewed as “incompatible.” Cars to get from distant homes and workplaces also served as markers of wealth and privilege, a role they continue to ll today. For example, concern about property values has for decades been a commonly raised objection not just to new housing but also to urban trails.3 e usual explanation o ered for this concern is that the type of people who use trails, particularly at night, are untrustworthy or

undesirable. In other words, homeowners think that people who walk or bike for transportation will lower their property values just by existing in the same neighborhood. Today, people raising these concerns do not typically mention race explicitly, but racial undertones are sometimes easy to detect.

White property owners at the turn of the twentieth century were not so shy about arguing that people of color living in their neighborhoods would be bad for property values. In fact, many of the earliest zoning codes were explicitly race-based, designating di erent residential areas for people of di erent races. Even after the Supreme Court outlawed this practice in 1917, cities gured out many ways to enforce de facto segregation through their zoning codes.4

One of the most important zoning tools cities have used to enforce residential segregation is the designation of neighborhoods in which only singlefamily homes are allowed. The first exclusionary single-family zoning rules were implemented in 1916 at the behest of a powerful developer in Berkeley, CA to “protect” a wealthy white subdivision—and its home values—from a proposed Black-owned dance hall and Asian-owned laundries. ese properties already had legal restrictions known as racial covenants on their titles which barred people of color from purchasing them. In the coming decades, discriminatory lending practices known today as “redlining” would be formalized by banks and the federal government, enforcing racial segregation by denying home loans to people of color.

rough most of the twentieth century, single-family zoning worked in concert with racial covenants and redlining to create and perpetuate both residential segregation and an enormous generational wealth gap, both of which persist to the present day.5 And while racial covenants and redlining are both now illegal, single-family zoning still applies to the majority of the land in many American towns and cities, including our communities here on the North Coast.

e persistent racial wealth gap impacts not just homeownership but also mobility. e average cost of owning a new car now exceeds $10,000 a year,6 and people in car-dependent places like most of Humboldt County spend almost as much on transportation as they do on housing.7 is has become another ongoing barrier to neighborhood integration and diversity, as our zoning rules practically require car ownership, especially to live in single-family areas.

at’s because low-density development patterns which reach their zenith with single-family zoning mean, by de nition, that people live farther away from each other. Densities are lowered even further by other ubiquitous features of these zoning codes, such

as minimum lot sizes, height limits and requirements to “set back” buildings from the edges of the lot.

Exclusionary zoning also ensures that homes are not located next to the places people work and play. Even for people who live in denser multifamily housing, the distances to many destinations are increased by having to travel through low-density development to work, shop, visit doctors, and play. Because short distances are required for walkability and bikeability, and higher concentrations of people are required to support good public transit, exclusionary zoning breeds car dependency.

e right of cities to enforce not-explicitly-racebased exclusionary zoning laws was upheld by the Supreme Court in 1926 in a case known as Euclid v. Ambler. (As a result, exclusionary zoning is also called “Euclidean zoning.”) is provided rm legal footing for the rapid expansion of zoning laws, and local governments used this power primarily to create and maintain exclusively single-family, mostly white, upper-middle-class neighborhoods, which also were (and still are) car-dependent. While recent state laws in California have loosened restrictions somewhat, forcing cities to allow some additional housing units even in single-family districts, zoning laws are still a major barrier to creating equitable, less car-dependent communities.

Sources: 1Erickson, Amanda. 2012. e Birth of Zoning Codes, a History. Bloomberg City Lab. https://www.bloomberg. com/news/articles/2012-06-19/the-birth-of-zoningcodes-a-history.

2Erickson 2012.

3Webel, Suzanne. 2000. Trail E ects on Neighborhoods: Home Value, Safety, Quality of Life. American Trails. www.americantrails.org/resources/trail-e ects-onneighborhoods-home-value-safety-quality-of-life.

4Silver, Christopher. 1997. e Racial Origins of Zoning in American Cities. From: Manning omas, June and Marsha Ritzdorf, eds. Urban Planning and the African American Community: In the Shadows.

5Baldassari, Erin and Molly Solomon. 2020. e Racist History of Single-Family Zoning. KQED Radio. www. kqed.org/news/11840548/the-racist-history-of-singlefamily-home-zoning

6 Moye, Brittany. 2022. Annual Cost of New Car Ownership Crosses $10K Mark. AAA. newsroom. aaa.com/2022/08/annual-cost-of-new-car-ownershipcrosses-10k-mark.

7Center for Neighborhood Technology. H+T Index. htaindex.cnt.org/map.

Zoni cación e Injusticia Social

Colin Fiske, Coalition for Responsible Transportation Priorities

Traduccion por Carlrey Arroyo

Este es el tercero de una serie de artículos en EcoNews sobre la historia de cómo se diseñaron las comunidades estadounidenses para los automóviles. Los primeros dos artículos describieron los orígenes de las leyes de tránsito y la criminalización de caminar en la calle. El artículo de este mes describe el origen de las leyes de zoni cación y cómo esas leyes han perpetuado la injusticia social y ayudado a crear paisajes que favorecen los automóviles personales sobre otros modos de transporte.

A nes del siglo XIX y principios del XX, los gobiernos de las ciudades de los EE. UU. comenzaron a crear planes sistemáticos que regulan qué tipos de edi cios y actividades podrían llevarse a cabo en áreas especí cas, una práctica conocida técnicamente como zoni cación de exclusión, pero generalmente llamada simplemente "zoni cación". Previamente, habría sido imposible legislar la separación de las áreas donde vivían las personas de donde trabajaban, compraban o jugaban, porque la gente viajaba principalmente a pie y no podía cubrir largas distancias de manera efectiva todos los días. Irónicamente, el desarrollo tecnológico que inicialmente permitió que se a anzará la zoni cación excluyente fue una forma de transporte público: el tranvía. Pero pronto el automóvil privado, y la extensa red de carreteras construida para atenderlo, permitiría a los líderes de la ciudad justi car una separación cada vez mayor por zonas de usos y de personas.

La historia más comúnmente contada sobre el aumento de la zoni cación es que era necesaria para separar las industrias peligrosas y contaminantes de los hogares, una respuesta de la Era Progresista a las malas condiciones de vida en las ciudades posteriores a la Revolución Industrial. Pero esto es sólo parcialmente cierto. Gran parte de la presión para implementar las reglas de zoni cación en realidad provino de los residentes ricos, blancos y propietarios que querían mantener las estructuras y actividades indeseables, así como las personas de color y los inmigrantes, lejos de sus vecindarios. Incluso cuando empezó la zoni cación, se decía que era por preocupación sobre los valores de las propiedades, una preocupación común que todavía se escucha hoy en día en las audiencias de zoni cación.

La difusión de los códigos de zoni cación coincidió con la difusión del automóvil, lo que permitió a las ciudades poner mayores distancias entre las personas

y los usos que consideraban "incompatibles". Los autos para llegar desde hogares y lugares de trabajo distantes también sirvieron como marcadores de riqueza y privilegio, un papel que continúan desempeñando en la actualidad. Por ejemplo, la preocupación por el valor de las propiedades ha sido durante décadas una objeción común no solo para las viviendas nuevas sino también para los senderos urbanos. La explicación habitual que se ofrece para esta preocupación es que el tipo de personas que usan los senderos, particularmente de noche, no son con ables o no son deseables. En otras palabras, los propietarios piensan que las personas que caminan o andan en bicicleta como medio de transporte reducirán el valor de sus propiedades simplemente por vivir en el mismo vecindario. Hoy en día, las personas que plantean estas inquietudes no suelen mencionar raza de forma explícita, pero los trasfondos raciales a veces son fáciles de detectar.

Los propietarios blancos a principios del siglo XX no eran tan tímidos al argumentar que las personas de color que vivían en sus vecindarios serían perjudiciales para el valor de las propiedades. De hecho, muchos de los primeros códigos de zoni cación se basaban explícitamente en la raza, designando diferentes áreas residenciales para personas de diferentes razas. Incluso después de que la Corte Suprema prohibiera esta práctica en 1917, las ciudades descubrieron muchas formas de hacer cumplir la segregación de facto a través de sus códigos de zoni cación.

Una de las herramientas de zonificación más importantes que las ciudades han utilizado para hacer cumplir la segregación residencial es la designación de vecindarios en los que solo se permiten viviendas unifamiliares. Las primeras reglas de zoni cación unifamiliares excluyentes se implementaron en 1916 a instancias de un poderoso desarrollador en Berkeley para "proteger" una subdivisión de blancos adinerados, y el valor de sus viviendas, de un salón de baile propuesto para propietarios negros y lavanderías propiedad de asiáticos. Estas propiedades ya tenían restricciones legales conocidas como pactos raciales en sus títulos que prohibían que las personas de color las compraran. En las próximas décadas, los bancos y el gobierno federal formalizarían las prácticas crediticias discriminatorias conocidas hoy como "línea roja", lo que impondría la segregación racial al negar préstamos hipotecarios a personas de color. A lo largo de la mayor parte del siglo XX, la zoni cación unifamiliar funcionó en conjunto con pactos raciales y líneas rojas para crear y perpetuar tanto la segregación residencial como una enorme brecha generacional de riqueza, las cuales persisten hasta el día de hoy. Y aunque los pactos raciales y las líneas rojas ahora son ilegales, la zoni cación

unifamiliar aún se aplica a la mayoría de las tierras en muchos pueblos y ciudades estadounidenses, incluidas nuestras comunidades aquí en la costa norte.

La persistente brecha de riqueza racial afecta no solo a la propiedad de la vivienda sino también a la movilidad. El costo promedio de poseer un auto nuevo ahora supera los $10,000 al año, y las personas en lugares que dependen del automóvil, como la mayor parte del condado de Humboldt, gastan casi tanto en transporte como en vivienda. Esto se ha convertido en otra barrera constante para la integración y diversidad de los vecindarios, ya que nuestras reglas de zoni cación prácticamente requieren la propiedad de un automóvil, especialmente para vivir en áreas unifamiliares.

Esto se debe a que los patrones de desarrollo de baja densidad que alcanzan su cénit con la zoni cación unifamiliar signi can, por de nición, que las personas viven más alejadas unas de otras. Las densidades se reducen aún más debido a otras características omnipresentes de estos códigos de zonificación, como los tamaños mínimos de los lotes, los límites de altura y los requisitos para "retirar" los edi cios de los bordes del lote.

La zoni cación excluyente también asegura que las casas no estén ubicadas junto a los lugares donde la gente trabaja y juega. Incluso para las personas que viven en viviendas multifamiliares más densas, las distancias a muchos destinos aumentan al tener que viajar a través de desarrollos de baja densidad para trabajar, comprar, visitar médicos y jugar. Debido a que se requieren distancias cortas para caminar y andar en bicicleta, y se requieren concentraciones más altas de personas para apoyar un buen transporte público, la zoni cación de exclusión genera dependencia del automóvil.

El derecho de las ciudades a hacer cumplir leyes de zoni cación excluyentes basadas no explícitamente en la raza fue con rmado por la Corte Suprema en 1926 en un caso conocido como Euclid v. Ambler. (Como resultado, la zoni cación de exclusión también se denomina “zoni cación euclidiana”). Esto proporcionó una base legal rme para la rápida expansión de las leyes de zoni cación, y los gobiernos locales utilizaron este poder principalmente para crear y mantener viviendas unifamiliares, en su mayoría blancas, de clase alta. barrios de clase media, que también eran (y siguen siendo) dependientes del coche. Si bien las leyes estatales recientes en California han a ojado un poco las restricciones, obligando a las ciudades a permitir algunas unidades de vivienda adicionales incluso en distritos unifamiliares, las leyes de zoni cación siguen siendo una barrera importante para crear comunidades equitativas y menos dependientes del automóvil.

Daluviwi’

Community Garden

grew lots of lemon cucumbers, zucchini, tomatoes, artichokes, beets, eggplant, peppers, onions, cut owers, cantaloupe, watermelon, shiso, basil, garlic, and other crops. “I'm a particular sucker for eggplants. I've always enjoyed eggplant and just recently we had one of our rst harvests o our plants in the high tunnel,” said Holsapple. “I wound up buying a lot of them myself and made a huge batch of baba ghanoush at home and it was just delicious.”

Elena Bilheimer, EcoNews Journalist

e Daluviwi’ Community Garden rst began as a way to provide food for the Blue Lake Rancheria Elder’s Nutrition Program. Started around 2017, this project supplies pre-prepared frozen meals to roughly 85 households made up of tribal elders in the community. Up until 2020, the garden was managed seasonally by di erent tribal sta members until Daniel Holsapple was hired as the full time Community Garden Manager. With an education in horticulture and Native American studies, Holsapple has applied for various grants in order to expand the garden’s o erings to include a farmstand, agricultural workshops, native plant propagation, a composting program, and community garden plots.

Taking up only about a quarter of an acre with active crop production, the farm is bustling with various projects and plants. Holsapple and his coworker Frederique Guezille, who is in charge of creating agriculture-focused educational programs, manage the general garden tasks with help from college and high school interns as well as local volunteers. e garden is comprised of two high tunnels full of seasonal vegetables, a small fruit tree orchard, a native plant propagation area, a small ock of egg-laying coturnix quail, and a composting program that utilizes food scraps from the Tribe’s Powers Creek Brewery commercial kitchens and Honeycomb Co ee in Blue Lake. is native plant propagation has extended beyond the garden, as last year Holsapple and his coworkers worked to restore a section of Powers Creek, a waterway which runs along the south side of the Rancheria and through the town of Blue Lake before entering the Mad River. In addition to replanting many native trees, they incorporated native purple needlegrass that was started from seed in the garden. is plant helps stabilize the creek’s banks due to its vast and deep root networks, as well as providing food for native wildlife.

“One of the things that really inspired me to want to get into this work was seeing what

many tribes have been doing in terms of protecting cultural resources, removing invasive plant species, and creating educational opportunities for the public to learn about traditional plant uses,” said Holsapple. “I really saw this community garden as an opportunity to further that work. Growing food, growing native plants, and educating the public about tribal food sovereignty and the importance of encouraging native plant species. It just seemed like the perfect way to promote these e orts and so far it has been amazing.”

Some of Holsapple’s favorite native plants to grow include coyote brush (Baccharis pilularis), because it owers at a time when a lot of other owering plants aren't and provides a year round source of food for bene cial insects, and California buckeye (Aesculus californica) because of its beautifully scented owers. Holsapple and the garden team recently planted a fall crop consisting of di erent types of cabbages, beets, radishes, kales, and carrots. is summer, they

In order to grow such a diverse array of crops, Holsapple utilizes various agricultural techniques that he enjoys teaching to anyone interested. is season, he tried the lower and lean technique for his cucumbers and tomatoes, which allows for the vines to grow continuously rather than being limited by the height of their trellising structure. ey also employ a technique that includes laying down cardboard under beds of compost in order to create a biodegradable weed barrier.

“One of the major goals I have for the garden is to maintain it as an educational space,” said Holsapple. “Obviously that's been happening with the interns and volunteers, as they get a lot of bene t out of spending time in the garden and just learning the process of crop production. But we've also had some youth groups come into the garden to learn about gardening and we've had community members who are participating in community garden plots come in.” Later on in the interview he said, “We're always open to the public coming in to learn about the garden.”

Currently, Holsapple is in the midst of creating a project through a grant from the USDA that will deliver food boxes consisting of ve pounds of fresh produce and two pounds of meat once a month to households in need. e goal is to incorporate as much of the community garden’s produce as possible, while sourcing any additional foods such as meat from other local farmers.

In order to continue with these important projects, the garden will need to rely on more volunteer help over the winter. If community members are interested in becoming involved or gaining additional information, they are encouraged to reach out to Daniel at dholsapple@bluelakerancheriansn.gov. e farmstand will be open on Fridays all through October from 2 PM to 6 PM, located at 504 Chartin Avenue right before the Blue Lake Rancheria gas station. Additionally, the Environment and Culture O ce that the garden is part of recently started an instagram account (@blr_environmental_o ce) where, among other things, it plans to share regular updates about the garden’s various projects and species in addition to spotlight posts about di erent native plants.

Daluviwi' Community Garden grows a large variety of food crops for our farm stand and for the Tribe's Elder's Nutrition Program. Check out their farm stand Fridays from 2-6pm at 504 Chartin Road in Blue Lake!

Public Outrage Disrupts PG&E's Toxic Spray Plan

Susan Bower, Founding Member of Safe Alternatives for Our Forest Environment (SAFE)

On September 29, 2022, PG&E alerted Humboldt County that it was going to spray herbicides, including glyphosate, along its easements across the region, but failed to alert landowners or tenants of this new threat. Due to public outcry, PG&E postponed the plan. e NEC, EPIC, Safe Alternatives for Our Forest Environment, Californians for Alternatives to Toxics, Humboldt Baykeeper, Humboldt 350, e Coalition for Responsible Transportation Priorities and Friends of the Eel River are opposed to herbicide spraying without consent and are working to prevent similar incidents in the future. If you are concerned about herbicide application on your property, please contact PG&E at 1-800-564-5080 and email treesafety@pge.com.

In human history, throughout the world the most applied plant killer (herbicide) is glyphosate and still is, with even more sales of it since the invention of genetically modi ed crops, especially of corn, soybeans, sugar cane, and potatoes. Considering that so much of this poison has been spread on land since the mid 1970s when it was rst formulated and sold as Roundup, we wish PG&E’s assertion that glyphosate is relatively safe when applied according to the label was true. But it is not!

There is a legion of scientific evidence and experience that refutes claims of glyphosate’s safety. Agrichemical manufacturers of glyphosate, rst in the USA and now including some in China and elsewhere, are busily defending this seemingly cheap, easy killer for the big money it makes them. But increasingly the evidence is rolling in that not everything in the Roundup corral is A-OK. Rather than endlessly argue the studies presented by each side, we urge you to familiarize yourself with the scienti c biochemical evidence about its harmfulness to human life and the environment and why glyphosate’s use should be discontinued and certainly not used anywhere in Humboldt County for any reason.

An excellent place to do a deep dive into this

killer is Toxic Legacy: How the Weedkiller Glyphosate Is Destroying Our Health and the Environment, written by Stephanie Sene , Ph.D., senior research scientist at the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Sene takes us on a ‘genial’ biochemical journey through the harmful e ects of glyphosate on humans from autism, gut microorganism damage, liver, kidney, fertility, autoimmunity malfunction to obesity. Glyphosate is pervasive in air, rain and groundwater, and soil, causing die-o of toads, bacteria, fungi, and other organisms that live in symbiotic relationships with plants for mutual bene t and for ours also.

For a short read with many related topics go to Pesticide Action Network (www.panna.org) which is an international network. PAN North America is one of ve regional centers worldwide linking agricultural, consumer, labor, health and environmental groups “working to create a just, thriving food system. For too long, pesticide and biotech corporations have dictated how we grow food, placing the health and economic burdens of pesticide use on farmers, farmworkers and rural communities.” PAN’s ‘state of the science’ documents are an extensive review of glyphosate studies detailing harmful human health e ects and environmental disruption tied to it. Some of these, in addition to Sene ’s ndings, are “cancer, genotoxicity, endocrine disruption, reproductive and developmental reduction, neurological damage, and immune system dysfunction.”

is time we cannot a ord to again wait decades for more studies and legions of lawsuits because of harm to health by these other herbicides PG&E is planning to use: “Esplanade 200SC”, (Indaziflam) and "Milestone" (Aminopyralid). Included also will be "Liberate Adjuvant" a surfactant, which adds to the persistence and penetration into soils in the environment. At some point we need to stop blanketing land with ‘cides’-- agents designed to kill life forms almost always a ecting more than the targets.

Finding a ‘so-called natural’ herbicide that is e ective and cheap is not the answer for PG&E either. eir power-lines go near people, other living beings,

water, and air all of which are already being negatively impacted by ‘forever’ man-made chemicals. We need to perfect and create life a rming methods, as is being done in agroecological farming on a large scale worldwide. Already some kinds of goats and sheep are used along some power-lines, in Whiskeytown National Recreation Area, and for clearing land in nearby Shasta County, and elsewhere to convert unwanted vegetation into fertilizer rather than dead and dried carbon emitters. And these sheep and goats help supply a market for goat and mutton meat.

Here in Humboldt some residents could perform this service with stewardship contracts that are fair and well designed for success, even around power poles. ese wholesome jobs for people would likely cost PG&E and their rate-payers less if compared to an accurate calculation of all their costs of using herbicides for vegetation management. May PG&E approach their needs for vegetation management as opportunities to develop good public relations and to contribute to civic well being.

Safe Alternatives for our Forest Environment (S.A.F.E.) was begun in 1979 in response to massive helicopter spraying pesticide on public and private timber lands in Trinity County. Local citizens became active and formed S.A.F.E. to promote alternatives to pesticide spraying. S.A.F.E. has since branched out into advocating and informing the public about environmentally sound forest management.

Protection

Center

EPIC in Court to Protect Paci c Fishers

Tom Wheeler, EPIC Executive Director

On September 13, the Environmental Protection Information Center (EPIC), Center for Biological Diversity and Klamath Siskiyou Wildlands Center sued the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for denying endangered species protection to West Coast shers. Fishers are relatives of mink, otters and wolverines and live in old-growth forests. e Service had previously determined that shers warranted protection across the West Coast, but in 2020 reversed course and only protected them in the southern Sierra Nevada.

Fur trapping took a toll on sher populations but was largely banned by the 1950s. Extensive logging of the majority of forests along the West Coast has kept the animals from recovering. Now climate change and rodenticides used by marijuana growers leave them even more imperiled.

“I’m deeply concerned about the survival of the mysterious sher and the old-growth forests it calls home,” said Noah Greenwald, endangered species director at the Center. “ ese tenacious animals can eat porcupines, but they can’t survive the damage we’re doing to their forests. Fishers needed Endangered Species Act protection 20 years ago, and they need it even more today.”

EPIC and allies rst petitioned the Service to grant West Coast shers endangered species protection in 2000, leading to a 2004 determination by the agency that the sher should be listed as threatened throughout its West Coast range. Rather than provide this protection the Service delayed, arguing there was a lack of resources. e agency rea rmed the fisher’s imperilment in annual reviews through 2016, when it abruptly reversed course and denied protection. After the groups successfully challenged that decision, it granted protections to shers in the southern Sierra Nevada but nowhere else.

“ e Fish and Wildlife Service has a legal obligation to list species at threat of extinction but politics too often intervenes,” said Tom Wheeler, executive director at the Environmental Protection Information Center. “For twenty years, the Service has employed every trick to avoid listing the sher. We are in court because enough is enough.”

Fishers once roamed forests from British Columbia to Southern California but now are limited to two native populations in the southern Sierra Nevada mountains, plus others in northern California and southwestern Oregon. ere are also small, reintroduced populations in the central Sierra Nevada, in the southern Oregon Cascades, and in the Olympic Peninsula, Mt. Rainier and the North Cascades in Washington state. e northern Californiasouthwestern Oregon population is the largest remaining one, but is severely threatened by habitat loss and fragmentation caused by logging and high-severity re.

Environmental Groups Oppose PG&E’s Proposed Spraying

On September 29, 2022, PG&E alerted Humboldt County that it was going to spray herbicides along its easements across the region. PG&E failed to alert landowners or tenants of this new threat; instead, local news broke the story just two days before spraying was set to commence. As of October 3, it appears that PG&E has postponed spraying and is requiring individuals to opt-in to the program. Many important details are still missing or are evidently still in ux.

We, like you, are alarmed by PG&E’s proposed herbicide spraying. e toxicants employed have a clearly established relationship with increased risk of disease, including cancer, and some have been banned in other countries as a result. Herbicide application is slated to start concurrent with the de ned “wet period” in Humboldt County, risking runo into adjacent streams. Humboldt County’s organic and cannabis farms are particularly at risk from spray drift, as even trace amounts of herbicides can ruin an entire year’s crop. Spray along roadsides

road users, particularly walkers and bikers, at risk and may contaminate wild-harvested foods, like berries, which can be picked from roadsides throughout the county. For these reasons and more, herbicide application has long been controversial in Humboldt County.

EPIC and our allies oppose herbicide application without the express permission of landowners, their tenants and adjacent landowners where there is risk of spray drift, and without measures to protect users of public streets and roads.

are at work to correct this situation and to reform larger processes to prevent similar incidents in the future. State law limits local jurisdictions ability to regulate herbicide application, however, we call on the Board of Supervisors to adopt a formal policy outlining its position regarding herbicide application. If you are concerned about herbicide application on your property, please contact PG&E at 1-800-5645080 and email at treesafety@pge.com.

Fisher. Source: Pekania pennanti, Washington Dept. of Fish and Wildlife

Redwood

Please join Redwood Region Audubon Society on Wednesday, November 16th at 7:30 p.m. for both a live and digitally streamed program on:

Chasing Birds in the Amazon and the Alpine: Stories from a Field Biologist

Dr. Ben Vernasco will share stories from his research in two contrasting habitats, the Ecuadorian Amazon and the Wallowa Mountains of Northeastern Oregon. He will begin with an overview of the Neotropical manakins, a family of birds known for their acrobatic courtship displays, and then share his work focused on the causes and consequences of individual differences in the complex social behavior of male Wire-tailed Manakins. Shifting back to North America, he will give an overview of North America’s rosy-finches and share his work focused on the natural history and ecology of the Wallowa Rosy-finch, a subspecies of the Gray-crowned Rosy-finch that breeds exclusively in the Wallowa Mountains. Through this work, Ben will exemplify the value of combining intensive field biology with complex laboratory analyses for greatly advancing our understanding of the complex social lives of individual animals and poorly understood species threatened by global change.

Ben is originally from the North Bay Area and Sacramento. He received his undergraduate degree from the Wildlife Department at Cal Poly Humboldt in 2013, where he discovered his passion for birds through field trips with the RRAS and while volunteering at Humboldt Bay Bird Observatory. After a year of seasonal field jobs, Ben joined the Biology Department at Virginia Tech as a PhD student and the Interfaces of Global Change Interdisciplinary Graduate Education Program as a Fellow. Since Virginia Tech, he has gone on to join the School of Biological Sciences at Washington State University Pullman as a Postdoctoral Researcher in the lab of Dr. Heather Watts.

The live program will be held at the Six Rivers Masonic Lodge, 251 Bayside Road, Arcata. It will be simultaneously zoomed – please go to RRAS.org for the Zoom link. Hot drinks and goodies will be served at 7 p.m. so bring a mug to enjoy shade-grown coffee. Please come fragrance-free.

FIELD TRIPS IN

Sat. November 5th – 8:30-11am. Birding at Arcata Marsh, led by Ken Burton. Bring binoculars and a scope if you have one and meet at the south end of I Street (Klopp Lake). Reservations not required.

Sat. November 12th – 8:30-11am. Birding at Arcata Marsh, led by Kathryn Wendel.

Sun. November 13th – 9-11am. Humboldt Bay National Wildlife Refuge with leader Ralph Bucher. Meet at the Visitor Center.

Sat. November 19th – 8:30-11am. Birding at Arcata Marsh, led by Carol Wilson.

Sun. November 20th – 9-11am. Ralph Bucher will lead a walk on the Eureka Waterfront. This trail is paved and is wheelchair accessible.

Sat. November 26th – 8:30-11am. Birding atArcata Marsh, led by Michael Morris.

Sat. November 26th – 9-11am. Wigi Wetlands Volunteer Workday. Help create bird-friendly native habitat and restore a section of the bay trail behind the Bayshore Mall. We provide tools and snacks. Bring your own water and gloves. Contact Jeremy at jeremy.cashen@yahoo.com or (214) 605-7368 for more information.

Sun. November 20th – 9-11:30am. Please join trip leader, Jude Power for the monthly Women and Girls’ Birding Walk through the peaceful environs of the “V Street Loop” in Arcata. This loop of road, officially named “Old Samoa Road,” is an open pasture area with a recently created part salt, part freshwater marsh complex. Different distinct habitats hold different types of birds; sparrows in the berry brambles lining the road, raptors such as Red-tailed Hawk and American Kestrel in the sky, shore birds and waterfowl in wet depressions, and maybe a surprise or two! It will be a relaxed ramble in a lovely, and birdy, spot. Meet at the large pullouts on V Street, just south of Samoa Blvd. Bring your binoculars and we’ll see which bird species we can find!

*Contact Ralph at thebook@reninet.com for any walks he leads and all Arcata Marsh walks. *Contact Field Trip Chair, Janelle Chojnacki at janelle.choj@gmail. com for more information on all other walks, unless otherwise specified.

*See our website for Covid protocols.

Godwits Days to Return In-Person

by Gary Bloomfield.

Above: A male Wire-tailed Manakin ready to dis play! Photo by Ben Vernasco.

– Gary Friedrichsen

President

Hal Genger

DIRECTORS-AT-LARGE:

Bucher

Gabriel

Hill

Ogan

Cashen

Wendel

OTHER

Jim Clark

Eductn/Schlrshps – Denise Seeger .....707-444-2399

Liaison

– Ralph Bucher

Rob Fowler

Facebook – Cindy Moyer

Trips

Janelle Chojnacki

Programs – Harriet Hill

Publicity – Kate Rowe

Publications – CJ Ralph

– Susan Penn

NEC Representative – CJ Ralph .........707-822-2015

THE SANDPIPER:

Layout, & Design

Gisèle Albertine

giseleandco@gmail.com

Gabriel

Historian – Gary Friedrichsen

Web Page

Listserve

Sandpiper

President’s Column

By Gail Kenny

There are many reasons I am active with Redwood Region Audubon Society but one of the more pressing reasons is that birds and other wildlife can’t lobby to protect the natural habitat they depend on for their survival. Advocacy is especially important when it comes to property development which affects native habitat. I might not make much impact nationally or internationally, but I can have a big impact locally.

Our Conservation Committee and Board have been reviewing and commenting on the environmental provisions for the Nordic Aquafarms Atlantic Salmon development next to Humboldt Bay. We appealed the Humboldt County Planning Commission’s certification of Nordic Aquafarms’ final environmental impact report (FEIR) based on non-compliance with the California Environmental Quality Act, but our appeal was denied by the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors.

One of the things we are worried about is that Nordic Aquafarms’ plan to withdraw 10 million gallons of seawater a day from Humboldt Bay via an intake structure which has no permit yet. Detailed environmental impact analysis consists primarily of an Endangered Species Act compliance study for Longfin Smelt that has not been completed. Environmental impact isn’t limited to endangered species. A detailed biological assessment is required to determine if there is a significant environmental impact to the bay estuary on which over 500,000 migratory shorebirds depend for their seasonal migration. There are many organisms that birds and other lifeforms feed on in Humboldt Bay. We are concerned about potential detrimental effects to the volume of small life forms that could be killed in the intake valve. Having an intake from the ocean, instead of inside the bay, would likely have less of an impact on those food sources.

We are also concerned about how much fish feed would be harvested from wild fish populations – much of which is needed by larger fish and marine mammals. We object to overfishing bait fish to feed farmed fish. We also want to make sure local endangered salmon species are protected from diseases that farmed salmon might have, and the project’s planned monitoring of fish diseases is not broad enough to ensure that protection. We will be taking future opportunities to advocate for wildlife as this project progresses through the permitting steps.

If you’d like to become more active with RRAS, we are looking for Field Trip committee members, and a Treasurer. Please email me at gailgkenny@gmail.com for more information about these volunteer roles!

A Walk at the Marsh

By Kathryn Wendel

Our Arcata Marsh walk started off cool and foggy, but that didn’t tamp down the bird numbers! A small group of bird enthusiasts joined me on this trip where we saw 38 species of birds along the Klopp Lake/Interpretive Center loop – quite good for midsummer when most of the waterfowl are still gone.

The walk began on an incoming high tide, and from the parking lot we easily picked up Marbled Godwits on the bay, where hundreds were busily probing the remaining exposed mudflats with their distinct orange and black bills. A few flocks of peeps – mostly Western Sandpipers with a few Least mixed in – were feeding along the edge of the tide as well.

As we walked along the levee path between Klopp Lake and Humboldt Bay, the group was thrilled to see several Greater Yellowlegs through the spotting scopes. Greater Yellowlegs are striking shorebirds with a gray, white, and black mottled plumage that contrasts nicely with their long, yellow legs. They are also quite noisy, and a few people had the opportunity to learn their flute-y three-note call for the first time. Greater Yellowlegs can be visually confused with Lesser Yellowlegs, and so for beginners, one easy way to tell the two species apart is by their call. As we rounded the southeast bend at Klopp Lake, we watched a single red-headed American Avocet swiping its unique up-curved bill back and forth in the channel before the tide made the water too deep.

Leaving Klopp Lake and heading east along the main slough, the group was treated to a family of Bullock’s Orioles flying back and forth amongst the

pines and willows. The bright orange male showed off for a moment, affording the group a great opportunity for photos and good views through binoculars. Cedar Waxwings were also numerous here, and we were treated to a Belted Kingfisher fly-by. Another highlight before leaving this spot, was spotting a Peregrine Falcon perched on a power tower. Always great to admire this bird through a spotting scope.

As we reached the native plant garden near the Interpretive Center, we picked up Black-capped Chickadees, which although common at the marsh, was a Life Bird for one out-of-town person in the group. Heading back, bright yellow American Goldfinches seemed to be everywhere, and we were lucky to see a goldfinch perched next to a Common Yellowthroat –another small bright yellow bird present during the summer, but in a completely different family than the visually similar goldfinches. Common Yellowthroats are warblers, so as a beginner, whenever you see a small yellow bird, check the bill to see if it’s thin like a needle (warbler) or thick like a cone (finch). As you practice birding, you’ll notice other differences such as feeding behavior, types of calls, or whether the birds are usually seen alone or in flocks. This can be applied across all bird groups, from shorebirds to sparrows. It’s a great discussion not only to begin the walk with, but end with as well.

The Redwood Audubon Society hosts a guided bird walk at the Arcata Marsh every Saturday at 8:30 a.m.

hope to

Above: Belted Kingfisher by Evie Dowd, Grades 8-9:

Charter, from this year’s RRAS and FOAM -sponsored Children’s Bird Art Competition.

Redwood Region Audubon Society

The Thrush on Loan from Latin America

By CJ Ralph

Throughout our area, especially in coniferous and riparian coastal forests, the Swainson’s Thrush blesses us with a beautiful song, varyingly described as haunting, exquisite and ethereal. People often puzzle over identifying this overall warm brown, spot-breasted thrush, as it has a strong resemblance to the closely-related (and equally musical) Hermit Thrush. As we are told by the always eloquent Ken Burton in his wonderful, “Common Birds of Northwest California,” a close look at the “swainee’s” eyeglass-like buffy ring around and in front of the eye, coupled in our area with its rusty-tinged back and brown rump and tail (the hermit has a rusty tail) should confirm its identity

While we chauvinistically regard these summer visitors as “ours,” one could easily say that they are in fact tropical forest residents on loan to us, spending most of their time in Latin America from the costal zones of Mexico, on south through Panama, and down along the Andes to northern Argentina. Their breeding range is largely the northern coniferous forests across the continent, dipping south into California where they also inhabit riparian habitats. They visit us relatively briefly to take advantage of the spring and summer abundant resources of invertebrates and fruit, and perhaps fewer predators, returning to their “real” habitat down south. In the spring, they are relatively late to come to the table, as they are just setting up shop in any numbers by mid-May, well after all other species are deep into the complexities of breeding. While seemingly a poor strategy, in fact they are very likely timing the fledging-care period to coincide with the highly seasonal onset of fruit in our area, so as to meet the demands of young birds just leaving the nest, coupled with their critical need to fatten up for their long journeys south.

The peak of the breeding season is June and July as all the woods fill with their song. As soon as the young start fledging in late July and early August, most of the adults leave the young to fend for themselves, largely heading south. The adults do stop along the way for extended periods to fatten up and molt. Molt is very likely the most important event of their year. While birds don’t have to breed, they must molt, and thereby they also get away from all those teenagers gobbling up resources. This is apparently a good strategy. The young, despite this desertion, are able to find food, and then navigate quite well over thousands of miles of unfamiliar habitats to the new and salubrious tropical forests and shrublands.

In the dune forest of the Lanphere Dunes, Jim Tietz and Matt Johnson looked at stopover habitat by juvenile Swainson’s Thrushes during this post-breeding period. With the help of the banders at the Humboldt Bay Bird Observatory (HBBO), they captured and radio-tracked 26 young birds that stayed on for an average of nine days, occupying a home range of about five acres while they fattened up. The investigators found that huckleberries were the main food, as well as wax myrtle fruit. The activity of the leaner birds was focused on areas with more huckleberries as they prepared for the long journey to Latin America.

In the late summer and into the autumn, it is a race between declining food and the imperative for these young to move to their new home, where resources are less seasonal. At HBBO we have found that a small percentage of young birds are left behind, as they stay on well past the usual pulse of migration to the south, and gradually become thinner and thinner. The occasional individual will stay on well into November and even December, until they disappear in very poor condition.

But many of them, of course, make it and populate their southern home. Down there they are also largely territorial, but drift around depending upon food resources. The ones that are good at finding food and navigating well, return each year to breed, and incidentally entertain us.

Above: The distribution of the Swainson’s Thrush with breeding in pink, migration in yellow, and winter in blue. From “Birds of the World” (2022) Cornell Labo ratory of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA.

DID YOU KNOW?

Left: Diagram of age and abundance of Swainson’s Thrush captured in mist nets of Humboldt Bay (Wigi) and Klamath Bird Observatories and cooperators in the Klamath region of Northern California and South ern Oregon. Courtesy of Cornell Laboratory of Orni thology, Ithaca, NY, USA

From the RRAS Cat & Bird Safety Committee

Over North America, billions of birds have been migrating south to their nonbreeding grounds in search of the food and warmth they need to make it through the year. No matter the distance, migration is a physically taxing and dangerous journey. If you have a pet cat, one way you can help birds during fall migration is to treat it like a dog – that is, provide a safe and enriching place for your cat indoors, and keep it supervised and contained when outdoors using a harness leash, back pack, or “catio.” Many warblers and sparrows move through Humboldt County every fall, and some stay for the winter. Can you spot them in your yard or the outdoor spaces you enjoy? Good birding!

Source: American Bird Conservancy.

Above: Identifying a Swainson’s Thrush, courtesy of birdwatchingdaily.com. Photo by Brian E. Small.

Humboldt County and Earbirding - a Perfect Match

By Robert Childs

My love of earbirding, which resulted in the creation of earbirdinghumboldt.com, grew out of my own challenges with the visibility of local birds. I grew up in Missouri, and, well, visually this area is almost a bird desert compared to the Midwest. My sister regularly gets more than 15 species of birds at her feeders in the St. Louis suburbs. And one day I identified 14 species of (just) warblers through very poor binoculars along the creek by my rural home. It was located near the Missouri River, a wonderful migration flyway. (Incidentally, there are 18 species of warblers that nest in Missouri, and another 22 that pass through while migrating.)

And this is hard to express, but the birds here are...shy. Maybe it’s the amazing abundance of nutand berry-producing trees and insects, but the birds in Missouri are just hopping around on the ground and tree branches, almost begging to be watched. And a lot of non-birders do watch, as it’s hard to ignore cardinals and mockingbirds nesting and singing away in your yard. And if you hear a birdsong there, generally you can walk over and see who’s singing.

Consequently, moving here was a birding shock. I eventually got better binoculars, and friends started teaching me basic earbirding - a new idea to me despite having taken ornithology in college 45 years ago. Identifying birds by sound was never mentioned.

In learning the birdsongs, I found that keeping lists of mnemonic phrases for the birds in different habitats really helped. It was still tough. Without visual feedback, my brain (and I don’t think I’m alone here) had trouble remembering the tunes. And if you’re a beginning birder or casual outdoors person and can’t see the bird while it’s singing, you don’t even know where to start looking for an identity. My brain needed somewhere to start chewing on that kind of problem, and memorizing tons of birdsongs wasn’t the solution.

Working with students in my Environmental Field Biology classes at Eureka High, I figured out that I had to start with what they already knew. I settled on giving them just the few birdsongs that they were most likely to hear. Based on where they lived, they got the “town + campus loudbeaks,” the “redwoods/residential + campus loudbeaks,” or the “Kneeland + campus loudbeaks.” This worked pretty well, given that they started out greatly disliking birds due to the gulls that swarmed them on campus at break and lunch. (They literally groaned when I would announce “birds” as the next unit of class.)

The introduction of iBird, and more recently the song identification apps, has been a huge plus for birders. For those who don’t want to become too involved but are interested in knowing what they’re hearing-but-not-seeing, those apps are a big jump. I designed my website with those people in mind. It gives them bite-sized chunks tailored for where they spend outdoor time. Hopefully, for some of them, it will lead to more involvement in this wonderful aspect of the outdoor experience.

To learn more, visit Robert’s website at: www.earbirdinghumboldt.com.

Above: The parabolic dish focuses the sound waves onto the tip of the microphone, and the recorder/amp processes and stores the signal with a time stamp.

Photo courtesy of Robert Childs.

Christmas Bird Counts (CBC) 2022-23

Please join us at 7:30 p.m. on December 7th, at the Masonic Lodge, 251 Bayside Road, for an orientation to this year’s Christmas Bird Counts. Sean McCallister, Tony Kurz, and Ken Burton will provide information regarding the Centerville, Arcata, and Tall Trees Counts and provide information about the Del Norte and Willow Creek Counts as well.

All welcome!

Please contact the compilers listed below if you are interested in joining their count:

The Centerville Count - January 1st, 2023; Sean McCallister compiler (707) 496-8790.

Arcata Count – December 17th, 2022; Tony Kurz compiler (559) 333-0893

Del Norte Count – December 18th, 2022; Lucas Brug compiler (707) 9541189.

Tall Trees Count – Between January 3-5, 2023; Ken Burton compiler (707) 499-1146.

Willow Creek Count – December 21st, 2022; Brigitte Elbek (707) 2674140.

Photos by Gary Friedrichsen – clockwise from left: Eurasian Wigeon, Long-billed Marsh Wren, and Marbled Godwit.

NORTH COAST CHAPTER

Evening Program

From the Neotropics to the California Floristic Province, a plant journey seeking to understand plant diversi cation. Dr. Oscar Vargas, botany professor at Cal Poly Humboldt, will describe his past research into tropical South American plants and what they reveal about speciation and diversi cation. He will also discuss his current research into the geography of California native plants. His lab is dedicated to investigating questions about the evolution of biodiversity hotspots, from the Amazon to the California Floristic Province. In-person at Six Rivers Masonic Lodge, 251 Bayside Rd., Arcata. Refreshments at 7:00 p.m.; program at 7:30 p.m. A Zoom option is available through our website www.northcoastcnps.org.

Field Trip

November 6, Sunday. West Ridge Trail Day Hike. e

Greater Prairie Creek Restoration Project is part of the larger, exciting Redwoods Rising project that is thinning dense second-growth stands of Redwood to allow faster development of old growth forest characteristics in

CALIFORNIA NATIVE PLANT SOCIETY

our Redwood parks. One place to see the “lop and scatter” method of doing this is about two miles up from Newton B. Drury Parkway in Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park, on the West Ridge Trail accessed via the Zig Zag Trail #2. is four-mile, up-and-back hike does include elevation gain and loss! Meet at 9 a.m. at Paci c Union School (3001 Janes Rd., Arcata). Dress for the weather; bring lunch and water. Contact Carol at 707-822-2015 or theralphs@humboldt1.com.

Amazing Mycorrhizae

Native plants are highly dependent on the symbiosis of plant roots and fungi known as mycorrhizae. e fungal partner consists of microscopic tubular threads (mycelium) that are ubiquitous in soils. ese tubes wrap themselves around the ne roots of trees or shrubs, and at the point of exchange, deliver nutrients to roots. is allows the tree to exploit a far greater volume of soil for nutrients. An individual fungus can infect multiple trees, essentially connecting them. Mycorrhizae can actually “mine” tiny particles of rock in the soil for their minerals, which they dissolve by excreting acid. For their part, trees provide sugars to the fungus. Up to 80

percent of sugars produced by a tree can be allocated to the fungus. Herbaceous plants have a slightly di erent mycorrhizal structure, with fungal mycelium actually penetrating the roots and forming arbuscules, where the exchange takes place. Arbuscular mycorrhizae are e cient suppliers of phosphorus, which increases the drought tolerance of plants. Mycorrhizae have also been shown to penetrate silver sh, tiny invertebrates in the soil, to extract nutrients. Mycorrhizae are just one component of a complex collection of fungi, bacteria and other organisms that comprise the root microbiome. Next time you admire a plant, remember to give credit to the amazing microcosm beneath it.

Stay Updated:

www.northcoastcnps.org facebook.com/NorthCoastCNPS CNPS welcomes everyone. No expertise required.

Canning: Save Money, Save Food, Help the Planet

Jasper Larkins, Zero Waste Humboldt

Every year in the United States, over 100 billion pounds of food go to waste. at is roughly 130 billion meals and over 400 million dollars worth of food! What many people may not know, though, is the impact this has on the environment. When we waste food, we also waste the water it takes to grow and make the food and the energy and labor it takes to package and transport it. In addition, wasted food usually rots in land lls, producing methane and harming the environment. is is where the zero waste practice of canning becomes so essential.

Canning is a food preservation process that has been practiced for centuries; some of the earliest known canning techniques involved placing the jars in alcohol or sealing them with wax. ese techniques, unfortunately, would almost always result in spoiled or moldy food. However, the current process of packing, heating, and sealing is perfect for foods that may be close to expiring or that may not get used anytime soon.

ere are many myths and misconceptions about

canning that deter people away from it. One of the most common myths about canning is that the foods will lose their nutrients over time. However, minerals, vitamins, proteins, and fats remain throughout the canning process, and the nutrients are preserved. Another critical misconception has to do with the sterilization of canning jars. It is essential to ensure the jars are clean before canning. e jars do not need to be sterilized when using a pressure canner; however, when using the boiling method, they do need to be. To sterilize the jars, place them right-side-up in a large pot and completely cover them with hot water. Bring the water to a boil, and leave them for 10 minutes. Once the sterilization process is complete, the canning can begin!

Steps to Canning:

1. Place the food into an airtight jar, and remember not to ll it to the brim! Leave about ¼ to ½ an inch of space.

2. Heat the jars at the speci c temperature required for the food being canned. is process kills all the bacteria and microorganisms so that these jars can last for years. Certain foods may require a pressure canner, and others can be heated in boiling water. Oven canning used to be commonplace; however, studies have shown that oven canning does not kill

bacteria like boiling and pressure canners. Be sure to do research rst!

3. Place the jar in a cool and dark space.

Canning is a great way to reduce food waste, save money, and better the environment. It is a sustainable zero waste practice that allows us to do our part in keeping our environment healthy. If you are interested in learning more about food preservation techniques and food safety, the UC Master Food Preserver (MFP) live online training sessions run from Jan-May. For more information, visit ucanr.edu/mfp

We have the privilege of being part of Change 4 Change with Eureka Natural Foods from November 12 - 16. Please help us by Rounding up at the register for those days! is is in celebration of County Wide Zero Waste Day, Nov 15.

Beach buckwheat, one of the many plants on the dunes that survive in a low nutrient environment with the aid of mycorrhizae.

Colin Fiske, Executive Director

e possibility of a major wind farm being developed o the coast of Humboldt County is a game-changer for renewable electricity in our region, but the majority of greenhouse gas emissions produced here come from transportation. So at CRTP, we’ve been thinking about whether wind development could help support a cleaner, greener transportation system as well.

One answer to this question is fairly obvious. e transition to electric vehicles (EVs) has already started, and it will pick up speed over the next decade just as o shore wind is being developed. By the time electrons from those wind turbines start entering the grid, they will be helping ensure that the EVs on the road are powered by clean energy, not by burning fossil fuels.

Another way offshore wind could help us decarbonize local transportation is by powering a local facility to produce green hydrogen. e Humboldt Transit Authority (HTA) will be relying on hydrogen to fuel most of its buses by 2030, and hydrogen will

also likely be needed to transition some of the region’s heavy duty trucks away from fossil fuels. Currently, most hydrogen is actually made from fossil fuels, which just shifts emissions to another place. Green hydrogen, on the other hand, is produced using only water and renewable electricity, allowing true decarbonization of buses and trucks. However, local production isn’t a sure thing even with an abundant source of local renewable energy, so CRTP and allies are advocating to keep this issue on the table for decision-makers. ere are also other, less direct but still important ways that o shore wind development could a ect local transportation. Building a wind farm and the onshore facilities to support it will require huge nancial investments, and some of that money will ow back to the community in the form of taxes. As just one example, the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors recently created the Samoa Peninsula Enhanced Infrastructure Financing District, which will capture increased tax revenues from development and use them to improve infrastructure. at could include active transportation and transit improvements.

All that development will also come with impacts, both o -shore and on-shore. In coastal communities, for example, there are likely to be a lot more heavy-duty vehicles using

local roadways. Advocates like CRTP are already lining up to ensure that whoever develops o shore wind will mitigate those impacts and provide a broad package of community bene ts. We will likely need to redesign roads to prevent increased truck tra c from worsening safety problems, for example, and community bene ts should include investments in our region’s bike, pedestrian and transit systems.

The return of Latino Outdoors in Humboldt

Karina Ramos Villalobos, EcoNews Intern

As COVID-19 restrictions have lifted, people are connecting again and organizations like Latino Outdoors Humboldt are striving to host outdoor events, workshops and community spaces.

“ e best and strongest way to get involved is to become a volunteer, which we desperately need right now to get events going,” said an active volunteer with Latino Outdoors Humboldt, Selene Castillo. “I think the bene ts are really good so it does make it feasible for someone who has no experience with community engagement.”

Latino Outdoors Humboldt is a regional local chapter connected with the nationwide organization, Latino Outdoors (LO) that prioritizes outdoor programming.

Originally from Fontana, California, Castillo started volunteering with LO Humboldt in March 2022 once she returned to Humboldt County after years of living out of the area. Castillo graduated from Cal Poly Humboldt with a bachelor's degree in wildlife management in 2017.

“We have chapters nationwide, some of them have been able to remain active during quarantine like San Francisco and Los Angeles,” Castillo said. “At least here in Humboldt, our chapter has kind of been dormant because we have so few volunteers and availability has shifted due to life.”

ere are about 31 LO chapters nationwide. Any person who is interested in starting a chapter to grow community is supported.

“It’s a pretty sophisticated volunteer organization because there’s insurance that covers us, we get reimbursed for our mileage or for any supplies that

we purchase,” Castillo said. “ ere are also professional development opportunities. ey check in monthly with you and see what you are up to doing and document everything really well.”

According to Castillo, the LO national organization checks in monthly with each regional chapter to understand what the chapter is up to. Each chapter conducts their own events, workshops, and provides resources based on their surroundings and what caters to their community.

“We want to be all-inclusive,” Castillo said. “ is would also include Afro-Latinx into the Black community. ere has been more movement also for people with di erent physical capabilities as well as Queer communities. We aim to be inclusive, accepting and inviting to all of these communities that fall under the Latinx umbrella.”

Latino Outdoors Humboldt's goal is to nd and connect with Latinx communities and inspire people to join their events or engagements to learn more about the outdoors and continue to expand their chapter after the decline in activity from the pandemic.

Latino Outdoors History, Nationwide and Humboldt chapter

Organizers Ruby Rodríguez, Leslie Caballero and Daisy Rios Reveles started the Latino Outdoors Humboldt chapter in Feb. 2016 while they were all in their last semester of college at Cal Poly Humboldt. It took them a couple of years to get a team together and

move forward with the process. Now, four years later Rodríguez is the Director of Programs and Operations for the nationwide Latino Outdoors organization.

“I mean this is the dream story really— she worked her way up from somebody who saw it online to somebody that said ‘I think I’ll join’ to somebody who joined and participated then volunteered and then led the regional chapter,” said Program Manager, Communications Christian La Mont. “When the job opened up [she] applied and became the Director of Programming for our national Latino Outdoors.”

Originally from Fresno, Rodríguez studied in the recreational program and graduated from Cal Poly Humboldt in 2016.

“LO was there when I needed my emotional support and LO was there in my early professional development,” Rodríguez said. “It served so many di erent needs of mine as a community member, a mother, a student and a professional. It’s been a really beautiful journey and experience.”

On Oct. 28 Latino Outdoors Humboldt will be hosting a ‘Boogey Bike Ride’ and costumes are encouraged. People will gather at the Arcata Plaza at 10 a.m.

For more information about future events or ways to volunteer follow @lohumboldt on Instagram, or connect through Facebook under the ‘Latino Outdoors Humboldt’ group. People are encouraged to reach out to ask questions or for guidance while navigating the outdoors.

Latino Outdoors Humboldt chapter supported Cumbre Humboldt in organizing a family eld trip for Loleta Elementary School. They visited Grizzly Creek Redwoods State Park, hiked in the forest and swam in the Van Duzen River. By Selene Castillo.

Latino Outdoors Humboldt at Houda point beach for Explorando Juntos with Friends of the Dunes and Trinidad Coastal Land Trust. They explored tide pools and dug up invertebrates in the sand. By Selene Castillo.

NEXUS

The Role of Art in Activism

Elena Bilheimer, EcoNews Journalist

Creating social change and building a resilient environmental justice movement requires many di erent skills and forms of activism. While it can be easy to slip into the mindset that only direct action and community organizing have the power to make a di erence, nding ways to incorporate other mediums such as art increases the ability of a movement to reach more people and utilize a wider array of experience and perspective. e realms of environmental and social justice extend beyond politics or science, with change needing to occur at every level and profession. Art has a signi cant role in activism, both as a tool for inspiring and healing.

Stephen Nachtigall, an artist and Assistant Professor in the Department of Art at Cal Poly Humboldt, teaches graphic design and animation as well as a special topics course entitled “Radical Graphics: Activism and Climate”. He pointed out that at its most foundational level, art works to enhance movements by boosting their messages and making them more accessible, easier to understand, and more interesting to the broader public. Nachtigall also believes that art has the ability to foster growth and expansion by creating room in the middle between the way an artist chooses to convey a message and the way a viewer chooses to interpret it.

“The way that we communicate issues about climate justice and ecological issues is not one-sided and it's not a clear journey,” said Nachtigall. “It's a very complicated pathway of understanding and reconciliation a lot of the time. at really needs wiggle room. It can’t always be a one path deal where you understand it, you get it, and then you move on. ere has to be back and forth. at gray area is really important to me.”

Leaving room for interpretation is especially important when dealing with complicated issues, as di erent cultures don't always come to the same kinds of understanding or relate to things in the same way. Because of its format, art has the potential to spark a conversation right away and connect with people on an emotional level beyond language. is is very di erent from the sciences, in which information is rigorously peer reviewed over a long time period, often requiring technical expertise to understand. While both are necessary for creating change, art usually includes adding a level of emotional intelligence and creativity to information expression, allowing people to connect with abstract problems on a personal level.

Using art to restore humanity to these issues is a goal of Mo Harper-Desir, a local visual artist and micro business owner of Mo HD Creates. In her art practice, Harper-Desir engages in digital visual arts, photography, painting, dance, and poetry, while also o ering arts based services and education as well as racial equity workshops and facilitation to the community through her business. In her perspective, art is a vehicle for tough conversations and storytelling. “I think it's a great way to tie humanity and life to social justice causes or climate change conversations,” said Harper-Desir. “Because they can be kind of harsh and boring at times. But then if we are able to take those stories from a person's point of view or a person's experience and really tell it, that helps people form empathy around these issues when they see how it relates or how it a ects someone's life.”

For Harper-Desir, who describes herself as existing in a lot of marginalized identities, art can create more social consciousness and be a tool for healing both those a ected and involved with activism. Sometimes what is needed for a group of activists is a movement workshop rather than more organizing, in order to help process trauma and create change. Increasing representation and creating a space for artists of color in Humboldt County has been especially important for Harper-Desir, in addition to empowering young people to harness their art skills in order to further social change.

Incorporating art in activism has become especially prominent for younger generations through the spread of technology. As Nachtigall pointed out, it has never been easier to learn digital design programs and create content that can be distributed widely. While this has many potential upsides, captivating attention through instant visual stimulus can be misappropriated by corporations and political gures.

When considering the role of the artist in social change, Nachtigall said, “A lot of the work of organization and activism has to do with bringing people along for the ride and doing the hard work of enacting change. But I think in order to really work towards the world that we all want, and we all deserve, we need to have imagination, and it's the artist's role to be that person that can dream of the future and gure out ways to go from here to there. We need people that can be imaginative and dream of better ways to do things because it's very clear that the status quo is not working. So instead of being piecemeal, trying to x what's broken, we need people that can go way further and dream about where we want to end up and maybe nd cool ways that we can take steps to get there.”

“I feel like a lot of social change is based on changing a structure that already exists,” said Harper-Desir. “And it tends to be creative thinkers that imagine new ways things can happen. So I guess it kind of makes sense that creative people and artists end up being the voices of revolutions.”

To learn more about Nachtigall’s art, check out his website at stephennachtigall.com. Harper-Desir’s work and arts based education and services can be found at her website at www.mohdcreates.com

The intersection of human rights, the <<<>>> environment, social justice, and the economy

Mo Harper-Desir o ers arts based services and education as well as racial equity workshops and facilitation to the community through her business, Mo HD Creates.

Stephen Nachtigall, languisher exhibition view, 2021 Morris Graves Museum of Art. Photo by Nicole Jean Hill

Arcata Youth Climate March Reflects Evolution Towards Social Justice and Mental Health

Jamie Blatter, 350 Humboldt

On September 23, local youth and 350 Humboldt teamed up to lead a climate rally at the Arcata Plaza. e group chose this date to coordinate with global climate strikes taking place across the world led by Fridays for Future, the organization started by Greta Thunberg who sparked the global youth climate movement in 2018 by sitting alone on the steps of her capitol building in Sweden with a sign reading “School Strike for Climate”.

For decades, protesters have struggled to bring adequate attention to the climate crisis. Now, years later, as we find ourselves inundated by news of climate catastrophe and drowning in gures about CO2 concentrations and irreversible tipping points, conversations around climate change are evolving to address mental health impacts and the need for justice to take center stage. Words shared at the rally re ected this evolution.

Speeches by local high school and college students and other community members highlighted the inequitable outcomes of climate change, which disproportionately impact Indigenous peoples, people of color, the poor, and the Global South. “Because these changes are happening in Africa and the Global South rst, we are once again ignoring black and brown su ering,” says 18-year old Jules Tatum of Cal Poly Humboldt, who spent nearly three-quarters of her speech addressing inequities caused by climate change. Indigenous community member Mary Kate Lowry took the megaphone to bring attention to traditional stewardship of land and water resources for over 14,000 years, highlighting the need to return to Indigenous caretaking of the land, including cultural burns.

In addition to racial and socio-economic justice, the youth movement has brought global attention to the concept of “intergenerational justice,” which holds that present generations have obligations and responsibilities to future generations. “At times like these, it’s easy to feel a sense of hopelessness or lack of control of the situation. Sometimes to us, it seems like the older generation is out of touch and doesn't care because its members won’t be around to experience the aftermath. And it makes us less willing to do what we can, when the people that have the resources don't even seem to care,” said speakers Flora Harper and Moana Mao, seniors at North Coast Preparatory Academy. is was also highlighted by Jules Tatum who stated, “ e last time rain fell in Madagascar I was thirteen years old, in the eighth grade. And now I stand before you, eighteen years old, a freshman in

college, begging you to open your eyes and see what has become of our planet. Begging you to take action before my life is cut in half. Begging you to let my generation live out a full life, begging you to give me the option of having kids before their lifetime is stolen from them too.”

As inspiring as it is to hear young people speak so powerfully, it is also heart-breaking to behold the massive burden that has been placed on their shoulders. e attempt to digest the climate crisis in its entirety, including the extreme injustice it perpetuates, is a task that leaves many feeling overwhelmed, burnt out, edgy, and apathetic – often all at once. ese emotions are a natural response when bearing witness to apocalyptic occurrences. Emerging elds of psychology and support groups are forming throughout the world to provide a safe space to grieve and nd solidarity. An awareness is growing that emotional resilience is essential to nding healthy ways to address an unstable planet and unknown future, and this awareness must continue to take center stage. Speakers at the event called for community support, acknowledgement of mental health impacts, and the need to fan our dimming ames of hope.

Although the voices and strength of young people

have undeniably been the spark and the backbone of the climate movement, we must not rely upon the young to be the sole torch bearers, revolutionaries, and problem-solvers. e relatively small crowd of around 100 people is indicative of both the overwhelm and apathy being felt by young and not-so-young people alike after years (and often decades) of yelling in the streets and feeling unheard. Frontline activists need to be o ered support, resources, compassion, wisdom, and positions of in uence in decision-making. ose on the sidelines must be o ered a place in the movement that caters to their unique visions, talents, and life circumstances. We must be innovative. As the movement for climate action and justice continually evolves, it is important for us on the North Coast to re ect on what is most needed for our communities at this moment in time. We will likely nd that much more than physical infrastructure is called for. Beyond wind turbines and solar panels, we need leveraging of resources and power, robust communities of support, a movement that acknowledges, welcomes, and utilizes the uniqueness of all beings, places to feel safe and seen, and reasons to feel hopeful.

Reach out to each other. Feel what you feel. Cry when you need to. Be lighthearted when you can. Look for beauty in everyday moments. Breathe. Don’t give up.

To get involved locally, reach out to 350 Humboldt and the Northcoast Environmental Center.

Organizer Jamie Blatter at Youth & 350 Humboldt Climate Rally on the Arcata Plaza. Sept. 2022. Photo by Mark Larson.

Banner reads: "Keep it in the ground". Photo by Mark Larson.

I Want Community Gardens in Old Town

Sage Alexander, Guest Author

On Sunday afternoons, workers from the Green Lily break up ghts on the streets of Old Town, Eureka. Patrons peer over their mimosas and egg benedicts to watch a pair battle over parking spaces or lost backpacks, shoving and yelling. e waiters are much tougher than one would expect from an upscale brunch joint, defending their turf with strong words and sending the intruders on their way.

is is why I love Old Town. I love the artists and the constant string of markets with the music and bubble machines. I love the scummy bars and I love the waves of sea stench when I walk on the boardwalk. I like seeing old shermen getting a drink after work and the magic of the fog rolling into the marina at dusk. I like to talk to my neighbors and learn about their lives and I even like the creepy hallways of my apartment complex. I sometimes get afraid when I wake up in the middle of the night to someone screaming and I get mad at the sound of the generators during the Friday Night Markets.

But something is missing from the area I call my new home. ere isn’t a community garden for me to walk my compost to, a place I can tend to and see the fruits of my labor.

Eureka City Council is in the beginning stages of a development plan for downtown Eureka (visit waterfronteureka.com for details). Eureka has a less-

than-mitigated vibe with the urban layout, like many American cities based around the car. Near Old Town, there’s this lovely mesh of industrial waterfront buildings and retail spaces, dominated by small businesses, restaurants and bars. e waterfront has tons of empty lots, with a line of abandoned warehouse buildings near the boardwalk.

In San Francisco or somewhere else in California near the sea, that kind of unused space downtown wouldn’t exist. I moved here recently from a brief stint in the Bay Area, where anything adjacent to the water has long ago been bulldozed. Land is more expensive there, and investors can make good money renting out gentri ed apartment complexes.

Can’t the ippers and air bnb-ers and nanciers see downtown Eureka on Zillow? Have they just never come across it on Instagram or never made the drive north? I just know they’d ruin it with vacation home rentals and luxury condos.

No, there’s a kind of breathing room here, in a place where people get mad about the destruction of a concrete dolos in a parking lot. I never really get the sense the point is about investments and passive income here, it’s something a little more human.

Part of my impression of humanity is these nice empty lots. e spot next to Los Bagels or the train track corridor is fascinating. While I like seeing the stark history of the abandoned industrial sites, this isn’t quite what’s so compelling about these lots. It’s the greenery. e lots aren’t by any means ideal habitat for wildlife, lled in with mostly non-native weeds and grass. But it’s somewhere for my eyes to rest on between the bars and gray at walls and overly stimulating storefronts. I like what they represent. It feels human, as if everyone is collectively saying to the world “we haven’t sorted what we wanna use this for” or, at least, “we’d rather let it rest”.

ese lots, however, aren’t tended to. Parks are usually trimmed and watered, and there’s intention behind the shape of the land. ese are no parks – I see rusting metal and litter, and even though there isn’t much going on, they’re fenced o . I wonder, who ‘owns’ them, the city? Or is it a private party, not willing to give it up but not also ready to nd the momentum to develop it? e plan lls me in a little, telling us some land is actually polluted in some way, un t to build residential buildings. ere’s the balloon track, the rail yard near Old Town where underground fuel tanks contaminated the soil. Outside this contamination, the commercial bayfront still includes 29 acres of vacant/ underutilized land.

I guess I don’t want all those lots to turn into convention centers or work / living space or storefronts

"But something is missing from the area I call my new home. There isn’t a community garden for me to walk my compost to, a place I can tend to and see the fruits of my labor." - Sage

or hotels or businesses – some of the things that are included in the plan. With sea level rise, a lot of it will go underwater anyway. e plan accounts for this incoming threat and when I looked at it, I realized my apartment building will be underwater in 80 years. I, however, live on the third oor, so I think I’ll be alright.

I’d like a couple of these lots to grow food. I want to see people who live and work here, homeless people from the Mission, students, gas station attendants, city workers and old people who are bored all working on these plots of land to make gardens and organic vegetables we can eat. I want people to tend the land, and I want this land to be owned by the Wiyot tribe and also I want the birds and the bugs to hang out there.

What I like about Old Town will change, either from sea level rise or development or just the march of time that turns a place into something else entirely. When this happens, it should at least feed people, equitably. e City Council should consider allowing space for community action. is isn’t just a hobby – a community garden inside the heart of Eureka would do more than just feed and entertain people. It would allow agency and action from the folks that call this place home or their place of work. It allows people to touch the land and feel the real depth of what it means to tend one’s home. is city already has a thriving network of community gardens in the North Coast Community Garden Collaborative. It’s a matter of setting aside the space for real greenery and agency. Our meditative and social practice can be tending to land, feeding the hungry, and working together. is can do nothing but heal the wounds many of us carry with us.

Eye on Sacramento

Caroline Griffith, NEC Executive Director

e 2022 California legislative session wrapped up as Governor Gavin Newsom signed 997 new bills into law. He also vetoed 169 bills, many for scal reasons. Here are just a few of the pieces of legislation that passed that we’ve been following this year.

AB 2147, the Freedom to Walk Act: As reported in the October issue of EcoNews, the “crime” of jaywalking was invented after cars began to dominate the roadways around the turn of the 20th century, before which the streets belonged to everyone, not just automobiles. As with many other crimes, people of color are disproportionately cited for crossing the street outside of a designated crosswalk. is bill attempts to change this by prohibiting police o cers from citing pedestrians for jaywalking “unless a reasonably careful person would realize there is an immediate danger of collision with a moving vehicle or other device moving exclusively by human power.” A similar bill was vetoed by Gov. Newsom last year, but he signed this one into law on September 30.

SB 886, Student Housing Exempt from CEQA: With the expansion of Cal Poly Humboldt, Arcata is expected to see a rise in student population which will put a strain on already limited student-housing opportunities. This bill, which exempts public university student housing projects from the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), was authored to address issues like this which are happening around the state, speci cally CEQA challenges in the City of Berkeley which brie y led UC Berkeley to halt admissions. To be exempt, housing projects must meet certain requirements, such as “each building within the project is certi ed as Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) platinum or better by the United States Green Building Council, that the project’s construction impacts are fully mitigated, and that the project is not located, in whole or in part, on certain types of sites, including a site that is within a special ood hazard area subject to inundation by a 1% annual chance ood.” e bill states that projects are not exempt from CEQA “if, among other things, the project would require the demolition of speci ed housing or a historic structure that is listed on a national, state, or local historic register. e bill would require the public university to hold at least one noticed public hearing to hear and respond to public comments before determining that the university

housing development project is exempt under the bill’s provisions.” We can be sure that this process will play out in Arcata or Eureka sometime soon.

AB 351, Human Composting: is bill requires the Cemetery and Funeral Bureau (a division of the Department of Consumer A airs) to start licensing and regulating “reduction” facilities starting in 2027.

Reduction is de ned as “the process of transforming a human body into soil using the natural decomposition process, accelerated with the addition of organic materials.” e bill describes the process as when the body of a deceased person is placed in a special vessel with organic materials, like straw or wood chips, and is periodically turned until, “eventually resulting in the body’s reduction to a soil material.”

As reported in our March issue, “traditional burial”, i.e., embalming a body and burying it in a casket, can impact the environment as both the casket and the body eventually break down and cremation releases particulates into the air, but thankfully we now have less impactful options.

AB 2108, Environmental Justice and Tribal Water Board Representative: According to the bill language, “ e state’s 2021 CalEnviroScreen update reveals that the top 10 percent of least polluted neighborhoods are 67 percent White, and the top 10 percent of most polluted neighborhoods are 90 percent Black, Indigenous, and people of color. Contaminated drinking water sources disproportionately burden low-income and Black, Indigenous, and people of color communities throughout California, further exacerbating persistent inequities, which can be seen in data collected by the human right to water framework.” is bill seeks to address that by ensuring that environmental justice and tribal perspectives are represented at the State and Regional Water Boards by reclassifying a seat speci cally for one member with experience in these communities, creating a stipend program so that environmental justice and tribal communities have more capacity to participate in Water Board processes, and proactively reaching out to disadvantaged communities through the creation of two statewide environmental justice and tribal coordinators. Locally, the North Coast Regional Water Quality Board is embarking on a Racial Equity Initiative and is accepting comments until November 7.

SB 846, Extension of Diablo Canyon Operations: In 2018, the California Public Utilities Commission

accepted PG&E’s proposal to retire the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant, located near San Luis Obispo, by 2025. is bill extends operations of the plant until 2030 and states, “the intent of the Legislature to make available to the Department of Water Resources a total principal amount not to exceed $1.4 billion for the purpose of being loaned out to facilitate the extension of the operating period of the Diablo Canyon powerplant.” e power plant, which has faced opposition from anti-nuclear activists and those concerned with nuclear waste for years, was saved due to the State’s ambitious clean energy goals and the fact that solar and wind power production has lagged behind need; Diablo Canyon provides 10 percent of the State’s energy. is extension was motivated by the push for clean energy sources, including SB 1020, which set interim goals for clean energy as the state works toward 100 percent clean energy in 2045. at goal was established with the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006. SB 1020 sets clear interim goals to ensure we are making progress ahead of the 2045 deadline. For more on the impacts of the nuclear energy industry, see page 19. is is obviously just a fraction of the bills that passed this session, many of which impact housing, renewable energy, fossil fuels, reproductive justice and other issues that have been covered in EcoNews. For more on California legislation, the nonpro t news service CalMatters (calmatters.org) is a great resource.

Make your voice heard

Humboldt County Supervisors

1st District - Rex Bohn 707-476-2391 | rbohn@co.humboldt.ca.us

2nd District - Michelle Bushnell 707-476-2392 | mbushnell@co.humboldt.ca.us

3rd District - Mike Wilson 707-476-2393 | mike.wilson@co.humboldt.ca.us

4th District - Virginia Bass 707-476-2394 | vbass@co.humboldt.ca.us

5th District - Steve Madrone 707-476-2395 | smadrone@co.humboldt.ca.us

U.S. Representative - California District 2 Congressman Jared Hu man www.hu man.house.gov

Look up other representatives here: www.house.gov/representatives

California Governor Governor Gavin Newsom www.gov.ca.gov

Looking for someone not on this list? www.usa.gov/elected-o cials

Reconciling Nuclear Safety and Climate Resilience

Alec Brown, Graduate Student Researcher, Environmental Science & Management at Cal Poly Humboldt

e closure of all but one of California’s nuclear power plants is evidence of the decades-long struggle between nuclear safety and carbon mitigation. PG&E’s Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant, once slated to begin decommissioning in 2025 at the behest of anti-nuclear activists, concerned scientists, and citizens, now sits rmly at the center of the debate. Amid revived interest and an all-but-certain legislative move to extend the plant’s lifetime to at least 2030, the conversation has been reignited by the state’s shortfalls in meeting ambitious renewable energy goals to combat climate change. How does this ‘nuclear renaissance’ t into the narrative unfolding around Humboldt Bay’s history with nuclear and the future it hopes to step into?

e recent (2021) decommissioning of Humboldt’s nuclear power plant rounds out a short saga of nuclear energy production that lasted from 1963 to 1976. However, the remnants of that bygone era still loom heavily, positioning 37 tons of spent nuclear fuel precariously atop Buhne Point – an eroding blu anked by active fault lines and rising seas. Some of today’s nuclear advocates, including the outspoken founder of the Campaign for a Green Nuclear Deal, argue that nuclear waste is a non-issue, assuring that

good technology and the climate crisis negate any appreciable risks. is tricky act of balancing nuclear safety and carbon reduction all comes down to one factor: place.

Every place is contextual, situational, and complex: what works in one place might not work elsewhere. Spent nuclear fuel canisters can be technologically sound, but nothing lasts forever. Maybe it is safe now, but what about in fty years when rising seas limit access? How can the casks be monitored or removed then? What protective infrastructure is needed and who will maintain it? Where will the waste be transported to (if ever), what communities will it go through, and will people be given adequate and advanced notice? How much erosion is expected under future conditions? When unprecedented shifts in climatic and environmental systems test our assumptions of safety, longevity, and access, we have to adapt our thinking. PG&E is also licensed to oversee nuclear storage at Humboldt Bay and, like Diablo Canyon, it maintains that risks are negligible because the site is “regularly inspected and built to withstand the e ects of environmental conditions and extreme events”, a stance that upholds a one-size- ts-all approach to highly place-sensitive issues. We have to zoom into place. ese questions represent some of the research gaps we hope to ll. Updating our collective understanding of the speci c risks at Humboldt Bay can aid community leaders to advocate for protective measures and contingency plans aligned with local interests and values.

How we plan for nuclear waste management is inexorably tied to the climate-nuclear conundrum and built on place-speci c nuances – politics, society, technology, economics, values, interests, ethics. e meaning of safety is never perfectly de ned, trust in the government and the industry varies widely from person to person, and perceptions of risk and the capacity to act are rarely the same. Planning for reliable energy, climate change mitigation, or nuclear safety will need to integrate these di erent contexts if we desire robust, satisfactory, and appropriate outcomes.

With funding from California Sea Grant and CSU COAST, a collaborative e ort between Cal Poly Humboldt, the Wiyot Tribe, various government agencies, sea level rise and coastal hazard experts, nonpro ts, community leaders, and the nuclear industry convened to explore possible futures for Humboldt Bay’s spent nuclear fuel, beginning the journey of plumbing the contexts that may facilitate more scienti cally and socially informed decision-making. Our goal is not to

advocate for or against nuclear but to build awareness around the sociocultural, economic, and environmental contexts of the Humboldt Bay community, remove barriers to meaningful participation, and propel us toward novel, inclusive, and entrepreneurial solutions to the unresolved nuclear waste problem. e aim is to justify a range of actions that contribute to longterm resilience, sustained responsible management, and capacity and awareness building by linking best available science, current policy, and community values in a transformative planning process.

In interviews with key stakeholders, we grew to understand the vulnerabilities, challenges, and opportunities inherent to potentially protracted waste storage, especially in relation to known coastal hazards. We immersed ourselves in the way these individuals perceive risks and think about the future, constructed a ‘logic’ around how our community might reach a desired future state, and discussed criteria that might help guide future e orts. ree scenario planning workshops then put those insights to work to challenge conventional wisdom, identify opportunities and constraints to action, envision future “worlds” replete with full-bodied narratives, characters, and events, and assign next steps to keep the ball rolling.

Flexibility is built into the scenario planning framework as a means to adapt to changing circumstances. Before the recent news about Diablo Canyon, we thought nuclear was on its way out; our assumptions were awed. How reinvestment in Diablo might a ect us is unclear as it does not appear that any funding from the bipartisan infrastructure bill or the In ation Reduction Act will go toward nuclear waste storage directly. However, consent-based siting and education initiatives might help ease tensions and foster awareness around this hotly debated topic. Perhaps e orts to extend nuclear power will also be followed by e orts to invest in reprocessing technology and long-term storage solutions.

Whatever the future holds, closing the waste pathway is important if our state decides to call on nuclear power to avert climate disaster. Arguments over technology or the costs and bene ts are lost on communities straddling both nuclear waste and rapid climate change. Maybe Humboldt, in writing its own nuclear destiny, can follow the precedence of the people who saved Diablo Canyon despite the long trajectory toward nuclear dismantlement. Maybe these place-based studies can help reconcile deep societal di erences by sharing experiences and transforming how we view and approach the climate-nuclear nexus.

Get on Board for the Climate

Martha Walden, 11th Hour

By 2024 at the latest most Humboldt residents and businesses will be obliged to separate their food waste and other organic matter from their trash. Most of California already does so in accordance with SB 1383, the sweeping law targeting methane. And as we all know, methane is a powerful greenhouse gas — eighty times worse than CO2 — that results from organic matter in land lls.

Recology and other haulers are working to procure the extra trucks and bins to do the pickup. en what? at's been the burning question for Humboldt Waste Management Authority and the Solid Waste Local Task Force. Shall we build an industrial composting facility here in Humboldt? How long will we have to truck the stu to Oregon, the closest composting facility?

Another possibility is to turn our garbage into biogas. Miranda Dairy is setting up a biodigester operation in Ferndale. Biodigesters anaerobically break down organic matter and capture the methane. is gas can be re ned to various degrees and used for various purposes — to fuel vehicles or to spin turbines at a gas power plant.

Biodigesters have become more common during the last ten years or so as California works to reduce its GHG emissions. Dairies, in particular, invest in biodigesters as a way to capture the methane from cow manure. e technology planned for Ferndale is

a co-digester, meaning that it can use both manure from its dairy cows and food waste as feedstock. In fact, it can handle a hundred tons of food waste per day, which is roughly the same estimated amount that Humboldt will be collecting by 2024.

Making biogas has drawbacks. Methane leaks and nitrous oxide emissions can severely undercut any GHG reductions—especially if dairies expand their herds in order to have even more manure to feed the digester. So they increase the initial supply of methane in order to capture most of it. is makes the operation more pro table, even lucrative—thanks to California incentives — but it’s also more di cult to calculate pickle.

Solutions Summit

Thank

Traditional Ecological Knowledge

Save

"Save California Salmon (SCS) is dedicated to restoring and protecting California salmon and riv-

ers for future generations. We are dedicated to policy change and community advocacy. Let’s support each other and unify." SCS is o ering a Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK), Science & Management

Webinar YouTube series with topics such as res & forest, rivers & sh, estuaries, oceans, climate, and salmon. Watch them for free at www.youtube.com/ SaveCaliforniaSalmon.

Brittney Kleinshnitz, rive EcoGrief Circle Facilitator

Indigenous Peoples Day

e best thing you can do to celebrate the folks whose land you’re living on is to take actions that rematriate the land to them and/or support cultural revitalization (land rights/food sovereignty, youth programs, language programs, ceremony, art, history, music, etc.)

It takes ten minutes to do a quick Google search to do the work. I’ve broken down the process into ve simple steps.

1. First, go to native-land.ca to search your address and download the app Native Land so you can always know what territory you are located in.

2. Second, using Native Land or doing your own searching, go directly to the tribal government websites. Here you can nd donation and/or volunteer opportunities. Can’t nd anything? Don’t give up. Go to Google and search “[insert city/town/county] landback projects” or how I found mine: “Portland OR Indigenous organizations”.

3. ird: Vet them. Are they Indigenous led? Are they cited by other sources? Are they linked on the tribal website? Call them and ask for more information or go visit their o ce.

4. Fourth, check in with your heart and your bank account. If you can, commit to a monthly payment (what some folks like to call “rent”). What are you willing to give? Once you’ve gured that number out, get uncomfortable, feel into the discomfort of instability and give even more.

5. Fifth, don’t just donate – go do something. If they o er events or volunteer opportunities, put yourself out there. Get your hands dirty. Bring gifts. Show up.

Humboldt locals know that they can donate to the Wiyot Tribe Honor Tax at honortax.org – this is a great way to support the tribe directly. You can also give to Two Feathers Native American Youth and Family Services, and many others! Do your own research and give to what calls to you.

Five Principles of Empowerment

Joanna Macy, “Working rough Environmental Despair”

1. Feelings of pain for our world are natural and healthy: they are a measure of our humanity.

2. Pain is morbid only if denied: …despair, like any emotion, is dynamic — once experienced, it ows through us. It is only our refusal to acknowledge and feel it that keeps it in place.

3. Information alone is not enough: to deal with the distress we feel for our world, we need more than additional data about its plight.

4. Unblocking repressed feelings releases energy and clears the mind: when repressed material is brought to the surface and released, energy is released as well; life comes into clearer focus.

5. Unblocking our pain for the world reconnects us with the larger web of life: by recognizing our capacity to su er with our world, we dawn to wider dimensions of being. In those dimensions there is still pain, but also a lot more. ere is wonder, even joy, as we come home to our mutual belonging — and there is a new kind of power.

The Usefulness of Ritual

Phyllis Windle, “ e Ecology of Grief”, e Usefulness of Ritual

“ e importance of rituals in helping mourners cope is undisputed, however, and I see no reason why ecologists should not tap this resource in these di cult times. We could create a quilt of our own, with panels to celebrate the species we have loved and lost. We could hold a wake for a precious piece of land – gathering to tell stories of the eld trips, research, and academic degrees that one particular place provided. We could create a family album, lled with the recollections of our professional grandparents, writing about the natural areas they have loved and lost in their lifetimes. We could create a special memorial fund to invest meaning in our losses. Our mourning rituals could celebrate, too, and a rm our faith in the processes of ecology and evolution. We could note the remaining beauty of the earth, the birth of new species or subspecies, and the grand rhythms of the biogeochemical cycles.”

If you could create your own grief ritual to grieve the losses of the living world, what would you create?

@animate.earth