The smoldering ruins of the town of Paradise, California, and the smoldering bodies of its residents are a telling warning. The U.S. House of Representatives needs a Select Committee n Climate Change, cutting across traditional committee fiefdom boundaries.
Florida needs more leaders like St. Augustine Mayor Nancy Shaver, willing to lead the way to wetland protection, adaptation areas, sustainability.
So glad we decided NOT to move in California in 1997 after I settled a case against Southern California Edison involving its unsafe San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) (now closed).
We moved to St. Augustine, instead, far from nuclear powerplants, near the beach. That has "made all the difference." With gratitude to my parents and mentors, I quote Robert Frost:
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Here's a description of how even the University of California at Berkeley closed today, on account of smoke from massive fires, wrought by increasing temperatures and dry brush.
The Bay Bridge is obscured Thursday as smoke from the Camp Fire fills the air in San Francisco. (Michael Short/Bloomberg)
Several colleges in California’s Bay Area are closed as smoke from the massive Camp Fire has made air quality unhealthful.
The University of California at Berkeley canceled classes and shut down all but essential operations through Friday, Chancellor Carol Christ announced. She reminded students who need respirators that they are available.
The University of San Francisco closed its Northern California campuses through Friday as the air quality index rose above 200 in San Francisco on Thursday. The Environmental Protection Agency rates air quality from zero to 500, with zero being the lowest risk. Air quality measured as 200 to 300 is considered “very unhealthy” and triggers an alert that everyone may experience adverse health effects.
Smoke from the Camp Fire in northern California blanketed San Francisco on Nov. 14, causing the city to issue a warning about air quality.
The air quality was another sign of the pervasive impact of the wildfires tearing through California. The fires have destroyed communities, taken more than 60 lives, closed roads, isolated regions and left rescuers searching for hundreds of missing people.
People wear masks Thursday as smoke from the Camp Fire affects the air in San Francisco. (Michael Short/Bloomberg News)
Stanford University and the University of California at Davis also canceled classes Friday.
Wildfires are affecting colleges in Southern California, as well.
Pepperdine University’s Malibu and Calabasas campuses remain closed through the Thanksgiving holiday, and officials plan to reopen Nov. 26. The Woolsey Fire burned on Pepperdine’s Malibu campus earlier this month.
At California Lutheran University, the campus is still sheltering people displaced by the fire and hosting events for local organizations.
