Tag: climate change

Endangered Species Faire celebration a call to action

At City Plaza, information on everything environmental
by Yucheng Tang | Posted April 26, 2025

The 46th annual Endangered Species Faire was celebrated today with a downtown parade that featured axolotls, giraffes, owls and salmon puppets — and served as a call to action on climate change and species preservation.

“Animals cannot speak up for themselves, so we speak up for them,” a host on the plaza stage told about 250 attendees after the parade. The fair was organized by the Butte Environmental Council (BEC) and began at 10 a.m., with around 20 booths representing a wide range of organizations, including nonprofits, for-profits and government agencies.

A parade participant who identified herself as Amanda — she asked that her last name not be used for personal reasons — joined the event with her daughter. With a few other participants, she carried a puppet that represented the river ecosystem, and her daughter carried a Monarch butterfly puppet they had constructed. Amanda said she was from Santa Cruz, where there used to be many Monarchs, but their numbers have declined significantly. read more

City Council District 7: Voters have a clear choice

Incumbent Tandon and challenger Goldstein explain to ChicoSol contrasting views
by Yucheng Tang | Posted October 27, 2024

District 7 extends into Lower Bidwell Park on the northeast, crosses Highway 99, and is severed by District 6 west of the highway.

This is the fourth story in our City Council election series.

District 7 voters have a choice. Candidates Bryce Goldstein and Deepika Tandon both want better streets and more housing projects, but differ on other crucial issues, including homelessness, climate change and wildfire planning.

Goldstein, a transportation planner, has served as a City of Chico commissioner for the past five years, formerly on the Planning Commission and now as a Climate Action commissioner. She says on her website that she wants a community where “everybody can afford to live … where everybody can access fresh groceries without having to own a car, and where our trees, parks, and creeks are protected.” read more

Policy critics: Chico’s Climate Action Plan neglected

Given weather-related disasters, does the City focus enough on climate change?
by Natalie Hanson | Posted August 13, 2024

photo by Leslie Layton
The City’s updated Climate Action Plan.

Butte County, facing the Camp Fire, the Dixie Fire, the Park Fire and extreme heat, has been on the frontlines of climate change in recent years. But the City of Chico has not made policies reflecting the urgency of these crises, some say.

Chico’s Climate Action Commission’s role has over time been cut dramatically, and the plans staff put together over years to help plan for a future of climate change have not been properly implemented, say some Chico residents. In their view, a lack of planning for climate change is symptomatic of the City’s unwillingness to make climate change the focus of policy or even fund the work to do so. read more

How the Park Fire became the largest active wildfire

Changing climate produces night-stalking wildfires
by Leslie Layton | Posted July 29, 2024

photo by Leslie Layton
Sergio Arellano and Jahaira Zaragoza, representing Cal Fire’s public information office, explain the fire map at the agency’s Chico command center.

By 11:30 p.m. on July 24 – the day that some Chicoans heard that a fire had started near Upper Park’s Alligator Hole, an area that hadn’t burned in a very long time – the blaze had devoured 6,465 acres.

The next morning, Cal Fire reported that by 6:46 a.m. the scorching-hot fire, driven by south winds, covered 45,550 acres. The fire had moved at a speed so stunning that while most Chico-area residents slept, it had covered on average almost 6,000 acres an hour.

The Park Fire is one of the fastest-moving — perhaps the fastest — of the so-called catastrophic fires that have occurred in Northern California in recent years. But speed isn’t the only characteristic it shares with megafires. Like other explosive wildfires, it doesn’t sleep. read more

Protesting our military extravagance

Looking ahead to "flooding, melting polar ice, human migration"
by George Gold | Posted October 26, 2023

photo by George Gold
September protest at Beale Air Force Base.

In September, about a dozen members of the Chico Peace Alliance traveled to the front gate of Beale Air Force Base to deliver a message to pilots and support workers.

We wanted to share our view — not often noted by the defense establishment — about the hazards that are caused by the U.S. military industrial complex. Our view was that peace is more important than war, and that the U.S. defense infrastructure causes a huge negative environmental impact right there in Marysville and around the world.

The U.S. military budget for 2023 was $842 billion. So, let’s see, if we just cut that budget by 10%, that would mean that some $84 billion could be used to provide food to curb the shocking rise in child hunger across the United States, to alleviate the crushing debt of so many students, to solve the devastation of homelessness, to work to address the negative impact of climate change. Hmm… what a concept. read more

Facing climate grief during terrible week

Life-affirming work is empowering
by Leslie Layton | Posted June 19, 2023

The photos this past week that showed tens of thousands of dead fish washing ashore on the Texas Gulf were haunting. Then, reports surfaced that dead wild birds were washing up on the Pacific Coast of Mexico, too.

‘Haunting’ became macabre.

Temperatures around the world soared, breaking records in Mexico and producing the hottest June day on record in Mexico City that sits more than 7,000 feet high. The Canadian wildfires turned some smoke-filled skies in the Northeast an eerie orange, and ocean temperatures underwent a “sudden escalation” because of global warming combined with natural events like an El Niño. read more