It’s easy to feel pessimistic when scientists around the world are warning that climate change has advanced so far, it’s now inevitable that societies will either transform themselves or be transformed. But as two of the authors of a recent international climate report, we also see reason for optimism.

The latest reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change discuss changes ahead, but they also describe how existing solutions can reduce greenhouse gas emissions and help people adjust to impacts of climate change that can’t be avoided.

The problem is that these solutions aren’t being deployed fast enough. In addition to push-back from industries, people’s fear of change has helped maintain the status quo.

To slow climate change and adapt to the damage already underway, the world will have to shift how it generates and uses energy, transports people and goods, designs buildings and grows food. That starts with embracing innovation and change.

Fear of change can lead to worsening change

From the industrial revolution to the rise of social media, societies have undergone fundamental changes in how people live and understand their place in the world.

Some transformations are widely regarded as bad, including many of those connected to climate change. For example, about half the world’s coral reef ecosystems have died because of increasing heat and acidity in the oceans. Island nations like Kiribati and coastal communities, including in Louisiana and Alaska, are losing land into rising seas.

Other transformations have had both good and bad effects. The industrial revolution vastly raised standards of living for many people, but it spawned inequality, social disruption and environmental destruction.

People often resist transformation because their fear of losing what they have is more powerful than knowing they might gain something better. Wanting to retain things as they are – known as status quo bias – explains all sorts of individual decisions, from sticking with incumbent politicians to not enrolling in retirement or health plans even when the alternatives may be rationally better.

This effect may be even more pronounced for larger changes. In the past, delaying inevitable change has led to transformations that are unnecessarily harsh, such as the collapse of some 13th-century civilizations in what is now the U.S. Southwest. As more people experience the harms of climate change firsthand, they may begin to realize that transformation is inevitable and embrace new solutions.

A mix of good and bad

The IPCC reports make clear that the future inevitably involves more and larger climate-related transformations. The question is what the mix of good and bad will be in those transformations.

If countries allow greenhouse gas emissions to continue at a high rate and communities adapt only incrementally to the resulting climate change, the transformations will be mostly forced and mostly bad.

For example, a riverside town might raise its levees as spring flooding worsens. At some point, as the scale of flooding increases, such adaptation hits its limits. The levees necessary to hold back the water may become too expensive or so intrusive that they undermine any benefit of living near the river. The community may wither away.

The riverside community could also take a more deliberate and anticipatory approach to transformation. It might shift to higher ground, turn its riverfront into parkland while developing affordable housing for people who are displaced by the project, and collaborate with upstream communities to expand landscapes that capture floodwaters. Simultaneously, the community can shift to renewable energy and electrified transportation to help slow global warming.

Optimism resides in deliberate action

The IPCC reports include numerous examples that can help steer such positive transformation.

For example, renewable energy is now generally less expensive than fossil fuels, so a shift to clean energy can often save money. Communities can also be redesigned to better survive natural hazards through steps such as maintaining natural wildfire breaks and building homes to be less susceptible to burning.

Land use and the design of infrastructure, such as roads and bridges, can be based on forward-looking climate information. Insurance pricing and corporate climate risk disclosures can help the public recognize hazards in the products they buy and companies they support as investors.

No one group can enact these changes alone. Everyone must be involved, including governments that can mandate and incentivize changes, businesses that often control decisions about greenhouse gas emissions, and citizens who can turn up the pressure on both.

Transformation is inevitable

Efforts to both adapt to and mitigate climate change have advanced substantially in the last five years, but not fast enough to prevent the transformations already underway.

Doing more to disrupt the status quo with proven solutions can help smooth these transformations and create a better future in the process.

[Over 150,000 readers rely on The Conversation’s newsletters to understand the world. Sign up today.]

Robert Lempert, Professor of Policy Analysis, Pardee RAND Graduate School and Elisabeth Gilmore, Associate Professor of Climate Change, Technology and Policy, Carleton University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — The Clearlake City Council will hold a public hearing as part of considering authorizing a plan to fund millions of dollars of roadwork.

The council will meet at 6 p.m. Thursday, April 21, in the council chambers at Clearlake City Hall, 14050 Olympic Drive.

The meeting will be broadcast live on the city's YouTube channel or the Lake County PEGTV YouTube Channel. Community members also can participate via Zoom or can attend in person.

The agenda can be found here.

Comments and questions can be submitted in writing for City Council consideration by sending them to City Clerk Melissa Swanson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

To give the council adequate time to review your questions and comments, please submit your written comments before 4 p.m. Thursday, April 21.

Each public comment emailed to the city clerk will be read aloud by the mayor or a member of staff for up to three minutes or will be displayed on a screen. Public comment emails and town hall public comment submissions that are received after the beginning of the meeting will not be included in the record.

On Thursday, Finance Director Kelcey Young will present to the council the options for Measure V road improvement projects financing.

Last month, Young presented a report to the council that looked at a plan to expedite the needed road work in the city through debt financing directly with a bank. The council directed staff to move forward with identifying financing options.

That financing plan will allow the city to do millions of dollars worth of work up front, rather than doing smaller projects yearly based on the $2.5 million in annual revenue from the Measure V sales tax that’s dedicated to road improvements.

Under business, council members will consider the first reading of the Clearlake Police Department’s military equipment policy ordinance and set a second reading and adoption for the May 5 meeting.

The council on Thursday also will get a presentation about an adoptable dog from the city shelter and hear a presentation from Local Initiative Support Corp. representatives regarding the Distressed Cities Technical Assistance Program regarding Clearlake projects.

On the meeting's consent agenda — items that are considered routine in nature and usually adopted on a single vote — are warrants; minutes of the March 16 and 28 Lake County Vector Control District Board meetings; review of the 2021 Annual Housing Element Progress Report; adoption and authorization to implement the Local Road Safety Plan; and authorization for the city manager to execute an amendment to the license with Mudslingers Coffee for a term from April 21, 2022 through April 22, 2032.

After the public portion of the meeting, the council will hold a closed session to discuss property negotiations with Burbank Housing Corp. regarding 6820 Old Highway 53, hold an evaluation of the city manager, hold a conference with legal counsel over a lawsuit against the county of Lake and the treasurer-tax collector, and discuss labor negotiations with the Clearlake Municipal Employees Association and Clearlake Police Officers Association.

Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.

LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — Partnerships, collaboration and entrepreneurs will be featured during the fourth Lake Leadership Forum to be held in person on Tuesday, May 10.

The event will take place at The Mercantile, 4350 Thomas Drive, Kelseyville.

The program begins at 2 p.m. with networking at 5 p.m.

Presented by the Lake County Economic Development Corp., or Lake EDC, the Lake County Chamber of Commerce and the Lake County Tourism Improvement District, the Lake Leadership Forum is open to the public with tickets available at https://tinyurl.com/LakeForum22 for $20 per person which includes a glass of wine or other beverage.

The first leadership summits in 2014 and 2015, coordinated by the ad hoc Lake County Regional Economic Development Committee, were conducted at the then-Marymount California University in the Lucerne Hotel, with the third summit in 2019 at the same location under the auspices of the Lake EDC.

These early sessions were designed for Lake County’s small businesses, entrepreneurs, innovators and interested citizens to inspire, collaborate and envision a stronger economic climate.

The 2022 event will build on this framework with presentations about community initiatives and opportunities that are generating economic momentum.

A panel discussion regarding innovations in agriculture and tourism will include Joy Merrilees, vice president of production for Shannon Ridge, and Melinda Price, co-owner of Peace and Plenty Farm, growers of organic saffron.

Speakers will demonstrate the entrepreneurial spirit of Lake County through presentations by Catherine Reese, Reese Ranch Retreat, winner of the 2021 1Team1Dream competition, and Kejhana Taylor, a participant in the LCCC’s youth mentorship program.

Industry updates and discussion of a realistic path for cannabis in Lake County will be addressed by Bobby Dutcher, Wine Country Land and Ranches, and Alicia Russell, Lake County Cannabis Alliance.

Forward growth in energy technology and healthcare will be shared by Jenn Gregory of Downtown Strategies, who will discuss the latest information on developing a network of electric charging car stations, and by Jamey Gill, executive director of the Blue Zones Project in Lake County.

The presenting organizations represent people from all over Lake County who love our community and want to see it prosper. You are invited to participate in this leadership forum and connect with like-minded citizens.

Tickets may also be purchased with a check payable to and sent to Lake EDC, P.O. Box 1257, Lakeport, CA 95453. Shannon Family of Wines is the corporate sponsor for the event.

More information is available from Nicole Flora, executive director, Lake EDC, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Increasingly large and intense wildfires in the Pacific Northwest are altering the seasonal pattern of air pollution and causing a spike in unhealthy pollutants in August, new research finds.

The smoke is undermining clean air gains, posing potential risks to the health of millions of people, according to the study.

The research, led by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, or NCAR, found that levels of carbon monoxide — a gas that indicates the presence of other air pollutants — have increased sharply as wildfires spread in August.

Carbon monoxide levels are normally lower in the summer because of chemical reactions in the atmosphere related to changes in sunlight, and the finding that their levels have jumped indicates the extent of the smoke’s impacts.

“Wildfire emissions have increased so substantially that they’re changing the annual pattern of air quality across North America,” said NCAR scientist Rebecca Buchholz, the lead author. “It’s quite clear that there is a new peak of air pollution in August that didn’t used to exist.”

Although carbon monoxide generally is not a significant health concern outdoors, the gas indicates the presence of more harmful pollutants, including aerosols (airborne particulates) and ground-level ozone that tends to form on hot summer days.

The research team used satellite-based observations of atmospheric chemistry and global inventories of fires to track wildfire emissions during most of the past two decades, as well as computer modeling to analyze the potential impacts of the smoke. They focused on three North American regions: the Pacific Northwest, the central United States, and the Northeast.

Buchholz said the findings were particularly striking because carbon monoxide levels have been otherwise decreasing, both globally and across North America, due to improvements in pollution-control technologies.

The study was published this week in Nature Communications. The research was funded in part by the U.S. National Science Foundation, NCAR’s sponsor. The paper was co-authored by researchers from the University of Colorado, Boulder; Columbia University; NASA; Tsinghua University; and Colorado State University.

Increasing impacts on air pollution

Wildfires have been increasing in the Pacific Northwest and other regions of North America, due to a combination of climate change, increased development, and land use policies.

The fires are becoming a larger factor in air pollution, especially as emissions from human activities are diminishing because of more efficient combustion processes in motor vehicles and industrial facilities.

To analyze the impacts of fires, Buchholz and her collaborators used data from two instruments on the NASA Terra satellite: Measurements of Pollution in the Troposphere, or MOPITT, which has tracked carbon monoxide continually since 2002; and the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer, or MODIS, which detects fires and provides information on aerosols.

They also studied four inventories of wildfire emissions, which rely on MODIS data.

The scientists focused on the period from 2002, the beginning of a consistent and long-term record of MOPITT data, to 2018, the last year for which complete observations were available at the time when they began their study.

The results showed an increase in carbon monoxide levels across North America in August, which corresponded with the peak burning season of the Pacific Northwest.

The trend was especially pronounced from 2012 to 2018, when the Pacific Northwest fire season became much more active, according to the emissions inventories. Data from the MODIS instrument revealed that aerosols also showed an upward trend in August.

To determine whether the higher pollution levels were caused by the fires, the scientists eliminated other potential emission sources.

They found that carbon monoxide levels upwind of the Pacific Northwest, over the Pacific Ocean, were much lower in August — a sign that the pollution was not blowing in from Asia.

They also found that fire season in the central U.S. and the Northeast did not coincide with the August increase in pollution, which meant that local fires in those regions were not responsible.

In addition, they studied a pair of fossil fuel emission inventories, which showed that carbon monoxide emissions from human activities did not increase in any of the three study regions from 2012 to 2018.

“Multiple lines of evidence point to the worsening wildfires in the Pacific Northwest as the cause of degraded air quality,” Buchholz said. “It’s particularly unfortunate that these fires are undermining the gains that society has made in reducing pollution overall.”

Risks to human health

The findings have implications for human health because wildfire smoke has been linked to significant respiratory problems, and it may also affect the cardiovascular system and worsen pregnancy outcomes.

Buchholz and her co-authors used an NCAR-based computer model, the Community Atmosphere Model with a chemistry component, to simulate the movement of emissions from the Pacific Northwest fires and their impact on carbon monoxide, ozone, and fine particulate matter.

They ran the simulations on the Cheyenne supercomputer at the NCAR-Wyoming Supercomputing Center. The results showed the pollutants could affect more than 130 million people, including about 34 million in the Pacific Northwest, 23 million in the Central U.S., and 72 million in the Northeast.

Although the study did not delve deeply into the health implications of the emissions, the authors looked at respiratory death rates in Colorado for the month of August from 2002 to 2011, compared with the same month in 2012 to 2018.

They chose Colorado, located in the central U.S. region of the study, because respiratory death rates in the state were readily obtainable.

They found that Colorado respiratory deaths in August increased significantly during the 2012-2018 period, when fires in the Pacific Northwest — but not in Colorado — produced more emissions in August.

“It’s clear that more research is needed into the health implications of all this smoke,” Buchholz said. “We may already be seeing the consequences of these fires on the health of residents who live hundreds or even thousands of miles downwind.”

This material is based upon work supported by the National Center for Atmospheric Research, a major facility sponsored by the National Science Foundation and managed by the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

About the article

Title: "New seasonal pattern of pollution emerges from changing North American wildfires"
Authors: Rebecca R. Buchholz, Mijeong Park, Helen M. Worden, Wenfu Tang,
David P. Edwards, Benjamin Gaubert, Merritt Deeter, Thomas Sullivan, Muye Ru,
Mian Chin, Robert C. Levy, Bo Zheng, and Sheryl Magzamen. Journal: Nature Communications.

As Western states continue to experience intensifying drought conditions, Gov. Gavin Newsom on Tuesday visited Lake Oroville to highlight efforts to advance long-term water resilience and bolster the state’s drought response.

Though storms returned to Northern California this week, the small amounts of rain and snowfall expected will not make a significant dent in the water deficit the state faces.

“With the climate crisis threatening communities across the West, we must double down on our work to build water resilience in our communities for the long haul,” said Newsom. “All of us must do our part to tackle the intensifying drought conditions felt across the state. We’re investing critical resources to battle the drought’s impacts on our communities and ecosystems and finding innovative solutions to deal with these new realities.”

Dry conditions resulting from extreme weather impact multiple aspects of state operations, including increased fire risk and reduced energy production capacity.

On Tuesday, the governor visited Hyatt Powerplant at the Oroville facilities, which produces enough hydroelectric power to supply a city the size of San Francisco.

Last year, State Water Project operations managers took the powerplant offline due to falling lake levels, but the facility resumed hydropower operations again in January.

The governor and the Legislature have invested $5.2 billion over three years to support the immediate drought response and build water resilience statewide, and the governor is proposing $2 billion to spur clean energy projects across the state and bolster grid reliability.

The budget includes funding to secure and expand water supplies; bolster drought contingency planning and multi-benefit land repurposing projects; support drinking water and wastewater infrastructure, with a focus on small and disadvantaged communities; advance Sustainable Groundwater Management Act implementation to improve water supply security and quality; and support wildlife and habitat restoration efforts, among other nature-based solutions.

“As this drought persists into a third year, we are experiencing drier and hotter weather than ever before,” said California Natural Resources Agency Secretary Wade Crowfoot. “These conditions diminish our water supplies but also threaten energy reliability. We are adapting to these unprecedented conditions and working to find flexibilities where possible to safeguard both water supplies and grid reliability.”

“We are now in a third consecutive year of drought, driven by climate change. We’re seeing the realities of our warming climate on our water supply and our power supply as evident by conditions at Lake Oroville,” said California Department of Water Resources Director Karla Nemeth. “The state is taking action to balance the water supply needs of residents, businesses and agriculture, and the environment. We are stepping up our policy efforts and educating the public about the need to make water conservation a way of life to stretch our water supply as much as possible.”

The governor last week announced the expansion of the state’s Save Our Water campaign to encourage Californians to reduce water use as drought conditions worsen.

The campaign rolled out new multilingual ads across several media platforms as part of their ongoing efforts, and briefed more than a dozen influencers and content creators calling on them to support the statewide education campaign.

The state has also launched the California WATER WATCH website to inform Californians about hydrological conditions in their own communities and connect residents with local water suppliers to learn about available incentives and rebates that support water-saving upgrades in the home and yard.

Gov. Newsom, through an executive order last month, called on local water suppliers to move to, at a minimum, level two of their water shortage contingency plans, which require locally-appropriate actions that will conserve water across all sectors.

The executive order also directed the State Water Resources Control Board to consider a ban on the watering of decorative grass at businesses and institutions.

In March, the governor advanced an additional $22.5 million to bolster the state’s drought response.

Of this funding, $8.25 million will be used to increase educational and outreach efforts, including through the Save Our Water campaign, which is providing Californians with water-saving tips via social media and other digital advertising.

Gov. Newsom’s California Blueprint proposal includes $750 million in additional drought funding, $250 million of which was set aside as a drought reserve to be allocated in the spring, based on conditions and need.

In 2020, Newsom released the Water Resilience Portfolio, the administration’s blueprint for equipping California to cope with more extreme droughts and floods, rising temperatures, declining fish populations, over-reliance on groundwater, and other challenges. The administration released a progress report in January 2022.

For more tips on saving water, visit www.saveourwater.com. Learn more about current conditions, the state’s response and informational resources available to the public at the state’s drought preparedness website.

LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — Nurses and health care workers at Sutter Lakeside Hospital in Lakeport and 14 Sutter Health facilities across California held a one-day strike on Monday after last-minute contract negotiations late last week broke down.

The California Nurses Association and Sutter Health are at loggerheads in ongoing contract negotiations in which the union says the company is refusing to enforce nursing ratios and is not prioritizing patient safety.

“We’re striking for patients’ safety. Sutter is short staffing the nurses,” said Yvette Neil, who has worked for Sutter Lakeside for 18 years and is the union steward.

Neil — who is part of the nurses union’s bargaining team — said nurses have been working on an expired contract since June 2019. Negotiations started in June but have not made much headway.

She said corporations like Sutter Health are cutting labor costs by short-staffing hospitals, which is leading to a great exodus of nurses while increasing medical errors and poor patient outcomes.

“We remain focused on reaching a shared resolution,” Sutter Health said in a Monday morning statement. “Just as Sutter’s commitment to safe, compassionate care remains unchanged, so does our goal of reaching an agreement that reflects the good and important work of our nurses and maintains our strength and stability as an organization. As we continue with negotiations, our patients will continue to receive uninterrupted, quality care.”

The striking nurses had only planned to be off work for one day for the strike but they were informed of a five-day lockout by Sutter Health officials.

Sutter Health, in turn, said “lockout” was the wrong term.

“When the union threatens a strike we must make plans that our patients, teams and communities can rely on,” the company said in a written statement provided to Lake County News on Monday afternoon. “Part of that planning is securing staff to replace nurses who have chosen to strike, and those replacement contracts provide the assurance of 5 days of guaranteed staffing amid the uncertainty of a widespread work stoppage. As always, our top priority remains safe, high-quality patient care and nurses may be reinstated sooner based on operational and patient care needs.”

Neil said on Monday the hospital notified the nurses union of the “replacement period” — the term being used rather than a lockout.

“It’s totally retaliatory,” said Neil, explaining that the hospital is refusing to let nurses use their paid leave time to cover them while they are not being allowed to return to work.

“We’re completely willing to go to work tomorrow and the whole week,” Neil said.

The last strike held at Sutter Lakeside was in September 2011.

Neil, who said no one ever wants to strike, described a workplace at Sutter Lakeside with poor morale, where numerous nurses — including many who have been at the hospital for more than a decade — have left, and everyone is working 12-hour shifts and picking up additional work.

Neil said the nurses are exhausted. “It’s been this way for a year and a half.”

She said Sutter Lakeside has been short-staffed since the COVID-19 pandemic started.

“There wasn’t very much COVID in our hospital,” said Neil, noting about half a dozen nurses came down with the virus. The Delta variant, in particular, caused a lot of illness.

Staffing wasn’t an issue due to COVID-19, said Neil. Rather, she attributes it to Sutter putting skeleton crews on duty throughout its facilities statewide.

The situation led the union to hold an informational picket in March, which resulted in a good turnout, Neil said.

However, with no progress made on the negotiations, the union held a March strike vote at the hospitals it represents. Neil said union members had to go to the hospitals to vote in person.

At Sutter Lakeside, 61 of the 100 nurses came to vote; the others couldn’t get away due to work. She said all of those who came voted in favor of a strike. Similarly high percentages favoring the strike were reported at the other hospitals.

Neil pointed out that Sutter said the nurses union canceled further negotiations, “and that’s not true.”

The union gave Sutter Health and the federal government the required 10-day notice of a strike. She said they had until Sunday night to come to the bargaining table.

On Friday, a federal moderator came in and Neil said Sutter was forced to come to the table. Negotiations began at 5 p.m. and went until nearly midnight.

While it was unlikely a contract could have been settled after just one day of negotiating, “They failed to show us that they were serious in negotiating,” Neil said.

She added, “So we went forward with the strike.”

The striking nurses were stationed at the entrance to Sutter Lakeside, on Hill Road East, to hold their one-day picket during what turned out to be a rainy Monday.

Music and regular honking on the busy road created a festive mood. Some of the striking workers brought family members, such as their children. They were dressed in bright red, holding signs and waving to passersby.

Lakeport Fire Chief Jeff Thomas drove into the hospital flashing his lights and greeted the nurses on his way out of the facility.

Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.