- [Narrator] This month on Bay Area Bountiful is the first episode of a three-part series where we will explore living with climate change.

- Personally, it frightens me, not for me because I'll be dead, but for the next generation and the subject is so large and complex that people don't even discuss it.

There's a lot of different impacts that we're projecting could get much worse.

- But there are a lot of things that are going on that we need to pay attention to that we need to be really concerned about because this generation who is my grandson will have a very difficult time.

Very difficult time.

- We are on a pathway to global warming of more than double the 1.5 degree limit agreed in Paris.

Some government and business leaders are saying one thing but doing another.

Simply put, they're lying and the results will be catastrophic.

- [Voiceover] Bay Area Bountiful is about agriculture.

It's about feeding us.

It's about land and water.

It's about the health of our planet.

It's about stories that matter.

(soft instrumental music) Bay Area Bountiful, cultivate, celebrate, connect.

- [Narrator] Bay Area Bountiful is made possible in part by Rocky, the Free Range Chicken and Rosie, the Original Organic Chicken, the Sonoma County Agricultural Preservation and Open Space District, "Made Local Magazine" and Sonoma County GO LOCAL and through the generous support of Sonoma Water.

- We are on a fast track to climate disaster.

Major cities under water, unprecedented waves, terrifying storms, widespread water shortages, the extinction of a million species of plants and animals and this is not fiction or exaggeration.

It is what science tells us will result from our current energy policies.

This is a climate emergency.

Climate scientists warn that we are already perilously close to tipping points that could lead to cascading and irreversible climate impacts.

And the science is clear.

To keep 1.5 degree limit agreed in Paris within reach, we need to drop global emissions by 45% this decade.

But current climate pledges would mean a 14% increase in emissions and most major emitters are not taking the steps needed to fulfill even these inadequate promises.

- [Narrator] The Bay Area and the Western United States in general has a front row seat to the impact of climate change.

We are in the middle of a 1200 year drought.

January, February, and March of 2022 were the driest of each month since records started being kept in 1895.

18 of the 20 largest and most destructive wildfires in California history have all occurred since the year 2000 with larger fires occurring more frequently as we moved into the 2020s.

The debate about whether we can prevent climate change is over.

It's here.

We're living in it.

In the next three episodes of Bay Area Bountiful, we'll discuss what kinds of changes to expect, how serious they could become, and what is being done to reduce the impacts by individuals, local, state, and federal governments.

While projections and modeling may provide insights on a broader scale, Bay Area residents are already feeling the effects of climate change and noticing its impact on their everyday lives.

- My name is Dr. Kimberly Miner.

I am a climate scientist with NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory and also a science systems engineer working under a number of satellite missions.

So as you know, we're already feeling really serious impacts from climate change, but the concern that a lot of climate scientists have is that it's going to just get worse.

So there was a new report put out by NASA and NOAA combined showing that sea level rise by 2030 could seriously impact coastlines all around the world and that's without any significant melt in Antarctica.

The wildfire situation is prone to increase as the drought continues to increase and if we move to a more arid ecosystem overall, there's a likelihood that we might see ecosystem shifts across scales, meaning that things will grow in different places than what we're used to having things grow--they might not grow as well.

That includes, you know, wildflowers, trees, and even the grapes.

So there's a lot of different impacts that we're projecting could get much worse.

The concern is whether or not they're going to get much worse rapidly in a non-linear way, or whether they're going to gradually get worse.

And it looks like a lot of indicators are pointing towards non-linear change.

- [Interviewer] You've been here, you've been in the area for a really long time.

Can you talk a little bit about the changes that you've seen in the climate and the temperatures?

- Well, the temperatures, of course, in the last couple of years, we've seen huge change.

You know, I mean, like just this last week, when we had a little bit of rain, it was also very humid, like Hawaii, very different than what we're accustomed to.

- A lot less rain.

Smog is a very big problem in cities.

It's just unhealthy air quality.

- Pollution in the air, the birds are dying.

You know, it's just everything.

- Our forests are burning up because of the dry climate now and the change of it.

- You know, at my house in Sebastopol, I've seen that you can't have a garden anymore, 'cause the drought's been going on for so long, that you can't go on vacation in the fall 'cause you have to stay home to evacuate.

And the fires have been a real, like, they've been as big an impact on me as the pandemic and on everybody I know.

- I think that's something that seems to be of immediate concern is that we're going to have to start dealing with the rising water and how we're going to end up losing a lot of land because of that.

- A lot of these willows and wax myrtles, as you can see, are stressed and are just standing dead trees.

A lot of the standing dead stuff is what's causing these fires everywhere and I can't imagine someday, but you know, it's probably in our future that we'll see fires breaking out right here on the actual immediate coast like the one they had up on Meyers Grade couple years ago.

Lots of long dry spells with heavier deluges of what rain we do get in between seems to be real heavy at times, causing a lot more run runoff and erosion problems to the environment where in the past, we got more of a constant, slower-paced rain to get our annual totals.

So I think all that stresses the trees out, too.

- So I think in addition to sea level rise, which we're a little bit more familiar with as a community, some of the climate risks that Bay Area residents will be facing in the future and some of whom are facing already now include the coupling of drought and precipitation.

So what do I mean by that?

Even though we're in the middle of a drought, we're having these extreme rainfall events where we can have a huge amount of precipitation in a really short time scale.

And that can be really upsetting to the entire system, whether it's landslides or causing a loss of water, it's 'cause we can't capture it all so we don't have it for the future.

There's a lot of different dynamics that go into these pulse events.

As you know, the drought is also driving wildfires and there have been a number of very serious wildfires in the Bay Area and north of the Bay Area that will probably continue to affect residents for a long time.

- Personally, the biggest effect was losing my house in the 2017 fire.

And that clearly is a result of climate change.

We never had that when I moved here in 1970, right out of the military.

And hell, in that, since that period, it's changed so radically, you know.

For us, in our rebuild, we made the house as standalone with solar and generator backup, et cetera, et cetera, being tied to the wine industry for 41 harvests.

Hell, the changes have been dramatic.

I mean, if I think back, I'm going to say harvest of '05, we had 19 frost nights.

You look at this year, did we have three?

I'm not even sure if we did.

- [Narrator] Another local resident who is all too familiar with climate change and the threat of wildfires is Dr. David La Rochelle of Napa.

- On October 8th, 2017, approximately 9:52, a tower up on the hill of Atlas Peak in a 70 mile an hour wind fell down and started a fire up on the hill.

The fire started burning and by 10 o'clock, eight minutes later, it was reported that if we are near or on Atlas Peak Road, we better leave because there's a roaring fire coming down the hill.

- [News Anchor] Just out of Napa County, we have a live look at one of two separate fires burning right now.

One is located near Atlas Peak.

Atlas Peak is pretty much due east of Yountville.

That fire broke out just before 10 o'clock and has already burned at least 200 acres.

Cal Fire is getting calls of people who might be trapped in the fire.

- [Journalist] So this is Atlas Peak Road and what's this cross street?

Atlas Peak?

- [Officer] Hardman.

- Harbin?

- Hardman.

- [Journalist] Hardman.

The fire is spreading down the street, as you can see, and it looks like they're trying to save the structure down the street directly across from the gate of the Silverado Country Club.

I was talking with the firefighters down at the previous fire we were at live about the wind conditions and everybody was extremely concerned about the wind and how dangerous it is.

- [Woman On Phone] Have you seen any people, any homeowners evacuate?

- [Journalist] I haven't personally seen the homeowners in these residences.

I've seen cars going very fast away from the fire, which you should be doing.

- At 10:01, the whole ridgeline was fired up and I counted with my fingers looking at the space of the fire, I counted to 10 and it doubled in size.

So, showed me that something's coming down really fast.

So five minutes later at 10:06, I had my three-year-old and one-year-old grandkids, brought 'em out and put 'em in the Rent-A-Car that my daughter had used to bring 'em here.

And we went down the hill and as soon as we got to the next house over, there was already trees burning across the road, so that was less than 15 minutes and there's trees are burning.

So we backed up, went the other way.

There was no lights on the streets or anything.

And these things were flying by like rockets there.

And I looked through the smoke and I said, "oh, hopefully it's going to last."

Came back 10 days later when we could and it was flat to the ground.

The only thing in the house that survived were cement foundation and some of the cement things around the patio and the swimming pool.

That led me to believe that nothing's going to work here unless it's made out of cement 'cause these fires are so hot, they burn right through everything.

So that's what, that's basically why I'm doing this today, five years later.

- [Narrator] Dr. La Rochelle's experience is not unique, not even in his neighborhood where some houses are being rebuilt for the second and third time.

What is unique, though, is his approach.

Determined to continue living in Napa, Dr. La Rochelle is building his house to withstand climate-change-driven-firestorms in the future.

- In 2017, we were just like any other builder, building wood frame houses and of course, every year after that there's been more fires and there's even fires going on right now as we speak.

And so about maybe a year or two after that, we noticed fires weren't going to go away, so we decided we needed to start building homes that won't burn down.

- [Narrator] In addition to being made of non-combustible materials, the construction of the home has many other features, benefits, and built-in defenses.

Because there is no wood to rot, there's no need for air vents in the attic or floor, places where hot embers can be sucked into a home and set them ablaze.

The exterior deck, another area where homes often catch fire, is 100% concrete instead of wood.

The home features a 7,000 gallon cistern to hold rainwater and a 20,000 gallon swimming pool.

Both can be used as sources of water for the interior and exterior sprinkler systems.

The house even has technology that will sense when the windows are getting too hot and spray a curtain of water over them to prevent them from breaking.

This complex construction is not only more resistant to earthquake damage, but it's also incredibly energy efficient.

Research done by the construction company shows that the house would require up to 80% less energy to heat or cool due to the thermal regulation provided by the thick concrete and styrofoam walls.

Dr. La Rochelle is fortunate to have the resources and ability to rebuild his home in such a way, but for many bay area residents, that's not the case.

- [Interviewer] We're talking about climate change today.

How has your life been impacted in any way by climate change?

- Well, of course, no rain and no water.

So we've had the fires.

We've all experienced some touch of that.

- [Interviewer] And are you taking any sort of action or precautions to prepare for those eventualities?

- Really not, there's not a whole lot.

I'm not a property owner, so I don't have the means to do that other than just being prepared in case it should happen.

- [Interviewer] Do you have like a Go Bag or- - Oh yeah, yeah.

The To-Go Bag is a permanent fixture since the 2017 fires and it's a suitcase that's just got the most important things that I would need and it's ready to roll.

It's close to the front door and yeah, if need be to get out.

- [Narrator] For the hundreds of thousands of Bay Area residents like Mrs. Green that don't own a house or piece of property, climate change can seem overwhelming.

Though they might not be able to take defensive action like Dr. La Rochelle, they and you can still make an impact.

- Decisions at the individual level can be a little bit difficult at times thinking about how what you're doing may sometimes be sort of meaningless, which is what might demotivate people from doing stuff, but some things that I do are eating more plant-based foods, using less water when I shower, using less trash, taking the bus and doing things that require less energy and less waste.

- It's important to remember that the Earth is a series of interlocking systems, so that what happens on the coast affects the forest, what happens in the forest affects the grapes, what happens in the grapes, you know, affects the desert by different pathways.

And it's important to think of how all of these things are interlocked when we think about revitalizing and providing resilience to the system.

I'm also really concerned about the amount of things that we're putting out into the environment.

So whether that's chemicals that we dump down the drains that, say, drains to Bay, or whether that's from the fires that burn and release household chemicals into the air, I'm concerned that it causes further destabilization of ecosystems that are already getting closer to the brink.

I think there's a lot of climate scientists that are talking about how important it is to have hope and you know what?

I actually disagree with them.

I think it's really important to have action.

And now is the time for action.

We have a very, very shortened window for how much we can do to change what the future looks like and make it a livable, healthy, very, very beautiful pleasant ecosystem.

So I would encourage everyone, not necessarily to have hope for the future, but to take really concrete, direct actions in our daily lives and as a community, as a nation, and as a planet to make sure that we have done everything we can to stop the climate crisis.

On a local level, things like rewilding, where you change your lawn into a more natural state, maybe put some of the sages or some of the shrubs back, planting trees and increasing the area for pollinators, birds, and bees is always an awesome thing to do.

It's really fun and it's also makes you feel really good about interacting with the local ecosystem.

On a national level, it's really important that people communicate their needs and their desires to the lawmakers that represent them so that as a world, we can come together and make sure that we're really prioritizing rewilding, preserving wilderness and helping the ecosystem come back to a state of stability so that it can withstand any shocks that the inevitable climate change we're going to see will bring.

- Just, I guess, do your part and don't sit there looking in the mirror and think that it should be everybody else's job to do.

We all need to look at our own lives individually and assess where we've been wrong in the past and from 1970s mentality and step up to the 2020s.

And there's a lot of things we can do.

- Prepare for climate changes, join more community groups.

I volunteered at the compost giveaway in Sebastopol done by our climate committee.

I've got solar, I've ordered an electric car, I'm composting, so those are the kinds of things I'm trying to take actions all the time.

- I have a lot of hope for the future.

Just it all, you know, it just takes small steps.

Each person has to do their part and just try to consume less and manage your waste and make sure you're throwing away your stuff and use trashcans and recycle and just try to do the right thing.

- [Narrator] Citizens of Petaluma have decided to take more than a few small steps.

In fact, they've accepted the Cool City Challenge and are one of three pilot cities in the country who are working to become carbon neutral by 2030.

- The primary component of the Cool City Challenge is the Cool Block Program.

And the Cool Block Program is a sort of five-month-process that Cool Block Leaders initiate on their block.

And so a Cool Block Leader is somebody who steps up to say, "I'm going to go ahead and invite all of my neighbors to an initial meeting."

- We met on our front driveway and I felt like that was a good spot because other neighbors could see us there and see that the meeting that they had been invited to was in fact happening.

So in a way, it kind of included everybody.

22 people showed up and as we went through the next couple meetings, we ended up with eight households and 14 people.

- In this program, there's a series of actions in each of eight topics and you go through and you can take those actions and when you take them, you record that you've taken it.

And then as a Block Leader, I get to see how many actions have been taken and whatnot.

And so I was kind of hearing this enthusiastic response at the meetings and no actions being taken on the record keeping, you know.

But then suddenly two or three meetings in, it was like, everybody kind of clicked into gear and there's been this big momentum of activity now.

- So we're going to be looking for, asking you all for kind of ideas.

Well, what happens after- - As we moved through the topics, we learned about each other and I saw that the team got a little more vulnerable.

What I did the other day was I set a galvanized watering can- - So tempting to sort of have this doomism.

Somebody said only 4% of water use is residential.

So what the hell are we talking about?

What about Big Ag and so on?

And they sort of demanded some sort of response on that.

So I went to see Dave King at City Council and got the whole story and delved into it.

And it turns out that, you know, it's not an easy problem for them either, but they're doing quite a bit.

So my- - We're learning from each other and documenting what the best practices are so that we can share those with others.

- Getting together regularly makes a huge difference in just establishing that fun sense of community.

- So I'm excited about it and I think everybody else is excited about it.

- It's not about me getting credit or getting recognition for the thing that I'm doing in my home.

It's about that I'm doing this for my neighborhood and for the bigger circles rippling out and that's why we dig deeper.

- We're all doing stuff to reduce water use, reduce energy use, all the things that the program is intended to do.

And it's really kind of surprising how it takes some of these things which are so mundane and frankly, a little tedious, I mean, it's not that thrilling, frankly, to put aerators in your faucet or whatever, you know.

But when everybody in the block is doing it and we're like, there's just kind of a group enthusiasm that gets built.

Since we started, I think three folks in the block have decided to switch over to electric vehicles.

There are four of us now that want to switch from a gas furnace to a heat pump.

So we've gotten together and we're now in the midst of talking to contractors to get bids for doing our four houses together.

So one, we support each other and with any luck, we'll get a little better pricing because we're doing four houses at once.

It's making a change from these minuscule little changes to more significant ones.

I think if you look at our whole block, we've saved about 70,000 pounds of CO2 a year.

They're minuscule numbers for the globe, but they're significant numbers for our block.

- But our HOA went from paying for water to individual meters about six months ago.

You would be amazed at how many water leaks have been discovered.

- Every individual action really does matter as well as those policy decisions, so it's really a bottom up and a top down approach that we're going to need to solve for the crises that we're in.

Your individual actions do make a difference.

They make a difference for yourself and for the community you live in.

- With your neighbors, you find out who's got the generator, who's a doctor or a nurse that can help you if it's an earthquake and somebody's broken something.

You've got more people on your street with different resources than you could possibly ever have imagined.

- It couldn't be a better feeling than sitting in your house or looking out your window and feeling like this is becoming my community and it's, even more, it's becoming my village here.

(people laughing) - Between the stats that show what actions have actually been taken and all the enthusiasm based on the community building, I can't see why another city wouldn't say, "oh man, we want to do that."

- I think the future is bright, but the amount of work we've got ahead of us is dramatic.

So yeah, the future's bright, but we really got to work together.

Community is the only resilience we really have to what's coming, so community's at the base of the best thing we've got going for us.

- [Narrator] When it comes to climate change, it's easy to feel dismayed and intimidated by what's coming in the future, but the 34,000 scientists who signed on to the latest IPCC report agree, we still have time to take action and lessen the severity of climate change.

In the following months, Bay Area Bountiful will delve into the mini mitigation projects currently taking place, highlight new and exciting research technologies and innovations and show our neighbors, both young and old, how you can be part of the solution to help us all live with climate change.

(inspiring instrumental music) (soft string music)