ABCs – Overview
Just getting started? Intro to climate action in the Bay Area.
Thinking about climate change can feel overwhelming, but many people, groups and government bodies are actively working in the Bay Area to reduce impacts and adapt to our brave new future. Look around and you might see folks doing amazing things: planting trees, restoring wetlands, building windmills, installing EV charging stations, for example. Most folks also find a way to do their part, whether its recycling or bicycling or buying local food and conserving water. Just remember where we live, in one of the most beautiful, innovative and forward thinking urban areas in the world. If the climate is changing, we can change with it. You just have to find what works for you, where you live.
Top 5 Climate Issues Bay Area
- Rising sea levels due to iceberg melt and resulting expansion of the Pacific Ocean into San Francisco Bay. As the bay pushes inland, groundwater will also rise.
- Wildfire in forests and grasslands surrounding our cities and towns. Wind-blown fires can move quickly down coastal canyons and into residential areas.
- Heavy rain over short time periods resulting in flooding. Warmer air over the ocean is now fueling atmospheric river events, bomb cyclones and other kinds of extreme weather.
- Heat in cities and valleys away from offshore breezes, as well as in urban zones with few trees and a lot of heat-trapping buildings and pavement.
- Drought. California is naturally drought-prone but climate change has increased the risk of multi-year, prolonged dry periods.
Where are the biggest impacts?
- The 300+ miles of bayshore, where so many of our cities, roads, airports and other urban developments are built right up to the water’s edge.
- Areas around the region’s 80+ creeks, rivers and watersheds subject to flash flooding.
- Cliffs on ocean coasts exposed to storm surge and wave erosion (San Francisco, Marin, San Mateo and Santa Cruz).
- Homes and businesses close to the fire-prone forest or woodland edges.
- Communities built in areas with aging levees, poor drainage, or historic redlining with fewer resources to adapt to flooding, heat, or smoke.
- Farms, salmon, wildlife competing with growing cities, from Danville to Fresno to Los Angeles, for northern California’s ever scarcer fresh water supplies.
Ways to Get Involved
Find and join a local climate action group near you.
Plant trees, pollinator plants, urban gardens.
Invite your neighbors to work with you on disaster preparedness.
Ask your kids and their teachers what they are sharing about climate change at school.
Your content goes here. Edit or remove this text inline or in the module Content settings. You can also style every aspect of this content in the module Design settings and even apply custom CSS to this text in the module Advanced settings.
Explore environmental justice issues in your community.
Your content goes here. Edit or remove this text inline or in the module Content settings. You can also style every aspect of this content in the module Design settings and even apply custom CSS to this text in the module Advanced settings.
Perspectives
You have to act as if it were possible to radically transform the world. And you have to do it all the time.
Angela Davis
Please note, these pages are only intended to offer a get-your-feet-wet sampling of the types of activities and resources to be found related to government action on climate change.
Want more details?