Climate scientists who have studied the Southwest largely agree that the vast region — which includes Southern California — has been in drought almost since the beginning of the 21st century. It’s a historic megadrought — meaning a drought of twenty years or more — with the driest soils in the West in at leastContinue reading “Storm vs. Drought: After weeks of flooding, how can CA still be in drought?”
Category Archives: the land
UCSB Scientists See End to “Normal” Climate
From the Independent in Santa Barbara, a story I pulled together on two young scientists exploring the data underlying the megadrought in which SoCal finds itself today: By Kit StolzMon Sep 19, 2022 | 4:49pm In August, Governor Gavin Newsom and officials from the Department of Water Resources released a new Water Supply Strategy, saying that becauseContinue reading “UCSB Scientists See End to “Normal” Climate”
Orwell and the earth
When [the critic] Woodcock compared Orwell to Antaeus, who draws his strength from the earth, he might have also meant that he drew his intellectual strength from the specific and the tangible and from firsthand experience. It set him at odds with an era in which ideologies led many astray, not least as doctrines defendingContinue reading “Orwell and the earth”
Antidote to Despair: “Occupy the Y” in Ojai
How the Desert Oracle, despite a crusty attitude, believes that action to save the earth can heal the individual.
Medicinal Herbs of CA
This month the Ojai Quarterly published my “Off the Shelf” feature on Lanny Kaufer’s spectacular and informative new field guide to medicinal herbs in California: Here’s the opening: And below the fold [page 2, below] the full story in a more readable font for the web. Much respect to Lanny, who not only has beenContinue reading “Medicinal Herbs of CA”
County planning mulls wastewater in Santa Paula
Seven years [after the explosion], on Nov 8, a new management group, led by Tom Koziol, CEO of Fontana-based Ri-Nu Services LLC, brought a proposal to expand and reopen the industrial wastewater facility to about 75 people at a community meeting in Santa Paula, hosted by the county of Ventura Planning Division.
Podcast interview re: PCT completion: Talk of the Town — Ojai Quarterly
Bret Bradigan, the publisher of Ojai Quarterly and other magazines, talked to yours truly for a Talk of the Town podcast on my completion of the Pacific Crest Trail. I thought this was an illuminating and even entertaining conversation (although I must stop laughing like a crazy person). About an hour long. [use link forContinue reading “Podcast interview re: PCT completion: Talk of the Town — Ojai Quarterly”
PCT 2021: Rainy Pass to the Northern Terminus
Walking around Mt Tam
One of the most beautiful and least known poetical flowerings of that outpouring of youth and art we call the 60’s was, arguably, a journey on foot around Mt Tamalpais, in Marin County north of San Francisco. This honoring of “the quiescent one,” this circumambulation, a walk completely around the mountain, following with our feetContinue reading “Walking around Mt Tam”
High Sierra PCT under snow in 2019
This winter turned out to be a very good year for precipitation in the state of California, as experts working with the California Department of Water Resources kind of predicted last fall. This means that right now, in July of 2019, the John Muir Trail and the Pacific Crest Trail through the High Sierra fromContinue reading “High Sierra PCT under snow in 2019”
Kit Stolz 