Board of Supervisors and Santa Rosa City Council joint meeting 11/7/17
As the price tag from the “ unprecedented" super fire storms in Sonoma County grows to billions of dollars (over $3 billion, so far) we are struggling to find the funding for this “unprecedented” amount of money and pondering hard how that money is going to be spent in order to become a stronger, more resilient, healthier and more sustainable community.
For several years Sonoma County has been a Climate Change-aware County that last year approved the intentional document “Climate Action 2020 Plan” and has taken steps to reducing Greenhouse Gases like with the creation of Sonoma Clean Power, nevertheless, like a majority of Americans, we have been acting with the illusion that Climate Change catastrophes were not going to happen to us, or, at least, not in the near future.
The Tubbs Fire and the other catastrophic fires in October 2017 have proven us wrong. The Climate Change-related conditions in the environment turned a probable seasonal event into something close to Doomsday. We ignored its likelihood and we didn’t prepare.
If we want to succeed in effectively transforming Sonoma County into a stronger, more resilient, healthier and more sustainable community, and accelerate the recovery, we must elevate Climate Change Action to be the core organizing principle of the new Sonoma County. Not doing that would be unconscionable.
The transformation to become a Climate Change-Ready County has two essential components (equally important at this stage of the game), CLIMATE RESTORATION towards a more sustainable state of Climate, by becoming a Carbon-Negative economy as fast as it is physically possible, and ADAPTATION TO CLIMATE CHANGE to minimize the damage from future Climate Crisis-related events that will inevitably come.
The Sonoma County Board of Supervisors and the City Councils in Sonoma County have the power to lead that transformation by using its executive powers to commit our County to be such a Climate Change-Ready County.
The commitment will be sealed with official, public and detailed enough, Climate Change Major Disaster Declarations.
These Declarations, not only will make available to the transformation all the resources in our County but will open the gates to “unprecedented" funding, technology and other resources from the State of California, other governments and private organizations and individuals, that will be compelled to support us for statutory and vocational reasons.
By issuing the mandate through the Climate Change Major Disaster Declarations and quickly expanding the already existing Climate Action 2020 Plan to the highest standards of the total Climate Change Action we propose, we will turn the worst catastrophe in Sonoma County into the birth of a better era for all of us.
Our local actions will not only increase exponentially our chances for a livable and prosperous future, but can be the catalyst that wakes up other regions in the USA and the world to the reality of what Climate Change really is: A MAJOR DISASTER. We can turn the tide of the ongoing destruction of humanity and the planet by Climate Change with our local vision and resolution.
This is not the time to be timid, cautious and bureaucratic. This is the time to be bold, daring and creative. This is the time to think-out-of-the-box.