Sick of hearing about climate change? The more it progresses, the sicker we'll get.

The good news about climate-driven health impacts, says Humboldt County's Dr. Wendy Ring, is that most of them are familiar problems, albeit on a lesser scale than is forecast for the future.

Ring and her husband embarked on a cross-county speaking tour by bicycle over the summer, stopping in cities and states both red and blue to cultivate community demand for action on climate change from their local Congressional representatives. Her stop in Santa Rosa this week is part of a California swing toward the conservative bastions of the south with the same intent: to mobilize meaningful national policy action as soon as possible.

Dr. Ring will share her message at the Peace and Justice Center, 467 Sebastopol Avenue in Santa Rosa, on Friday night, Dec. 7th at 7 pm.

Locally controlled production of new green energy sources in Sonoma County is an attractive concept. But the future of the proposed Sonoma Clean Power project still hinges on some key cost figures

Supervisor David Rabbitt (at right) questions the Water Agency's Cordell Stillman (back to camera) as the Sonoma Supervisors prepare to approve the new Sonoma Clean Power Authority Tuesday morning. (KRCB photo)Under the Sonoma Clean Power JPA, PG&E will continue to provide the distribution grid that will carry the new, locally generated green electricity, as well as doing the billing and collections, just as they do now. The Sonoma Water Agency's Grant Davis, now also the head of the new Sonoma Clean Power Authority says the current monopoly utility could also be one of the sources of some of that renewable power, or set up their own operation in direct competition with the county.

Hospice care is for patients with just six months of life expectancy remaining. But it isn't just medical care, and it's not only for the elderly.


Molly Bourne, MDA key aspect of hospice care is pain management for the patient, says Dr. Molly Bourne, Medical Director for Hospice of the Bay. And that extends beyond the obvious physical pains.

 "Locavores" try to get most or even all of their food from sources close to where they live. A Marin County woman is pioneering the application of that concept to what she wears.

Rebecca Burgess Rebecca Burgess admits that the idea of getting all the "ingredients" of her wardrobe – fiber, yarns, dyes, etc. – from local sources seemed a bit fanciful at first. But as she set out to actually make doing that part of her life, it became very real.

Although the flower of the indigo plant is light purple, the dye produced by the plant is a rich, dark blue color. Our region is unusually versatile, able to grow both cotton and support alpacas, two important fiber sources. It also enabled Burgess to create her own blue dye. This proved to be a complex, year-long process, one that began with the cultivation of some 8000 indigo plants.

Not only were the results worth the effort, Burgess has also begun seed-saving to improve the next generation of her indigo crop.

Rebecca Burgess blogs about her experiences in finding and developing local fiber sources, and offer resources for others who share that interest at her Fibershed website.