Editor:
The last editions of the North Coast Journal (NCJ) capture the contradictions in Humboldt County when it comes to climate change.
Readers who are paying attention to environmental politics will note the contrast between the awareness of climate change articulated in Jen Savage’s excellent article about sea level rise in the Dec. 11 edition of the NCJ and the absolute lack of engagement by the outlet on the recent approval by the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors of the Humboldt Regional Climate Action Plan (HRCAP).
It is a journalistic parallel of the climate whiplash of extreme weather. One week the NCJ will publish a searing piece like Ms. Savage’s article, emphasizing the hard realities of a changing climate, but then the next week the outlet will not even mention in passing the approval of a “climate plan,” much less ask the fundamental question of whether the so-called “climate plan” succeeds in accurately defining the problem and providing an adequate road map for response.
The NCJ is not the only party indifferent to this “climate plan” that was years in the making. Even other jurisdictions, such as the city of Arcata, that are involved in the HRCAP made no effort to participate in the hearing for approval of the “climate plan.”
No wonder decision makers and environmental stakeholders have ignored the evidence presented by the organization I work for, Biofuelwatch, describing how the reliance of this “climate plan” on burning a deforestation driving biofuel product marketed as “renewable diesel” in the place of petroleum-based diesel is a false solution that contemporary science shows is making the global climate and biodiversity crisis worse.
This climate indifference in Humboldt County is a case study in the political complacency that allows environmental harms to continue.
Gary Graham Hughes, Redway
This article appears in Through Mark Larson’s Lens 2025.