Down the Rabbit Hole

I have attended conferences where climate change was discussed from a food security angle. Increasing temperatures, drought, excess rain, and flooding would lead to food shortages. Therefore,  climate-smart  food sources must be incorporated into planetary health diets  so that people get their nutritional needs while keeping their impact on the planet at a minimum. During Solano County's Public Health Division-Wide Meeting this year, Mr Jerry Huber (Director, Department of Health and Social Services) and Dr Bela Matyas (Public Health Officer and Deputy Director, Department of Health and Social Services) highlighted the need to talk about climate instability from a public health perspective. This encompasses the associations between public health and clean water, public health and **exotic** disease-bearing vectors, and public health and wildfires, among others. Zooming out of these specific links to public health reveals that climate instability is the underlying common ...

We didn't have anything planned for Memorial Day weekend this year. Donan has swimming lessons on the weekend, so we couldn't really go farther than where a four-hour drive can take us. This limitation narrowed our options. We agreed to go on a day trip to Lake Tahoe since we have not visited the area in spring. I have been there three times in winter , with two of those trips for snowboarding . Mommy and Daddy have been there several times as well. It's Donan's first time to visit. Our route (I-680, I-80, US-50) led us to the Eldorado National Forest's breathtaking vistas, cold mountain rivers, and the Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit. Our first glimpse of Lake Tahoe was at Echo Summit Pass (the highest point of our journey at ~7300 feet ASL). We drove under the shadows of snow-capped mountains and had a great view of Lover’s Leap as I navigated the zigzagging road. The route also took us through the remnants of a community burned to the ground during the 2021 Cald...