Are we coloring SBC green?
San Benito County, famous for earthquakes, high-end specialty
agriculture and
– green business?
A stroll through the Spotlight on San Benito County Trade Show
in the Veterans Memorial Building brought home just how far we’ve
come in that very direction.
Are we coloring SBC green?
San Benito County, famous for earthquakes, high-end specialty agriculture and – green business?
A stroll through the Spotlight on San Benito County Trade Show in the Veterans Memorial Building brought home just how far we’ve come in that very direction.
The theme of the day may have been environmental, but that’s no shuck.
Two local solar energy contractors were present. A firm that turns castoff tires into attractive, durable mulch offered samples. Developers touted their green technologies. Parks staffs were on hand to extol the wonders of their home turf. And most were hiring.
It makes too much sense not to happen. Poised at the edge of a sprawling metropolis that is almost certainly as dedicated to its pet environmental causes as any city in the nation, San Benito County offers a great natural setting, relatively lower land costs, more hospitable regulatory network and a willing workforce. How can green businesses not thrive here?
In other news
The Summit Fire that roared through the Santa Cruz Mountains and darkened our western skies last week was the first major fire of the season in Central California, but it almost certainly will not be the last.
If it seems as if enormous wildfires are growing more common, that’s probably because they are. For once, the primary cause is not global warming.
More people are occupying areas that were once mostly wild. Their very presence and the activities that accompany all of us are the likely source of fires.
As I write this, the source of the spark that ignited the Summit Fire is still not known. It is known that it was not caused by a lightning strike, so it almost certainly is the result of human activity.
The Summit Fire is almost a textbook example of a wildfire gone wild. Humidity was low, fuel was dry and abundant and high winds whipped the flames across the hills.
From a distance, one might never know how many people are living under the trees that cloak the Santa Cruz Mountains in a blue-green blanket. But more than 1,000 homes were evacuated. Some of the homes were located at the end of narrow dirt roads that offered limited access to firefighters.
I certainly cannot be the only reader to see the tragic irony in a news account last week that included two interviews with mountain residents who had lost their homes.
Both noted that their homes were not insured against fire because it’s just so expensive.
Hello?
It’s expensive because insurance actuaries have determined that living in the middle of a colossal wood pile results in an elevated risk of loss due to fire. But that’s not the ironic part.
Both intend to return to the sites of their former homes to rebuild.
Unless you’ve been in one, it’s difficult to convey the power of a genuine forest fire. Given the right conditions, they create their own winds, roaring like 1,000 jet engines. Once we stood in mute awe as a fire came racing down the canyon we occupied. Dry pines in front of the fire would begin to shiver and we could see vapor leaving the trees and smell the sharp turpentine scent. Then, each tree would abruptly explode into flames like a 60-foot-tall matchstick.
A plane dropped a load of fire retardant over us in time to ensure our safety, but I’ll never forget the moment.
And I’ll never choose to build my house of sticks in the woods either.
