Nature + Climate Crisis Archives

Here’s Your Reminder That It’s Tarantula Szn in the SF Bay Area

20Sep

By Matt CharnockNo Comments

Hyperlocal News + Stories, Nature + Climate Crisis

Here’s Your Reminder That It’s Tarantula Szn in the SF Bay Area

Though SF is generally tarantula-free due to its climate and topography, thousands of these massive spiders are currently on the move in the Bay Area. Tarantulas are creatures that you either love or hate; there’s little room for ambivalence when one's exoskeleton serves as inspiration for Halloween decor. But regardless of what feelings you hold for them, the California tarantula, which is the SF Bay Area’s only endemic tarantula, plays a major role in our region’s ecosystems. Aside from being highly effective insectivores — they’re masters of eating hearty amounts of the crickets, grasshoppers, beetles, and caterpillars that could otherwise reproduce in overwhelming numbers — their burrows can serve as homes for other small creatures, once vacated. The tarantulas native to North ...

San Francisco Will Smell Like a Campfire for a Few More Days

20Sep

By Matt CharnockNo Comments

Hyperlocal News + Stories, Nature + Climate Crisis

San Francisco Will Smell Like a Campfire for a Few More Days

Residents of the NorCal city experienced an uncomfortable fit of déjà vu Tuesday when a thick, smoky haze swallowed San Franciso and much of the Bay Area. On Tuesday, September 19th, San Franciscans and other Bay Area locals smelled a familiar, unsettling scent: wildfire smoke. Still-growing wildfires in Northern California and Oregon have filled the skies above them with smoke — and that very same smoke has worked its way down to our slice of California, hazing our skies. The Bay Area Air Quality Management District issued an Air Quality Advisory Tuesday that will remain in effect Wednesday, though it could stretch into Thursday and potentially Friday; the fires responsible for San Francisco (and the greater Bay Area) smelling like a campfire are still burning. Thankfully, air qua...

We Now Know the Whale’s Name Behind That Viral Golden Gate Bridge Picture

18Sep

By Matt CharnockNo Comments

Hyperlocal News + Stories, Nature + Climate Crisis

We Now Know the Whale’s Name Behind That Viral Golden Gate Bridge Picture

Its name couldn’t be more perfect: Pogo. San Francisco sits on an important migration route for many cetaceans (e.g. whales, dolphins, and porpoises) as they travel to and from breeding and feeding grounds. It’s this very reason why whale tours in the San Francisco Bay Area are among the most fruitful anywhere in the country. At times, a jaw-dropping aerial breach done by a traveling humpback whale aligns with someone nearby who’s able to capture that moment in gorgeous detail. That’s exactly what transpired when photographer Pilar Rordquiez was out on a boat near SF’s Golden Gate Bridge in July and just so happened to capture the moment when a then-unknown humpback whale leaped from the ocean — right in front of the famous structure. Fast forward a few months later, and resear...

Sometimes… You Rent a Crane to Plant a Palm Tree in San Francisco

9Sep

By Matt CharnockNo Comments

Hyperlocal News + Stories, Nature + Climate Crisis

Sometimes… You Rent a Crane to Plant a Palm Tree in San Francisco

If you've ever wondered how large trees are planted in San Francisco courtyards bordered by tall residential buildings... well, here you go. San Francisco is the second most dense city in the United States, with New York City claiming the Big W. Because of this, urban landscaping and gardening can pose a few hurdles. Unlike suburbia — where metropolitan walkability and public transport surrender to large backyards, front yards, and painted fence lines — sowing large trees in a cityscape comes with its own set of problems. Most San Franciscans can’t uninstall a wooden gate to bring in a mature, hefty plant into a courtyard. No, much more creative and ostensibly over-the-top (pun intended) measures must be enacted to perform such feats. At the corner of Webster Street and Pacific ...

What if San Francisco’s Crooked Lombard Street Was Car-Free?

7Sep

By Matt CharnockNo Comments

Culture + Travel, Hyperlocal News + Stories, Nature + Climate Crisis

What if San Francisco’s Crooked Lombard Street Was Car-Free?

Reinvisiton arguably the most crook street in the world as a playground for pedestrian activities is a lofty longing, for sure. But it opens the door to understanding how giving back roadways to people can liven up asphalt that otherwise only sees car tires go over it. Silver linings are odious cliches that usually coincide with blind optimism and denials around cherry-picked realities. The pandemic was rife with these metallic undertones — for better and worse. Among those upsides, all of which were shadowed by a global health crisis, San Franciscans explored the city on foot. And bikes. Scooter, too. Both of which were likely electrified. Car-free street corridors sprouted up across the city; they grew in popularity; they became subjects of controversy and morphed into political to...

The Burning Man Flood Brought to Life These Prehistoric Creatures

5Sep

By Matt CharnockNo Comments

Editors' Picks, Hyperlocal News + Stories, Nature + Climate Crisis

The Burning Man Flood Brought to Life These Prehistoric Creatures

With nearly an inch of rain flooding the Nevada desert in less than a week, three-eyed "dinosaurs" and shrimp as long as a human hand began popping up in temporary pools during this year's Burning Man festival. The scene that unfolded at this year’s Burning Man was apocalyptic; it also doubled as a sliding glass window into our future defined by the climate crisis. The unusual late-summer storm brought nearly an inch of rain — at least 0.8 inches, to be exact — from Friday to early Saturday morning. This rainfall amount is what the arid area normally receives over the course of two to three months. It’s little wonder then why this past weekend’s deluge left the temporarily erected Burning Man city inside the Black Rock Desert slick with mud, trapping its estimated 80,000 festival a...

It’s the Season of Bougainvillea in San Francisco

30Aug

By Matt Charnock1 Comment

Hyperlocal News + Stories, Nature + Climate Crisis

It’s the Season of Bougainvillea in San Francisco

Because of San Francisco's unique microclimates, flora of all types thrive in the seven-by-seven. Bougainvillea is one of those effortlessly growing plants. San Francisco is a city where small pockets of beauty exist around every corner. I’ve lived here now for nearly a decade — having previously made the move from Austin, Texas’s scenic hill country — and continue to be gobsmacked by this city’s grand appeal. (This, however, isn’t to say there aren’t more issues here to shake a six-foot stick at; misplaced trash is still everywhere.) Being a born-and-bred Texan, I’m accustomed to the year oscillating between two seasons: Half the year when things are green and alive, and the other of the year when things are brown and dead. Bluebonnets and other wildflowers blossom in the state...

How the SF Bay Area Played a Major Role in the Creation of Sea Monkeys

21Aug

By Matt CharnockNo Comments

Editors' Picks, Hyperlocal News + Stories, Nature + Climate Crisis

How the SF Bay Area Played a Major Role in the Creation of Sea Monkeys

It's estimated that billions of "sea-monkeys" have been produced and sold since they first came to market in the late 1950s. And they can all trace their roots back to a San Francisco aquarium. “Sea-monkeys” are equal parts cheeky novelty and wonder of the natural world. Though by no means apes — “sea-monkeys” are basically lab-grown iterations that can trace their ancestor to SF Bay Area brine shrimp (Artemia franciscana) — they are a captivating member of the animal kingdom that played a crucial role in our early experiences of biophilia. But even as well-known and ubiquitous as these half-inch-sized invertebrates are, they still carry whims of mystery and rare facts. Case in point: Did you all know the SF Bay Area is linked to the later creations of this human-made brine ship sp...

The Weekend Catch-Up: Apparently Fewer People Will Live in SF by 2060

14Aug

By Matt Charnock1 Comment

Nature + Climate Crisis

The Weekend Catch-Up: Apparently Fewer People Will Live in SF by 2060

A new report from the California State Department of Finances shows SF’s population shrinking by at least 25,000 individuals from now until 2060. There’s no denying that San Francisco hasn’t experienced the pandemic rebirth and population boom other American cities have. (Though like we’ve said in various hues and shades and contrasts prior: San Francisco's livability and economic model were by no means sustainable before 2020, and the Covid-19 health emergency catalyzed a transition to a more endurable future.) No matter what happens to SF, it will still remain one of, if not the most, gorgeous, spellbinding large metro in the United States. There’s even an entire gallery exhibit currently on display that eloquently and effortlessly proves this. However, according to the most rece...

San Francisco’s ‘Fogust’ Is in Full Bloom

1Aug

By Matt Charnock1 Comment

Culture + Travel, Nature + Climate Crisis

San Francisco’s ‘Fogust’ Is in Full Bloom

It's the gloomiest time of the year in San Francisco — but it has a magical quality, all unto itself. There’s something so tantalizing, so ethereal about watching the fog roll into San Francisco. It elicits as much a release as it does an envelopment — signaling the end, or beginning, of a new day. It exists as a balm to any San Franciscan who’s fortunate enough to call this maddening metropolis home; an omnipresent reminder that whatever’s salting your wounds right now, those pains, in time, shall pass; that much like the city’s consistent misty aurora, better days are inevitably on the horizon. Fogust, as we’ve come to denote August, is affectionately monikered — the month-long span where Bay Area locals expect foggy, cloudy, hazy conditions each day and every day. And it’s the...