The Oak Leaf Climate Week Coverage

It’s in the back of our brains, omnipresent as we walk from building to building, the unusually torrid October breeze slapping against our skin. Climate change is real. It’s happening all around us and Sonoma County is one of the first places to get a full picture of its desolation. It’s undeniable that the impact of warming temperatures plays a role in the natural disasters that took Northern Ca...

Below is a feature in the style of The Oak Leaf's Humans of SRJC Instagram account. Follow us there at @humansofsrjc for additional vignettes of the people who comprise the campus community. Reporter Jasmine Benigno-Hall surveyed SRJC students, faculty and staff on the Santa Rosa campus about their position on climate change. Here are their thoughts. ...

Reporters Marilyn Santos and Chuy Gonzales asked SRJC students, faculty and staff what they think and what they're doing about climate change. https://youtu.be/8LsOkQlB430

It’s high noon on Sept. 23 at Santa Rosa Junior College. Women’s Soccer Coach Crystal Chaidez squints as she surveys the sun beating down on her team. It’s 102 degrees outside, and her players are circled on their home turf, unprotected from the sun. They sweat standing still.  Summer soccer practices have always been the bane of a player’s existence. The heat makes it harder to breath...

While many students come to college expecting to explore their interests and find a fulfilling way of combining those interests with a career, their world is no longer so simple.  In light of recent climate change effects being felt by students around the globe, more feelings of hopelessness and despair began to bubble up to the surface and impact the lens through which students view themselves...

Student Government Assembly plans to sell reusable silicone straws by late September as the first step in a future single-use plastic ban at Santa Rosa Junior College. Santa Rosa Vice President of Student Life Dakota McGranahan is working on the single use plastic ban resolution across SRJC campuses. McGranahan wants to start off slow when introducing sustainable options to students, starting at...

Young people across the Bay Area skipped classes Sept. 20 and descended upon the streets of San Francisco as part of a global climate strike to demand a habitable Earth and livable future.  A crowd of nearly 40,000 demonstrators marched from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office at the San Francisco Federal Building to Embarcadero Plaza to demand immediate climate action, stopping to protest key clim...

Approximately 2,000 people marched at noon Friday on Courthouse Square in Santa Rosa in solidarity with students and activists across the country to demand serious action on climate change. The rally lasted about two hours. The majority of those gathered in Santa Rosa were students on strike from all across the city and county. A smaller strike occurred at Santa Rosa Junior College before the participants marc...

Note: This story contains vulgarity  Nothing we do in this college, in this society, with the approval of old and evil people will save the world. But they were never going to save the world. They were the ones sick enough to wreck it in the first place. All their paths have led to the destruction of this planet. There’s no hiding from that now. The only way to combat the climate crisis is to end the cycl...

I did not want to jump, yet I wanted more than ever to feel the crisp Oregon water swallow me whole. The rocks were uneven, my feet’s grip on the perforated cliff shaky and apprehensive. My heart raced and clawed its way up to my throat. I don’t usually let myself feel fear over something that can be remedied by a mere “f*ck it,” yet in this instance, it was hard not to.  Before my hea...

It’s easy to feel overwhelmed and powerless by the media coverage of climate change. However, we are duty-bound to stay informed on this topic so that we may fight for change before it’s too late. One easy and entertaining way to educate yourself is to watch documentaries. While Netflix and Hulu have lots of video content about climate change, not every student has access to paid subscriptio...

Santa Rosa Junior College students and faculty will gather in the quad in solidarity with climate activists across the world Friday, Sept. 20 before marching to Courthouse Square in Santa Rosa. The campus event will last from 9:30-11 a.m. The student and faculty participants will then join the larger group of protesters at Courthouse Square at noon. Alexa Forrester, instructor of philosophy at SRJC, ...

Students and activists across the country gathered in San Francisco last weekend to convey their deep concerns about the world they will inherit, if they live long enough to see it.  San Francisco’s first “PLANET HOME” conference at the Palace of Fine Arts on Sept. 13–15 drew a vast collection of “Solutionists”: artists, entrepreneurs, researchers and activists — people who want ...