Ariel R Okamoto
@sfbayariel.bsky.social
Science Writer, Coast-Lover, Urbanite, Hawkwatcher, plus Managing Editor KneeDeep Times, a climate resilience magazine, and co-author A Natural History of San Francisco Bay, UC Press.
In another life my family had land in the Napa Valley, and when I spoke to this landowner about the fires that have reached his property line, one burned 90% of his woodlands, I could not resist sharing his story, and its inside tips of fire resilience.
www.kneedeeptimes.org/steve-rasmus...
www.kneedeeptimes.org/steve-rasmus...
One Napa Valley Man's Fight Against Five Wildfires – KneeDeep Times
Since Steve Rasmussen and his wife bought a Napa vineyard in 2015 they've weathered five fires, and learned how the county and the community respond when disaster strikes.
www.kneedeeptimes.org
September 27, 2025 at 7:23 PM
In another life my family had land in the Napa Valley, and when I spoke to this landowner about the fires that have reached his property line, one burned 90% of his woodlands, I could not resist sharing his story, and its inside tips of fire resilience.
www.kneedeeptimes.org/steve-rasmus...
www.kneedeeptimes.org/steve-rasmus...
Signs of Resilience 11: Such polite signs, and so many varieties. If only our social media accounts and political exchanges were this tolerant and conciliatory.
July 21, 2025 at 10:49 PM
Signs of Resilience 11: Such polite signs, and so many varieties. If only our social media accounts and political exchanges were this tolerant and conciliatory.
Detritus from the 4th of July fireworks, shreds of red, white and blue in a litter of dead leaves. Fitting fetters of the chaos of our country.
July 6, 2025 at 12:38 AM
Detritus from the 4th of July fireworks, shreds of red, white and blue in a litter of dead leaves. Fitting fetters of the chaos of our country.
Gobsmacking Art: Sometimes art is worth more than 1,OOO words, as in this piece by Maureen Gruben, which weaves red yarn across polar bear hair in morse code spacing spelling SOS. The piece, Message 2015, signals climate change impacts on Canada's Northwest Territories. It gave me shivers.
June 17, 2025 at 3:29 PM
Gobsmacking Art: Sometimes art is worth more than 1,OOO words, as in this piece by Maureen Gruben, which weaves red yarn across polar bear hair in morse code spacing spelling SOS. The piece, Message 2015, signals climate change impacts on Canada's Northwest Territories. It gave me shivers.
Signs of Resilience 10: California's bounty at the Saturday farmer's market in San Francisco. An abundance of citrus, early nectarines, and apricots delights. A reminder of our deep roots in the land. You can't grow food in a black mirror, on a server, via social media. You can't fake fruit.
May 31, 2025 at 8:43 PM
Signs of Resilience 10: California's bounty at the Saturday farmer's market in San Francisco. An abundance of citrus, early nectarines, and apricots delights. A reminder of our deep roots in the land. You can't grow food in a black mirror, on a server, via social media. You can't fake fruit.
Signs of Resilience 9: Nature shows us our true colors. Wind shreds a San Francisco flag in half today as the nation's Congress votes in a budget for new American values. It's money, power and white males first and last. Health, safety, liberty and justice for all, gone with the wind.
May 23, 2025 at 10:04 PM
Signs of Resilience 9: Nature shows us our true colors. Wind shreds a San Francisco flag in half today as the nation's Congress votes in a budget for new American values. It's money, power and white males first and last. Health, safety, liberty and justice for all, gone with the wind.
Signs of Resilience 8: Urban trees clean our air, offer shade on a hot day, host birds, and remind us of nature in the concrete jungle. (Also let's face it, where would all the apartment dogs pee?) Trees are not always an urban wildfire risk if well-maintained.
April 27, 2025 at 12:19 AM
Signs of Resilience 8: Urban trees clean our air, offer shade on a hot day, host birds, and remind us of nature in the concrete jungle. (Also let's face it, where would all the apartment dogs pee?) Trees are not always an urban wildfire risk if well-maintained.
New Stories: Some folks are taking on the heavy lifting necessary to really change how we do industry in close proximity to cities and communities. Proud to have edited and published this story.
www.kneedeeptimes.org/in-uncertain...
www.kneedeeptimes.org/in-uncertain...
The Port of Oakland Goes Electric in Uncertain Times
Modernizing the vast port’s cargo operations could cut emissions and deliver long-overdue justice to Oakland communities hit hard by pollution.
www.kneedeeptimes.org
April 17, 2025 at 6:31 PM
New Stories: Some folks are taking on the heavy lifting necessary to really change how we do industry in close proximity to cities and communities. Proud to have edited and published this story.
www.kneedeeptimes.org/in-uncertain...
www.kneedeeptimes.org/in-uncertain...
Good Read 3: Check out the way this writer uses words and characters to tell us about sea level rise and environmental justice in Miami. A truly gifted scribe. When I come upon these hyper-local, place-based explorations of our resilience (not) I have to share. www.thebeliever.net/come-heat-an...
Come Heat and High Water - Believer Magazine
I. GET OVER IT There’s a scar on my knuckle in the shape of a star. I got it from punching Alex Rodriguez in the teeth one afternoon in sixth grade. He and eleven other kids cornered me by the chain-l...
www.thebeliever.net
April 14, 2025 at 5:46 PM
Good Read 3: Check out the way this writer uses words and characters to tell us about sea level rise and environmental justice in Miami. A truly gifted scribe. When I come upon these hyper-local, place-based explorations of our resilience (not) I have to share. www.thebeliever.net/come-heat-an...
Signs of Resilience 7: The most devastating result of climate change for San Francisco Bay is sea level rise, as so much of the region is built right up to the water's edge. National parks like the GGNRA (pictured here) have long recognized these impacts, and shared them with an interested public.
April 3, 2025 at 6:36 PM
Signs of Resilience 7: The most devastating result of climate change for San Francisco Bay is sea level rise, as so much of the region is built right up to the water's edge. National parks like the GGNRA (pictured here) have long recognized these impacts, and shared them with an interested public.
Signs of Resilience 6: Warm days in San Francisco bring out the simplest pleasures like watching the sunset with a friend.
March 24, 2025 at 3:38 PM
Signs of Resilience 6: Warm days in San Francisco bring out the simplest pleasures like watching the sunset with a friend.
Women's History Month: As an editor of a climate resilience magazine, I was proud to write two articles celebrating women in science with our March KneeDeep Times, and publish a third. www.kneedeeptimes.org/how-to-expla...
www.kneedeeptimes.org/boxes-of-mud...
www.kneedeeptimes.org/i-invite-eve...
www.kneedeeptimes.org/boxes-of-mud...
www.kneedeeptimes.org/i-invite-eve...
How to Explain Extreme Weather
Fear-based messaging about extreme weather can backfire. Here are some simple metaphors to explain climate change without the fear factor.
www.kneedeeptimes.org
March 20, 2025 at 3:15 PM
Women's History Month: As an editor of a climate resilience magazine, I was proud to write two articles celebrating women in science with our March KneeDeep Times, and publish a third. www.kneedeeptimes.org/how-to-expla...
www.kneedeeptimes.org/boxes-of-mud...
www.kneedeeptimes.org/i-invite-eve...
www.kneedeeptimes.org/boxes-of-mud...
www.kneedeeptimes.org/i-invite-eve...
Signs of Resilience 5: San Franciscans are never afraid to go purple, whether it's paint or politics.
March 6, 2025 at 11:22 PM
Signs of Resilience 5: San Franciscans are never afraid to go purple, whether it's paint or politics.
Big Green Ideas for My City: Let's remember our cities can be efficient and healthy homes for all, not just playgrounds for the rich and developers. They can also inspire us to live lightly on the rest of the land. Daylighting this editorial from my archive. www.kneedeeptimes.org/six-unrealis...
Can San Francisco Become the Flagship Deep Green City?
We need bold, imaginative ideas to turn San Francisco into the ultimate green city. From car-free downtown zones to sustainable sports complexes, here are six “unrealistic” ideas that challenge the ci...
www.kneedeeptimes.org
February 23, 2025 at 5:48 PM
Big Green Ideas for My City: Let's remember our cities can be efficient and healthy homes for all, not just playgrounds for the rich and developers. They can also inspire us to live lightly on the rest of the land. Daylighting this editorial from my archive. www.kneedeeptimes.org/six-unrealis...
Signs of Resilience 4: Some things make everyone smile. As seen on San Francisco's waterfront in January 2025.
February 9, 2025 at 12:07 AM
Signs of Resilience 4: Some things make everyone smile. As seen on San Francisco's waterfront in January 2025.
Women in science rock. And they're helping keep our coastal waters clean by tracking the precursors of harmful algal blooms -- red tides -- which kill fish and ruin our beaches for tourism and recreation. Another jewel from my archive youtu.be/-7SzqVe3nOQ?...
USGS Investigates 50-Year Mystery of San Francisco Bay
YouTube video by San Francisco Estuary Institute - Aquatic Science Center
youtu.be
February 7, 2025 at 6:03 PM
Women in science rock. And they're helping keep our coastal waters clean by tracking the precursors of harmful algal blooms -- red tides -- which kill fish and ruin our beaches for tourism and recreation. Another jewel from my archive youtu.be/-7SzqVe3nOQ?...
Amid the denial about how climate change affects our economy and health, I am reminded of how invaluable our federal scientists are in providing the independent, peer-reviewed data we need to make sound decisions about our future. A find from my archives: archive.estuarynews.org/estuary-news...
February 5, 2025 at 10:55 PM
Amid the denial about how climate change affects our economy and health, I am reminded of how invaluable our federal scientists are in providing the independent, peer-reviewed data we need to make sound decisions about our future. A find from my archives: archive.estuarynews.org/estuary-news...
Good Book 2: Need comic relief from the indigestion produced by the carrot-topped gorilla rampaging around our world of science, facts and sound planetary stewardship? Try Squeeze Me by environmental mystery writer Carl Hiaasen.
January 24, 2025 at 8:55 PM
Good Book 2: Need comic relief from the indigestion produced by the carrot-topped gorilla rampaging around our world of science, facts and sound planetary stewardship? Try Squeeze Me by environmental mystery writer Carl Hiaasen.
Remembering Fire: In 2017, after the Napa-Sonoma firestorms, I wrote this piece in the SF Chronicle. The themes remain the same. Terrain and wind are not to be denied. There is never enough water. Only by really knowing your neighbors can we survive. bayariel.com/3212-2/
January 14, 2025 at 11:59 PM
Remembering Fire: In 2017, after the Napa-Sonoma firestorms, I wrote this piece in the SF Chronicle. The themes remain the same. Terrain and wind are not to be denied. There is never enough water. Only by really knowing your neighbors can we survive. bayariel.com/3212-2/
Signs of Resilience 3: Young people focusing on wet rocks rather than their black mirrors, at least in the moment. Photo at low tide on the San Francisco shore.
January 13, 2025 at 1:37 AM
Signs of Resilience 3: Young people focusing on wet rocks rather than their black mirrors, at least in the moment. Photo at low tide on the San Francisco shore.
GOOD BOOK: I don't usually like dystopian novels but A Children's Bible is an arresting, elegant, and funny answer to what author Lydia Millet calls the "mass gaslighting" around climate change. In just 200 pages we get provocative views of science, evolution, the bible, politics, youth and more.
January 7, 2025 at 9:20 PM
GOOD BOOK: I don't usually like dystopian novels but A Children's Bible is an arresting, elegant, and funny answer to what author Lydia Millet calls the "mass gaslighting" around climate change. In just 200 pages we get provocative views of science, evolution, the bible, politics, youth and more.
Signs of Resilience 2: Women knit the world together. It's too late to tell us to stay at home, stay covered up, stay quiet, stay pregnant, or that we shouldn't go to school, drive cars, join the marines, become President. We are not going back. As seen on a San Francisco sidewalk.
December 26, 2024 at 10:01 PM
Signs of Resilience 2: Women knit the world together. It's too late to tell us to stay at home, stay covered up, stay quiet, stay pregnant, or that we shouldn't go to school, drive cars, join the marines, become President. We are not going back. As seen on a San Francisco sidewalk.
Daylighting a find from my library of stories. Last winter I wrote about how California's beaches will likely erode more quickly due to rising sea levels, more powerful waves, and more intense El Niño events, and what two cities are doing to move out of the way.
Beach Loss Looms for the California Coast – KneeDeep Times
Scientists say with El Niño this year and rising sea levels ahead, California's beaches may never be the same.
www.kneedeeptimes.org
December 20, 2024 at 7:08 PM
Daylighting a find from my library of stories. Last winter I wrote about how California's beaches will likely erode more quickly due to rising sea levels, more powerful waves, and more intense El Niño events, and what two cities are doing to move out of the way.
Signs of Resilience 1: An elaborate peace sign made of dried branches, herb sprigs, and fake fleurs, set off in the reflections of a stormy storefront. As seen on a December walk through San Francisco.
December 15, 2024 at 7:24 PM
Signs of Resilience 1: An elaborate peace sign made of dried branches, herb sprigs, and fake fleurs, set off in the reflections of a stormy storefront. As seen on a December walk through San Francisco.