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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Narrator: "At that time in my personal life, I was coming to grips with the end of the world....Scientists said it was ending now....Historians said there'd been dark ages before. It all came out in the wash, because eventually.... enlightenment arrived and then a wide array of Apple devices..." LOL
January 7, 2025 at 9:20 PM
Narrator: "At that time in my personal life, I was coming to grips with the end of the world....Scientists said it was ending now....Historians said there'd been dark ages before. It all came out in the wash, because eventually.... enlightenment arrived and then a wide array of Apple devices..." LOL
Basic Plot: A bunch of parents who've given up on doing anything about climate change hole up in a fancy lake house with their teen kids. An extreme storm approaches. The parents continue smoking, drinking and screwing while the kids explore the outdoors and confront what their parents cannot.
January 7, 2025 at 9:20 PM
Basic Plot: A bunch of parents who've given up on doing anything about climate change hole up in a fancy lake house with their teen kids. An extreme storm approaches. The parents continue smoking, drinking and screwing while the kids explore the outdoors and confront what their parents cannot.
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.
Maybe the coast, so naturally changeable, has a thing or two to teach us about adapting to future uncertainties. It’s a place where if we watch a grain of sand travel, or trace a contour, we can learn new things, and be renewed.
From my library of stories after 30 years on the environmental beat.
From my library of stories after 30 years on the environmental beat.
December 20, 2024 at 7:08 PM
Maybe the coast, so naturally changeable, has a thing or two to teach us about adapting to future uncertainties. It’s a place where if we watch a grain of sand travel, or trace a contour, we can learn new things, and be renewed.
From my library of stories after 30 years on the environmental beat.
From my library of stories after 30 years on the environmental beat.
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.