Like many of my colleagues at Chico State, I spent the end of the semester packing up my office in Butte Hall for the move to the new BSS building. While packing, I came across some forgotten items, including a map titled “The Clif Sellers Years.” Clif Sellers worked for the City of Chico for 25 years. He started as an assistant city planner, served as the city’s planning director for 11 years, and then served as the assistant director of community services for 10 years. Clif was described as a friendly man who was good with people. Young city planners aspired to be Clif Sellers.
When Sellers retired in 2006, city staff created a map showing how the city had grown from the original 4.2 square miles in 1872 to 31.9 square miles today, highlighting the 407 incorporations totaling 17.7 square miles that occurred during Clif’s years with the city (1981 to 2006). During his career, the City of Chico doubled in size. The map was a fitting gesture to honor a storied career.
When I look at the Sellers Years map after decades of rising temperatures, I realize it’s also a map of climate change. While humanity has been burning carbon for centuries, more than half of the greenhouse gases (GHGs) ever emitted by humans have been emitted since the 1980s. In other words, the way we’ve lived for the past few decades – far from each other, far from where we work – has produced as many greenhouse gas emissions as hundreds of years of human activity before it. Transportation produces the most greenhouse gas emissions of any sector, and between 1980 and 2000, vehicle miles traveled (VMT) in Chico increased by an astonishing 133%.
The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) regulates development and requires local governments to document the environmental impacts of their land use decisions. The environmental impact report of the current General Plan (adopted in 2011) found that implementation of the plan “would result in a net increase in greenhouse gas emissions,” primarily from transportation, with impacts that would be “substantial and significant and unavoidable.”
The City Council recognized that the expansion would exacerbate climate change, so it issued a “CEQA Priority Consideration Statement” to adopt the plan, arguing that the economic benefits of the general plan would outweigh the environmental impacts.
The Valley’s Edge project required a separate environmental assessment because it did not conform to the “compact urban form” of the 2011 plan. That environmental assessment concluded that Valley’s Edge would increase VMT by approximately 84,000 miles per day (a 7% increase), making the climate crisis even worse. As a result, the City Council reissued a priority considerations statement that the economic benefits of the project outweigh the significant climate impacts for future generations.
In other words, the City of Chico has admitted for over a decade that its development plan will destroy the climate for our children, but it has stayed the course.
As I write this, an angry cloud of smoke rises from the Park Fire. Someone reportedly pushed his mother’s car into the ravine, but it was climate change that drove the fire into Tehama County overnight. And the fire will get worse unless we change direction.
During the Valley’s Edge hearing, the former Planning Commission Chair claimed that an increase in greenhouse gas emissions is inevitable no matter where we build, and I’m glad the city’s consultant publicly refuted her. The solutions exist, and it’s imperative that we change course. We can’t continue to grow our way out of our problems by consuming more land and more resources.
The Chico Climate Action Plan provides a roadmap for this necessary change. Key strategies include promoting energy efficiency, increasing the use of renewable energy, improving public transportation, and promoting sustainable land use practices. These initiatives will not only reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but will also improve the quality of life for all residents and pave the way for a healthier, more sustainable future. Who can be against it?
We created the climate crisis ourselves and we can do something about it. We urgently need to change the direction we are going and that will require a new generation of leadership.
Mark Stemen is a professor of environmental studies at CSU, Chico and former chair of the City of Chico’s Climate Action Commission.
