Rural climate skeptics are costing us time and money. Do we keep indulging them?

 

BY ERIKA D. SMITH, ANITA CHABRIA

SEPT. 27, 2022 5 AM PT

GREENVILLE, Calif. —  

Looking back, Bradley Bentz doesn’t know what took him so long to move out of Los Angeles County.

For decades, he’d lived a short walk from the Santa Anita Park racetrack in Arcadia and a few minutes drive to the Rose Bowl in Pasadena. It was the typical city life.

“The cars and the smog. The noise. The lights that you can’t even tell when it’s dark,” Bentz said, shaking his head as if waking up from a nightmare. “I just couldn’t do it.”

So he headed to the sparsely populated mountains of Plumas County. He joined the U.S. Forest Service, started a family and eventually settled down just outside of Greenville, becoming the second-generation owner of his father-in-law’s business, Riley’s Jerky.

“I kind of just —,” Bentz said, searching for the right words to sum up his life, “fell in love.”

Even though it’s extraordinarily beautiful, with thick forests and pristine rivers, rural Northern California isn’t for everyone — nor should it be.

This is the part of the state where climate change has become a full-fledged existential threat. Sure, Southern California is prone to its fair share of disasters, but it is in Northern California where catastrophic wildfires aren’t just likely but are certain to destroy remote small towns for decades to come.

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