We're home!! We made it!!

It's hard to believe that we've completed our 550th mile and are back at UCLA. We're tremendously proud, a little tired and sore — and profoundly changed.

As we spent all those miles on the road and all those nights camping out on church and school floors, getting to know each other and sharing our concerns and hopes for our climate future, our band of explorers really gelled into a tight-knit group. Through engaging with one another, and with the experts and leaders we met along the way, we've come to deeply understand that the way we'll get through the sustainability challenges we face is together. It's easy to get a little jaded or discouraged when you work in climate change. You face a lot of bad news every day, and it never feels as though positive change is happening quickly enough. But through the energy, perseverance, and team spirit of our riders — and the generosity of supporters like you! — we've had our faith reaffirmed. We still have lots to tell you about what we saw and did on the last leg of our trip, and we'll be spending the next few days catching you up on social media. Check us out on your favorite platform: Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook.

But for now, we just want to send a huge THANK YOU to all of you who have contributed to this campaign. 

Your support will help us harness the power of climate science to make sustainability solutions happen in the real world. Just as we couldn't have completed this amazing ride without our wonderful teammates, we couldn't continue this critical work without you. We are immensely grateful. Alex Hall, Director Katharine Reich, Co-Associate Director UCLA Center for Climate Science __

Photos courtesy of Eric McQuesten

After having a wonderful time and catching our breath in Monterey, we rode along Highway 1 through the misty, glorious coastal bluffs of Big Sur. Big Sur is extraordinarily hilly! These were tough - but rewarding - riding days. We rode past construction zones where historically large landslides from a few years ago are still being cleaned up. Landslides and erosion are a fact of life along coastal bluffs (see photo #2 below) but more extreme rain storms promise to disrupt life along Highway 1 more often in the years to come. Also pictured below (photo #3) is an abandoned gas station outside Santa Barbara that we rode by today. The things you see when you're on a bike!

For anyone near Santa Barbara tomorrow (6/20) we will be hosting a panel on a topic particularly relevant to this beautiful region. See details below:

The Future of Fire in Santa Barbara County 

Thursday, June 20, 2019 

5:30 p.m. reception, Girvetz Courtyard

6:30 p.m. panel discussion and Q&A, Girvetz 1004

University of California, Santa Barbara 

Our panel will include:

Alex Hall (moderator)

Director, UCLA Center for Climate Science; Professor, UCLA Department of Atmospheric & Oceanic Sciences and Institute of the Environment and Sustainability 

Leila Carvalho (panelist)

Professor of Meteorology and Climatology, UCSB Department of Geography; Researcher, UCSB Earth Research Institute 

Andrew Plantinga (panelist) 

Professor of Natural Resource Economics and Policy, Bren School of Environmental Science and Management, UCSB

Kevin Taylor (panelist)

Division Chief, Operations, Montecito Fire Protection District 

If you would like to attend please stop by. We are still accepting registration for this FREE event at the door. 

Spark Campaign Update!!!

We are now 61% of the way to hitting our fundraising goal of $25,000. Thank you SO much to our donors thus far! Please spread the word near and far to help us reach our goal. Only 7 more days! We know we can do it with your help.  

Now on to today's dispatch :)

After a relatively short ride from Watsonville to Monterey we stopped at Cal State University Monterey Bay to meet Prof. Daniel Fernandez, whose research focuses on fog collection (the fog collection unit is the rectangular black mesh contraption behind him in photo 1 below). Why collect fog? Some parts of the world are poor in water resources but rich in fog. The water droplets in fog can be collected with mesh screens and used to meet human and agricultural needs. 

Our stop in Monterey has given us an opportunity to take a rest from biking - but not from learning! In the morning, Prof. Alex Hall gave us a primer on climate change impacts in the oceans. Ocean ecosystems aren't as well studied as many terrestrial ecosystems, and there's a lot we don't know about how they will respond to climate change. But there are some things we do know: 

• Ocean temperatures are getting warmer, and for some species that could be a big problem. For example, during oceanic heatwaves, heat-stressed coral species can eject the symbiotic algae that give them color. This is called bleaching, and it makes coral a lot more vulnerable and can kill them. Dying coral is a major environmental concern because coral reefs are critical habitat for a large diversity of species. 
• Ocean acidification: The oceans, like the atmosphere, absorb carbon dioxide. When extra carbon dioxide enters the ocean, a chemical reaction occrus that makes the water more acidic. That's a problem for species with shells made of calcium carbonate whose shells may not develop properly or may dissolve, leaving them without proper defenses.

But even without climate change there are plenty of environmental problems affecting the ocean, including overfishing and pollution. We can think of climate change as yet another stressor on marine ecosystems. 

Later in the day, we visited Monterey Bay Aquarium to learn more about those ecosystems and the stressors they face. We also saw one particularly affecting exhibit exploring how artists are responding to the problem of plastic pollution in our oceans. It made us think about the amount of plastics in our lives, and how we can reduce it. To view videos and more photos from our trip, please follow @thevirtualalexhall on Instagram and @uclaclisci.  

After a fantastic time at the UC Davis Fish Conservation and Culture Lab on Wednesday (6/12) we hit the road again for our longest ride of the trip so far (83 miles from Livermore to Watsonville), taking only a few rest/refuel breaks. Along the way we:

1. Fixed our first flat tire.
2. Celebrated fixing our first flat tire.
3. Enjoyed the scenery in the beautiful hills of NorCal, even if it meant climbing them. 
4. Passed by the Sunol Water Temple, which dates back to 1906 and made us wonder why we don't worship water a little more today. (It is currently closed to the public, or we would have taken a closer look.)
5. Discovered we know the way to San Jose. 
6. Came to understand that watermelon is the perfect biking food on a hot day. 

We'll provide another dispatch to share what we learn and see in Monterey! Stay tuned :) 

Also a huge thank you to our donors and supporters thus far! With your support we are 21% of the way toward our goal of reaching $25,000 by the end of our ride. 

We're having a really fun time on the bike ride so far! Last Sunday (6/9) we biked around the East Bay and met with people from the San Francisco Estuary Institute. They're doing very sophisticated work on sea level rise adaptation. Then we had a very stimulating panel discussion at the Climate Readiness Institute (our sister Center in Berkeley) about the challenges of putting Climate Science into action. It was a packed house at Anthony Hall at Berkeley, and we had a very interested audience. We had to cut off questions after an hour and a half! 

On Tuesday (6/11) we had a bicycle tour of the Bay Delta from the chief scientists from the Bay Delta Conservancy and the Delta Stewardship Council. They are amazingly knowledgeable and passionate people who are trying to understand and protect a precious and very under-appreciated resource that is threatened from so many angles, including climate change. We learned a tremendous amount from them.

Yesterday (6/12) we biked to the UC Davis Fish Conservation and Culture Lab in Discovery Bay, which is responsible for protecting the endangered aquatic species of the Delta. The Delta Smelt is an endangered freshwater fish that only lives in California’s Bay Delta. It's endangered because of habitat loss including agriculture runoff pollution, warming of Delta waters, and withdraw of freshwater from the Delta for the State's water supply. It’s so endangered there’s a whole facility devoted to maintaining a reserve population in case it goes extinct in the wild. We toured the lab and saw firsthand how a small little fish is flashing red warning signals about the health of an ecosystem that is critical to us too. Next we're off to Monterey to look at ocean issues. We're exhausted but we're having a ball!

To view videos from our trip, please follow @thevirtualalexhall on Instagram and @uclaclisci. Thank you so much for your support! - Alex