Environment — News — California Groundbreakers

Nom nom nom... our 1st event of 2020 was an especially tasty one because Burger Patch in Sacramento brought their meatless burgers and dairy-less shakes, and we ended things with scoops of plant-based chocolate ice cream served up by Eclipse Foods, a Bay Area-based startup that wants to be “the Impossivle Foods of dairy.” And it all tasted delicious.

Equally satisfying was this “ Food for Thought” discussion about Alt Proteins — clean meats, nut milks, plant-based ice cream that tastes just as good as the real thing — and how California is leading the charge in creating them and marketing them to the rest of the world.

Will they change the world? Are they truly a healthier choice for us? Are they a better alternative for the environment? Listen to the podcast discussion. And next time, join us for a live event — we’re always serving up something good for the crowd.

With fires blazing yet again in Wine Country and the hills of Los Angeles, PG&E power outages, and historic, triple-digit-m.p.h. windstorms blowing through the state, we thought it would be a good time to talk with someone who could help us make some sense of all this Wildfire Season craziness, someone with 30-plus years of experience dealing with it on a daily basis.

So we sat down with California's top firefighter Ken Pimlott, the just-retired head of Cal Fire, who was in charge over the past 8 years of putting out (in)famous blazes like the Wine Country, Woolsey, Mendocino Complex, Carr and Camp Fires.

Listen to our Icebreaker podcast for Pimlott's take on the latest round of fires blazing; last year's historic Wildfire Season and the 103 people it killed; PG&E and its power shutoffs; what he was thinking while briefing Jerry, Gavin and Donald about the Camp Fire (see photo above); and more.