Napa’s tireless climate champion: Jim Wilson is on a mission to empower students and protect the valley’s future
If you want to meet someone who has deeply devoted their life to the work that they do, look no further than Napa climate advocate Jim Wilson, who has dedicated his life to climate advocacy for 20 years.
Interested in chemistry from an early age, in his adult life, Wilson developed a specific interest in atmospheric chemistry and runaway climate pollution that leads to increased heating.
The Napa resident retired from Anheuser-Busch, where he was the brewing quality assurance manager at the Fairfield brewery.
Wilson now serves as an advisor with Napa Schools for Climate Action, which he describes as a “local student-led climate justice group.”
According to Wilson, there was a climate strike in September 2019 where students left their classrooms and had a peaceful march in downtown Napa. At the time, Napa Climate NOW! — a “grassroots non-partisan group of concerned Napa residents,” according to its website — was urging local governments to declare a climate emergency.
When students joined the effort, they were able to lobby local governments for climate emergency resolutions. The student-led Fossil-Free Future project led to a ban on new and expanded gas stations in “all the cities and [the] town [of Yountville] in [Napa] County.”
The students got the commitment to achieving net zero climate pollution by or before 2030 written into Napa County’s legislative platform and had the policy clearly defined in the new general plans for Napa and American Canyon. Wilson is proud of how the students have worked with Mike Thompson’s legislative fellow, Declan Hayes, in his Washington, D.C., office this year.
“They are an amazing group,” said Wilson. “They are daring. They are determined. They are diplomatic – They are all of those things, and they are devoted to the climate justice cause here.”
Wilson serves as a board member with the Save Napa Valley Foundation, which advocates “for Napa Valley’s long-term viability as a robust agriculturally based community by boldly confronting the climate crisis and its impact on our shared natural resources,” according to its website.
Mike Hackett, the president of the Save Napa Valley Foundation, said, “It’s been a pleasure working with Jim in every aspect. It’s pretty easy to classify Jim because he’s smart and he’s intelligent [and he’s] hard working. I think he works harder than any other environmentalist, certainly in the county; no question about it.
“He is the most dedicated individual here, and it shows through his compilation of work and the fact that he recognizes that [the] youth are our future…he’s dedicated his life to educating the youth and getting them involved and showing tremendous support for them…he’s quite the guy.”
In 2016, Wilson and Hackett attempted to put a county-wide ballot initiative on the November ballot. The Water, Forest, and Oak Woodland Protection Initiative was approved by the county in 2016 but was blocked due to a perceived underlined legal flaw. Wilson and Hackett, with the support of attorneys, took the case all the way to the Supreme Court of California and lost in a split decision.
Hackett and Wilson returned in 2018 and got Measure C to protect oak woodlands and streams by limiting tree removal for vineyards on the ballot. While the opposition raised nearly a million dollars to defeat it, Measure C still only lost by around 1%.
“I think it’s [Jim’s] unassuming nature,” said Hackett. “He’s not looking for accolades…he does this because he believes that this is the existential crisis that we all face, and he wants to help shape our future for his children and grandchildren and beyond. That sounds cliché, but that’s who Jim is.”
Wilson also serves as a steering committee member with Napa Climate NOW!.
Co-founder Chris Benz said, “I feel so lucky to be working with [Jim]…What I appreciate most about him is that he has a strong moral commitment to taking action on climate change and that he also is not afraid to reach out to people that are in government and to comment…to keep refocusing their attention on the issue. He’s also willing to dive into the weeds of government policy documents, and he’s willing to show up to meetings and make comments, and he’s been an incredible mentor for Napa Schools for Climate Action.”
Benz remembers when American Canyon High School hosted a climate challenge using Regeneration Napa County, a platform for taking climate action. The students organized an impressive after-school community event with student speakers and awards. Benz said Wilson was behind all of it.
Wilson is also a board member for Forests Forever and the Forests Forever Foundation. Both are forest protection conservation groups, according to executive director Paul Hughes.
“[Jim’s a] magnificent human being,” said Hughes. “He’s [an] incredibly good listener [and a] very compassionate man. He cares deeply about humanity and planetary welfare, and ecological integrity. He’s got a science background, so he cares about facts and data, and he is hard-working and a leader and just generally a delight to work with.”
“He’s a family man,” continued Hughes. “He radiates warmth and the parental caring that you think of in sort of an ideal parent…he is a man of deep faith, too, and he really lives his faith to the highest and best tenets of his faith in all he does…he’s [a] deeply committed activist and I’m sure he’s very inspiring for the younger people that he works with.”
Wilson encourages people to demand accountability from their elected representatives on climate.
“We are in the midst of a climate emergency,” said Wilson. “We have to sound the alarm and demand emergency climate action at the level that the science demands.”
Wilson says Earth’s energy imbalance is rapidly worsening, which he said can be seen in the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report from March 2023. He also says the humans have failed to prevent global warming from exceeding 1.5 degrees Celsius, which he said was reported by UN Secretary-General António Guterres.
In spite of his concerns, Wilson still has hope.
“I am hopeful that we can get our acts together globally as a global community and do what’s necessary to cool the planet,” said Wilson. “We need an international treaty that focuses on near-term cooling and the reduction of super pollutants between now and 2030, which is essential as a bridge to achieving longer-term climate restoration. We know how to do it, and so the question is how can we do it effectively together while we have time.”
To learn more about Napa Schools for Climate Action, visit sites.google.com/view/napas4ca/home. To learn more about the Save Napa Valley Foundation, visit savenapavalleyfoundation.org. To learn more about Napa Climate NOW!, visit napa.350bayarea.org. To learn more about Forests Forever, visit forestsforever.org.
