RB Sydney – Author

The Full Picture
From the Suez Canal Missile crisis and a centuries-old English farm to the start of California’s first super-fire – it’s the real-world credentials that make a difference.

The path that led to RB Sydney being accepted into the ranks of credential scientists started at an early age in the rich farming communities of southeast England. The Suez Canal crisis called for finding a safe place to wait out the potential missile attacks and that place was a self-sufficient faith-based community going back centuries. RB relished helping with all the farm chores, supporting the masons and carpenters and enjoying the benefits of time spent in the community bakery and with the potters.
That grew into a fascination with the natural world, which became his focus when brought to California where he delved into sciences and shop classes on his path to mastering the natural sciences.
It provided a solid foundation of understanding how the real-world works.
As an undergraduate, he had the good fortune to be chosen as a sabbatical assistant by his Zoology professor. The sabbatical research was to photographically document the five major bio-regions in the US. Twenty-three thousand miles around the USA in over three months and over a thousand nature photographs was a formative natural science experience.
The sabbatical experience also included encounters with the dark side of human impacts on the natural world. Standing in the devastated, pitted, black landscape of a coal strip mine was an unforgettable visceral experience. It was one of the worst such experiences among too many over the years. All of which have motivated Mr. Sydney in focusing on finding better ways toward our future.
The graduate studies included direct contact with farmers from the Willamette Valley in Washington to Culiacan in Mexico. The studies not only supported understanding the weather that allowed crops to grow in each area but they also involved applying the principles of International Development to the efforts to support small farm viability. That in turn provided the opportunity for Mr. Sydney to play a role in starting the Farmers’ Market movement in California as well as in helping lay the groundwork for specialty farmers to get premium prices by establishing the benefits of natural and organically grown food.
Being able to participate in those efforts came about from his earliest writing successes. This included his academically successful Master’s Thesis, and writing the successful grant application for the Governors Discretionary Funds to finance the Cal State University-sponsored Agricultural Development Project.
That all led to Mr. Sydney being co-author and science analyst for the resulting agricultural and economic analysis reports. Those agricultural development research reports included one of the first detailed studies of the climate on the North Coast of California with comparisons to other farming areas in the state. It was one of several studies he participated in that were published by the Governor’s office.
Mr. Sydney also coordinated the University funding effort with the Small Farm Viability Task force established by Governor Brown’s Office. The task force was one reason the Governor’s Office printed the Project reports and distributed them to all California Counties and numerous University Libraries.
The work to establish the Farmers’ Markets took Mr. Sydney to the inland deserts of the Southwest where his knowledge of desert agriculture and intense weather grew. Monsoon storms that create flash floods and 100 days of heat that averaged 109 degrees and peaked at 126 degrees became deeply personal motivating experiences.
Since then, Mr. Sydney has visited all 50 states, more than half of Canada to attain a strong knowledge of our continent’s natural and agricultural life and our culture.
His latest professional effort involved helping the Ojai Valley to manage the big drought of the last decade. He did what he could to prepare them for the natural consequences of that drought which was the first super-fire, the record setting Thomas Fire.
Extreme hot and powerful winds and extraordinary dry weather set the stage for that fire. Since then, ever more powerful super-fires have ravaged many of the places Mr. Sydney has held dear to his heart including a grove of giant Sequoias and the massive forests covering the mountains around it.  Many of the areas destroyed will take centuries to return to their natural state.
It takes massive positive action to prevent such destruction. The future will not organize itself. Someone must.

Qualification Details –    
RB Sydney is a credentialed master of agricultural and natural sciences with a Masters of Science in International Agricultural Development, University of California at Davis 1980, a B.A. in Biological Science 1975 and College Teaching Certificates in California
His writing credits include:
Book Author of: Energy and EV Secrets, The History of the Farmers’ Markets in California, Bust the Y2K Bug and numerous smaller titles.
Editor and distributor of newsletters since 2003 including: The Sustainable Transport Newsletter, and The Ojai Valley Coalition Newsletter, as well as contributing Op-Eds for the printed newspaper, the Econews, published by the North Coast Environmental Center since 1971.
In addition, he produced numerous successful press releases for local and regional newspapers.