It was fitting that on a November weekend when the temperatures soared into the record-breaking 80s I was at two events where we were reminded that care-taking the environment is up to us in this most green corner of the universe.

As Ann Hancock from Sonoma County’s Climate Protection Campaign said, “If we can’t do it here, where will it happen?”

That was at the Peace and Justice Center dinner where Ann was honored for her environmental leadership. Ann used to be in real estate but wanted something on her tombstone other than “sold houses” and now is all about getting individuals and businesses and local governments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. She calls climate change the preeminent public health issue. She says that climate change, “unchecked, will swamp all other issues.”

The next night Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey, away from Washington and back in earth-friendly territory, said pretty much the same thing, that we need to keep the green light on, given how Washington is filling up with global warming and climate change scoffers.

Green-wise, California triumphed against giant oil companies in voting down Proposition 23 that would have turned back the state’s climate change efforts. But it didn’t come through with new money for state parks which would have been funded by an extra $18 on vehicle registration fees. Sonoma County did, however, vote for the measure.

Lynn Woolsey was at a dinner for LandPaths, a greenie group that helps acquire private land for public access, builds trails, puts on hikes and finds ways for people to not only get into the outback but help maintain it, seeing how there isn’t enough public money or rangers to do it.

The LandPaths people talked about the importance of having not only good ways to get out into open spaces but a place to sit and take it all in. They call it a “sit spot,” where you might prop yourself on a rock or a piece of beach and just be quietly alone in nature.

I was thinking that the scoffers and disbelievers and even those who think we can put environmental issues on temporary hold could all use a sit spot. Take off those business suits and shiny shoes and pull on some hiking boots and maybe those funny looking pants that zip off into shorts and give themselves a time-out. It wouldn’t necessarily change their politics but it might give them renewed appreciation for clean air.

One Land Pather said that being in nature was more than a luxury or a right. It is also a need. The other day I took an early morning bike ride on a county parks trail. The air smelled like vinegar which probably came from fermenting grapes, apples or over-ripe compost. There was also the not so faint perfume of cow poop. You could bottle it, color it green and call it Aroma Sonoma.

There were joggers and bicyclists and a group of school kids. A homeless guy with his life in a grocery cart. A slow-moving couple, one pushing a portable oxygen tank. A woman sat alone on a bench. She could have been looking for rain clouds or coming up with a poem. Maybe wondering what she was going to do about keeping her house or finding another job. Or maybe she was just in her sit spot.

Some poetically grieve for the last rose of summer, but I say bring on the Naked Ladies.

I first started noticing the flashy pink lily, technically a type of Amaryllis known as the Belladonna lily, on a hike down the Mendocino and Sonoma coasts. Some women hikers suddenly whooped and ran into a field to each emerge with a single bubblegum-colored bloom stuck in their hats. And the other hikers cried, “Here come the Naked Ladies.”

From then on I was smitten by the spirit and the name. A favorite late summer Northern California image is of a flash of pink in a brown field with a swath of blue ocean for a backdrop.

Standing there in the sun, balanced on a tall thin stalk, reaching up on tiptoe, demanding attention, the Naked Lady tosses her tendrils after so many of the pretties in the garden have given up.

Named for its absence of leaves, the Naked Lady pops up around late August. A teacher friend said she always dreaded seeing them arrive because it meant school would soon start and her summer was over.

The Ladies returned this year about on time. I worried that they’d be off schedule like the tomatoes and every growing thing due to our chilly, gray summer. But the Naked Ladies expose their flesh no matter the temperature.

Confident, resilient beauties full of attitude, they are like so many ladies of late summer.

You see them standing in a row across a hill, the surviving residents of a one-time garden next to a one-time farmhouse. Whoever planted them has moved on, but the Ladies just keep on.

Sometimes you’ll see them in a chorus line, all leaning to one side, like they are ready to do a group shuffle-tap. Then there are the rogue Ladies, who just decided to show up in front of a cattle fence or pose next to a pile of rocks.

Certainly they’re not everyone’s favorite flower. Some find them quite gaudy and simply too bare without any foliage. And their perfume can be a problem. Sugary and cloying, the Naked Lady scent is best left outdoors to blow in the wind. Bring them in the house and the smell is as overwhelming as too much talcum in a hot yoga class.

But the sight of them is sweet. This week I stopped to admire one regal bloom on a bluff above Bodega Bay. It was a rare clear day and she waved to me from her perch in the brown grass. A fog horn wailed to say that darned old chilly marine layer is probably coming back.

But a lady, if she’s wise, knows to live in the moment.