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"content": "\u003cp>Before the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1939172/bay-area-students-say-theyre-not-gonna-take-it-anymore-when-it-comes-to-climate-change\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">student strike\u003c/a>, before \u003ca href=\"https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change-greta-thunberg-eu-parliament-speech-sweden-a8873076.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Greta Thunberg\u003c/a>, before \u003ca href=\"https://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-protests-climate-change/extinction-rebellion-has-a-message-for-the-world-weve-only-just-begun-idUSKCN1S731V\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Extinction Rebellion,\u003c/a> there was \u003cstrong>Bill McKibben\u003c/strong>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote]‘We’ll be calling for adult climate strikes in the near future. We need to disrupt business as usual.’[/pullquote]For years, McKibben, the hard-charging environmentalist and author, has been at the forefront of the climate action movement. In 1989, he \u003ca href=\"http://billmckibben.com/end-of-nature-excerpt.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">published\u003c/a> one of the first climate change books written for a general audience. In recent years, he’s aggressively \u003ca href=\"https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/the-case-for-fossil-fuel-divestment-100243/\">made the case for fossil-fuel divestment\u003c/a> and encouraged environmental protest through the group he founded, \u003ca href=\"https://350.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">350.org\u003c/a>. The group’s name is derived from the measurement 350 parts per million, the upper limit of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere generally considered to be safe. (Yeah, we \u003ca href=\"https://weather.com/news/news/2019-04-04-current-co2-levels-highest-in-three-million-years\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">blew past \u003c/a>it a few years ago.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>McKibben, appearing on KQED’s “\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101870787/bill-mckibben-warns-of-dire-consequences-of-unchecked-climate-change\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Forum\u003c/a>” radio program Tuesday, discussed the existential threat of climate change, which he calls “the most epic of fights” and is the central focus of his new book, “\u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/15/books/review/bill-mckibben-falter.html\">Falter\u003c/a>.” Additionally, McKibben talked about President Trump, inequality, ExxonMobil and his skeptical view of genetic modification.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Below are excerpts of McKibben’s answers, edited for length and clarity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>The End of the Human Game?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When I started talking about climate change when I was a young man, it was still a warning. Here’s what is going to happen if we don’t do the things that scientists tell us we should do. Since we didn’t do any of these things, it’s no longer a warning; it is now the brute reality of everyday life. Sometimes we see it up close with a camera. The whole world commiserated with California last fall, watching a town literally called Paradise turn into hell inside half-an-hour. Today, as we talk, Mozambique was just hit with a \u003ca href=\"https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/heavy-rains-disrupt-aid-for-survivors-in-cyclone-battered-mozambique\">second record cyclone in a month\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Political Pressure Building.\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nIt has been beautiful to watch the Green New Deal stuff. Those are mostly young people, and they are veterans of the fossil fuel divestment campaign. That divestment campaign around the world built up a great deal of pressure, we are at \u003ca href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/dec/16/divestment-fossil-fuel-industry-trillions-dollars-investments-carbon\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">$8 trillion\u003c/a> worth of endowments and portfolios that have divested. Now there is this magnificent pressure coming from \u003ca href=\"https://rebellion.earth/\">Extinction Rebellion\u003c/a> shutting down the city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Look at what tens of millions of young people did around the world this year following the lead of Greta Thunberg in Sweden. We’ve seen these \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1939172/bay-area-students-say-theyre-not-gonna-take-it-anymore-when-it-comes-to-climate-change\">climate strikes and walk outs from school\u003c/a>. Our job, now, is to do what those kids have asked and back them up. We’ll be calling for adult climate strikes in the near future. We need to disrupt business as usual.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Unprecedented Urgency of Democrats\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>People are waking up. There is a \u003ca href=\"http://cdn.cnn.com/cnn/2019/images/04/29/rel6a.-.2020.democrats.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">poll\u003c/a> out this morning from CNN, saying that among Democratic voters, climate change is now the number one issue, ahead of health care and the economy. You can see the response to that by all the Democratic candidates. They are talking about climate change nonstop and with a level of urgency that we’ve never seen. In the past, we used to pray that someone would ask one question about climate change. They never did. Now, it is a top-tier issue in the primaries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Trump Badly Out of Touch \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>His insistence that \u003ca href=\"https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/jun/03/hillary-clinton/yes-donald-trump-did-call-climate-change-chinese-h/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">climate change is a hoax\u003c/a> manufactured by the Chinese is—even for his most fervent supporters—a stretch. [Note: Trump later called this claim a “joke.”] If you were sitting on the BART train next to someone started muttering that climate change was a hoax manufactured by the Chinese, you’d get up and move seats.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>More Carbon Pricing Required\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There is no reason anymore not to have a \u003ca href=\"https://carbonpricingdashboard.worldbank.org/what-carbon-pricing\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">price on carbon\u003c/a>. It is the only thing we are allowed to spew into the atmosphere for free. Where it would have been sufficient 30 years ago, but it no longer is sufficient, we have to do other things, too, as negotiations on a carbon price proceed. The oil industry, for a price on carbon, would demand a lot of things in return that are bad ideas. The most important job is to continue to build up enough political pressure so that when these negotiations take place, they take place in the best possible climate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Exxon’s Culpability\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We now know from terrific investigative reporting from the L.A. Times, Columbia Journalism School, and the website \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/content/Exxon-The-Road-Not-Taken\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Inside Climate News\u003c/a> that the big fossil fuel companies knew everything there was to know about climate change by the 1980s. Exxon was the richest company in the world, it had an endless staff of scientists, and its product was carbon, so of course they were going to figure out what it did. By 1982 or 1983, their scientists were telling their executives: ‘Here is how fast and how much it is going to warm.’ And their executives believed them. Exxon began building its drilling rigs to compensate for the rise in sea levels they knew was coming. What they didn’t do was tell the rest of us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Worry Over Designer Babies\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are some things that feel very much to me like climate change did 30 years ago, that are not yet fully played out in our world, but where the threat is very obvious and getting more so all the time. For instance, with human genetic engineering. In October a Chinese doctor produced the first two \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/11/26/670752865/chinese-scientist-says-hes-first-to-genetically-edit-babies\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">designer babies\u003c/a> in human history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The scientific community has pushed back against this some, trying to draw up guidelines against this germline genetic manipulation, but it is very clear that there’s a bevy of entrepreneurs, many in Northern California, looking for the chance to sell people improved versions of their offspring.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For me, what’s interesting here, we took for granted the stability of the physical planet. It was very hard to get anyone to understand that it was possible inside of 30 years to melt most of the sea ice in the Arctic or change the chemical composition of the ocean. We take human meaning for granted, too. Once you start down these paths, it is hard to get off them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>For years, McKibben, the hard-charging environmentalist and author, has been at the forefront of the climate action movement. In 1989, he \u003ca href=\"http://billmckibben.com/end-of-nature-excerpt.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">published\u003c/a> one of the first climate change books written for a general audience. In recent years, he’s aggressively \u003ca href=\"https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/the-case-for-fossil-fuel-divestment-100243/\">made the case for fossil-fuel divestment\u003c/a> and encouraged environmental protest through the group he founded, \u003ca href=\"https://350.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">350.org\u003c/a>. The group’s name is derived from the measurement 350 parts per million, the upper limit of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere generally considered to be safe. (Yeah, we \u003ca href=\"https://weather.com/news/news/2019-04-04-current-co2-levels-highest-in-three-million-years\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">blew past \u003c/a>it a few years ago.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>McKibben, appearing on KQED’s “\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101870787/bill-mckibben-warns-of-dire-consequences-of-unchecked-climate-change\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Forum\u003c/a>” radio program Tuesday, discussed the existential threat of climate change, which he calls “the most epic of fights” and is the central focus of his new book, “\u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/15/books/review/bill-mckibben-falter.html\">Falter\u003c/a>.” Additionally, McKibben talked about President Trump, inequality, ExxonMobil and his skeptical view of genetic modification.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Below are excerpts of McKibben’s answers, edited for length and clarity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>The End of the Human Game?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When I started talking about climate change when I was a young man, it was still a warning. Here’s what is going to happen if we don’t do the things that scientists tell us we should do. Since we didn’t do any of these things, it’s no longer a warning; it is now the brute reality of everyday life. Sometimes we see it up close with a camera. The whole world commiserated with California last fall, watching a town literally called Paradise turn into hell inside half-an-hour. Today, as we talk, Mozambique was just hit with a \u003ca href=\"https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/heavy-rains-disrupt-aid-for-survivors-in-cyclone-battered-mozambique\">second record cyclone in a month\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Political Pressure Building.\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nIt has been beautiful to watch the Green New Deal stuff. Those are mostly young people, and they are veterans of the fossil fuel divestment campaign. That divestment campaign around the world built up a great deal of pressure, we are at \u003ca href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/dec/16/divestment-fossil-fuel-industry-trillions-dollars-investments-carbon\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">$8 trillion\u003c/a> worth of endowments and portfolios that have divested. Now there is this magnificent pressure coming from \u003ca href=\"https://rebellion.earth/\">Extinction Rebellion\u003c/a> shutting down the city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Look at what tens of millions of young people did around the world this year following the lead of Greta Thunberg in Sweden. We’ve seen these \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1939172/bay-area-students-say-theyre-not-gonna-take-it-anymore-when-it-comes-to-climate-change\">climate strikes and walk outs from school\u003c/a>. Our job, now, is to do what those kids have asked and back them up. We’ll be calling for adult climate strikes in the near future. We need to disrupt business as usual.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Unprecedented Urgency of Democrats\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>People are waking up. There is a \u003ca href=\"http://cdn.cnn.com/cnn/2019/images/04/29/rel6a.-.2020.democrats.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">poll\u003c/a> out this morning from CNN, saying that among Democratic voters, climate change is now the number one issue, ahead of health care and the economy. You can see the response to that by all the Democratic candidates. They are talking about climate change nonstop and with a level of urgency that we’ve never seen. In the past, we used to pray that someone would ask one question about climate change. They never did. Now, it is a top-tier issue in the primaries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Trump Badly Out of Touch \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>His insistence that \u003ca href=\"https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/jun/03/hillary-clinton/yes-donald-trump-did-call-climate-change-chinese-h/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">climate change is a hoax\u003c/a> manufactured by the Chinese is—even for his most fervent supporters—a stretch. [Note: Trump later called this claim a “joke.”] If you were sitting on the BART train next to someone started muttering that climate change was a hoax manufactured by the Chinese, you’d get up and move seats.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>More Carbon Pricing Required\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There is no reason anymore not to have a \u003ca href=\"https://carbonpricingdashboard.worldbank.org/what-carbon-pricing\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">price on carbon\u003c/a>. It is the only thing we are allowed to spew into the atmosphere for free. Where it would have been sufficient 30 years ago, but it no longer is sufficient, we have to do other things, too, as negotiations on a carbon price proceed. The oil industry, for a price on carbon, would demand a lot of things in return that are bad ideas. The most important job is to continue to build up enough political pressure so that when these negotiations take place, they take place in the best possible climate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Exxon’s Culpability\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We now know from terrific investigative reporting from the L.A. Times, Columbia Journalism School, and the website \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/content/Exxon-The-Road-Not-Taken\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Inside Climate News\u003c/a> that the big fossil fuel companies knew everything there was to know about climate change by the 1980s. Exxon was the richest company in the world, it had an endless staff of scientists, and its product was carbon, so of course they were going to figure out what it did. By 1982 or 1983, their scientists were telling their executives: ‘Here is how fast and how much it is going to warm.’ And their executives believed them. Exxon began building its drilling rigs to compensate for the rise in sea levels they knew was coming. What they didn’t do was tell the rest of us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Worry Over Designer Babies\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are some things that feel very much to me like climate change did 30 years ago, that are not yet fully played out in our world, but where the threat is very obvious and getting more so all the time. For instance, with human genetic engineering. In October a Chinese doctor produced the first two \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/11/26/670752865/chinese-scientist-says-hes-first-to-genetically-edit-babies\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">designer babies\u003c/a> in human history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The scientific community has pushed back against this some, trying to draw up guidelines against this germline genetic manipulation, but it is very clear that there’s a bevy of entrepreneurs, many in Northern California, looking for the chance to sell people improved versions of their offspring.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For me, what’s interesting here, we took for granted the stability of the physical planet. It was very hard to get anyone to understand that it was possible inside of 30 years to melt most of the sea ice in the Arctic or change the chemical composition of the ocean. We take human meaning for granted, too. Once you start down these paths, it is hard to get off them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Winds carrying greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide can travel up to 60 miles offshore, adding significantly more carbon dioxide into the ocean than previously estimated, according to new \u003ca href=\"https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0214403\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">research\u003c/a> from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Emissions from tailpipes and factories could be adding roughly 25 million metric tons of carbon dioxide per year into oceans worldwide\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When carbon dioxide dissolves into seawater it makes oceans more acidic, and more uninhabitable for species like crabs and coral.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The extra carbon dioxide that the researchers measured means “more of a threat to some of the sea life that inhabits the ocean,” says Francisco Chavez, the study’s lead author.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s been widely understood that ships are heavyweight polluters in bays and oceans. But until now, the impact that land-based pollution has on waterways hasn’t been investigated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s in part because the way researchers tracked carbon dioxide emissions in the past was on boats — Francisco Chavez said when researchers would document higher-than-expected carbon dioxide levels, it was assumed it was coming from the ships doing the measurements.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Most of the measurements we make of carbon dioxide have been from ships,” Chavez said, “The higher carbon dioxide levels are often discounted because of the fact that ships are actually producers of CO2 just like our automobiles are.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To solve that problem, Chavez and his team used robotic boats to track the amount of carbon dioxide blowing into the Monterey Bay and the Pacific, eliminating any stray emissions coming from boats.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They observed land-based carbon dioxide emissions drifting up to 100 kilometers, or 60 miles, off the coast.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That’s a brand new piece of information,” says NOAA chemical oceanographer Richard Feely, who was not involved with the study. “That suggests we need to be monitoring the coastal region, not just in Monterey Bay but in other places as well.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Feely suspects wherever there are sprawling cities and industry close to the coast, greenhouse gases are blowing over far distances into the ocean.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What’s more, the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute team believes other pollutants such as heavy metals, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen gases might also be traveling out to sea.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Winds carrying greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide can travel up to 60 miles offshore, adding significantly more carbon dioxide into the ocean than previously estimated, according to new \u003ca href=\"https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0214403\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">research\u003c/a> from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Emissions from tailpipes and factories could be adding roughly 25 million metric tons of carbon dioxide per year into oceans worldwide\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When carbon dioxide dissolves into seawater it makes oceans more acidic, and more uninhabitable for species like crabs and coral.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The extra carbon dioxide that the researchers measured means “more of a threat to some of the sea life that inhabits the ocean,” says Francisco Chavez, the study’s lead author.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s been widely understood that ships are heavyweight polluters in bays and oceans. But until now, the impact that land-based pollution has on waterways hasn’t been investigated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s in part because the way researchers tracked carbon dioxide emissions in the past was on boats — Francisco Chavez said when researchers would document higher-than-expected carbon dioxide levels, it was assumed it was coming from the ships doing the measurements.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Most of the measurements we make of carbon dioxide have been from ships,” Chavez said, “The higher carbon dioxide levels are often discounted because of the fact that ships are actually producers of CO2 just like our automobiles are.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To solve that problem, Chavez and his team used robotic boats to track the amount of carbon dioxide blowing into the Monterey Bay and the Pacific, eliminating any stray emissions coming from boats.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They observed land-based carbon dioxide emissions drifting up to 100 kilometers, or 60 miles, off the coast.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That’s a brand new piece of information,” says NOAA chemical oceanographer Richard Feely, who was not involved with the study. “That suggests we need to be monitoring the coastal region, not just in Monterey Bay but in other places as well.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Feely suspects wherever there are sprawling cities and industry close to the coast, greenhouse gases are blowing over far distances into the ocean.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What’s more, the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute team believes other pollutants such as heavy metals, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen gases might also be traveling out to sea.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>California’s climate change efforts can be spotted all over the Bay Area in the growing number of electric cars and solar panels. But now, California is enlisting people from a more conservative part of the state — even if they don’t think climate change is much of a concern.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s farmers are receiving millions of dollars to pull carbon out of the atmosphere, something the state says is crucial for meeting its ambitious climate goals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote size=\"small\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Jeanne Merrill, California Climate & Agriculture Network\"]‘Some [farmers] are willing to say that it’s climate change. Others are unsure. But I think many know that things are changing and they need different tools.’[/pullquote]The state is paying them to grow plants, which absorb carbon and help move it into the soil where it can be stored long-term. That makes California home to some of the first official “carbon farmers” in the country.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For some, like almond grower Jose Robles of Modesto, climate change was an afterthought, if that. That’s something they talk about in Sacramento, he says, not where he lives and works.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But in December, the ground under Robles’ almond trees was a carpet of green, full of mustard plant and clover. It’s not a common sight in the Central Valley. After all, most farmers hate weeds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Everybody wants to have the orchards nice and clean,” Robles says, laughing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>His neighbors really don’t understand it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’ve heard them say, ‘We’re in the business of growing almonds, not in the business of growing weeds,’” he says, laughing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adapting to Drought\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Robles got the idea a few years ago, during California’s severe drought, when he had to cut back on watering his trees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We had no water,” he says. “It made us look at things different.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Robles knew that richer earth with more microorganisms holds moisture longer, but there wasn’t a lot of organic matter in his orchard to build the soil up. Like most farmers, he sprayed herbicides to kill weeds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1940565\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1940565\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/04/field1-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/04/field1-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/04/field1-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/04/field1-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/04/field1-1020x574.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/04/field1-1200x675.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/04/field1.jpg 1864w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A field at Russell Ranch at UC Davis, where carbon storage techniques are studied. \u003ccite>(Lauren Sommer/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>So he decided to grow organic matter specifically to feed his soil. He planted species that most people commonly see as weeds, but when sown on purpose, are known as a “cover crop.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Once they get a few feet tall, he mows them and lets them decompose, along with some extra compost and mulch. A $21,000 grant from California helps cover his extra costs and labor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It can be tricky, because almonds are harvested from the ground after they’re shaken off the trees. Having mulch or weed remnants on the ground would interfere with that, so Robles has to make sure the organic matter breaks down before harvest begins.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He’s already seen a difference.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The trees, they don’t stress as much, because they hold the moisture a lot longer,” Robles says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Absorbing Carbon Emissions\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Though climate change didn’t really factor into Robles’ decision, his grant comes from a program designed to be part of the state’s climate change strategy. California’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdfa.ca.gov/oefi/healthysoils/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Healthy Soils initiative\u003c/a> is now in its third year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Farms and forests could absorb as much as 20 percent of California’s current level of emissions, says a \u003ca href=\"https://www.arb.ca.gov/cc/natandworkinglands/draft-nwl-ip-040419.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">state report\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think there’s great potential for agriculture to play a really important role,” says Kate Scow, professor of soil microbial ecology at UC Davis, of the state’s climate goals. She’s standing in a large wheat field at Russell Ranch, seven miles west of the campus, where the university plants crops to study sustainable agriculture.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Soil is alive,” she says. “There’s farmers that know that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To show me, Scow starts enthusiastically digging in the dirt.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“All right, see, we’re starting to hit the mineral soil.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is where the carbon is stored. Plants soak up the carbon dioxide in the air to build their leaves and stems. Their roots pump carbon down into the earth. Then, when the plant dies, its organic matter gets broken down by microbes and fungi. That’s how carbon from the air gets into the soil.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The deeper you can get it in the soil, especially below the plow layer, the more stable and secure it’s going to be,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s key to prevent the carbon from being released back into the air, and is how agriculture could play a part in the state’s climate effort.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have very ambitious climate goals, and without natural and working lands, California simply won’t get there,” says Jeanne Merrill, with the California Climate & Agriculture Network, a coalition of ag groups working on climate policy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before leaving office, Gov. Jerry Brown set a goal for California to be carbon neutral by 2045. That will likely mean not just reducing carbon emissions from cars and buildings, but absorbing carbon already in the air.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Merrill says California’s farmers are already on the frontlines of facing climate impacts, like more extreme weather.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Some are willing to say that it’s climate change,” she says. “Others are unsure. But I think many know that things are changing and they need different tools.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Farmers are interested in the climate programs, Merrill says, if only because it can help them weather extended droughts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hundreds have signed up. But state climate officials say the Healthy Soils program \u003ca href=\"https://www.arb.ca.gov/cc/natandworkinglands/draft-nwl-ip-040419.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">needs to be five times larger\u003c/a>. That means the state Legislature will have to boost its $15 million budget, and Gov. Gavin Newsom has requested more money for the program. (\u003cstrong>Update May 9, 2019\u003c/strong>: In the May revise of the state budget, Newsom has proposed $28 million for Healthy Soils, an increase of $10 million over his original proposal.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Merrill says that would send a signal that California’s climate efforts will take the entire state, not just coastal cities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s bridging that coastal-Valley divide,” she says. “It’s saying that we need that Valley base pretty significantly.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"title": "California Has Farmers Growing Weeds. Why? To Capture Carbon | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>California’s climate change efforts can be spotted all over the Bay Area in the growing number of electric cars and solar panels. But now, California is enlisting people from a more conservative part of the state — even if they don’t think climate change is much of a concern.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s farmers are receiving millions of dollars to pull carbon out of the atmosphere, something the state says is crucial for meeting its ambitious climate goals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "‘Some [farmers] are willing to say that it’s climate change. Others are unsure. But I think many know that things are changing and they need different tools.’",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The state is paying them to grow plants, which absorb carbon and help move it into the soil where it can be stored long-term. That makes California home to some of the first official “carbon farmers” in the country.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For some, like almond grower Jose Robles of Modesto, climate change was an afterthought, if that. That’s something they talk about in Sacramento, he says, not where he lives and works.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But in December, the ground under Robles’ almond trees was a carpet of green, full of mustard plant and clover. It’s not a common sight in the Central Valley. After all, most farmers hate weeds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Everybody wants to have the orchards nice and clean,” Robles says, laughing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>His neighbors really don’t understand it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’ve heard them say, ‘We’re in the business of growing almonds, not in the business of growing weeds,’” he says, laughing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adapting to Drought\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Robles got the idea a few years ago, during California’s severe drought, when he had to cut back on watering his trees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We had no water,” he says. “It made us look at things different.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Robles knew that richer earth with more microorganisms holds moisture longer, but there wasn’t a lot of organic matter in his orchard to build the soil up. Like most farmers, he sprayed herbicides to kill weeds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1940565\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1940565\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/04/field1-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/04/field1-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/04/field1-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/04/field1-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/04/field1-1020x574.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/04/field1-1200x675.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/04/field1.jpg 1864w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A field at Russell Ranch at UC Davis, where carbon storage techniques are studied. \u003ccite>(Lauren Sommer/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>So he decided to grow organic matter specifically to feed his soil. He planted species that most people commonly see as weeds, but when sown on purpose, are known as a “cover crop.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Once they get a few feet tall, he mows them and lets them decompose, along with some extra compost and mulch. A $21,000 grant from California helps cover his extra costs and labor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It can be tricky, because almonds are harvested from the ground after they’re shaken off the trees. Having mulch or weed remnants on the ground would interfere with that, so Robles has to make sure the organic matter breaks down before harvest begins.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He’s already seen a difference.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The trees, they don’t stress as much, because they hold the moisture a lot longer,” Robles says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Absorbing Carbon Emissions\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Though climate change didn’t really factor into Robles’ decision, his grant comes from a program designed to be part of the state’s climate change strategy. California’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdfa.ca.gov/oefi/healthysoils/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Healthy Soils initiative\u003c/a> is now in its third year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Farms and forests could absorb as much as 20 percent of California’s current level of emissions, says a \u003ca href=\"https://www.arb.ca.gov/cc/natandworkinglands/draft-nwl-ip-040419.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">state report\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think there’s great potential for agriculture to play a really important role,” says Kate Scow, professor of soil microbial ecology at UC Davis, of the state’s climate goals. She’s standing in a large wheat field at Russell Ranch, seven miles west of the campus, where the university plants crops to study sustainable agriculture.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Soil is alive,” she says. “There’s farmers that know that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To show me, Scow starts enthusiastically digging in the dirt.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“All right, see, we’re starting to hit the mineral soil.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is where the carbon is stored. Plants soak up the carbon dioxide in the air to build their leaves and stems. Their roots pump carbon down into the earth. Then, when the plant dies, its organic matter gets broken down by microbes and fungi. That’s how carbon from the air gets into the soil.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The deeper you can get it in the soil, especially below the plow layer, the more stable and secure it’s going to be,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s key to prevent the carbon from being released back into the air, and is how agriculture could play a part in the state’s climate effort.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have very ambitious climate goals, and without natural and working lands, California simply won’t get there,” says Jeanne Merrill, with the California Climate & Agriculture Network, a coalition of ag groups working on climate policy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before leaving office, Gov. Jerry Brown set a goal for California to be carbon neutral by 2045. That will likely mean not just reducing carbon emissions from cars and buildings, but absorbing carbon already in the air.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Merrill says California’s farmers are already on the frontlines of facing climate impacts, like more extreme weather.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Some are willing to say that it’s climate change,” she says. “Others are unsure. But I think many know that things are changing and they need different tools.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Farmers are interested in the climate programs, Merrill says, if only because it can help them weather extended droughts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hundreds have signed up. But state climate officials say the Healthy Soils program \u003ca href=\"https://www.arb.ca.gov/cc/natandworkinglands/draft-nwl-ip-040419.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">needs to be five times larger\u003c/a>. That means the state Legislature will have to boost its $15 million budget, and Gov. Gavin Newsom has requested more money for the program. (\u003cstrong>Update May 9, 2019\u003c/strong>: In the May revise of the state budget, Newsom has proposed $28 million for Healthy Soils, an increase of $10 million over his original proposal.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Merrill says that would send a signal that California’s climate efforts will take the entire state, not just coastal cities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s bridging that coastal-Valley divide,” she says. “It’s saying that we need that Valley base pretty significantly.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "Both Sides of California Fracking Debate Await Newsom's Next Move",
"headTitle": "Both Sides of California Fracking Debate Await Newsom’s Next Move | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>California has been deeply involved with the oil and gas business since the first wooden derricks were erected in sleepy Kern County in the 19th century. But these days California is flush with laws, regulations and goals that will likely cause the state to eventually sever its long relationship with fossil fuels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the flashpoints in that still-evolving association is hydraulic fracturing—or fracking—the controversial high-pressure pumping of chemicals and water into underground rock to crack it open and release oil. Former Gov. Jerry Brown declined to ban fracking despite intense pressure from anti-oil activists but signed into law a requirement that all chemicals used in the process be disclosed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gov. Gavin Newsom, while campaigning for his new job, said he supported a ban. As lieutenant governor and a member of the State Lands Commission, Newsom signed a letter last year to the Trump administration, pushing back against a federal intent to reopen drilling off California’s coast. The commission said it would not approve permits for new pipelines or facilities that enabled offshore oil production.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The fossil fuel era is ending, and California is not interested in the boom-or-bust oil economy,” the letter said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Should the governor want to do away with fracking, he could issue an emergency order placing a moratorium on it. But the public hasn’t heard from Newsom on the issue as he has laid out his initial priorities, and his staff did not answer questions from CALmatters about his current leanings. He has made priorities of environmental justice, public health and other issues critical to the Central Valley, which is also the hub of California’s oil industry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Only about 20% of California’s oil is produced from fracked wells, according to the state. Still, opposition remains intense, with activists arguing that fracking endangers drinking water supplies, air quality and public health and imperils our oceans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dozens of California counties and cities seem to agree, having passed ordinances banning the procedure, even where there is no oil drilling. And fracking has become a proxy for environmentalists’ push to ramp down new oil production, which has been declining in California for the last four years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Assemblyman Al Muratsuchi said he would support a fracking ban but preferred to come at the issue more broadly, with legislation to address “all oil and gas development that [threatens] the health of children and families or our national monuments and other protected lands.” A Democrat from Torrance, he wants to bar any new construction of oil infrastructure on state land.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a separate proposal, he would require that other new oil development, which could include fracking, be sited at least a half-mile from child care facilities, hospitals and residences.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cscript id=\"infogram_0_1d754c82-efa5-4bc2-8882-3eb50ba5773e\" title=\"fracking\" src=\"https://e.infogram.com/js/dist/embed.js?rCT\" type=\"text/javascript\">\u003c/script>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I continue to believe … that the evidence is clear about the potential harmful impacts of fracking,” the legislator said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other pending bills would subject the oil industry to more regulation, including a severance tax.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To the oil and gas industry, fracking bans are a thinly veiled assault on fossil fuels that could cripple California’s economy, throw thousands out of work and drive up the cost of gas at the pump.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It would be irresponsible to ban hydraulic fracturing and other safe well-stimulation techniques in California,” said Catherine Reheis-Boyd, president of the Western States Petroleum Association, an industry group. “Californians consume all of the oil we produce under the strictest environmental protections on the planet.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Modern fracking has been practiced in oil fields since the 1940s, but it burst into the national spotlight in the last decade when companies began unlocking troves of natural gas in underground shale. The technique for restarting decades-old wells has brought new life to the aging oil fields around Bakersfield.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fracking created a boom that made the United States the world’s biggest oil producer. The procedure is exempted from the federal Safe Drinking Water Act, which otherwise requires myriad testing and safety measures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In some parts of the country, evidence has emerged that waste fluids from fracking have contaminated drinking water, and swarms of earthquakes from fracking and other high-pressure injections—frackquakes—have bedeviled Oklahoma.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But California’s unique geology—fracking occurs at shallower depths and probes a different type of strata—means the state has not experienced such problems on the same scale. And fracking in California requires much less water than in other states.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gabe Garcia runs the Bakersfield office of the federal Bureau of Land Management and oversees the U.S. government’s oil holdings in California, leasing about 200,000 acres for energy development. The Trump administration rescinded Obama-era federal fracking regulations; Garcia said that operators on federal leases in California get permits from the state and abide by California’s rules.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Garcia said the persistent intense criticism of fracking is unfounded. “A lot of it comes from people who are not experts in the field,” Garcia said. “They make their determinations based on what’s going on elsewhere in the country.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s relatively strict fracking regulations, set in 2013, call for more scientific study of fracking and related practices and more careful permitting of well operations, in addition to requiring disclosure of chemicals. Even with that reporting requirement, public health officials say they have difficulty gauging the potential impact of fracking’s chemical stews.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The most comprehensive analysis of fracking in the state was conducted by the California Council on Science and Technology in 2015, as part of an examination of well-stimulation techniques. One of the report’s conclusions was that scientists were unable to determine fracking’s full effects on human health, the environment or groundwater because they don’t fully understand all the chemicals used or how they interact with one another.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Operators have unrestricted use of many hazardous … chemicals in hydraulic fracturing,” the report found. Some of the same chemicals are used in other oilfield procedures as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In terms of understanding the hazards and risk to human health and the environment, we have not gotten much further in our understanding of chemicals used in oil and gas in California,” added Seth Shonkoff, a public health scientist and one of the report’s lead authors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>New state rules took effect this month governing a routine and, to some, more troubling category of operations that includes high-pressure injections of steam or acid to rework or stimulate oil production or during maintenance. Those practices, according to Shonkoff and others, use more dangerous chemicals than routine hydraulic fracking, are more polluting and merit more attention from groups focused on fracking.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Parties on all sides of the issue say they have had discussions with Newsom’s staff since he took office. Leaders of the anti-drilling Leave It In The Ground campaign, who dogged Brown, and other groups are arguing that a fracking ban should be part of California’s overall strategy to reduce carbon emissions and improve public health.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There are big-picture things, like stop approving new fossil-fuel projects and phase out oil and gas production,” said Kassie Siegel, a senior attorney at the environmental group Center for Biological Diversity. She said weaning California off fossil fuels should include retraining and re-employment of oil workers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The powerful State Building and Construction Trades Council also has weighed in, swarming legislators in the Capitol this week, airing their concerns about job loss if California’s lawmakers “over-regulate” the oil industry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All sides are waiting for a clear message to emerge, but they won’t wait forever.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I remain optimistic,” Siegel said, “that the Newsom administration will start protecting Californians instead of oil companies.”\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "During his campaign, Gov. Gavin Newsom said he supported a ban on fracking, the controversial oil extraction technique that pumps chemicals and water into underground rock. But since taking office and laying out his initial priorities, Newsom's been silent on the issue.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>California has been deeply involved with the oil and gas business since the first wooden derricks were erected in sleepy Kern County in the 19th century. But these days California is flush with laws, regulations and goals that will likely cause the state to eventually sever its long relationship with fossil fuels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the flashpoints in that still-evolving association is hydraulic fracturing—or fracking—the controversial high-pressure pumping of chemicals and water into underground rock to crack it open and release oil. Former Gov. Jerry Brown declined to ban fracking despite intense pressure from anti-oil activists but signed into law a requirement that all chemicals used in the process be disclosed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gov. Gavin Newsom, while campaigning for his new job, said he supported a ban. As lieutenant governor and a member of the State Lands Commission, Newsom signed a letter last year to the Trump administration, pushing back against a federal intent to reopen drilling off California’s coast. The commission said it would not approve permits for new pipelines or facilities that enabled offshore oil production.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The fossil fuel era is ending, and California is not interested in the boom-or-bust oil economy,” the letter said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Should the governor want to do away with fracking, he could issue an emergency order placing a moratorium on it. But the public hasn’t heard from Newsom on the issue as he has laid out his initial priorities, and his staff did not answer questions from CALmatters about his current leanings. He has made priorities of environmental justice, public health and other issues critical to the Central Valley, which is also the hub of California’s oil industry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Only about 20% of California’s oil is produced from fracked wells, according to the state. Still, opposition remains intense, with activists arguing that fracking endangers drinking water supplies, air quality and public health and imperils our oceans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dozens of California counties and cities seem to agree, having passed ordinances banning the procedure, even where there is no oil drilling. And fracking has become a proxy for environmentalists’ push to ramp down new oil production, which has been declining in California for the last four years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Assemblyman Al Muratsuchi said he would support a fracking ban but preferred to come at the issue more broadly, with legislation to address “all oil and gas development that [threatens] the health of children and families or our national monuments and other protected lands.” A Democrat from Torrance, he wants to bar any new construction of oil infrastructure on state land.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a separate proposal, he would require that other new oil development, which could include fracking, be sited at least a half-mile from child care facilities, hospitals and residences.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cscript id=\"infogram_0_1d754c82-efa5-4bc2-8882-3eb50ba5773e\" title=\"fracking\" src=\"https://e.infogram.com/js/dist/embed.js?rCT\" type=\"text/javascript\">\u003c/script>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I continue to believe … that the evidence is clear about the potential harmful impacts of fracking,” the legislator said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other pending bills would subject the oil industry to more regulation, including a severance tax.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To the oil and gas industry, fracking bans are a thinly veiled assault on fossil fuels that could cripple California’s economy, throw thousands out of work and drive up the cost of gas at the pump.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It would be irresponsible to ban hydraulic fracturing and other safe well-stimulation techniques in California,” said Catherine Reheis-Boyd, president of the Western States Petroleum Association, an industry group. “Californians consume all of the oil we produce under the strictest environmental protections on the planet.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Modern fracking has been practiced in oil fields since the 1940s, but it burst into the national spotlight in the last decade when companies began unlocking troves of natural gas in underground shale. The technique for restarting decades-old wells has brought new life to the aging oil fields around Bakersfield.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fracking created a boom that made the United States the world’s biggest oil producer. The procedure is exempted from the federal Safe Drinking Water Act, which otherwise requires myriad testing and safety measures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In some parts of the country, evidence has emerged that waste fluids from fracking have contaminated drinking water, and swarms of earthquakes from fracking and other high-pressure injections—frackquakes—have bedeviled Oklahoma.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But California’s unique geology—fracking occurs at shallower depths and probes a different type of strata—means the state has not experienced such problems on the same scale. And fracking in California requires much less water than in other states.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gabe Garcia runs the Bakersfield office of the federal Bureau of Land Management and oversees the U.S. government’s oil holdings in California, leasing about 200,000 acres for energy development. The Trump administration rescinded Obama-era federal fracking regulations; Garcia said that operators on federal leases in California get permits from the state and abide by California’s rules.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Garcia said the persistent intense criticism of fracking is unfounded. “A lot of it comes from people who are not experts in the field,” Garcia said. “They make their determinations based on what’s going on elsewhere in the country.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s relatively strict fracking regulations, set in 2013, call for more scientific study of fracking and related practices and more careful permitting of well operations, in addition to requiring disclosure of chemicals. Even with that reporting requirement, public health officials say they have difficulty gauging the potential impact of fracking’s chemical stews.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The most comprehensive analysis of fracking in the state was conducted by the California Council on Science and Technology in 2015, as part of an examination of well-stimulation techniques. One of the report’s conclusions was that scientists were unable to determine fracking’s full effects on human health, the environment or groundwater because they don’t fully understand all the chemicals used or how they interact with one another.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Operators have unrestricted use of many hazardous … chemicals in hydraulic fracturing,” the report found. Some of the same chemicals are used in other oilfield procedures as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In terms of understanding the hazards and risk to human health and the environment, we have not gotten much further in our understanding of chemicals used in oil and gas in California,” added Seth Shonkoff, a public health scientist and one of the report’s lead authors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>New state rules took effect this month governing a routine and, to some, more troubling category of operations that includes high-pressure injections of steam or acid to rework or stimulate oil production or during maintenance. Those practices, according to Shonkoff and others, use more dangerous chemicals than routine hydraulic fracking, are more polluting and merit more attention from groups focused on fracking.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Parties on all sides of the issue say they have had discussions with Newsom’s staff since he took office. Leaders of the anti-drilling Leave It In The Ground campaign, who dogged Brown, and other groups are arguing that a fracking ban should be part of California’s overall strategy to reduce carbon emissions and improve public health.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There are big-picture things, like stop approving new fossil-fuel projects and phase out oil and gas production,” said Kassie Siegel, a senior attorney at the environmental group Center for Biological Diversity. She said weaning California off fossil fuels should include retraining and re-employment of oil workers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The powerful State Building and Construction Trades Council also has weighed in, swarming legislators in the Capitol this week, airing their concerns about job loss if California’s lawmakers “over-regulate” the oil industry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All sides are waiting for a clear message to emerge, but they won’t wait forever.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I remain optimistic,” Siegel said, “that the Newsom administration will start protecting Californians instead of oil companies.”\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Photo Essay: Teens Are Really Worried About the Climate, and They'd Like Adults to Do Something About It",
"headTitle": "Photo Essay: Teens Are Really Worried About the Climate, and They’d Like Adults to Do Something About It | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>The climate change protest group known as \u003ca href=\"https://rebellion.earth/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Extinction Rebellion\u003c/a> continues to shut down London in a third day of action demanding government officials treat climate change as an emergency.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Authorities have arrested \u003ca href=\"https://edition.cnn.com/uk/live-news/london-climate-change-protests-gbr-intl/index.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">some 300 people\u003c/a>; protesters have shut down 55 bus routes, affecting half a million London residents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Among the protests that took place internationally on Monday was a Bay Area \u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/ExtinctionRebellionSF/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">demonstration\u003c/a> at United Nations Plaza in San Francisco. On the heels of last month’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1939172/bay-area-students-say-theyre-not-gonna-take-it-anymore-when-it-comes-to-climate-change\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">student walkout\u003c/a> to protest the lack of action on the climate, we talked to some of the young people who showed up to register their dismay at what’s \u003cem>not\u003c/em> happening to solve what scientists agree is becoming an environmental catastrophe. We asked them two questions:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>How worried are they about climate change? And what do they want adults to do about it?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nadja Goldberg, 15, Ruth Asawa San Francisco School of the Arts\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1940362\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/ExtinctionRebellion_005.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1367\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/ExtinctionRebellion_005.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/ExtinctionRebellion_005-160x114.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/ExtinctionRebellion_005-800x570.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/ExtinctionRebellion_005-768x547.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/ExtinctionRebellion_005-1020x726.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/ExtinctionRebellion_005-1200x854.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cbr>\n“I’m terrified of the future impacts climate change will have, which is more forest fires and drought. I am part of a group called Youth vs. Apocalypse, and I think it’s really true that the effects of climate change are similar to that of an apocalypse. I think since the Green New Deal came out, the conversation on climate change has become much more frequent, and [it] lays out a clear plan to address climate change. So that makes me really excited. A lot of people tell me: ‘It’s up to you guys to save us,’ but I think its up to everyone, not just young people.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Baxter Bhansali, 15, International High School of San Francisco\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1940360\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/ExtinctionRebellion_003.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1359\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/ExtinctionRebellion_003.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/ExtinctionRebellion_003-160x113.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/ExtinctionRebellion_003-800x566.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/ExtinctionRebellion_003-768x544.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/ExtinctionRebellion_003-1020x722.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/ExtinctionRebellion_003-1200x849.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m 15 and when I grow up, we are going to have to deal with the effects of this. I’m going to be alive in 2050; I’m going to be alive in 11 years, when the U.N. reports that that’s the point of no return. I want to have food. I don’t want agriculture to be impossible. Also the fact that just as a human being I have empathy for other people — with rising temperatures there’s going to be refugees, and people losing their homes, and losing their lives, and I don’t want that to happen. They should pass laws like the Green New Deal or other laws that disincentivize the use of carbon fuels and fossil fuels and things that produce a lot of carbon emissions.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Hallie Evans, 15, Arroyo High School in San Lorenzo; Mariah Lazalde, 14, MetWest High School in Oakland\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1940363\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/ExtinctionRebellion_006.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1361\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/ExtinctionRebellion_006.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/ExtinctionRebellion_006-160x113.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/ExtinctionRebellion_006-800x567.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/ExtinctionRebellion_006-768x544.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/ExtinctionRebellion_006-1020x723.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/ExtinctionRebellion_006-1200x851.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Reading (that) the scientists have these theories of what will happen if we don’t fix climate change within the 10-year range, it worries me a lot. There’s a lot of people trying to participate in fixing the problem, but there’s not really things being done. Yes, I’m young, but I feel like adults,in a way\u003cstrong>,\u003c/strong> could do a little bit more than I can as a 15-year-old, and I feel like they can use their power in a way to help us.” – \u003cem>Hallie Evans\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>‘When I first found out about climate change was in school, and I started reading these articles saying that we only have a timespan of 10 years to fix this problem, and I feel like there’s not anything being done. None of our elected officials are doing anything. Yes, we are putting pressure on [them], but they are not doing anything; they are ignoring us. Our adults basically made this happen, because I wasn’t here 14 years ago … .” \u003cem>-Mariah Lazalde\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Charlie Kushelevsky, 16, International High School of San Francisco\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1940361\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/ExtinctionRebellion_004.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1402\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/ExtinctionRebellion_004.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/ExtinctionRebellion_004-160x117.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/ExtinctionRebellion_004-800x584.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/ExtinctionRebellion_004-768x561.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/ExtinctionRebellion_004-1020x745.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/ExtinctionRebellion_004-1200x876.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s no force stopping it right now in the level that’s needed. Something needs to be done. More legislation needs to be passed that limits carbon emissions in general, and there needs to be a general consensus of recognition of climate change and the damage of fossil fuels.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Efrem Blitz, 15, El Cerrito High School\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1940364\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/ExtinctionRebellion_007-qut.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1336\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/ExtinctionRebellion_007-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/ExtinctionRebellion_007-qut-160x111.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/ExtinctionRebellion_007-qut-800x557.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/ExtinctionRebellion_007-qut-768x534.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/ExtinctionRebellion_007-qut-1020x710.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/ExtinctionRebellion_007-qut-1200x835.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s risking all of our futures as well as the animals in the world. It’s said we have 12 years before we cause permanent damage to the environment, and a lot of scientists said that we already have and we are already past that point. If the government doesn’t want to admit that change is urgent, then we are going to be here marching and protesting all day.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>All photos by Lindsey Moore. Jon Brooks and Kat Snow contributed to this post.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The climate change protest group known as \u003ca href=\"https://rebellion.earth/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Extinction Rebellion\u003c/a> continues to shut down London in a third day of action demanding government officials treat climate change as an emergency.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Authorities have arrested \u003ca href=\"https://edition.cnn.com/uk/live-news/london-climate-change-protests-gbr-intl/index.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">some 300 people\u003c/a>; protesters have shut down 55 bus routes, affecting half a million London residents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Among the protests that took place internationally on Monday was a Bay Area \u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/ExtinctionRebellionSF/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">demonstration\u003c/a> at United Nations Plaza in San Francisco. On the heels of last month’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1939172/bay-area-students-say-theyre-not-gonna-take-it-anymore-when-it-comes-to-climate-change\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">student walkout\u003c/a> to protest the lack of action on the climate, we talked to some of the young people who showed up to register their dismay at what’s \u003cem>not\u003c/em> happening to solve what scientists agree is becoming an environmental catastrophe. We asked them two questions:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>How worried are they about climate change? And what do they want adults to do about it?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nadja Goldberg, 15, Ruth Asawa San Francisco School of the Arts\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1940362\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/ExtinctionRebellion_005.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1367\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/ExtinctionRebellion_005.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/ExtinctionRebellion_005-160x114.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/ExtinctionRebellion_005-800x570.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/ExtinctionRebellion_005-768x547.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/ExtinctionRebellion_005-1020x726.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/ExtinctionRebellion_005-1200x854.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cbr>\n“I’m terrified of the future impacts climate change will have, which is more forest fires and drought. I am part of a group called Youth vs. Apocalypse, and I think it’s really true that the effects of climate change are similar to that of an apocalypse. I think since the Green New Deal came out, the conversation on climate change has become much more frequent, and [it] lays out a clear plan to address climate change. So that makes me really excited. A lot of people tell me: ‘It’s up to you guys to save us,’ but I think its up to everyone, not just young people.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Baxter Bhansali, 15, International High School of San Francisco\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1940360\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/ExtinctionRebellion_003.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1359\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/ExtinctionRebellion_003.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/ExtinctionRebellion_003-160x113.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/ExtinctionRebellion_003-800x566.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/ExtinctionRebellion_003-768x544.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/ExtinctionRebellion_003-1020x722.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/ExtinctionRebellion_003-1200x849.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m 15 and when I grow up, we are going to have to deal with the effects of this. I’m going to be alive in 2050; I’m going to be alive in 11 years, when the U.N. reports that that’s the point of no return. I want to have food. I don’t want agriculture to be impossible. Also the fact that just as a human being I have empathy for other people — with rising temperatures there’s going to be refugees, and people losing their homes, and losing their lives, and I don’t want that to happen. They should pass laws like the Green New Deal or other laws that disincentivize the use of carbon fuels and fossil fuels and things that produce a lot of carbon emissions.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Hallie Evans, 15, Arroyo High School in San Lorenzo; Mariah Lazalde, 14, MetWest High School in Oakland\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1940363\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/ExtinctionRebellion_006.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1361\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/ExtinctionRebellion_006.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/ExtinctionRebellion_006-160x113.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/ExtinctionRebellion_006-800x567.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/ExtinctionRebellion_006-768x544.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/ExtinctionRebellion_006-1020x723.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/ExtinctionRebellion_006-1200x851.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Reading (that) the scientists have these theories of what will happen if we don’t fix climate change within the 10-year range, it worries me a lot. There’s a lot of people trying to participate in fixing the problem, but there’s not really things being done. Yes, I’m young, but I feel like adults,in a way\u003cstrong>,\u003c/strong> could do a little bit more than I can as a 15-year-old, and I feel like they can use their power in a way to help us.” – \u003cem>Hallie Evans\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>‘When I first found out about climate change was in school, and I started reading these articles saying that we only have a timespan of 10 years to fix this problem, and I feel like there’s not anything being done. None of our elected officials are doing anything. Yes, we are putting pressure on [them], but they are not doing anything; they are ignoring us. Our adults basically made this happen, because I wasn’t here 14 years ago … .” \u003cem>-Mariah Lazalde\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Charlie Kushelevsky, 16, International High School of San Francisco\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1940361\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/ExtinctionRebellion_004.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1402\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/ExtinctionRebellion_004.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/ExtinctionRebellion_004-160x117.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/ExtinctionRebellion_004-800x584.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/ExtinctionRebellion_004-768x561.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/ExtinctionRebellion_004-1020x745.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/ExtinctionRebellion_004-1200x876.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s no force stopping it right now in the level that’s needed. Something needs to be done. More legislation needs to be passed that limits carbon emissions in general, and there needs to be a general consensus of recognition of climate change and the damage of fossil fuels.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Efrem Blitz, 15, El Cerrito High School\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1940364\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/ExtinctionRebellion_007-qut.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1336\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/ExtinctionRebellion_007-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/ExtinctionRebellion_007-qut-160x111.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/ExtinctionRebellion_007-qut-800x557.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/ExtinctionRebellion_007-qut-768x534.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/ExtinctionRebellion_007-qut-1020x710.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/ExtinctionRebellion_007-qut-1200x835.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s risking all of our futures as well as the animals in the world. It’s said we have 12 years before we cause permanent damage to the environment, and a lot of scientists said that we already have and we are already past that point. If the government doesn’t want to admit that change is urgent, then we are going to be here marching and protesting all day.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>All photos by Lindsey Moore. Jon Brooks and Kat Snow contributed to this post.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 4.6875em;float: left;line-height: 0.733em;padding: 0.05em 0.1em 0 0;font-family: times, serif, georgia\">T\u003c/span>he rainy season is winding down, ending a difficult winter for many North Bay commuters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Every day, 46,000 people drive Highway 37, the scenic route that connects Marin County with Vallejo, Napa and just about everywhere east.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This thread, though essential, is also tenuous in that it’s strung atop a berm barely above sea level. Traversing the vast salt marshes known as the \u003ca href=\"http://scc.ca.gov/climate-change/climate-change-projects/highway37/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">San Pablo Baylands\u003c/a>, the 21-mile stretch is emerging as an early challenge to planners confronting California’s changing climate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote size='small' align='right' citation='Steve Page, CEO Sonoma Raceway']‘You walk out of there after four hours borderline suicidal, when you listen to presentations by the staff of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, who sketch out a timeline saying that we might be able to adopt a final plan in 2055.’[/pullquote]In the drenching winter of 2016-17, flooding from winter storms shut down portions of the road for a total of 28 days. Then, last February, a levee broke on the Marin side, shutting down westbound lanes for five days while crews pumped water off the road and trucks hauled in loads of rock to shore it up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It calls into question: How much longer can we have Highway 37 in the way that it is, without preparing for sea level rise?” wonders Assemblyman Marc Levine, D-San Rafael. He commutes on 37, from Marin to Sacramento, and was frustrated when the road was underwater again two years after Caltrans raised a section to prevent it from flooding.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We paved a couple of parts of it, and the part that we didn’t pave was the one that got flooded — of course, it’s the bottom of the bathtub,” he said, referring to the unelevated portions of the highway. “So we can’t pat ourselves on the back on these Band-Aids and quick fixes; we need to think a little bit bigger and think for the future.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1940219\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/h37_02.gif\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1940219 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/h37_02.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"571\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">\u003cem>\u003cstrong>A recent USGS study projects that Highway 37 would be frequently underwater with about 10 inches of sea rise, which could occur between 2040 and 2050. Twenty inches of rise, likely by 2070, would permanently overwhelm the roadway.\u003c/strong> \u003c/em>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Time Running Out\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That future is coming at us fast, with rising sea levels, high tides and extreme weather events. At the current pace of global warming, in little more than 20 years, Highway 37 could be underwater “multiple times per month,” based on \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1939059/the-ocean-is-not-a-bathtub-so-sea-level-rise-will-be-more-damaging\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">recent projections\u003c/a> by the U.S. Geological Survey.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some say it could be sooner.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re noticing that the water is getting higher and higher near the highway,” notes \u003ca href=\"https://roadecology.ucdavis.edu/people/fraser-shilling\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Fraser Shilling\u003c/a>, who co-directs the \u003ca href=\"https://roadecology.ucdavis.edu/research/programs/sea-level-rise\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Road Ecology Center\u003c/a> at UC Davis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re increasing the baseline, the level of water around it, which increases the risk, with every storm, of the highway closing again,” says Shilling. “So I would say we’re in that window where any given year, the highway could close potentially indefinitely.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That makes Steve Page really nervous.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Page is the CEO of \u003ca href=\"https://www.sonomaraceway.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Sonoma Raceway\u003c/a>. He depends on Highway 37 to get a half-million visitors a year to his track. He’s been to some meetings of the four-county task force, the \u003ca href=\"https://www.tam.ca.gov/sr-37-policy-committee/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Highway 37 Policy Committee\u003c/a>, that has been working on a solution for more than three years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You walk out of there after four hours borderline suicidal,” says Page, “when you listen to presentations by the staff of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, who sketch out a timeline saying that we might be able to adopt a final plan in 2055.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>What to Do?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most potential solutions fall into three buckets: Raise the berm that supports the road; put the road on stilts and make it a causeway; reroute it entirely, skirting the marsh by \u003ca href=\"https://napavalleyregister.com/news/local/route-highway-through-american-canyon-napans-shudder/article_578ffbd6-ac4d-534e-92df-ca02b1c122f3.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">looping it north\u003c/a> along higher ground. All three would also widen the road, much of which is one lane in either direction and often choked with traffic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>No matter which plan is eventually chosen, it’s certain to be a multibillion-dollar project. And since there’s currently no money for that, there’s growing sentiment that the new 37 will need to be a toll crossing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Any proposal to elevate the highway through the marsh is a proposal to build a new road,” says Shilling. “Because they’re not going to build it over the footprint of the existing road; it’s going to be alongside. So you’re talking about a whole new road.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Adding urgency to the issue is that even as the bay is rising, the land itself is sinking. On the north side of the highway are thousands of acres of marshes. Much of that land is undergoing restoration, and these wetlands could provide a buffer against rising seas if it weren’t for Highway 37 itself, which in its present form acts as a kind of dam between the marsh and the bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1940209\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1950px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/Causeway-View_R.5_sized.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1940209\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/Causeway-View_R.5_sized.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1950\" height=\"1097\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/Causeway-View_R.5_sized.jpg 1950w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/Causeway-View_R.5_sized-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/Causeway-View_R.5_sized-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/Causeway-View_R.5_sized-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/Causeway-View_R.5_sized-1020x574.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/Causeway-View_R.5_sized-1200x675.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/Causeway-View_R.5_sized-1920x1080.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1950px) 100vw, 1950px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Elevating Highway 37 to a causeway would protect the roadway and allow the marsh to move and interact with the bay — but it won’t come cheap. \u003ccite>(Common Ground/TLS Landscape Architecture)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“It doesn’t let the marsh do what it needs to do,” says Susan Schwartzenberg. She studies the interaction of human and natural forces as head of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.exploratorium.edu/visit/gallery-6\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Fisher Bay Observatory\u003c/a> at San Francisco’s Exploratorium.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Schwartzenberg says making the road an elevated causeway, like most of the Dumbarton Bridge, for instance, would allow the wetlands to do their job: delivering sediment to the Bay, re-establishing plants, and providing animal habitat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You see these swarms of birds, the gray, the brown hills in the background; it’s a vista that everyone should love.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So, Schwarzenberg has been working with a world-class design team on a whole new vision for the highway, in the shape of an undulating ribbon that would accommodate cars, bikes and pedestrians. It would even have elevated observation decks and floating campgrounds, to reconnect people with the natural beauty of the North Bay marshes. They even have a name for their grand vision …\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1940211\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 750px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/CULLINAN_SUNSET_sized.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1940211 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/CULLINAN_SUNSET_sized.jpg\" alt=\"Image: Grand Bayway design\" width=\"750\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/CULLINAN_SUNSET_sized.jpg 750w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/CULLINAN_SUNSET_sized-160x284.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/CULLINAN_SUNSET_sized-675x1200.jpg 675w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 750px) 100vw, 750px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Rendering of a possible Grand Bayway, stretching from the Napa River at Vallejo (foreground) to Sears Point in the distance, with bike-and-pedestrian loop and observation tower. \u003ccite>(Common Ground/TLS Landscape Architecture)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>The Grand Bayway\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The name \u003ca href=\"http://www.resilientbayarea.org/grand-bayway\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Grand Bayway\u003c/a> “connotes movement,” says Tom Leader, who heads TLS Landscape Architecture in Berkeley. He led one of the teams in the recent \u003ca href=\"http://www.resilientbayarea.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Resilient by Design\u003c/a> Bay Area Challenge and envisions the north end of the bay as an “ecological Central Park.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That would include the needs of transportation for people trying to get to work, but in a more elegant interesting way, and people to have access and develop the whole cultural life that’s embedded here … and, you know, living with water into the future.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That means, among other things, looking for ways to let the rising waters in, rather than pushing them back with seawalls and levees. Wetlands are a living example of that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are some short-term measures already partly funded and in the pipeline, including conversion of the intersection at Sears Point into a roundabout, and possibly adding a reversible commute lane to the eastern leg of the roadway. But those are interim measures designed to relieve traffic congestion. Caltrans says settling on a long-term design to address the threat from rising seas could be years away.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Shilling says one reason for that is that four counties and dozens of agencies are involved in the planning. And while he likes the idea of a Grand Bayway, he’s skeptical that it will happen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Institutions are the barrier,” he says. “It’s institutions not having the mechanisms for creative thinking for new ways of doing things to adapt to this new kind of condition.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This “new condition” of rising waters means that the “old” Highway 37 — the one we still count on — could be the first major thoroughfare that the Bay Area loses, completely, to climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>In the drenching winter of 2016-17, flooding from winter storms shut down portions of the road for a total of 28 days. Then, last February, a levee broke on the Marin side, shutting down westbound lanes for five days while crews pumped water off the road and trucks hauled in loads of rock to shore it up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It calls into question: How much longer can we have Highway 37 in the way that it is, without preparing for sea level rise?” wonders Assemblyman Marc Levine, D-San Rafael. He commutes on 37, from Marin to Sacramento, and was frustrated when the road was underwater again two years after Caltrans raised a section to prevent it from flooding.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We paved a couple of parts of it, and the part that we didn’t pave was the one that got flooded — of course, it’s the bottom of the bathtub,” he said, referring to the unelevated portions of the highway. “So we can’t pat ourselves on the back on these Band-Aids and quick fixes; we need to think a little bit bigger and think for the future.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1940219\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/h37_02.gif\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1940219 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/h37_02.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"571\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">\u003cem>\u003cstrong>A recent USGS study projects that Highway 37 would be frequently underwater with about 10 inches of sea rise, which could occur between 2040 and 2050. Twenty inches of rise, likely by 2070, would permanently overwhelm the roadway.\u003c/strong> \u003c/em>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Time Running Out\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That future is coming at us fast, with rising sea levels, high tides and extreme weather events. At the current pace of global warming, in little more than 20 years, Highway 37 could be underwater “multiple times per month,” based on \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1939059/the-ocean-is-not-a-bathtub-so-sea-level-rise-will-be-more-damaging\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">recent projections\u003c/a> by the U.S. Geological Survey.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some say it could be sooner.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re noticing that the water is getting higher and higher near the highway,” notes \u003ca href=\"https://roadecology.ucdavis.edu/people/fraser-shilling\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Fraser Shilling\u003c/a>, who co-directs the \u003ca href=\"https://roadecology.ucdavis.edu/research/programs/sea-level-rise\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Road Ecology Center\u003c/a> at UC Davis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re increasing the baseline, the level of water around it, which increases the risk, with every storm, of the highway closing again,” says Shilling. “So I would say we’re in that window where any given year, the highway could close potentially indefinitely.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That makes Steve Page really nervous.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Page is the CEO of \u003ca href=\"https://www.sonomaraceway.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Sonoma Raceway\u003c/a>. He depends on Highway 37 to get a half-million visitors a year to his track. He’s been to some meetings of the four-county task force, the \u003ca href=\"https://www.tam.ca.gov/sr-37-policy-committee/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Highway 37 Policy Committee\u003c/a>, that has been working on a solution for more than three years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You walk out of there after four hours borderline suicidal,” says Page, “when you listen to presentations by the staff of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, who sketch out a timeline saying that we might be able to adopt a final plan in 2055.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>What to Do?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most potential solutions fall into three buckets: Raise the berm that supports the road; put the road on stilts and make it a causeway; reroute it entirely, skirting the marsh by \u003ca href=\"https://napavalleyregister.com/news/local/route-highway-through-american-canyon-napans-shudder/article_578ffbd6-ac4d-534e-92df-ca02b1c122f3.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">looping it north\u003c/a> along higher ground. All three would also widen the road, much of which is one lane in either direction and often choked with traffic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>No matter which plan is eventually chosen, it’s certain to be a multibillion-dollar project. And since there’s currently no money for that, there’s growing sentiment that the new 37 will need to be a toll crossing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Any proposal to elevate the highway through the marsh is a proposal to build a new road,” says Shilling. “Because they’re not going to build it over the footprint of the existing road; it’s going to be alongside. So you’re talking about a whole new road.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Adding urgency to the issue is that even as the bay is rising, the land itself is sinking. On the north side of the highway are thousands of acres of marshes. Much of that land is undergoing restoration, and these wetlands could provide a buffer against rising seas if it weren’t for Highway 37 itself, which in its present form acts as a kind of dam between the marsh and the bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1940209\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1950px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/Causeway-View_R.5_sized.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1940209\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/Causeway-View_R.5_sized.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1950\" height=\"1097\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/Causeway-View_R.5_sized.jpg 1950w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/Causeway-View_R.5_sized-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/Causeway-View_R.5_sized-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/Causeway-View_R.5_sized-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/Causeway-View_R.5_sized-1020x574.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/Causeway-View_R.5_sized-1200x675.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/Causeway-View_R.5_sized-1920x1080.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1950px) 100vw, 1950px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Elevating Highway 37 to a causeway would protect the roadway and allow the marsh to move and interact with the bay — but it won’t come cheap. \u003ccite>(Common Ground/TLS Landscape Architecture)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“It doesn’t let the marsh do what it needs to do,” says Susan Schwartzenberg. She studies the interaction of human and natural forces as head of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.exploratorium.edu/visit/gallery-6\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Fisher Bay Observatory\u003c/a> at San Francisco’s Exploratorium.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Schwartzenberg says making the road an elevated causeway, like most of the Dumbarton Bridge, for instance, would allow the wetlands to do their job: delivering sediment to the Bay, re-establishing plants, and providing animal habitat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You see these swarms of birds, the gray, the brown hills in the background; it’s a vista that everyone should love.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So, Schwarzenberg has been working with a world-class design team on a whole new vision for the highway, in the shape of an undulating ribbon that would accommodate cars, bikes and pedestrians. It would even have elevated observation decks and floating campgrounds, to reconnect people with the natural beauty of the North Bay marshes. They even have a name for their grand vision …\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1940211\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 750px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/CULLINAN_SUNSET_sized.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1940211 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/CULLINAN_SUNSET_sized.jpg\" alt=\"Image: Grand Bayway design\" width=\"750\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/CULLINAN_SUNSET_sized.jpg 750w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/CULLINAN_SUNSET_sized-160x284.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/CULLINAN_SUNSET_sized-675x1200.jpg 675w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 750px) 100vw, 750px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Rendering of a possible Grand Bayway, stretching from the Napa River at Vallejo (foreground) to Sears Point in the distance, with bike-and-pedestrian loop and observation tower. \u003ccite>(Common Ground/TLS Landscape Architecture)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>The Grand Bayway\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The name \u003ca href=\"http://www.resilientbayarea.org/grand-bayway\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Grand Bayway\u003c/a> “connotes movement,” says Tom Leader, who heads TLS Landscape Architecture in Berkeley. He led one of the teams in the recent \u003ca href=\"http://www.resilientbayarea.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Resilient by Design\u003c/a> Bay Area Challenge and envisions the north end of the bay as an “ecological Central Park.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That would include the needs of transportation for people trying to get to work, but in a more elegant interesting way, and people to have access and develop the whole cultural life that’s embedded here … and, you know, living with water into the future.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That means, among other things, looking for ways to let the rising waters in, rather than pushing them back with seawalls and levees. Wetlands are a living example of that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are some short-term measures already partly funded and in the pipeline, including conversion of the intersection at Sears Point into a roundabout, and possibly adding a reversible commute lane to the eastern leg of the roadway. But those are interim measures designed to relieve traffic congestion. Caltrans says settling on a long-term design to address the threat from rising seas could be years away.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Shilling says one reason for that is that four counties and dozens of agencies are involved in the planning. And while he likes the idea of a Grand Bayway, he’s skeptical that it will happen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Institutions are the barrier,” he says. “It’s institutions not having the mechanisms for creative thinking for new ways of doing things to adapt to this new kind of condition.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This “new condition” of rising waters means that the “old” Highway 37 — the one we still count on — could be the first major thoroughfare that the Bay Area loses, completely, to climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "Everything You Need to Know About California's Increasingly Catastrophic Wildfire Situation",
"headTitle": "Everything You Need to Know About California’s Increasingly Catastrophic Wildfire Situation | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>If it seems that wildfires are burning nearly all the time these days, that there’s no longer a definable fire season in California, you’re right. Fourteen of the 20 most \u003ca href=\"http://www.fire.ca.gov/communications/downloads/fact_sheets/Top20_Destruction.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">destructive \u003c/a>fires in state history have occurred since 2007, and California has 78 more annual “fire days” now than it had 50 years ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote size='medium' align='right']From health to housing to insurance, a primer on the effects of and possible solutions to the worsening California wildfires.[/pullquote]When 2018 became the worst fire year on record, we accepted a new reality. Now each year could surpass the last, setting records for the size, destruction, cost and loss of life. A state-commissioned \u003ca href=\"http://www.climateassessment.ca.gov/state/index.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">report\u003c/a> makes the harrowing projection that under current emissions trends, the average burn area in California will increase 77 percent by the end of the century.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state has spent, conservatively, more than $4.7 billion from its emergency fund in the last 10 years to fight fires. Cal Fire, the state’s firefighting agency, has been chewing through its firefighting budget only months into a year, leaving little to pay for thinning California’s overgrown forests and helping rural communities protect their infrastructure and water supplies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s fires are disruptive long after they are put out, displacing homeowners and even entire communities for months or years. Even as the charred wood decays, it produces emissions that set back the state’s efforts to combat climate change—only worsening the wildfires to come.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>More destructive and deadly\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>A Changing Climate\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A warming climate complicates everything. Hotter and drier seasons mean that big fires in December, once almost unheard of, are now common.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In earlier decades, fires late in the year might have sputtered out after hitting hillsides wet with winter rain. More recent blazes feasted on vegetation that has been sucked of moisture by persistent drought.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even years of plentiful rain harbor dangers. Post-fire precipitation, especially very wet winters, can usher in the growth of \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/articles/californias-charred-hills-bloom-again-not-all-good/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">non-native\u003c/a> shrubs and grasses that burn quickly and spread fires faster than native species.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"infogram-embed\" data-id=\"7dff80e5-f4ec-47b0-b960-d6db36efc149\" data-type=\"interactive\" data-title=\"wild fire graphic 1\">\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>\u003cscript>!function(e,t,s,i){var n=\"InfogramEmbeds\",o=e.getElementsByTagName(\"script\")[0],d=/^http://.test(e.location)?\"http:\":\"https:\";if(/^\\/{2}/.test(i)&&(i=d+i),window[n]&&window[n].initialized)window[n].process&&window[n].process();else if(!e.getElementById(s)){var r=e.createElement(\"script\");r.async=1,r.id=s,r.src=i,o.parentNode.insertBefore(r,o)}}(document,0,\"infogram-async\",\"https://e.infogram.com/js/dist/embed-loader-min.js\");\u003c/script>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>More Homes at Risk\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s bigger, more frequent fires are endangering more residents—nearly 90 perished in the 2018 blaze that destroyed the Northern California town of Paradise. Forest fires are increasingly a misnomer as flames race across landscapes dotted with subdivisions and communities that have been carved out where trees once stood.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The trend of more Californians living in harm’s way complicates firefighting efforts and ramps up the danger fires pose.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"infogram-embed\" data-id=\"916eab88-717c-4304-8114-6b05233c9af8\" data-type=\"interactive\" data-title=\"fire card deck/chap 1/card 1\">\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>\u003cscript>!function(e,t,s,i){var n=\"InfogramEmbeds\",o=e.getElementsByTagName(\"script\")[0],d=/^http:/.test(e.location)?\"http:\":\"https:\";if(/^\\/{2}/.test(i)&&(i=d+i),window[n]&&window[n].initialized)window[n].process&&window[n].process();else if(!e.getElementById(s)){var r=e.createElement(\"script\");r.async=1,r.id=s,r.src=i,o.parentNode.insertBefore(r,o)}}(document,0,\"infogram-async\",\"https://e.infogram.com/js/dist/embed-loader-min.js\");\u003c/script>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Epidemic of Dead Trees\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s forests, which cover a third of the state, are now choked with some 150 million dead trees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Weakened by a prolonged drought, which scientists link to climate change, California’s ubiquitous pines and oaks are vulnerable to insect infestation and disease. Those giants crash to the forest floor and, unless they are removed, provide ready fodder for the next voracious fire. The die-off is catastrophic, beyond the reach of state foresters to remedy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In many communities of the central and southern Sierra Nevada mountain range, “80 percent of trees are dead,” said Ken Pimlott, former director of Cal Fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"infogram-embed\" data-id=\"2b338c4c-7e72-43a5-a16f-f82ec430aeca\" data-type=\"interactive\" data-title=\"Copy: wildfire deck/chap 1 card 3/tree death\">\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>\u003cscript>!function(e,t,s,i){var n=\"InfogramEmbeds\",o=e.getElementsByTagName(\"script\")[0],d=/^http:/.test(e.location)?\"http:\":\"https:\";if(/^\\/{2}/.test(i)&&(i=d+i),window[n]&&window[n].initialized)window[n].process&&window[n].process();else if(!e.getElementById(s)){var r=e.createElement(\"script\");r.async=1,r.id=s,r.src=i,o.parentNode.insertBefore(r,o)}}(document,0,\"infogram-async\",\"https://e.infogram.com/js/dist/embed-loader-min.js\");\u003c/script>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Fire-Prone Federal Forests\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state owns only about 3 percent of California’s wooded acreage. Some land is owned by cities, counties, Native American tribes and private holders. President Trump has criticized California’s fire management.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"infogram-embed\" data-id=\"c1f69006-9c9e-4d84-960c-9f7cabed1c1b\" data-type=\"interactive\" data-title=\"map\">\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>\u003cscript>!function(e,t,s,i){var n=\"InfogramEmbeds\",o=e.getElementsByTagName(\"script\")[0],d=/^http:/.test(e.location)?\"http:\":\"https:\";if(/^\\/{2}/.test(i)&&(i=d+i),window[n]&&window[n].initialized)window[n].process&&window[n].process();else if(!e.getElementById(s)){var r=e.createElement(\"script\");r.async=1,r.id=s,r.src=i,o.parentNode.insertBefore(r,o)}}(document,0,\"infogram-async\",\"https://e.infogram.com/js/dist/embed-loader-min.js\");\u003c/script>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The U.S. Forest Service has a longtime policy of putting out every fire, and quickly, which has packed the federal land with fuel to burn. And its budget falls short of the cost of needed work to reduce that fuel.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"infogram-embed\" data-id=\"3e65fbeb-3293-488d-858c-9db5d795bf2a\" data-type=\"interactive\" data-title=\"firefighting budget wildfire card deck, chap 1,card 4\">\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>\u003cscript>!function(e,t,s,i){var n=\"InfogramEmbeds\",o=e.getElementsByTagName(\"script\")[0],d=/^http:/.test(e.location)?\"http:\":\"https:\";if(/^\\/{2}/.test(i)&&(i=d+i),window[n]&&window[n].initialized)window[n].process&&window[n].process();else if(!e.getElementById(s)){var r=e.createElement(\"script\");r.async=1,r.id=s,r.src=i,o.parentNode.insertBefore(r,o)}}(document,0,\"infogram-async\",\"https://e.infogram.com/js/dist/embed-loader-min.js\");\u003c/script>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>The Electricity Factor\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hundreds of thousands of miles of transmission lines and other electrical equipment are strung across California, drawing little attention—until authorities name utility equipment as the cause of a wildfire. One in 10 California wildfires is related to energy equipment, according to the state’s chief utility regulator.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"infogram-embed\" data-id=\"81ffb848-5f9f-47d8-9445-bb8965ab6e41\" data-type=\"interactive\" data-title=\"Type \">\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>\u003cscript>!function(e,t,s,i){var n=\"InfogramEmbeds\",o=e.getElementsByTagName(\"script\")[0],d=/^http:/.test(e.location)?\"http:\":\"https:\";if(/^\\/{2}/.test(i)&&(i=d+i),window[n]&&window[n].initialized)window[n].process&&window[n].process();else if(!e.getElementById(s)){var r=e.createElement(\"script\");r.async=1,r.id=s,r.src=i,o.parentNode.insertBefore(r,o)}}(document,0,\"infogram-async\",\"https://e.infogram.com/js/dist/embed-loader-min.js\");\u003c/script>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lawmakers have ordered that utility companies put safety measures in place, hoping to ensure that their equipment won’t spark future fires. Among the firms’ strategies: more aggressively clearing brush and trees around transmission lines; swapping wooden power poles for metal ones; and maintaining a network of remote cameras to keep watch on wind, smoke and other dangers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>None of these or other fire-mitigation efforts will come cheaply. When a judge proposed sweeping new safety measures for Pacific Gas & Electric, the company said the work could cost an eye-popping $150 billion. And consumers can be expected to foot much of the fire-mitigation bill as utility companies pass costs along to them.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Harming California’s Environment\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Floating Umbrellas of Horrid Air\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When fires burn in uninhabited wildlands, their corrosive effects can be carried hundreds of miles by the wind, causing stinging eyes, burning throats and severe coughing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Local air districts issue warnings to residents to wear masks and avoid outside exercise. Hospital emergency rooms report increased numbers of patients seeking help for respiratory problems, and school closures can keep as many as a million children home as even indoor air quality deteriorates.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"infogram-embed\" data-id=\"aa8bedb5-de7d-4e67-913e-8ed2a0c26baf\" data-type=\"interactive\" data-title=\"wildfire card deck/emergency room visits\">\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>\u003cscript>!function(e,t,s,i){var n=\"InfogramEmbeds\",o=e.getElementsByTagName(\"script\")[0],d=/^http:/.test(e.location)?\"http:\":\"https:\";if(/^\\/{2}/.test(i)&&(i=d+i),window[n]&&window[n].initialized)window[n].process&&window[n].process();else if(!e.getElementById(s)){var r=e.createElement(\"script\");r.async=1,r.id=s,r.src=i,o.parentNode.insertBefore(r,o)}}(document,0,\"infogram-async\",\"https://e.infogram.com/js/dist/embed-loader-min.js\");\u003c/script>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Undercutting Climate Goals\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>No state has done as much as California to reduce its output of planet-warming greenhouse gases. Yet the smoke produced by major fires is so potent that a single weeks-long blaze can undo a year’s worth of carbon-reduction efforts. State officials are concerned that what’s pumped into the air during fires could impair California’s ability to reach its stringent greenhouse-gas reduction goals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A single wildfire can spew more pollutants into the air than millions of cars. Moreover, as more trees die, another weapon to combat climate change is lost: the prodigious ability of healthy trees to absorb carbon from the atmosphere. That process is reversed if the trees burn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"infogram-embed\" data-id=\"38def4af-eaea-4596-a66f-451b6b1cb7a0\" data-type=\"interactive\" data-title=\"wildfire card deck, chap 2, card 2\">\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>\u003cscript>!function(e,t,s,i){var n=\"InfogramEmbeds\",o=e.getElementsByTagName(\"script\")[0],d=/^http:/.test(e.location)?\"http:\":\"https:\";if(/^\\/{2}/.test(i)&&(i=d+i),window[n]&&window[n].initialized)window[n].process&&window[n].process();else if(!e.getElementById(s)){var r=e.createElement(\"script\");r.async=1,r.id=s,r.src=i,o.parentNode.insertBefore(r,o)}}(document,0,\"infogram-async\",\"https://e.infogram.com/js/dist/embed-loader-min.js\");\u003c/script>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>The Lingering Villain: Black Carbon\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Trees release a powerful pollutant, black carbon, as they burn. Black carbon is many thousand times more damaging than greenhouse gases. And the damage doesn’t cease once flames are snuffed out; decaying forests continue to emit harmful pollutants.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If a burned-out forest is replaced by chaparral or brush, that landscape loses more than 90 percent of its capacity to take in and retain carbon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"infogram-embed\" data-id=\"50aa90aa-e6b6-46a2-85db-966d43599db0\" data-type=\"interactive\" data-title=\"wildfire card deck, chap 2, card 3\">\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>\u003cscript>!function(e,t,s,i){var n=\"InfogramEmbeds\",o=e.getElementsByTagName(\"script\")[0],d=/^http:/.test(e.location)?\"http:\":\"https:\";if(/^\\/{2}/.test(i)&&(i=d+i),window[n]&&window[n].initialized)window[n].process&&window[n].process();else if(!e.getElementById(s)){var r=e.createElement(\"script\");r.async=1,r.id=s,r.src=i,o.parentNode.insertBefore(r,o)}}(document,0,\"infogram-async\",\"https://e.infogram.com/js/dist/embed-loader-min.js\");\u003c/script>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Erosion Danger\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When fires rage in California’s mountains, the system that stores and cleans water, feeds streams and rivers, supports fish and other wildlife and literally holds the hillsides together burns up. Forests are watersheds, a critical component of California’s water supply.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>• Trees hold water in their limbs, roots and soil and draw it into underground aquifers, a source of drinking water.\u003cbr>\n• Meadows on lower slopes filter and clean water.\u003cbr>\n• Tree loss after fires fosters soil erosion; the runoff clogs waterways.\u003cbr>\n• Unstable hills can threaten public safety with landslides and mudslides.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Regrowth Is Not All Good\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It has to be said that fires are not always bad. Naturally occurring fires clear overgrown forests, creating space for some plants and trees to revitalize. Researchers say less-dense forests are more natural and healthy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But more often in California, wildfires ignite a furious competition for life. Fast-growing and opportunistic non-native plants rush in after fires, with the potential to wholly supplant native species. This phenomenon doesn’t just erase an aspect of California’s botanical history; it affects its fire future. Invasive grasses and weeds often burn more readily, fanning hotter and more frequent fires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"infogram-embed\" data-id=\"2e1eaacb-94b2-4f5e-a2ff-abc78b0bf30c\" data-type=\"interactive\" data-title=\"invasive plants\">\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>\u003cscript>!function(e,t,s,i){var n=\"InfogramEmbeds\",o=e.getElementsByTagName(\"script\")[0],d=/^http:/.test(e.location)?\"http:\":\"https:\";if(/^\\/{2}/.test(i)&&(i=d+i),window[n]&&window[n].initialized)window[n].process&&window[n].process();else if(!e.getElementById(s)){var r=e.createElement(\"script\");r.async=1,r.id=s,r.src=i,o.parentNode.insertBefore(r,o)}}(document,0,\"infogram-async\",\"https://e.infogram.com/js/dist/embed-loader-min.js\");\u003c/script>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>The Cost to California\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lives Lost\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wildfires took scores of lives in California in 2018, the deadliest fire year in the state’s recent history. Most of those deaths were related to the blaze that destroyed the Northern California town of Paradise. The numbers include people responding to the fires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"infogram-embed\" data-id=\"e04fe53f-3900-4553-af0d-2a5ef5c05875\" data-type=\"interactive\" data-title=\"Fire Fatalities/updates\">\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>\u003cscript>!function(e,t,s,i){var n=\"InfogramEmbeds\",o=e.getElementsByTagName(\"script\")[0],d=/^http:/.test(e.location)?\"http:\":\"https:\";if(/^\\/{2}/.test(i)&&(i=d+i),window[n]&&window[n].initialized)window[n].process&&window[n].process();else if(!e.getElementById(s)){var r=e.createElement(\"script\");r.async=1,r.id=s,r.src=i,o.parentNode.insertBefore(r,o)}}(document,0,\"infogram-async\",\"https://e.infogram.com/js/dist/embed-loader-min.js\");\u003c/script>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Toll on State Finances\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not surprisingly, the wildfire tab is growing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state has exceeded projected fire suppression costs in 7 of the last 10 years. In 2018, California spent nearly $1 billion on fire suppression and emergency response, far exceeding the budgeted $450 million.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"infogram-embed\" data-id=\"dbd920b7-e9d2-44c2-b2ca-fbd26b6d5c76\" data-type=\"interactive\" data-title=\"Soaring cost of wildfires\">\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>\u003cscript>!function(e,t,s,i){var n=\"InfogramEmbeds\",o=e.getElementsByTagName(\"script\")[0],d=/^http:/.test(e.location)?\"http:\":\"https:\";if(/^\\/{2}/.test(i)&&(i=d+i),window[n]&&window[n].initialized)window[n].process&&window[n].process();else if(!e.getElementById(s)){var r=e.createElement(\"script\");r.async=1,r.id=s,r.src=i,o.parentNode.insertBefore(r,o)}}(document,0,\"infogram-async\",\"https://e.infogram.com/js/dist/embed-loader-min.js\");\u003c/script>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cal Fire boasts one of the largest, if not the largest, firefighting air fleets in the world, including S-2T air tankers and Huey helicopters. The state will start upgrading the Hueys to Black Hawks and begin to add C-130 Hercules cargo planes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And rather than waiting to respond to a wildfire, emergency personnel have shifted to pre-positioning strike teams before a fire even starts. It’s a strategy that costs more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Financial Toll for Private Citizens\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Seven of the 10 most destructive wildfires in California have occurred in the last five years. The financial toll for homeowners, renters and businesses in the past two fire seasons has topped $10 billion in insured losses each year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The California Department of Insurance has reported claims from major wildfire seasons going back to 2007. The claims include damages reported to residential and commercial properties as well as auto and other lines of insurance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Of course, the figures don’t tell the whole story. We know many wildfire victims lived in high-threat areas without insurance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ciframe style=\"width: 100%; height: 650px;\" src=\"https://cdn.knightlab.com/libs/storyline/latest/embed/index.html?dataURL=https%3A%2F%2Fdocs.google.com%2Fspreadsheets%2Fd%2F103Ma9xiRI2-jYbXNhqoNOKhD3coGvl68lHduDeo6WI8%2Fedit%23gid%3D0&dataYCol=total&dataXCol=year&dataDateFormat=%25Y&chartDateFormat=%25Y&chartYLabel=Insured%20losses&sliderCardTitleCol=title&sliderCardTextCol=text\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rising Insurance Rates and Canceled Policies\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Insurance in fire-prone areas is getting more expensive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The RAND Corp. found the average premium for high-risk areas was up 15 percent between 2007 and 2014 in reviewing prices in a portion of San Bernardino County. It was up 12 percent in the same period in the Sierra Foothills east of Sacramento.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"infogram-embed\" data-id=\"ef504129-17e6-407f-bca1-c68f370cbd56\" data-type=\"interactive\" data-title=\"Insurance premiums in high-risk areas\">\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>\u003cscript>!function(e,t,s,i){var n=\"InfogramEmbeds\",o=e.getElementsByTagName(\"script\")[0],d=/^http:/.test(e.location)?\"http:\":\"https:\";if(/^\\/{2}/.test(i)&&(i=d+i),window[n]&&window[n].initialized)window[n].process&&window[n].process();else if(!e.getElementById(s)){var r=e.createElement(\"script\");r.async=1,r.id=s,r.src=i,o.parentNode.insertBefore(r,o)}}(document,0,\"infogram-async\",\"https://e.infogram.com/js/dist/embed-loader-min.js\");\u003c/script>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Santa Monica-based nonprofit research firm conducted the study as part of California’s Fourth Climate Change Assessment and was funded by the California Natural Resources Agency.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>RAND researcher Lloyd Dixon found the higher prices were influencing purchasing patterns: Policyholders are buying less coverage, lowballing the cost to fully replace their belongings and tending to elect higher deductibles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But are insurers cancelling policies? This is harder to say.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A December 2017 survey by the California Department of Insurance found an uptick in renewal complaints in areas designated by Cal Fire as having the greatest risk of wildfire. The department received 41 complaints in 2010 but 143 in 2016. And the insurance department found that insurer-initiated cancellations went up from 8,796 in 2015 in high fire areas to 10,151 in 2016.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"infogram-embed\" data-id=\"17de4aff-f6b8-4372-b53c-3f4a85a99ccc\" data-type=\"interactive\" data-title=\"California insurance policy cancellation in high-threat areas\">\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>\u003cscript>!function(e,t,s,i){var n=\"InfogramEmbeds\",o=e.getElementsByTagName(\"script\")[0],d=/^http:/.test(e.location)?\"http:\":\"https:\";if(/^\\/{2}/.test(i)&&(i=d+i),window[n]&&window[n].initialized)window[n].process&&window[n].process();else if(!e.getElementById(s)){var r=e.createElement(\"script\");r.async=1,r.id=s,r.src=i,o.parentNode.insertBefore(r,o)}}(document,0,\"infogram-async\",\"https://e.infogram.com/js/dist/embed-loader-min.js\");\u003c/script>\u003cbr>\nHowever, those figures are a fraction of the more than 36,000 cancellations initiated by policyholders. In fact, RAND’s study found more insurers are actually offering in high-risk areas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the same time, insurance policies of last resort written for brush and wildfire areas have increased from 22,397 policies to 33,898 policies, a 51 percent increase over five years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This suggests people are more likely to be priced out and taking on more risk. Property owners in fire-threat areas can expect insurance prices to keep rising. In areas with the highest risk, people can expect their premiums by 2055 to go up 18 percent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>The Utilities Debacle\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pacific Gas and Electric Company filed for Chapter 11 reorganization in U.S. Bankruptcy Court on Jan. 29, 2019 in the aftermath of the 2017 and 2018 wildfire seasons, the two most destructive in state history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The utility, which provides natural gas and electricity to 16 million people in northern and central California, cited up to $30 billion in liabilities since many blazes have been linked to its equipment. Legal experts say it could take two to three years to rehabilitate PG&E, a process that could leave energy goals hampered and wildfire victims shortchanged.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But even before PG&E’s bankruptcy, there was debate about who bears the costs as wildfires become more frequent and destructive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"infogram-embed\" data-id=\"fe56f9a1-3e75-4563-ac1f-ef5a36a71449\" data-type=\"interactive\" data-title=\"Utilities debacle timeline\">\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>\u003cscript>!function(e,t,s,i){var n=\"InfogramEmbeds\",o=e.getElementsByTagName(\"script\")[0],d=/^http:/.test(e.location)?\"http:\":\"https:\";if(/^\\/{2}/.test(i)&&(i=d+i),window[n]&&window[n].initialized)window[n].process&&window[n].process();else if(!e.getElementById(s)){var r=e.createElement(\"script\");r.async=1,r.id=s,r.src=i,o.parentNode.insertBefore(r,o)}}(document,0,\"infogram-async\",\"https://e.infogram.com/js/dist/embed-loader-min.js\");\u003c/script>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>The Debate Over Solutions\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Detection and Prevention\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s wildfire season is essentially year-round now. And with wildfires expected to get worse, residents, utilities and the state play a role in minimizing the impact of the wildfire seasons.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Residents\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Residents have a responsibility to create a defensible space around their property and “harden” homes to make them fire resistant. California law requires creating a buffer by clearing out trees, brush and grass within 100 feet around homes in wildfire-affected areas. Fire officials say it can increase the likelihood of a house surviving a wildfire eight-fold. In addition, homes with wood or shingle roofs are at high risk of being destroyed. Consider materials such as composition, metal or tile.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://www.youtube.com/embed/YuyuMgXkhU8\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Utilities\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Under new law, investor-owned utilities must prepare wildfire mitigation plans that describe what they are doing to prevent, combat and respond to wildfires. The three largest utilities, Pacific Gas & Electric, Southern California Edison, San Diego Gas & Electric, all plan to spend millions clearing brush and trees away from transmission lines, insulate or underground power lines, and install or maintain a network of remote cameras and weather stations to detect wind, smoke and other dangers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>PG&E and SCE are now following in the footsteps of SDG&E in expanding the use of public safety power shutoffs, also known as de-energization. The practice of shutting off electric power during dangerous weather conditions is viewed as a public-safety measure of last resort because it can cut off internet access and make communication difficult for hospitals, firefighters and emergency personnel.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>The State\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On March 22, 2019, Gov. Newsom declared a wildfire state of emergency for California and waived environmental regulations to speed up forest management projects aimed at reducing the fuel load for the upcoming wildfire season. By removing dead trees or clearing brush, the programs aim to reduce the threat of wildfires by creating fuel breaks, defensible space and safe travel corridors around vulnerable communities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some environmental groups, however, question whether logging would damage ecosystems and suggest it’s more effective to clear vegetation around homes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Restrictions on Where and How to Build\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even when fires threaten homes and no help is in sight, all is not lost. There is much homeowners can do to prepare and protect their property in the face of wildfire, beginning with clearing trees, brush and wood piles around their houses,.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The manner of construction and the types of materials used can help give structures a fighting chance against the advance of flames. California building codes for new homes require forgoing wooden roofs and decks in favor of fire-resistant materials, among other things.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Among the actions homeowners can take to protect their property:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>• Install double-paned windows\u003cbr>\n• Detach garages and storage sheds from the main house\u003cbr>\n• Put ember-resistant vents in attics and elsewhere\u003cbr>\n• Consider fire-resistant cladding such as stucco or stone\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are, however, some places where the risk is so great that fire scientists say homes simply should not be built there—even in a state where housing shortages have reached crisis levels. In California from 1990 to 2010, an estimated 45 percent of new housing units were constructed in the “wildland-urban interface”—where suburbia and rural towns back up onto wild, and combustible, landscapes. With more residences sprouting on the edge of wildlands or deep in narrow canyons, fires become an inevitability and firefighters have a tougher and larger territory to defend.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Thirty-four percent of new housing units in California were built in what experts refer to as the wildland-urban interface—where the state’s cul-de-sac’d suburban subdivisions and rural communities meet its flammable forests and shrub landscapes. With more and more residences sprouting on the edge of wildlands or deep in narrow canyons, fires become an inevitability, an ever-larger and more challenging front for firefighters to defend.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What to do? State lawmakers have already extended some state restrictions to local lands, and some have talked about possible rebates or other subsidies for residents who cannot afford to “harden” their homes. But essentially legislators are grappling with an unpalatable reality: Require even more extensive and expensive upgrades to existing homes, or ban building altogether in some areas. That discussion is as potentially explosive as the fires themselves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://www.youtube.com/embed/YsXMV6l_pIE\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Bills to Watch: 2019\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>While Gov. Newsom is monitoring PG&E bankruptcy developments, state lawmakers have turned their focus toward prevention. Here are some key proposals for the 2019 legislative session:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>•SB 190 (Sen. Bill Dodd of Napa) Would direct the State Fire Marshal to develop a defensible space ordinance for local governments to adopt and enforce.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>•SB 209 (Sen. Dodd) establishes the California Wildfire Warning Center in order to better predict weather conditions and share information around the state. Requires that utilities install additional weather monitoring equipment in high fire threat areas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>•SB 290 (Sen. Dodd) Sponsored by Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara and Treasurer Fiona Ma, the bill would authorize the state to explore purchasing a policy to cover wildfires, earthquakes, floods and other disasters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>•AB 235 (Assemblyman Chad Mayes of Yucca Valley) Would create the California Wildfire Catastrophe Fund Authority financed by participating utilities to reimburse the utility for liability costs that exceed their established insurance levels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>•AB 281 (Assemblyman Jim Frazier of Fairfield) A bill with early-stage language that proposes to have California utilities relocate underground or otherwise enhance the safety of transmission and distribution lines in high fire-threat areas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Graphics assistance by Elizabeth Castillo\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>CALmatters is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and politics.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "The increasing size, cost and human toll of California wildfires are becoming a permanent part of life in the state. From housing to health, CALmatters provides a primer on the effects and possible solutions to this worsening situation.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>If it seems that wildfires are burning nearly all the time these days, that there’s no longer a definable fire season in California, you’re right. Fourteen of the 20 most \u003ca href=\"http://www.fire.ca.gov/communications/downloads/fact_sheets/Top20_Destruction.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">destructive \u003c/a>fires in state history have occurred since 2007, and California has 78 more annual “fire days” now than it had 50 years ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>When 2018 became the worst fire year on record, we accepted a new reality. Now each year could surpass the last, setting records for the size, destruction, cost and loss of life. A state-commissioned \u003ca href=\"http://www.climateassessment.ca.gov/state/index.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">report\u003c/a> makes the harrowing projection that under current emissions trends, the average burn area in California will increase 77 percent by the end of the century.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state has spent, conservatively, more than $4.7 billion from its emergency fund in the last 10 years to fight fires. Cal Fire, the state’s firefighting agency, has been chewing through its firefighting budget only months into a year, leaving little to pay for thinning California’s overgrown forests and helping rural communities protect their infrastructure and water supplies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s fires are disruptive long after they are put out, displacing homeowners and even entire communities for months or years. Even as the charred wood decays, it produces emissions that set back the state’s efforts to combat climate change—only worsening the wildfires to come.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>More destructive and deadly\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>A Changing Climate\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A warming climate complicates everything. Hotter and drier seasons mean that big fires in December, once almost unheard of, are now common.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In earlier decades, fires late in the year might have sputtered out after hitting hillsides wet with winter rain. More recent blazes feasted on vegetation that has been sucked of moisture by persistent drought.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even years of plentiful rain harbor dangers. Post-fire precipitation, especially very wet winters, can usher in the growth of \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/articles/californias-charred-hills-bloom-again-not-all-good/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">non-native\u003c/a> shrubs and grasses that burn quickly and spread fires faster than native species.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"infogram-embed\" data-id=\"7dff80e5-f4ec-47b0-b960-d6db36efc149\" data-type=\"interactive\" data-title=\"wild fire graphic 1\">\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>\u003cscript>!function(e,t,s,i){var n=\"InfogramEmbeds\",o=e.getElementsByTagName(\"script\")[0],d=/^http://.test(e.location)?\"http:\":\"https:\";if(/^\\/{2}/.test(i)&&(i=d+i),window[n]&&window[n].initialized)window[n].process&&window[n].process();else if(!e.getElementById(s)){var r=e.createElement(\"script\");r.async=1,r.id=s,r.src=i,o.parentNode.insertBefore(r,o)}}(document,0,\"infogram-async\",\"https://e.infogram.com/js/dist/embed-loader-min.js\");\u003c/script>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>More Homes at Risk\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s bigger, more frequent fires are endangering more residents—nearly 90 perished in the 2018 blaze that destroyed the Northern California town of Paradise. Forest fires are increasingly a misnomer as flames race across landscapes dotted with subdivisions and communities that have been carved out where trees once stood.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The trend of more Californians living in harm’s way complicates firefighting efforts and ramps up the danger fires pose.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"infogram-embed\" data-id=\"916eab88-717c-4304-8114-6b05233c9af8\" data-type=\"interactive\" data-title=\"fire card deck/chap 1/card 1\">\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>\u003cscript>!function(e,t,s,i){var n=\"InfogramEmbeds\",o=e.getElementsByTagName(\"script\")[0],d=/^http:/.test(e.location)?\"http:\":\"https:\";if(/^\\/{2}/.test(i)&&(i=d+i),window[n]&&window[n].initialized)window[n].process&&window[n].process();else if(!e.getElementById(s)){var r=e.createElement(\"script\");r.async=1,r.id=s,r.src=i,o.parentNode.insertBefore(r,o)}}(document,0,\"infogram-async\",\"https://e.infogram.com/js/dist/embed-loader-min.js\");\u003c/script>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Epidemic of Dead Trees\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s forests, which cover a third of the state, are now choked with some 150 million dead trees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Weakened by a prolonged drought, which scientists link to climate change, California’s ubiquitous pines and oaks are vulnerable to insect infestation and disease. Those giants crash to the forest floor and, unless they are removed, provide ready fodder for the next voracious fire. The die-off is catastrophic, beyond the reach of state foresters to remedy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In many communities of the central and southern Sierra Nevada mountain range, “80 percent of trees are dead,” said Ken Pimlott, former director of Cal Fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"infogram-embed\" data-id=\"2b338c4c-7e72-43a5-a16f-f82ec430aeca\" data-type=\"interactive\" data-title=\"Copy: wildfire deck/chap 1 card 3/tree death\">\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>\u003cscript>!function(e,t,s,i){var n=\"InfogramEmbeds\",o=e.getElementsByTagName(\"script\")[0],d=/^http:/.test(e.location)?\"http:\":\"https:\";if(/^\\/{2}/.test(i)&&(i=d+i),window[n]&&window[n].initialized)window[n].process&&window[n].process();else if(!e.getElementById(s)){var r=e.createElement(\"script\");r.async=1,r.id=s,r.src=i,o.parentNode.insertBefore(r,o)}}(document,0,\"infogram-async\",\"https://e.infogram.com/js/dist/embed-loader-min.js\");\u003c/script>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Fire-Prone Federal Forests\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state owns only about 3 percent of California’s wooded acreage. Some land is owned by cities, counties, Native American tribes and private holders. President Trump has criticized California’s fire management.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"infogram-embed\" data-id=\"c1f69006-9c9e-4d84-960c-9f7cabed1c1b\" data-type=\"interactive\" data-title=\"map\">\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>\u003cscript>!function(e,t,s,i){var n=\"InfogramEmbeds\",o=e.getElementsByTagName(\"script\")[0],d=/^http:/.test(e.location)?\"http:\":\"https:\";if(/^\\/{2}/.test(i)&&(i=d+i),window[n]&&window[n].initialized)window[n].process&&window[n].process();else if(!e.getElementById(s)){var r=e.createElement(\"script\");r.async=1,r.id=s,r.src=i,o.parentNode.insertBefore(r,o)}}(document,0,\"infogram-async\",\"https://e.infogram.com/js/dist/embed-loader-min.js\");\u003c/script>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The U.S. Forest Service has a longtime policy of putting out every fire, and quickly, which has packed the federal land with fuel to burn. And its budget falls short of the cost of needed work to reduce that fuel.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"infogram-embed\" data-id=\"3e65fbeb-3293-488d-858c-9db5d795bf2a\" data-type=\"interactive\" data-title=\"firefighting budget wildfire card deck, chap 1,card 4\">\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>\u003cscript>!function(e,t,s,i){var n=\"InfogramEmbeds\",o=e.getElementsByTagName(\"script\")[0],d=/^http:/.test(e.location)?\"http:\":\"https:\";if(/^\\/{2}/.test(i)&&(i=d+i),window[n]&&window[n].initialized)window[n].process&&window[n].process();else if(!e.getElementById(s)){var r=e.createElement(\"script\");r.async=1,r.id=s,r.src=i,o.parentNode.insertBefore(r,o)}}(document,0,\"infogram-async\",\"https://e.infogram.com/js/dist/embed-loader-min.js\");\u003c/script>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>The Electricity Factor\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hundreds of thousands of miles of transmission lines and other electrical equipment are strung across California, drawing little attention—until authorities name utility equipment as the cause of a wildfire. One in 10 California wildfires is related to energy equipment, according to the state’s chief utility regulator.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"infogram-embed\" data-id=\"81ffb848-5f9f-47d8-9445-bb8965ab6e41\" data-type=\"interactive\" data-title=\"Type \">\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>\u003cscript>!function(e,t,s,i){var n=\"InfogramEmbeds\",o=e.getElementsByTagName(\"script\")[0],d=/^http:/.test(e.location)?\"http:\":\"https:\";if(/^\\/{2}/.test(i)&&(i=d+i),window[n]&&window[n].initialized)window[n].process&&window[n].process();else if(!e.getElementById(s)){var r=e.createElement(\"script\");r.async=1,r.id=s,r.src=i,o.parentNode.insertBefore(r,o)}}(document,0,\"infogram-async\",\"https://e.infogram.com/js/dist/embed-loader-min.js\");\u003c/script>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lawmakers have ordered that utility companies put safety measures in place, hoping to ensure that their equipment won’t spark future fires. Among the firms’ strategies: more aggressively clearing brush and trees around transmission lines; swapping wooden power poles for metal ones; and maintaining a network of remote cameras to keep watch on wind, smoke and other dangers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>None of these or other fire-mitigation efforts will come cheaply. When a judge proposed sweeping new safety measures for Pacific Gas & Electric, the company said the work could cost an eye-popping $150 billion. And consumers can be expected to foot much of the fire-mitigation bill as utility companies pass costs along to them.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Harming California’s Environment\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Floating Umbrellas of Horrid Air\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When fires burn in uninhabited wildlands, their corrosive effects can be carried hundreds of miles by the wind, causing stinging eyes, burning throats and severe coughing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Local air districts issue warnings to residents to wear masks and avoid outside exercise. Hospital emergency rooms report increased numbers of patients seeking help for respiratory problems, and school closures can keep as many as a million children home as even indoor air quality deteriorates.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"infogram-embed\" data-id=\"aa8bedb5-de7d-4e67-913e-8ed2a0c26baf\" data-type=\"interactive\" data-title=\"wildfire card deck/emergency room visits\">\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>\u003cscript>!function(e,t,s,i){var n=\"InfogramEmbeds\",o=e.getElementsByTagName(\"script\")[0],d=/^http:/.test(e.location)?\"http:\":\"https:\";if(/^\\/{2}/.test(i)&&(i=d+i),window[n]&&window[n].initialized)window[n].process&&window[n].process();else if(!e.getElementById(s)){var r=e.createElement(\"script\");r.async=1,r.id=s,r.src=i,o.parentNode.insertBefore(r,o)}}(document,0,\"infogram-async\",\"https://e.infogram.com/js/dist/embed-loader-min.js\");\u003c/script>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Undercutting Climate Goals\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>No state has done as much as California to reduce its output of planet-warming greenhouse gases. Yet the smoke produced by major fires is so potent that a single weeks-long blaze can undo a year’s worth of carbon-reduction efforts. State officials are concerned that what’s pumped into the air during fires could impair California’s ability to reach its stringent greenhouse-gas reduction goals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A single wildfire can spew more pollutants into the air than millions of cars. Moreover, as more trees die, another weapon to combat climate change is lost: the prodigious ability of healthy trees to absorb carbon from the atmosphere. That process is reversed if the trees burn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"infogram-embed\" data-id=\"38def4af-eaea-4596-a66f-451b6b1cb7a0\" data-type=\"interactive\" data-title=\"wildfire card deck, chap 2, card 2\">\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>\u003cscript>!function(e,t,s,i){var n=\"InfogramEmbeds\",o=e.getElementsByTagName(\"script\")[0],d=/^http:/.test(e.location)?\"http:\":\"https:\";if(/^\\/{2}/.test(i)&&(i=d+i),window[n]&&window[n].initialized)window[n].process&&window[n].process();else if(!e.getElementById(s)){var r=e.createElement(\"script\");r.async=1,r.id=s,r.src=i,o.parentNode.insertBefore(r,o)}}(document,0,\"infogram-async\",\"https://e.infogram.com/js/dist/embed-loader-min.js\");\u003c/script>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>The Lingering Villain: Black Carbon\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Trees release a powerful pollutant, black carbon, as they burn. Black carbon is many thousand times more damaging than greenhouse gases. And the damage doesn’t cease once flames are snuffed out; decaying forests continue to emit harmful pollutants.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If a burned-out forest is replaced by chaparral or brush, that landscape loses more than 90 percent of its capacity to take in and retain carbon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"infogram-embed\" data-id=\"50aa90aa-e6b6-46a2-85db-966d43599db0\" data-type=\"interactive\" data-title=\"wildfire card deck, chap 2, card 3\">\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>\u003cscript>!function(e,t,s,i){var n=\"InfogramEmbeds\",o=e.getElementsByTagName(\"script\")[0],d=/^http:/.test(e.location)?\"http:\":\"https:\";if(/^\\/{2}/.test(i)&&(i=d+i),window[n]&&window[n].initialized)window[n].process&&window[n].process();else if(!e.getElementById(s)){var r=e.createElement(\"script\");r.async=1,r.id=s,r.src=i,o.parentNode.insertBefore(r,o)}}(document,0,\"infogram-async\",\"https://e.infogram.com/js/dist/embed-loader-min.js\");\u003c/script>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Erosion Danger\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When fires rage in California’s mountains, the system that stores and cleans water, feeds streams and rivers, supports fish and other wildlife and literally holds the hillsides together burns up. Forests are watersheds, a critical component of California’s water supply.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>• Trees hold water in their limbs, roots and soil and draw it into underground aquifers, a source of drinking water.\u003cbr>\n• Meadows on lower slopes filter and clean water.\u003cbr>\n• Tree loss after fires fosters soil erosion; the runoff clogs waterways.\u003cbr>\n• Unstable hills can threaten public safety with landslides and mudslides.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Regrowth Is Not All Good\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It has to be said that fires are not always bad. Naturally occurring fires clear overgrown forests, creating space for some plants and trees to revitalize. Researchers say less-dense forests are more natural and healthy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But more often in California, wildfires ignite a furious competition for life. Fast-growing and opportunistic non-native plants rush in after fires, with the potential to wholly supplant native species. This phenomenon doesn’t just erase an aspect of California’s botanical history; it affects its fire future. Invasive grasses and weeds often burn more readily, fanning hotter and more frequent fires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"infogram-embed\" data-id=\"2e1eaacb-94b2-4f5e-a2ff-abc78b0bf30c\" data-type=\"interactive\" data-title=\"invasive plants\">\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>\u003cscript>!function(e,t,s,i){var n=\"InfogramEmbeds\",o=e.getElementsByTagName(\"script\")[0],d=/^http:/.test(e.location)?\"http:\":\"https:\";if(/^\\/{2}/.test(i)&&(i=d+i),window[n]&&window[n].initialized)window[n].process&&window[n].process();else if(!e.getElementById(s)){var r=e.createElement(\"script\");r.async=1,r.id=s,r.src=i,o.parentNode.insertBefore(r,o)}}(document,0,\"infogram-async\",\"https://e.infogram.com/js/dist/embed-loader-min.js\");\u003c/script>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>The Cost to California\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lives Lost\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wildfires took scores of lives in California in 2018, the deadliest fire year in the state’s recent history. Most of those deaths were related to the blaze that destroyed the Northern California town of Paradise. The numbers include people responding to the fires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"infogram-embed\" data-id=\"e04fe53f-3900-4553-af0d-2a5ef5c05875\" data-type=\"interactive\" data-title=\"Fire Fatalities/updates\">\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>\u003cscript>!function(e,t,s,i){var n=\"InfogramEmbeds\",o=e.getElementsByTagName(\"script\")[0],d=/^http:/.test(e.location)?\"http:\":\"https:\";if(/^\\/{2}/.test(i)&&(i=d+i),window[n]&&window[n].initialized)window[n].process&&window[n].process();else if(!e.getElementById(s)){var r=e.createElement(\"script\");r.async=1,r.id=s,r.src=i,o.parentNode.insertBefore(r,o)}}(document,0,\"infogram-async\",\"https://e.infogram.com/js/dist/embed-loader-min.js\");\u003c/script>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Toll on State Finances\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not surprisingly, the wildfire tab is growing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state has exceeded projected fire suppression costs in 7 of the last 10 years. In 2018, California spent nearly $1 billion on fire suppression and emergency response, far exceeding the budgeted $450 million.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"infogram-embed\" data-id=\"dbd920b7-e9d2-44c2-b2ca-fbd26b6d5c76\" data-type=\"interactive\" data-title=\"Soaring cost of wildfires\">\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>\u003cscript>!function(e,t,s,i){var n=\"InfogramEmbeds\",o=e.getElementsByTagName(\"script\")[0],d=/^http:/.test(e.location)?\"http:\":\"https:\";if(/^\\/{2}/.test(i)&&(i=d+i),window[n]&&window[n].initialized)window[n].process&&window[n].process();else if(!e.getElementById(s)){var r=e.createElement(\"script\");r.async=1,r.id=s,r.src=i,o.parentNode.insertBefore(r,o)}}(document,0,\"infogram-async\",\"https://e.infogram.com/js/dist/embed-loader-min.js\");\u003c/script>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cal Fire boasts one of the largest, if not the largest, firefighting air fleets in the world, including S-2T air tankers and Huey helicopters. The state will start upgrading the Hueys to Black Hawks and begin to add C-130 Hercules cargo planes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And rather than waiting to respond to a wildfire, emergency personnel have shifted to pre-positioning strike teams before a fire even starts. It’s a strategy that costs more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Financial Toll for Private Citizens\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Seven of the 10 most destructive wildfires in California have occurred in the last five years. The financial toll for homeowners, renters and businesses in the past two fire seasons has topped $10 billion in insured losses each year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The California Department of Insurance has reported claims from major wildfire seasons going back to 2007. The claims include damages reported to residential and commercial properties as well as auto and other lines of insurance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Of course, the figures don’t tell the whole story. We know many wildfire victims lived in high-threat areas without insurance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ciframe style=\"width: 100%; height: 650px;\" src=\"https://cdn.knightlab.com/libs/storyline/latest/embed/index.html?dataURL=https%3A%2F%2Fdocs.google.com%2Fspreadsheets%2Fd%2F103Ma9xiRI2-jYbXNhqoNOKhD3coGvl68lHduDeo6WI8%2Fedit%23gid%3D0&dataYCol=total&dataXCol=year&dataDateFormat=%25Y&chartDateFormat=%25Y&chartYLabel=Insured%20losses&sliderCardTitleCol=title&sliderCardTextCol=text\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rising Insurance Rates and Canceled Policies\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Insurance in fire-prone areas is getting more expensive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The RAND Corp. found the average premium for high-risk areas was up 15 percent between 2007 and 2014 in reviewing prices in a portion of San Bernardino County. It was up 12 percent in the same period in the Sierra Foothills east of Sacramento.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"infogram-embed\" data-id=\"ef504129-17e6-407f-bca1-c68f370cbd56\" data-type=\"interactive\" data-title=\"Insurance premiums in high-risk areas\">\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>\u003cscript>!function(e,t,s,i){var n=\"InfogramEmbeds\",o=e.getElementsByTagName(\"script\")[0],d=/^http:/.test(e.location)?\"http:\":\"https:\";if(/^\\/{2}/.test(i)&&(i=d+i),window[n]&&window[n].initialized)window[n].process&&window[n].process();else if(!e.getElementById(s)){var r=e.createElement(\"script\");r.async=1,r.id=s,r.src=i,o.parentNode.insertBefore(r,o)}}(document,0,\"infogram-async\",\"https://e.infogram.com/js/dist/embed-loader-min.js\");\u003c/script>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Santa Monica-based nonprofit research firm conducted the study as part of California’s Fourth Climate Change Assessment and was funded by the California Natural Resources Agency.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>RAND researcher Lloyd Dixon found the higher prices were influencing purchasing patterns: Policyholders are buying less coverage, lowballing the cost to fully replace their belongings and tending to elect higher deductibles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But are insurers cancelling policies? This is harder to say.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A December 2017 survey by the California Department of Insurance found an uptick in renewal complaints in areas designated by Cal Fire as having the greatest risk of wildfire. The department received 41 complaints in 2010 but 143 in 2016. And the insurance department found that insurer-initiated cancellations went up from 8,796 in 2015 in high fire areas to 10,151 in 2016.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"infogram-embed\" data-id=\"17de4aff-f6b8-4372-b53c-3f4a85a99ccc\" data-type=\"interactive\" data-title=\"California insurance policy cancellation in high-threat areas\">\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>\u003cscript>!function(e,t,s,i){var n=\"InfogramEmbeds\",o=e.getElementsByTagName(\"script\")[0],d=/^http:/.test(e.location)?\"http:\":\"https:\";if(/^\\/{2}/.test(i)&&(i=d+i),window[n]&&window[n].initialized)window[n].process&&window[n].process();else if(!e.getElementById(s)){var r=e.createElement(\"script\");r.async=1,r.id=s,r.src=i,o.parentNode.insertBefore(r,o)}}(document,0,\"infogram-async\",\"https://e.infogram.com/js/dist/embed-loader-min.js\");\u003c/script>\u003cbr>\nHowever, those figures are a fraction of the more than 36,000 cancellations initiated by policyholders. In fact, RAND’s study found more insurers are actually offering in high-risk areas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the same time, insurance policies of last resort written for brush and wildfire areas have increased from 22,397 policies to 33,898 policies, a 51 percent increase over five years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This suggests people are more likely to be priced out and taking on more risk. Property owners in fire-threat areas can expect insurance prices to keep rising. In areas with the highest risk, people can expect their premiums by 2055 to go up 18 percent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>The Utilities Debacle\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pacific Gas and Electric Company filed for Chapter 11 reorganization in U.S. Bankruptcy Court on Jan. 29, 2019 in the aftermath of the 2017 and 2018 wildfire seasons, the two most destructive in state history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The utility, which provides natural gas and electricity to 16 million people in northern and central California, cited up to $30 billion in liabilities since many blazes have been linked to its equipment. Legal experts say it could take two to three years to rehabilitate PG&E, a process that could leave energy goals hampered and wildfire victims shortchanged.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But even before PG&E’s bankruptcy, there was debate about who bears the costs as wildfires become more frequent and destructive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"infogram-embed\" data-id=\"fe56f9a1-3e75-4563-ac1f-ef5a36a71449\" data-type=\"interactive\" data-title=\"Utilities debacle timeline\">\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>\u003cscript>!function(e,t,s,i){var n=\"InfogramEmbeds\",o=e.getElementsByTagName(\"script\")[0],d=/^http:/.test(e.location)?\"http:\":\"https:\";if(/^\\/{2}/.test(i)&&(i=d+i),window[n]&&window[n].initialized)window[n].process&&window[n].process();else if(!e.getElementById(s)){var r=e.createElement(\"script\");r.async=1,r.id=s,r.src=i,o.parentNode.insertBefore(r,o)}}(document,0,\"infogram-async\",\"https://e.infogram.com/js/dist/embed-loader-min.js\");\u003c/script>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>The Debate Over Solutions\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Detection and Prevention\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s wildfire season is essentially year-round now. And with wildfires expected to get worse, residents, utilities and the state play a role in minimizing the impact of the wildfire seasons.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Residents\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Residents have a responsibility to create a defensible space around their property and “harden” homes to make them fire resistant. California law requires creating a buffer by clearing out trees, brush and grass within 100 feet around homes in wildfire-affected areas. Fire officials say it can increase the likelihood of a house surviving a wildfire eight-fold. In addition, homes with wood or shingle roofs are at high risk of being destroyed. Consider materials such as composition, metal or tile.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://www.youtube.com/embed/YuyuMgXkhU8\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Utilities\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Under new law, investor-owned utilities must prepare wildfire mitigation plans that describe what they are doing to prevent, combat and respond to wildfires. The three largest utilities, Pacific Gas & Electric, Southern California Edison, San Diego Gas & Electric, all plan to spend millions clearing brush and trees away from transmission lines, insulate or underground power lines, and install or maintain a network of remote cameras and weather stations to detect wind, smoke and other dangers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>PG&E and SCE are now following in the footsteps of SDG&E in expanding the use of public safety power shutoffs, also known as de-energization. The practice of shutting off electric power during dangerous weather conditions is viewed as a public-safety measure of last resort because it can cut off internet access and make communication difficult for hospitals, firefighters and emergency personnel.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>The State\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On March 22, 2019, Gov. Newsom declared a wildfire state of emergency for California and waived environmental regulations to speed up forest management projects aimed at reducing the fuel load for the upcoming wildfire season. By removing dead trees or clearing brush, the programs aim to reduce the threat of wildfires by creating fuel breaks, defensible space and safe travel corridors around vulnerable communities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some environmental groups, however, question whether logging would damage ecosystems and suggest it’s more effective to clear vegetation around homes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Restrictions on Where and How to Build\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even when fires threaten homes and no help is in sight, all is not lost. There is much homeowners can do to prepare and protect their property in the face of wildfire, beginning with clearing trees, brush and wood piles around their houses,.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The manner of construction and the types of materials used can help give structures a fighting chance against the advance of flames. California building codes for new homes require forgoing wooden roofs and decks in favor of fire-resistant materials, among other things.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Among the actions homeowners can take to protect their property:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>• Install double-paned windows\u003cbr>\n• Detach garages and storage sheds from the main house\u003cbr>\n• Put ember-resistant vents in attics and elsewhere\u003cbr>\n• Consider fire-resistant cladding such as stucco or stone\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are, however, some places where the risk is so great that fire scientists say homes simply should not be built there—even in a state where housing shortages have reached crisis levels. In California from 1990 to 2010, an estimated 45 percent of new housing units were constructed in the “wildland-urban interface”—where suburbia and rural towns back up onto wild, and combustible, landscapes. With more residences sprouting on the edge of wildlands or deep in narrow canyons, fires become an inevitability and firefighters have a tougher and larger territory to defend.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Thirty-four percent of new housing units in California were built in what experts refer to as the wildland-urban interface—where the state’s cul-de-sac’d suburban subdivisions and rural communities meet its flammable forests and shrub landscapes. With more and more residences sprouting on the edge of wildlands or deep in narrow canyons, fires become an inevitability, an ever-larger and more challenging front for firefighters to defend.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What to do? State lawmakers have already extended some state restrictions to local lands, and some have talked about possible rebates or other subsidies for residents who cannot afford to “harden” their homes. But essentially legislators are grappling with an unpalatable reality: Require even more extensive and expensive upgrades to existing homes, or ban building altogether in some areas. That discussion is as potentially explosive as the fires themselves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://www.youtube.com/embed/YsXMV6l_pIE\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Bills to Watch: 2019\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>While Gov. Newsom is monitoring PG&E bankruptcy developments, state lawmakers have turned their focus toward prevention. Here are some key proposals for the 2019 legislative session:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>•SB 190 (Sen. Bill Dodd of Napa) Would direct the State Fire Marshal to develop a defensible space ordinance for local governments to adopt and enforce.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>•SB 209 (Sen. Dodd) establishes the California Wildfire Warning Center in order to better predict weather conditions and share information around the state. Requires that utilities install additional weather monitoring equipment in high fire threat areas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>•SB 290 (Sen. Dodd) Sponsored by Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara and Treasurer Fiona Ma, the bill would authorize the state to explore purchasing a policy to cover wildfires, earthquakes, floods and other disasters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>•AB 235 (Assemblyman Chad Mayes of Yucca Valley) Would create the California Wildfire Catastrophe Fund Authority financed by participating utilities to reimburse the utility for liability costs that exceed their established insurance levels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>•AB 281 (Assemblyman Jim Frazier of Fairfield) A bill with early-stage language that proposes to have California utilities relocate underground or otherwise enhance the safety of transmission and distribution lines in high fire-threat areas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Graphics assistance by Elizabeth Castillo\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>CALmatters is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and politics.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>It’s been a beast of a year for snow in the Sierra Nevada range.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is the time of year—April 1—when the snowpack is typically at its peak and on Tuesday, the monthly manual survey revealed a \u003ca href=\"http://cdec.water.ca.gov/snowapp/sweq.action\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">snowpack at 162 percent\u003c/a> of the long-term average, thanks to more than 30 atmospheric river storms that swept across the state over the winter.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">Ski slopes are still expecting to be open this summer on the 4th of July.\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Mammoth Mountain, which soars to 11,000 feet in the central Sierra, has had 50 feet of snow pile onto its sweeping inclines. The nearby Mammoth ski resort tweeted that it had broken its snowfall record for February—and it was only two weeks into the month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Absolutely fantastic,” is how Ben Hatchett sums up the snow season. Hatchett is an atmospheric scientist at the Western Regional Climate Center in Reno, but he’ll rhapsodize at length about how the storm sequence lined up to produce a “dream season” on the slopes, with few intermittent melts and little rain at high elevations to create the fabled “Sierra cement” snow conditions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/k0oS7/7/\" width=\"100%\" height=\"500\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\" frameborder=\"0\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We never got those storms that end and then the sun comes out and it goes to 42 degrees, and everything gets cooked,” Hatchett recalls. “It just really stayed incredible for what we were hoping would be days, but then turned into weeks and then even to months.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s been a wild ride,” admits Lara Kaylor, who works in the tourism office in Mammoth Lakes. She lives in a lower-elevation part of town, known locally as the Banana Belt.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our snow banks are probably only about 20 feet high,” she muses, “versus 40 to 50 feet high.” And she’s not kidding.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kaylor says some extra snow shoveling is a fair trade-off for the obvious benefits. Tax collections from the tourist economy have already topped $3 million in the town of Mammoth Lakes, setting a local record. The town is nestled just below California’s highest ski slopes, which are projected to be open on the Fourth of July this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s just kind of mind-blowing to people that you can come and ski in June,” says Kaylor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1939793\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1950px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/04/01_2019-02-15-New-Snow-Miles-Weaver-11.jpeg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1939793\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/04/01_2019-02-15-New-Snow-Miles-Weaver-11.jpeg\" alt=\"Photo: snow piled on tables\" width=\"1950\" height=\"1302\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/04/01_2019-02-15-New-Snow-Miles-Weaver-11.jpeg 1950w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/04/01_2019-02-15-New-Snow-Miles-Weaver-11-160x107.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/04/01_2019-02-15-New-Snow-Miles-Weaver-11-800x534.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/04/01_2019-02-15-New-Snow-Miles-Weaver-11-768x513.jpeg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/04/01_2019-02-15-New-Snow-Miles-Weaver-11-1020x681.jpeg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/04/01_2019-02-15-New-Snow-Miles-Weaver-11-1200x801.jpeg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/04/01_2019-02-15-New-Snow-Miles-Weaver-11-1920x1282.jpeg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1950px) 100vw, 1950px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Tabletops outside of Smokeyard Restaurant in the Village at Mammoth. \u003ccite>(Mammoth Lakes Tourism/Dakota Snider)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The string of cold storms was also a boon to California’s water supply, increasing snow cover even at lower elevations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We had such low [elevation] snow levels that we were able to accumulate snow over a humongous area of the Sierra Nevada,” notes Hatchett. “There’s a snowpack at two-or-three-thousand feet this year.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Californians count on Sierra snow for about a third of their water supply.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For flood managers, though, it’s right on the brink of having too much of a good thing. An abrupt warm-up at this point could melt much of that accumulated snow and send it cascading into reservoirs that are \u003ca href=\"http://cdec.water.ca.gov/reportapp/javareports?name=rescond.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">already brimming\u003c/a>—or at least at the point where operators are required to start releasing water to maintain room for flood control.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was a pulse of runoff two years ago that caused the collapse of both the primary and emergency spillways at Oroville Dam in Butte County. The state’s Department of Water Resources says \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11735564/oroville-dams-rebuilt-spillway-is-nearing-its-first-use-since-2017-disaster\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">the first test\u003c/a> of the newly rebuilt spillway could come as early as this week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And Hatchett says that, unlike the winter just passed, the outlook for this spring is for above-average temperatures throughout most of California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>It’s been a beast of a year for snow in the Sierra Nevada range.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is the time of year—April 1—when the snowpack is typically at its peak and on Tuesday, the monthly manual survey revealed a \u003ca href=\"http://cdec.water.ca.gov/snowapp/sweq.action\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">snowpack at 162 percent\u003c/a> of the long-term average, thanks to more than 30 atmospheric river storms that swept across the state over the winter.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">Ski slopes are still expecting to be open this summer on the 4th of July.\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Mammoth Mountain, which soars to 11,000 feet in the central Sierra, has had 50 feet of snow pile onto its sweeping inclines. The nearby Mammoth ski resort tweeted that it had broken its snowfall record for February—and it was only two weeks into the month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Absolutely fantastic,” is how Ben Hatchett sums up the snow season. Hatchett is an atmospheric scientist at the Western Regional Climate Center in Reno, but he’ll rhapsodize at length about how the storm sequence lined up to produce a “dream season” on the slopes, with few intermittent melts and little rain at high elevations to create the fabled “Sierra cement” snow conditions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/k0oS7/7/\" width=\"100%\" height=\"500\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\" frameborder=\"0\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We never got those storms that end and then the sun comes out and it goes to 42 degrees, and everything gets cooked,” Hatchett recalls. “It just really stayed incredible for what we were hoping would be days, but then turned into weeks and then even to months.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s been a wild ride,” admits Lara Kaylor, who works in the tourism office in Mammoth Lakes. She lives in a lower-elevation part of town, known locally as the Banana Belt.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our snow banks are probably only about 20 feet high,” she muses, “versus 40 to 50 feet high.” And she’s not kidding.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kaylor says some extra snow shoveling is a fair trade-off for the obvious benefits. Tax collections from the tourist economy have already topped $3 million in the town of Mammoth Lakes, setting a local record. The town is nestled just below California’s highest ski slopes, which are projected to be open on the Fourth of July this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s just kind of mind-blowing to people that you can come and ski in June,” says Kaylor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1939793\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1950px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/04/01_2019-02-15-New-Snow-Miles-Weaver-11.jpeg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1939793\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/04/01_2019-02-15-New-Snow-Miles-Weaver-11.jpeg\" alt=\"Photo: snow piled on tables\" width=\"1950\" height=\"1302\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/04/01_2019-02-15-New-Snow-Miles-Weaver-11.jpeg 1950w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/04/01_2019-02-15-New-Snow-Miles-Weaver-11-160x107.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/04/01_2019-02-15-New-Snow-Miles-Weaver-11-800x534.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/04/01_2019-02-15-New-Snow-Miles-Weaver-11-768x513.jpeg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/04/01_2019-02-15-New-Snow-Miles-Weaver-11-1020x681.jpeg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/04/01_2019-02-15-New-Snow-Miles-Weaver-11-1200x801.jpeg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/04/01_2019-02-15-New-Snow-Miles-Weaver-11-1920x1282.jpeg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1950px) 100vw, 1950px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Tabletops outside of Smokeyard Restaurant in the Village at Mammoth. \u003ccite>(Mammoth Lakes Tourism/Dakota Snider)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The string of cold storms was also a boon to California’s water supply, increasing snow cover even at lower elevations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We had such low [elevation] snow levels that we were able to accumulate snow over a humongous area of the Sierra Nevada,” notes Hatchett. “There’s a snowpack at two-or-three-thousand feet this year.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Californians count on Sierra snow for about a third of their water supply.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For flood managers, though, it’s right on the brink of having too much of a good thing. An abrupt warm-up at this point could melt much of that accumulated snow and send it cascading into reservoirs that are \u003ca href=\"http://cdec.water.ca.gov/reportapp/javareports?name=rescond.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">already brimming\u003c/a>—or at least at the point where operators are required to start releasing water to maintain room for flood control.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was a pulse of runoff two years ago that caused the collapse of both the primary and emergency spillways at Oroville Dam in Butte County. The state’s Department of Water Resources says \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11735564/oroville-dams-rebuilt-spillway-is-nearing-its-first-use-since-2017-disaster\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">the first test\u003c/a> of the newly rebuilt spillway could come as early as this week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And Hatchett says that, unlike the winter just passed, the outlook for this spring is for above-average temperatures throughout most of California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "Message From School Kids on Climate Urgency: 'You Started It. Please Take Us Seriously.'",
"headTitle": "Message From School Kids on Climate Urgency: ‘You Started It. Please Take Us Seriously.’ | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>It was like a giant field trip.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote align='right' citation='Sam Spielman, Berkeley High sophomore']‘You guys are the ones who started it and we’re the ones who are going to have to deal with it. Please take us seriously.’[/pullquote]Parent chaperones herded younger kids together.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Giddy teenagers climbed up lamp posts to get a better look at the protesters making their way down Market Street.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Students of all ages skipped class to send a message that action on climate change can’t wait.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Friday’s march in San Francisco was just \u003ca href=\"https://www.fridaysforfuture.org/events/map\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> one of hundreds of student strikes\u003c/a> across the world that aim to hold the powerful accountable for not doing enough to slow climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It is a problem and we have to deal with it now. You guys are the ones who started it and we’re the ones who are going to have to deal with it. Please, take us seriously,” said Sam Spielman, a sophomore at Berkeley High School and a member of the school’s Green Team, a student organization formed to support the \u003ca href=\"https://www.gp.org/green_new_deal\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">economic stimulus package\u003c/a> designed to reduce climate change, authored by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Spielman and thousands of other teenagers and children marched about a mile from Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi’s office near Civic Center to Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s office in the Financial District.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"alignright\">\n\u003ch3>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1939123/meet-the-5th-grade-organizer-behind-berkeleys-student-strike-against-climate-change/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Meet the 5th Grader Behind Berkeley’s Student Strike Against Climate Change\u003c/a>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cfigure>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1939123/meet-the-5th-grade-organizer-behind-berkeleys-student-strike-against-climate-change/\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/03/Student-Strike-Climate-Change-Juniper-Grace-3-1.jpg\" alt=\"\">\u003c/a>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>With a little help from her parents and her friends, 11-year-old Grace has made posters, handed out permission slips, and planned a two-hour walkout and march to Berkeley’s Civic Center on Friday morning.\u003c/p>\n\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Many said they were inspired by Greta Thunberg, a 16-year-old Swedish climate activist who skipped school to protest the lack of progress in reducing reliance on fossil fuels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Second-grader Eloise Simons wore her hair in two braids, just like Thunberg. Her father, Jesse Simons, explained that her teacher at Park Day School assigned her class a presentation about someone who inspires them. Eloise chose Greta Thunberg and insisted on participating in the student strike.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I just want to stop climate change,” Eloise said. “And Nancy Pelosi won’t! So we need to do something to try and stop it. We need to protest.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The students were generally on message — in an age appropriate way. High schoolers explained that they don’t know how to prepare for jobs and careers in a warmer future full of uncertainty. Middle schoolers talked about the importance of passing the Green New Deal. And elementary school students worried about storms and wildfires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some of the children had even heard about what happened when their fellow activists visited Feinstein’s office to lobby for the Green New Deal, when the senator lectured them about her recent electoral win. A group of middle schoolers from Urban Montessori in Oakland had\u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/sunrisemvmt/status/1099075460649107458\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> seen the video\u003c/a>, and they were not impressed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Even if she didn’t like what those kids were saying, she didn’t have to be disrespectful,” said 12-year-old Fatoumata Kaba. “We want our planet to stay safe. We want a future for ourselves and our future kids.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1939212\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-1939212\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/03/RS35843_YouthClimateStrike_003-1020x749.jpg\" alt='Students Bruck and Jai hold up a banner that says \"Youth vs Apocalypse\" outside of the office building of Nancy Pelosi in downtown San Francisco on Friday March 15, 2019. (Lindsey Moore/KQED)' width=\"640\" height=\"470\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/03/RS35843_YouthClimateStrike_003-1020x749.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/03/RS35843_YouthClimateStrike_003-160x118.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/03/RS35843_YouthClimateStrike_003-800x588.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/03/RS35843_YouthClimateStrike_003-768x564.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/03/RS35843_YouthClimateStrike_003-1200x881.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/03/RS35843_YouthClimateStrike_003.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Students Bruck and Jai hold up a banner that says “Youth vs Apocalypse” outside of the office building of Nancy Pelosi in downtown San Francisco on Friday March 15, 2019. \u003ccite>(Lindsey Moore/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The students proceeded down Market Street with a sense of urgency that only comes with youth. Teenagers counted down the years until they can register to vote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I was a little disappointed by DiFi in that video. I think it’s about time we get someone new in office,” said Ella Wadbrook, a 15-year-old at Berkeley High. “It’s our lives that are being affected when they don’t act. It’s frustrating that we can’t choose who’s making the laws that determine our future.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wadbrook said she and her friends are unwilling to wait to have their say until the climate degrades beyond repair.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m two-and-a-half years away from voting. It feels like forever,” she said, expressing both the impatience of youth and the urgency of a veteran climate activist.\u003cbr>\n[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Parent chaperones herded younger kids together.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Giddy teenagers climbed up lamp posts to get a better look at the protesters making their way down Market Street.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Students of all ages skipped class to send a message that action on climate change can’t wait.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Friday’s march in San Francisco was just \u003ca href=\"https://www.fridaysforfuture.org/events/map\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> one of hundreds of student strikes\u003c/a> across the world that aim to hold the powerful accountable for not doing enough to slow climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It is a problem and we have to deal with it now. You guys are the ones who started it and we’re the ones who are going to have to deal with it. Please, take us seriously,” said Sam Spielman, a sophomore at Berkeley High School and a member of the school’s Green Team, a student organization formed to support the \u003ca href=\"https://www.gp.org/green_new_deal\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">economic stimulus package\u003c/a> designed to reduce climate change, authored by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Spielman and thousands of other teenagers and children marched about a mile from Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi’s office near Civic Center to Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s office in the Financial District.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"alignright\">\n\u003ch3>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1939123/meet-the-5th-grade-organizer-behind-berkeleys-student-strike-against-climate-change/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Meet the 5th Grader Behind Berkeley’s Student Strike Against Climate Change\u003c/a>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cfigure>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1939123/meet-the-5th-grade-organizer-behind-berkeleys-student-strike-against-climate-change/\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/03/Student-Strike-Climate-Change-Juniper-Grace-3-1.jpg\" alt=\"\">\u003c/a>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>With a little help from her parents and her friends, 11-year-old Grace has made posters, handed out permission slips, and planned a two-hour walkout and march to Berkeley’s Civic Center on Friday morning.\u003c/p>\n\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Many said they were inspired by Greta Thunberg, a 16-year-old Swedish climate activist who skipped school to protest the lack of progress in reducing reliance on fossil fuels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Second-grader Eloise Simons wore her hair in two braids, just like Thunberg. Her father, Jesse Simons, explained that her teacher at Park Day School assigned her class a presentation about someone who inspires them. Eloise chose Greta Thunberg and insisted on participating in the student strike.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I just want to stop climate change,” Eloise said. “And Nancy Pelosi won’t! So we need to do something to try and stop it. We need to protest.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The students were generally on message — in an age appropriate way. High schoolers explained that they don’t know how to prepare for jobs and careers in a warmer future full of uncertainty. Middle schoolers talked about the importance of passing the Green New Deal. And elementary school students worried about storms and wildfires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some of the children had even heard about what happened when their fellow activists visited Feinstein’s office to lobby for the Green New Deal, when the senator lectured them about her recent electoral win. A group of middle schoolers from Urban Montessori in Oakland had\u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/sunrisemvmt/status/1099075460649107458\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> seen the video\u003c/a>, and they were not impressed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Even if she didn’t like what those kids were saying, she didn’t have to be disrespectful,” said 12-year-old Fatoumata Kaba. “We want our planet to stay safe. We want a future for ourselves and our future kids.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1939212\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-1939212\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/03/RS35843_YouthClimateStrike_003-1020x749.jpg\" alt='Students Bruck and Jai hold up a banner that says \"Youth vs Apocalypse\" outside of the office building of Nancy Pelosi in downtown San Francisco on Friday March 15, 2019. (Lindsey Moore/KQED)' width=\"640\" height=\"470\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/03/RS35843_YouthClimateStrike_003-1020x749.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/03/RS35843_YouthClimateStrike_003-160x118.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/03/RS35843_YouthClimateStrike_003-800x588.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/03/RS35843_YouthClimateStrike_003-768x564.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/03/RS35843_YouthClimateStrike_003-1200x881.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/03/RS35843_YouthClimateStrike_003.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Students Bruck and Jai hold up a banner that says “Youth vs Apocalypse” outside of the office building of Nancy Pelosi in downtown San Francisco on Friday March 15, 2019. \u003ccite>(Lindsey Moore/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The students proceeded down Market Street with a sense of urgency that only comes with youth. Teenagers counted down the years until they can register to vote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I was a little disappointed by DiFi in that video. I think it’s about time we get someone new in office,” said Ella Wadbrook, a 15-year-old at Berkeley High. “It’s our lives that are being affected when they don’t act. It’s frustrating that we can’t choose who’s making the laws that determine our future.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wadbrook said she and her friends are unwilling to wait to have their say until the climate degrades beyond repair.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m two-and-a-half years away from voting. It feels like forever,” she said, expressing both the impatience of youth and the urgency of a veteran climate activist.\u003cbr>\n\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "Meet the 5th Grader Behind Berkeley's Student Strike Against Climate Change",
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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1939140\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1939140\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/03/Student-Strike-Climate-Change-Juniper-Grace-3-1.jpg\" alt=\"Fifth grade climate activist holding sign.\" width=\"640\" height=\"477\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/03/Student-Strike-Climate-Change-Juniper-Grace-3-1.jpg 640w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/03/Student-Strike-Climate-Change-Juniper-Grace-3-1-160x119.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">5th grader Juniper Grace is organizing a student strike against climate change in Berkeley. \u003ccite>(Andie Grace)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Fifth-grader Juniper Grace is into Greta Thunberg like girls her age used to be into Justin Bieber.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Thunberg is the Swedish teenage climate activist whose school walkout to protest inaction on climate change has inspired a global youth movement. Her example turned 11-year-old Juniper into an organizer and the leader of the Berkeley’s Kids’ Climate March on Friday. The action is part of a global youth climate strike, with teenagers and other young people around the world rallying to the cause.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Juniper can’t say enough about Thunberg. “Greta is really inspiring. She always talks very confidently,” she said. “She’s just stating how it is.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">With a little help from her parents and her friends, Juniper has made posters, handed out permission slips, and planned a two-hour walkout and march to Berkeley’s Civic Center on Friday morning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">More importantly, Juniper said, she’s talking with her peers about why kids have a special role to play in the fight against climate change, and how they can lobby U.S. politicians to reduce fossil fuel emissions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">“I come home from school and immediately answer a bunch of emails and \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/climatekids4\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">go on Twitter to post an update\u003c/span>\u003c/a>,” Juniper said, referring to the social media account she set up only last month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Juniper isn’t allowed to have her own cell phone yet, but that hasn’t stopped her from becoming a grassroots political organizer. It helps that her parents are fully supportive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">“Something got triggered in our daughter that made her want to get in on this one. She knows it’s a matter of her having a planet to live on in the future,” said her mother, Andie Grace, who will lend her mobile device and time as a chaperone to her daughter’s cause. “Of course, I don’t want my fifth grader responding to emails from random strangers on the Internet, so we’re helping.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Andie Grace said she and her husband are delighted that her grassroots organizing has spread from her school, Washington Elementary, to four other Berkeley schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">“It’s super-cool because she’s been to protests with us. This is coming from her,” Andie Grace said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">While some high schoolers plan to take BART to San Francisco to \u003ca href=\"https://actionnetwork.org/events/california-youth-climate-strike-san-francisco?zipcode=94609&country=US\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">demonstrate at Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi’s offices\u003c/span>\u003c/a>, Juniper is content to march to Berkeley’s Civic Center park for two hours and then return to class.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">“I know there’s a lot of other kids who can’t get out of class, get on BART and go to San Francisco,” she said. “It’s important to have small strikes so everyone can take part and understand the issues.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Watching Greta Thunberg videos online has inspired her to write and practice her own speech, she said. Juniper sees herself and her entire generation in Thunberg.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Her classes don’t involve a lot of public speaking or learning about climate change. So Grace is improvising her own curriculum, becoming a teacher to her peers, and stepping up to lead a movement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1939140\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1939140\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/03/Student-Strike-Climate-Change-Juniper-Grace-3-1.jpg\" alt=\"Fifth grade climate activist holding sign.\" width=\"640\" height=\"477\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/03/Student-Strike-Climate-Change-Juniper-Grace-3-1.jpg 640w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/03/Student-Strike-Climate-Change-Juniper-Grace-3-1-160x119.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">5th grader Juniper Grace is organizing a student strike against climate change in Berkeley. \u003ccite>(Andie Grace)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Fifth-grader Juniper Grace is into Greta Thunberg like girls her age used to be into Justin Bieber.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Thunberg is the Swedish teenage climate activist whose school walkout to protest inaction on climate change has inspired a global youth movement. Her example turned 11-year-old Juniper into an organizer and the leader of the Berkeley’s Kids’ Climate March on Friday. The action is part of a global youth climate strike, with teenagers and other young people around the world rallying to the cause.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Juniper can’t say enough about Thunberg. “Greta is really inspiring. She always talks very confidently,” she said. “She’s just stating how it is.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">With a little help from her parents and her friends, Juniper has made posters, handed out permission slips, and planned a two-hour walkout and march to Berkeley’s Civic Center on Friday morning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">More importantly, Juniper said, she’s talking with her peers about why kids have a special role to play in the fight against climate change, and how they can lobby U.S. politicians to reduce fossil fuel emissions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">“I come home from school and immediately answer a bunch of emails and \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/climatekids4\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">go on Twitter to post an update\u003c/span>\u003c/a>,” Juniper said, referring to the social media account she set up only last month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Juniper isn’t allowed to have her own cell phone yet, but that hasn’t stopped her from becoming a grassroots political organizer. It helps that her parents are fully supportive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">“Something got triggered in our daughter that made her want to get in on this one. She knows it’s a matter of her having a planet to live on in the future,” said her mother, Andie Grace, who will lend her mobile device and time as a chaperone to her daughter’s cause. “Of course, I don’t want my fifth grader responding to emails from random strangers on the Internet, so we’re helping.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Andie Grace said she and her husband are delighted that her grassroots organizing has spread from her school, Washington Elementary, to four other Berkeley schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">“It’s super-cool because she’s been to protests with us. This is coming from her,” Andie Grace said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">While some high schoolers plan to take BART to San Francisco to \u003ca href=\"https://actionnetwork.org/events/california-youth-climate-strike-san-francisco?zipcode=94609&country=US\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">demonstrate at Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi’s offices\u003c/span>\u003c/a>, Juniper is content to march to Berkeley’s Civic Center park for two hours and then return to class.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">“I know there’s a lot of other kids who can’t get out of class, get on BART and go to San Francisco,” she said. “It’s important to have small strikes so everyone can take part and understand the issues.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Watching Greta Thunberg videos online has inspired her to write and practice her own speech, she said. Juniper sees herself and her entire generation in Thunberg.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Her classes don’t involve a lot of public speaking or learning about climate change. So Grace is improvising her own curriculum, becoming a teacher to her peers, and stepping up to lead a movement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>The ocean is rocked by storms and its tides ebb with the moon. Waves eat away at the shore, rearranging the sand and bringing cliff-side structures crashing into the surf. It doesn’t behave like water in a bathtub.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"alignright\">\u003ca href=\"http://data.pointblue.org/apps/ocof/cms/index.php?page=flood-map\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Interactive mapping tool\u003c/a> – California inundation zones under different sea level rise scenarios\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>But for simplicity’s sake (and because scientists are still learning about how climate change will melt glaciers), researchers have generally projected sea level rise as if the ocean will remain still and calm as it creeps up on crucial infrastructure and seaside neighborhoods.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A \u003ca href=\"https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-40742-z\">new\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-40742-z\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">study\u003c/a> from the U.S. Geological Survey says the predicted damage from sea level rise in California \u003cem>triples\u003c/em> once tides, storms and erosion are taken into account.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There are many communities that are planning by only considering this in a bathtub and not considering the fact that that’ll be on top of these episodic storm events that’ll cause most of the short term impacts,” said the study’s lead author, Patrick Barnard, a USGS coastal geologist based in Santa Cruz.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The study showed that, once these variables are taken into account, more than $150 billion worth of property and infrastructure and about 600,000 coastal residents could be flooded by the end of the century.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>About two-thirds of that property and those lives at risk are in and around the San Francisco Bay, said Barnard, who is the research director of the Climate Impacts and Coastal Processes Team at USGS.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’ve effectively built on an estuary with millions of people just above sea level,” he said. “We’re in a highly vulnerable position in the Bay Area.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>More Sloshing From Storms, More Damage\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When the team’s mathematical models factored in the variability of the tides, beach and cliff erosion, and once-in-decades storms, the predictions for coastal communities in a warming world got grim and wet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The locations threatened by flooding are the usual suspects: Foster City, Pacifica, and the San Francisco International Airport. \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-california-coast-storm-damage-20190313-story.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Southern\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-california-coast-storm-damage-20190313-story.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">California\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-california-coast-storm-damage-20190313-story.html\">will\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-california-coast-storm-damage-20190313-story.html\">also\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-california-coast-storm-damage-20190313-story.html\">be\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-california-coast-storm-damage-20190313-story.html\">hit\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-california-coast-storm-damage-20190313-story.html\">hard\u003c/a>, with the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach inundated and whole neighborhoods in Orange County under water during big storms and high tides.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To bring it home for planners and the public, the study included \u003ca href=\"http://data.pointblue.org/apps/ocof/cms/index.php?page=flood-map\">an\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"http://data.pointblue.org/apps/ocof/cms/index.php?page=flood-map\">interactive\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"http://data.pointblue.org/apps/ocof/cms/index.php?page=flood-map\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">online\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"http://data.pointblue.org/apps/ocof/cms/index.php?page=flood-map\">mapping\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"http://data.pointblue.org/apps/ocof/cms/index.php?page=flood-map\">tool\u003c/a> with multiple layers representing different scenarios: a \u003ca href=\"https://www.coastal.ca.gov/kingtides/learn.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">king\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.coastal.ca.gov/kingtides/learn.html\">tide\u003c/a>, interventions to shore up beaches and wetlands, and various levels of sea rise. Users can look up their neighborhoods, their commutes, their favorite beaches or the port where their latest online order entered the U.S.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most scenarios quickly \u003ca href=\"https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-40742-z/figures/3\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">put SFO under water\u003c/a>. Others flood marinas and homes in \u003ca href=\"https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-40742-z/figures/4\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Foster City\u003c/a>. Highway 101 along the Peninsula gets very wet when sea level rise and storms combine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The goal of this imagery is “to make it accessible to high-level policy people by translating the physical impacts into the socioeconomic impacts,” Barnard said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The effects of climate change are already apparent every winter, he said. For example, Highway 37 in Marin County \u003ca href=\"https://www.marinij.com/2019/02/19/highway-37-expected-to-reopen-wednesday/\">just\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.marinij.com/2019/02/19/highway-37-expected-to-reopen-wednesday/\">reopened\u003c/a> after a levee broke during last month’s storms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Maybe that happens once a winter every five years or something. In the future, we’re going to see — instead of once or every five years —it’s going to happen every year,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After a couple of decades, that flooding will likely happen five times per year, then 20 times per year, Barnard said. Eventually, winter storms will send seawater creeping into areas that have never seen flooding before.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Molly Peterson contributed to this report. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "A new USGS study factors in high tides, winter storms and erosion into its mathematical models of what sea level rise will mean for coastal California. ",
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"description": "A new USGS study factors in high tides, winter storms and erosion into its mathematical models of what sea level rise will mean for coastal California. ",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The ocean is rocked by storms and its tides ebb with the moon. Waves eat away at the shore, rearranging the sand and bringing cliff-side structures crashing into the surf. It doesn’t behave like water in a bathtub.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"alignright\">\u003ca href=\"http://data.pointblue.org/apps/ocof/cms/index.php?page=flood-map\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Interactive mapping tool\u003c/a> – California inundation zones under different sea level rise scenarios\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>But for simplicity’s sake (and because scientists are still learning about how climate change will melt glaciers), researchers have generally projected sea level rise as if the ocean will remain still and calm as it creeps up on crucial infrastructure and seaside neighborhoods.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A \u003ca href=\"https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-40742-z\">new\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-40742-z\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">study\u003c/a> from the U.S. Geological Survey says the predicted damage from sea level rise in California \u003cem>triples\u003c/em> once tides, storms and erosion are taken into account.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There are many communities that are planning by only considering this in a bathtub and not considering the fact that that’ll be on top of these episodic storm events that’ll cause most of the short term impacts,” said the study’s lead author, Patrick Barnard, a USGS coastal geologist based in Santa Cruz.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The study showed that, once these variables are taken into account, more than $150 billion worth of property and infrastructure and about 600,000 coastal residents could be flooded by the end of the century.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>About two-thirds of that property and those lives at risk are in and around the San Francisco Bay, said Barnard, who is the research director of the Climate Impacts and Coastal Processes Team at USGS.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’ve effectively built on an estuary with millions of people just above sea level,” he said. “We’re in a highly vulnerable position in the Bay Area.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>More Sloshing From Storms, More Damage\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When the team’s mathematical models factored in the variability of the tides, beach and cliff erosion, and once-in-decades storms, the predictions for coastal communities in a warming world got grim and wet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The locations threatened by flooding are the usual suspects: Foster City, Pacifica, and the San Francisco International Airport. \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-california-coast-storm-damage-20190313-story.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Southern\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-california-coast-storm-damage-20190313-story.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">California\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-california-coast-storm-damage-20190313-story.html\">will\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-california-coast-storm-damage-20190313-story.html\">also\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-california-coast-storm-damage-20190313-story.html\">be\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-california-coast-storm-damage-20190313-story.html\">hit\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-california-coast-storm-damage-20190313-story.html\">hard\u003c/a>, with the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach inundated and whole neighborhoods in Orange County under water during big storms and high tides.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To bring it home for planners and the public, the study included \u003ca href=\"http://data.pointblue.org/apps/ocof/cms/index.php?page=flood-map\">an\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"http://data.pointblue.org/apps/ocof/cms/index.php?page=flood-map\">interactive\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"http://data.pointblue.org/apps/ocof/cms/index.php?page=flood-map\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">online\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"http://data.pointblue.org/apps/ocof/cms/index.php?page=flood-map\">mapping\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"http://data.pointblue.org/apps/ocof/cms/index.php?page=flood-map\">tool\u003c/a> with multiple layers representing different scenarios: a \u003ca href=\"https://www.coastal.ca.gov/kingtides/learn.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">king\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.coastal.ca.gov/kingtides/learn.html\">tide\u003c/a>, interventions to shore up beaches and wetlands, and various levels of sea rise. Users can look up their neighborhoods, their commutes, their favorite beaches or the port where their latest online order entered the U.S.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most scenarios quickly \u003ca href=\"https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-40742-z/figures/3\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">put SFO under water\u003c/a>. Others flood marinas and homes in \u003ca href=\"https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-40742-z/figures/4\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Foster City\u003c/a>. Highway 101 along the Peninsula gets very wet when sea level rise and storms combine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The goal of this imagery is “to make it accessible to high-level policy people by translating the physical impacts into the socioeconomic impacts,” Barnard said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The effects of climate change are already apparent every winter, he said. For example, Highway 37 in Marin County \u003ca href=\"https://www.marinij.com/2019/02/19/highway-37-expected-to-reopen-wednesday/\">just\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.marinij.com/2019/02/19/highway-37-expected-to-reopen-wednesday/\">reopened\u003c/a> after a levee broke during last month’s storms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Maybe that happens once a winter every five years or something. In the future, we’re going to see — instead of once or every five years —it’s going to happen every year,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After a couple of decades, that flooding will likely happen five times per year, then 20 times per year, Barnard said. Eventually, winter storms will send seawater creeping into areas that have never seen flooding before.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Molly Peterson contributed to this report. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Imagine It's 2050 and We've Solved Climate Change. Here's What the World Looks Like",
"headTitle": "Imagine It’s 2050 and We’ve Solved Climate Change. Here’s What the World Looks Like | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>When NPR interviewed Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in February about her Green New Deal, she said that her goal was bigger than just passing some new laws. “What I hope we’re able to do is rediscover the power of public imagination,” she said.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Well, we’re unleashing our imagination and exploring a dream, a possible future in which we’re bringing global warming to a halt. It’s a world in which greenhouse emissions have ended. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>So — what does this world look like?\u003c/h3>\n\u003ch3>\u003cstrong>Mass Electrification (Batteries Hold The Power)\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>(Editor’s note: Each story has two sections, the first reflecting the present and the second imagining the world of 2050.)\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>2019: I went looking for people who’ve mapped out this world without greenhouse emissions. I found them in Silicon Valley.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.eiqmobility.com/team\">Sila Kiliccote\u003c/a> is an engineer. The back deck of her house, high up in the hills, overlooks Cupertino. Apple’s circular headquarters is hidden in the morning mist. It’s a long way from Istanbul, in Turkey, where she grew up; a great place to conjure up future worlds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Maybe you’d like some coffee?” Kiliccote says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her coffee machine is powered by solar panels on the roof. So is her laptop and her Wi-Fi.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Everything runs on electricity in this house,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is the foundation of a zero-carbon world: Electricity that comes from clean sources, mainly the sun and the wind, cheap and increasingly abundant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today, it powers this house; tomorrow, it could drive the world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last year, Kiliccote quit her job at Stanford University and launched a startup company, \u003ca href=\"https://www.eiqmobility.com/\">eIQ Mobility\u003c/a>, helping companies replace their fleets of vehicles, such as delivery vans, with electric-powered versions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In order to have impact, timely impact, I figured that I need to leave research and focus on impactful things that I want to do. And fast,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It has to happen \u003cem>really\u003c/em> fast. Last year, the world’s climate scientists put out a \u003ca href=\"https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/\">report\u003c/a> showing what it will take to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees C by the end of this century, averting the worst consequences of climate change. It requires bringing the globe’s net greenhouse emissions down to zero by 2050.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s a giant leap for humankind.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So Sila Kiliccote and I take that leap. Sitting in her kitchen, with solar panels overhead and an electric car parked outside, we pretend that it has happened. It’s 2050 and we’ve stopped climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Any sense of how we did it?” I ask her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She pauses. “Yes,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>2050: The first step was electric cars. That was actually pretty easy\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“By 2025, battery technology got cheaper,” she says. Electric cars were no longer more expensive. “At that point there was a massive shift to electric vehicles, because they were quieter, and cleaner, and [required] less maintenance. No oil change! Yippee! You know?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Heating and cooling in homes and office buildings have gone electric, too. Gas-burning furnaces have been replaced with electric-power like heat pumps.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We needed more electricity to power all this right when we were shutting down power plants that burned coal and gas. It took a massive increase in power from solar and wind farms. They now cover millions of acres in the U.S., 10 times more land than they did in 2020. Huge electrical transmission lines share electricity between North and South America. Europe is connected to vast solar installations in the Sahara desert, which means that sub-Saharan Africa also has access to cheap power.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It just changed Africa,” Kiliccote says. “It actually fueled the economies of Africa.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We now store electricity so that it’s always there when we need it. With batteries, of course, but in lots of other ways, too. For instance, cities are using electricity to heat and chill \u003ca href=\"https://sustainable.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/IDEA_Stagner_Stanford_fourth_Gen_DistrictEnergy.pdf\">massive tanks of water\u003c/a>, which then heat or cool buildings at any hour of the day or night.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://pangea.stanford.edu/people/sally-benson\">Sally Benson\u003c/a>, co-director of the Stanford Precourt Institute for Energy, is so ready to take the leap and imagine this zero-carbon world 2050, it’s a little startling.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I regularly take a helicopter, an electric helicopter, from here to San Francisco,” she assures me, totally deadpan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You can run a helicopter on batteries?” I ask, not quite believing it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Oh, yes! Oh, God, yes. That happened a long time ago,” Benson says, laughing. “That happened in the 2030s. That was great.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But she says that even in this all-electric world, there are some holdouts. Some things have just been really hard to electrify.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some big cement and steel plants still are burning coal or natural gas, but they also have to install massive plants to capture carbon dioxide from their smokestacks and put it back underground.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We just had to kind of bite the bullet and say, ‘OK, if you’re making cement or steel, you are capturing and sequestering that CO2,'” Benson says. “And in some cases we actually had to say, ‘We’re not going to make those things here anymore'” because it wasn’t economically feasible to capture the CO2 emissions from that factory.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Big, long-distance freight trucks were a problem, too. “They’re really heavy, and batteries are really heavy, and if you have to put a whole bunch of batteries on a truck it’s really inefficient,” Benson says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In some areas, like this one, our picture of the future gets a little fuzzy. Different guides to this 2050 world show me slightly different things.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some of my guides see “electric highways” with wires overhead, and trucks tapping into the electric power in those wires the same way trains do. Others see trucks running on hydrogen fuel; we make that hydrogen using solar or hydro power.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It appears that aircraft still are burning jet fuel. When you buy a plane ticket, you’re also paying to cancel out that flight’s carbon emissions, capturing an equivalent amount of CO2 from the air. This makes air travel expensive. Fortunately, we now have much faster trains. Teleconferencing helps, too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sally Benson is absolutely convinced about one thing. The hardest part of this journey wasn’t finding technical solutions. They all existed, even back in 2019. The hardest part was navigating the social disruption.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The transformations were so profound that it really needed to be a collective effort,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Entire industries died — like oil exploration and gas furnace manufacturing. Others rose to take their place, as the country rebuilt its electrical systems. People didn’t know what would happen and they were scared. The changes only moved ahead when people were convinced that they weren’t getting ignored and left behind. It was the political struggle of a generation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, in 2050, there’s a tremendous sense of accomplishment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Are there children who look around at all the old buildings and say, ‘What are those things they call chimneys? What were they for?’ ” I ask.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They do,” Benson says with a chuckle. “You know, it’s like a historical artifact, but you know, they find it very touching. They are appreciative, because they’re living in a world where they don’t need to worry about climate change anymore.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It wasn’t easy and it wasn’t free, Benson says. But it was absolutely worth it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The air is so much cleaner. Cities are quieter. And we’re no longer heating up the planet.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>\u003cstrong>The Urbanization Of Everything (A Desire Named Streetcars)\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>2019: I’m taking a walk through downtown Toronto, in Canada, with \u003c/strong>\u003ca href=\"https://www.speakers.ca/speakers/jennifer-keesmaat/\">\u003cstrong>Jennifer Keesmaat\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003cstrong>, the city’s former chief planner.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Keesmaat wants me to see one particular street. King Street. It’s the seed of a zero-carbon future, she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>King Street has a little bit of everything: glass-walled office buildings, theaters, old brick warehouses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Two years ago, a \u003ca href=\"https://www.toronto.ca/city-government/planning-development/planning-studies-initiatives/king-street-pilot/\">new set\u003c/a> of traffic rules went into effect here. “Basically, what we’ve done is, we’ve limited through-traffic for cars,” Keesmaat says. It forced cars away from King Street and launched a whole cascade of changes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The streetcars that run down the middle of King Street weren’t stuck in traffic anymore.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They became the best way to get across town at rush hour. “The volume of people being moved is astronomical!” Keesmaat says, as one rolls by. The streetcars, of course, are powered by electricity, and one passes every two or three minutes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, thousands of people have been moving into this downtown neighborhood, buying condos and renting apartments. Keesmaat knows one of them. He’s the father of one of her friends.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He said to me a few weeks ago, he thinks he takes out his car about once every two weeks,” Keesmaat says. He walks to shops, restaurants and basketball games. His neighbors walk to jobs in the financial district right down the street. He’s not heating a big free-standing house, either.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He has cut his energy use, and his greenhouse emissions, dramatically.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That wasn’t the driver for him,” Keesmaat says. “He didn’t say, ‘How do I in fact live smaller?” It just happened naturally in this new urban geography.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For a city planner, like Keesmaat, this is totally inspiring. “When we provide people with real choices, better choices, it can open up our minds!” she says. “We can change our minds about what we thought was the only way to live.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>2050: At this point, Keesmaat and I open up our minds and take a leap into a world that could be. Greenhouse gas emissions have dropped to zero.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>How did we do it? By gradually reshaping our cities so that they look more like this neighborhood, with lots of people living close together, within walking distance of many of the things they need.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Keesmaat can already see this city in her mind, and describe it. “The vast majority of streets have been pedestrianized; that’s how people get around, by walking down the street,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What has happened to the sprawling suburbs?” I ask. “Are people living there? How are they getting around?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Some of the large homes haven’t changed at all,” Keesmaat says. They’ve just been turned into multifamily units.” Other free-standing houses that once lined suburban cul-de-sacs have disappeared; each one has been replaced with a building that contains five or six homes. With the local population booming, those neighborhoods also attracted shops and offices. Suburban sprawl morphed into urban density.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cars have mostly disappeared. “There are cars, but people don’t own cars,” Keesmaat says. “Because a car is something that you use occasionally when you need it.” Streetcars and buses go practically everywhere in the city now, and you rarely have to wait more than a couple of minutes to catch one. Fast buses and trains connect towns. For other destinations, there’s car-sharing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“2050? It’s a wonderful life!” says \u003ca href=\"https://sites.uoit.ca/sustainabilitytoday/blog-posts/profiles/Daniel-Hoornweg-Profile-Page.php\">Daniel Hoornweg\u003c/a>, another one of my guides to this zero-carbon world. He’s a professor of energy systems at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology. Years ago, he wrote a big \u003ca href=\"https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/17381\">report\u003c/a> on cities and climate change for the World Bank.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He also can describe this new city, and how it took shape. Local governments created it, he says. First, they gave people new ways to get around: subways, bike lanes, buses and streetcars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But along with those carrots, there was also a stick. Cities took control of the precious real estate known as “roads” and started charging for the right to use them. “Maybe the most powerful thing that got us here, is [that] we got the pricing right,” he says. “So, you want an autonomous vehicle? Bless your heart, but it costs you more to drive that autonomous vehicle on the road by yourself. If you ride-share, it’s a little bit less.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“And this is even if they are electric vehicles?” I ask.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Even \u003cem>more\u003c/em> if they’re electric vehicles!” Hoornweg says. Personal electric cars for everyone couldn’t solve the problem, he explains. First of all, electricity is precious. We can’t waste it powering everybody’s electric car.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Second, electric cars could have clogged the streets of our densely populated cities the same way gas-burning cars once did, back in, say, 2019. Our city of 2050 functions because streets are clear for buses and streetcars and bikes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The basic recipe — densely populated neighborhoods linked by mass transit —has been the same for cities all over the world, Hoornweg says. But the details came from constant experimentation. If an idea worked in one place, other cities snatched it up. For instance, way back in 1991 the city Curitiba, in Brazil, built dedicated roads for fast buses, kind of a train system running on wheels. That kind of \u003ca href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/may/26/curitiba-brazil-brt-transport-revolution-history-cities-50-buildings\">system\u003c/a> has now spread around the globe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And it wasn’t just technology, Hoornweg says. Over the past three decades, from 2020 to 2050, a huge cultural shift has taken place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Just one example: In Toronto, the sharing economy that started decades ago with Uber and Airbnb is everywhere now. “Sharing rides, sharing tools, sharing somebody to look after your dog when you’re not there.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yes, we apparently still have dogs in 2050.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In part, people are forced to share things; cars are scarce and homes are smaller. (Scores of home builders went belly-up in the 2030s when millions of people suddenly decided that big houses weren’t just expensive; they were lonely, too.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the scale of zero-carbon life also makes it easier to share. We’re living closer together and run into neighbors all the time. “We have more acquaintances — somebody we met in our ride pool or car pool or whatever,” Hoornweg says. “There’s no better way to [meet your neighbors] than sitting in a [shared] car and you can’t get away from them for 20 minutes or whatever.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some people hated losing their yards and their solitary commutes at first. Others loved the changes. Eventually, Hoornweg says, it just became normal. People stopped talking about it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Life now goes on as it always did. But there’s one huge difference. We’re no longer heating up the planet.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>\u003cstrong>Farmers Cut Down On Greenhouse Emissions (This Grass Really Is Greener)\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>2019: Jacobo Arango was traveling in a forested part of his country, Colombia, when he ran into one big reason for global warming. He didn’t see it, but he could hear it.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You could hear the chainsaw cutting the forest; and the locals [were] telling us that this is nothing unusual for them, that they were hearing that every day,” says Arango, who is a researcher at the \u003ca href=\"https://ciat.cgiar.org/\">International Center for Tropical Agriculture\u003c/a>, or CIAT.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This was totally illegal. But local farmers didn’t dare report it. “They said, if you do that, your life could be in danger,” Arango recalls.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Usually, what follows land clearing in the tropics is cattle grazing. It’s a careless, destructive form of cattle grazing, and \u003ca href=\"https://www.wri.org/profile/tim-searchinger\">Tim Searchinger\u003c/a>, at the World Resources Institute, says it’s incredibly common. “Grazing land is about two-thirds of all agricultural land, and about a third of that came right out of clearing forests,” he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s a climate disaster. First, cutting down trees and tearing up forest soil releases huge amounts of carbon dioxide. Then, cattle release methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, as microbes in their stomach digest grass and leaves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are greenhouse emissions from other kinds of farming, too — from plowing and from fertilizer. \u003ca href=\"https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas-emissions-data\">Add it all up\u003c/a>, and growing food accounts for a quarter of the entire climate change problem. That could increase, too, because billions of people around the world are getting richer; they want more beef, too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There is no solution to climate change that doesn’t dramatically reduce the land use demands and greenhouse emissions of agriculture,” Searchinger says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He and his colleagues at WRI released a \u003ca href=\"https://www.wri.org/our-work/project/world-resources-report/world-resources-report-creating-sustainable-food-future\">report\u003c/a> last year that laid out a road map for how to do this. It includes lots of things, from wasting less food to reducing greenhouse emissions from fertilizer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But perhaps the single biggest piece of the solution is something we don’t often hear about.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://ccafs.cgiar.org/news/media-centre/press-releases/ipcc-names-dr-jacobo-arango-lead-author-its-next-assessment-report#.XIGZC1VKhpg\">Jacobo Arango\u003c/a> wants to show it to me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He’s brought me to a farm in the Patía valley, not far from Colombia’s Pacific coast.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is cattle-grazing country. I see wide, grassy pastures, lined by trees. Nohely Angulo Mosquera, the leader of a farmers cooperative, is clapping his hands, calling his cows, inviting them to move to a new pasture.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This pasture is a bovine buffet. The grass is up to my waist. This is not ordinary grass that grows wild in this region. These are \u003ca href=\"https://ispc.cgiar.org/sites/default/files/pdf/ispc_brief_70_brachiaria.pdf\">varieties\u003c/a> with names like Mulato, and Cayman, which researchers at CIAT bred and selected to be top-quality cattle feed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Angulo Mosquera says that these grasses grow so fast, and they’re so nutritious, he can keep four or even six cows on land that used to support just one. He does have to manage the cows more carefully; moving them every few weeks to new pastures when the grass is ready.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“More milk, more meat,” he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He doesn’t mention it, but it’s also true: In the old days, his cows took a long time to gain weight or produce a gallon of milk, but their gut microbes still kept churning out methane, day after day, year after year. Now, because the animals are growing so much faster, they aren’t releasing nearly as much methane per pound of milk or meat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We’re looking at an essential part of a world without climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And as we stand there, Jacobo Arango and I just start imagining it’s already happened, and talking as though it’s real.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>2050: The same way we stopped mining coal to generate electricity, we’ve stopped mining the soil to grow food.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s different now, in 2050,” Arango says with a smile.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a world without climate change, this is what cattle grazing looks like, all over the tropics. Farmers aren’t letting cows wander across the landscape in search of something to eat. They’re treating their pasture like a valuable crop, which it really is.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This was critical, to change the mindset of cattle growers,” Arango says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As a result, production is way up and “there is no need to cut the Amazon to do livestock production,” Arango says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another critical change: Americans are eating a lot less beef now — per person, half what they ate in 2020. “That’s a really, really big deal,” Searchinger says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Traveling the country, you now see alternatives to beef and dairy products everywhere. There are blended mushroom-beef burgers in fast food chains and non-dairy cheese on pizzas. They even taste pretty good, thanks to the creative genius of America’s finest food scientists.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>People who stop at these places don’t really think about the big global impact of what they’re doing, any more than they did when they were eating all hamburgers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But they’ve been part of something amazing. It’s 2050 and there are almost 10 billion people in the world. They are eating better — yet the Amazon forest is still there. It hasn’t been sacrificed to grow food.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In fact, in parts of North and South America, including that farm we visited in Colombia, more trees are growing. We’re not mining the soil anymore. We’re replenishing it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2019 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=It%27s+2050+And+This+Is+How+We+Stopped+Climate+Change&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>When NPR interviewed Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in February about her Green New Deal, she said that her goal was bigger than just passing some new laws. “What I hope we’re able to do is rediscover the power of public imagination,” she said.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Well, we’re unleashing our imagination and exploring a dream, a possible future in which we’re bringing global warming to a halt. It’s a world in which greenhouse emissions have ended. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>So — what does this world look like?\u003c/h3>\n\u003ch3>\u003cstrong>Mass Electrification (Batteries Hold The Power)\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>(Editor’s note: Each story has two sections, the first reflecting the present and the second imagining the world of 2050.)\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>2019: I went looking for people who’ve mapped out this world without greenhouse emissions. I found them in Silicon Valley.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.eiqmobility.com/team\">Sila Kiliccote\u003c/a> is an engineer. The back deck of her house, high up in the hills, overlooks Cupertino. Apple’s circular headquarters is hidden in the morning mist. It’s a long way from Istanbul, in Turkey, where she grew up; a great place to conjure up future worlds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Maybe you’d like some coffee?” Kiliccote says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her coffee machine is powered by solar panels on the roof. So is her laptop and her Wi-Fi.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Everything runs on electricity in this house,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is the foundation of a zero-carbon world: Electricity that comes from clean sources, mainly the sun and the wind, cheap and increasingly abundant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today, it powers this house; tomorrow, it could drive the world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last year, Kiliccote quit her job at Stanford University and launched a startup company, \u003ca href=\"https://www.eiqmobility.com/\">eIQ Mobility\u003c/a>, helping companies replace their fleets of vehicles, such as delivery vans, with electric-powered versions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In order to have impact, timely impact, I figured that I need to leave research and focus on impactful things that I want to do. And fast,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It has to happen \u003cem>really\u003c/em> fast. Last year, the world’s climate scientists put out a \u003ca href=\"https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/\">report\u003c/a> showing what it will take to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees C by the end of this century, averting the worst consequences of climate change. It requires bringing the globe’s net greenhouse emissions down to zero by 2050.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s a giant leap for humankind.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So Sila Kiliccote and I take that leap. Sitting in her kitchen, with solar panels overhead and an electric car parked outside, we pretend that it has happened. It’s 2050 and we’ve stopped climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Any sense of how we did it?” I ask her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She pauses. “Yes,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>2050: The first step was electric cars. That was actually pretty easy\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“By 2025, battery technology got cheaper,” she says. Electric cars were no longer more expensive. “At that point there was a massive shift to electric vehicles, because they were quieter, and cleaner, and [required] less maintenance. No oil change! Yippee! You know?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Heating and cooling in homes and office buildings have gone electric, too. Gas-burning furnaces have been replaced with electric-power like heat pumps.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We needed more electricity to power all this right when we were shutting down power plants that burned coal and gas. It took a massive increase in power from solar and wind farms. They now cover millions of acres in the U.S., 10 times more land than they did in 2020. Huge electrical transmission lines share electricity between North and South America. Europe is connected to vast solar installations in the Sahara desert, which means that sub-Saharan Africa also has access to cheap power.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It just changed Africa,” Kiliccote says. “It actually fueled the economies of Africa.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We now store electricity so that it’s always there when we need it. With batteries, of course, but in lots of other ways, too. For instance, cities are using electricity to heat and chill \u003ca href=\"https://sustainable.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/IDEA_Stagner_Stanford_fourth_Gen_DistrictEnergy.pdf\">massive tanks of water\u003c/a>, which then heat or cool buildings at any hour of the day or night.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://pangea.stanford.edu/people/sally-benson\">Sally Benson\u003c/a>, co-director of the Stanford Precourt Institute for Energy, is so ready to take the leap and imagine this zero-carbon world 2050, it’s a little startling.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I regularly take a helicopter, an electric helicopter, from here to San Francisco,” she assures me, totally deadpan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You can run a helicopter on batteries?” I ask, not quite believing it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Oh, yes! Oh, God, yes. That happened a long time ago,” Benson says, laughing. “That happened in the 2030s. That was great.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But she says that even in this all-electric world, there are some holdouts. Some things have just been really hard to electrify.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some big cement and steel plants still are burning coal or natural gas, but they also have to install massive plants to capture carbon dioxide from their smokestacks and put it back underground.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We just had to kind of bite the bullet and say, ‘OK, if you’re making cement or steel, you are capturing and sequestering that CO2,'” Benson says. “And in some cases we actually had to say, ‘We’re not going to make those things here anymore'” because it wasn’t economically feasible to capture the CO2 emissions from that factory.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Big, long-distance freight trucks were a problem, too. “They’re really heavy, and batteries are really heavy, and if you have to put a whole bunch of batteries on a truck it’s really inefficient,” Benson says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In some areas, like this one, our picture of the future gets a little fuzzy. Different guides to this 2050 world show me slightly different things.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some of my guides see “electric highways” with wires overhead, and trucks tapping into the electric power in those wires the same way trains do. Others see trucks running on hydrogen fuel; we make that hydrogen using solar or hydro power.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It appears that aircraft still are burning jet fuel. When you buy a plane ticket, you’re also paying to cancel out that flight’s carbon emissions, capturing an equivalent amount of CO2 from the air. This makes air travel expensive. Fortunately, we now have much faster trains. Teleconferencing helps, too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sally Benson is absolutely convinced about one thing. The hardest part of this journey wasn’t finding technical solutions. They all existed, even back in 2019. The hardest part was navigating the social disruption.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The transformations were so profound that it really needed to be a collective effort,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Entire industries died — like oil exploration and gas furnace manufacturing. Others rose to take their place, as the country rebuilt its electrical systems. People didn’t know what would happen and they were scared. The changes only moved ahead when people were convinced that they weren’t getting ignored and left behind. It was the political struggle of a generation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, in 2050, there’s a tremendous sense of accomplishment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Are there children who look around at all the old buildings and say, ‘What are those things they call chimneys? What were they for?’ ” I ask.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They do,” Benson says with a chuckle. “You know, it’s like a historical artifact, but you know, they find it very touching. They are appreciative, because they’re living in a world where they don’t need to worry about climate change anymore.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It wasn’t easy and it wasn’t free, Benson says. But it was absolutely worth it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The air is so much cleaner. Cities are quieter. And we’re no longer heating up the planet.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>\u003cstrong>The Urbanization Of Everything (A Desire Named Streetcars)\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>2019: I’m taking a walk through downtown Toronto, in Canada, with \u003c/strong>\u003ca href=\"https://www.speakers.ca/speakers/jennifer-keesmaat/\">\u003cstrong>Jennifer Keesmaat\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003cstrong>, the city’s former chief planner.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Keesmaat wants me to see one particular street. King Street. It’s the seed of a zero-carbon future, she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>King Street has a little bit of everything: glass-walled office buildings, theaters, old brick warehouses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Two years ago, a \u003ca href=\"https://www.toronto.ca/city-government/planning-development/planning-studies-initiatives/king-street-pilot/\">new set\u003c/a> of traffic rules went into effect here. “Basically, what we’ve done is, we’ve limited through-traffic for cars,” Keesmaat says. It forced cars away from King Street and launched a whole cascade of changes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The streetcars that run down the middle of King Street weren’t stuck in traffic anymore.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They became the best way to get across town at rush hour. “The volume of people being moved is astronomical!” Keesmaat says, as one rolls by. The streetcars, of course, are powered by electricity, and one passes every two or three minutes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, thousands of people have been moving into this downtown neighborhood, buying condos and renting apartments. Keesmaat knows one of them. He’s the father of one of her friends.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He said to me a few weeks ago, he thinks he takes out his car about once every two weeks,” Keesmaat says. He walks to shops, restaurants and basketball games. His neighbors walk to jobs in the financial district right down the street. He’s not heating a big free-standing house, either.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He has cut his energy use, and his greenhouse emissions, dramatically.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That wasn’t the driver for him,” Keesmaat says. “He didn’t say, ‘How do I in fact live smaller?” It just happened naturally in this new urban geography.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For a city planner, like Keesmaat, this is totally inspiring. “When we provide people with real choices, better choices, it can open up our minds!” she says. “We can change our minds about what we thought was the only way to live.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>2050: At this point, Keesmaat and I open up our minds and take a leap into a world that could be. Greenhouse gas emissions have dropped to zero.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>How did we do it? By gradually reshaping our cities so that they look more like this neighborhood, with lots of people living close together, within walking distance of many of the things they need.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Keesmaat can already see this city in her mind, and describe it. “The vast majority of streets have been pedestrianized; that’s how people get around, by walking down the street,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What has happened to the sprawling suburbs?” I ask. “Are people living there? How are they getting around?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Some of the large homes haven’t changed at all,” Keesmaat says. They’ve just been turned into multifamily units.” Other free-standing houses that once lined suburban cul-de-sacs have disappeared; each one has been replaced with a building that contains five or six homes. With the local population booming, those neighborhoods also attracted shops and offices. Suburban sprawl morphed into urban density.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cars have mostly disappeared. “There are cars, but people don’t own cars,” Keesmaat says. “Because a car is something that you use occasionally when you need it.” Streetcars and buses go practically everywhere in the city now, and you rarely have to wait more than a couple of minutes to catch one. Fast buses and trains connect towns. For other destinations, there’s car-sharing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“2050? It’s a wonderful life!” says \u003ca href=\"https://sites.uoit.ca/sustainabilitytoday/blog-posts/profiles/Daniel-Hoornweg-Profile-Page.php\">Daniel Hoornweg\u003c/a>, another one of my guides to this zero-carbon world. He’s a professor of energy systems at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology. Years ago, he wrote a big \u003ca href=\"https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/17381\">report\u003c/a> on cities and climate change for the World Bank.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He also can describe this new city, and how it took shape. Local governments created it, he says. First, they gave people new ways to get around: subways, bike lanes, buses and streetcars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But along with those carrots, there was also a stick. Cities took control of the precious real estate known as “roads” and started charging for the right to use them. “Maybe the most powerful thing that got us here, is [that] we got the pricing right,” he says. “So, you want an autonomous vehicle? Bless your heart, but it costs you more to drive that autonomous vehicle on the road by yourself. If you ride-share, it’s a little bit less.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“And this is even if they are electric vehicles?” I ask.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Even \u003cem>more\u003c/em> if they’re electric vehicles!” Hoornweg says. Personal electric cars for everyone couldn’t solve the problem, he explains. First of all, electricity is precious. We can’t waste it powering everybody’s electric car.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Second, electric cars could have clogged the streets of our densely populated cities the same way gas-burning cars once did, back in, say, 2019. Our city of 2050 functions because streets are clear for buses and streetcars and bikes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The basic recipe — densely populated neighborhoods linked by mass transit —has been the same for cities all over the world, Hoornweg says. But the details came from constant experimentation. If an idea worked in one place, other cities snatched it up. For instance, way back in 1991 the city Curitiba, in Brazil, built dedicated roads for fast buses, kind of a train system running on wheels. That kind of \u003ca href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/may/26/curitiba-brazil-brt-transport-revolution-history-cities-50-buildings\">system\u003c/a> has now spread around the globe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And it wasn’t just technology, Hoornweg says. Over the past three decades, from 2020 to 2050, a huge cultural shift has taken place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Just one example: In Toronto, the sharing economy that started decades ago with Uber and Airbnb is everywhere now. “Sharing rides, sharing tools, sharing somebody to look after your dog when you’re not there.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yes, we apparently still have dogs in 2050.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In part, people are forced to share things; cars are scarce and homes are smaller. (Scores of home builders went belly-up in the 2030s when millions of people suddenly decided that big houses weren’t just expensive; they were lonely, too.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the scale of zero-carbon life also makes it easier to share. We’re living closer together and run into neighbors all the time. “We have more acquaintances — somebody we met in our ride pool or car pool or whatever,” Hoornweg says. “There’s no better way to [meet your neighbors] than sitting in a [shared] car and you can’t get away from them for 20 minutes or whatever.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some people hated losing their yards and their solitary commutes at first. Others loved the changes. Eventually, Hoornweg says, it just became normal. People stopped talking about it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Life now goes on as it always did. But there’s one huge difference. We’re no longer heating up the planet.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>\u003cstrong>Farmers Cut Down On Greenhouse Emissions (This Grass Really Is Greener)\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>2019: Jacobo Arango was traveling in a forested part of his country, Colombia, when he ran into one big reason for global warming. He didn’t see it, but he could hear it.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You could hear the chainsaw cutting the forest; and the locals [were] telling us that this is nothing unusual for them, that they were hearing that every day,” says Arango, who is a researcher at the \u003ca href=\"https://ciat.cgiar.org/\">International Center for Tropical Agriculture\u003c/a>, or CIAT.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This was totally illegal. But local farmers didn’t dare report it. “They said, if you do that, your life could be in danger,” Arango recalls.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Usually, what follows land clearing in the tropics is cattle grazing. It’s a careless, destructive form of cattle grazing, and \u003ca href=\"https://www.wri.org/profile/tim-searchinger\">Tim Searchinger\u003c/a>, at the World Resources Institute, says it’s incredibly common. “Grazing land is about two-thirds of all agricultural land, and about a third of that came right out of clearing forests,” he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s a climate disaster. First, cutting down trees and tearing up forest soil releases huge amounts of carbon dioxide. Then, cattle release methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, as microbes in their stomach digest grass and leaves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are greenhouse emissions from other kinds of farming, too — from plowing and from fertilizer. \u003ca href=\"https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas-emissions-data\">Add it all up\u003c/a>, and growing food accounts for a quarter of the entire climate change problem. That could increase, too, because billions of people around the world are getting richer; they want more beef, too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There is no solution to climate change that doesn’t dramatically reduce the land use demands and greenhouse emissions of agriculture,” Searchinger says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He and his colleagues at WRI released a \u003ca href=\"https://www.wri.org/our-work/project/world-resources-report/world-resources-report-creating-sustainable-food-future\">report\u003c/a> last year that laid out a road map for how to do this. It includes lots of things, from wasting less food to reducing greenhouse emissions from fertilizer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But perhaps the single biggest piece of the solution is something we don’t often hear about.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://ccafs.cgiar.org/news/media-centre/press-releases/ipcc-names-dr-jacobo-arango-lead-author-its-next-assessment-report#.XIGZC1VKhpg\">Jacobo Arango\u003c/a> wants to show it to me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He’s brought me to a farm in the Patía valley, not far from Colombia’s Pacific coast.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is cattle-grazing country. I see wide, grassy pastures, lined by trees. Nohely Angulo Mosquera, the leader of a farmers cooperative, is clapping his hands, calling his cows, inviting them to move to a new pasture.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This pasture is a bovine buffet. The grass is up to my waist. This is not ordinary grass that grows wild in this region. These are \u003ca href=\"https://ispc.cgiar.org/sites/default/files/pdf/ispc_brief_70_brachiaria.pdf\">varieties\u003c/a> with names like Mulato, and Cayman, which researchers at CIAT bred and selected to be top-quality cattle feed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Angulo Mosquera says that these grasses grow so fast, and they’re so nutritious, he can keep four or even six cows on land that used to support just one. He does have to manage the cows more carefully; moving them every few weeks to new pastures when the grass is ready.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“More milk, more meat,” he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He doesn’t mention it, but it’s also true: In the old days, his cows took a long time to gain weight or produce a gallon of milk, but their gut microbes still kept churning out methane, day after day, year after year. Now, because the animals are growing so much faster, they aren’t releasing nearly as much methane per pound of milk or meat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We’re looking at an essential part of a world without climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And as we stand there, Jacobo Arango and I just start imagining it’s already happened, and talking as though it’s real.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>2050: The same way we stopped mining coal to generate electricity, we’ve stopped mining the soil to grow food.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s different now, in 2050,” Arango says with a smile.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a world without climate change, this is what cattle grazing looks like, all over the tropics. Farmers aren’t letting cows wander across the landscape in search of something to eat. They’re treating their pasture like a valuable crop, which it really is.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This was critical, to change the mindset of cattle growers,” Arango says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As a result, production is way up and “there is no need to cut the Amazon to do livestock production,” Arango says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another critical change: Americans are eating a lot less beef now — per person, half what they ate in 2020. “That’s a really, really big deal,” Searchinger says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Traveling the country, you now see alternatives to beef and dairy products everywhere. There are blended mushroom-beef burgers in fast food chains and non-dairy cheese on pizzas. They even taste pretty good, thanks to the creative genius of America’s finest food scientists.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>People who stop at these places don’t really think about the big global impact of what they’re doing, any more than they did when they were eating all hamburgers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But they’ve been part of something amazing. It’s 2050 and there are almost 10 billion people in the world. They are eating better — yet the Amazon forest is still there. It hasn’t been sacrificed to grow food.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In fact, in parts of North and South America, including that farm we visited in Colombia, more trees are growing. We’re not mining the soil anymore. We’re replenishing it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2019 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=It%27s+2050+And+This+Is+How+We+Stopped+Climate+Change&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
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"info": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown brings listeners the wisdom of the former Governor, Mayor, and presidential candidate. Scott Shafer interviewed Brown for more than 40 hours, covering the former governor's life and half-century in the political game – and Brown has some lessons he'd like to share. ",
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"marketplace": {
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"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 4pm-4:30pm, MON-WED 6:30pm-7pm",
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"masters-of-scale": {
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},
"mindshift": {
"id": "mindshift",
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"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
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"order": 12
},
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM1NzY0NjAwNDI5",
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"morning-edition": {
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"info": "\u003cem>Morning Edition\u003c/em> takes listeners around the country and the world with multi-faceted stories and commentaries every weekday. Hosts Steve Inskeep, David Greene and Rachel Martin bring you the latest breaking news and features to prepare you for the day.",
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"onourwatch": {
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"title": "On Our Watch",
"tagline": "Deeply-reported investigative journalism",
"info": "For decades, the process for how police police themselves has been inconsistent – if not opaque. In some states, like California, these proceedings were completely hidden. After a new police transparency law unsealed scores of internal affairs files, our reporters set out to examine these cases and the shadow world of police discipline. On Our Watch brings listeners into the rooms where officers are questioned and witnesses are interrogated to find out who this system is really protecting. Is it the officers, or the public they've sworn to serve?",
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"order": 11
},
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"on-the-media": {
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"title": "On The Media",
"info": "Our weekly podcast explores how the media 'sausage' is made, casts an incisive eye on fluctuations in the marketplace of ideas, and examines threats to the freedom of information and expression in America and abroad. For one hour a week, the show tries to lift the veil from the process of \"making media,\" especially news media, because it's through that lens that we see the world and the world sees us",
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},
"link": "/radio/program/on-the-media",
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},
"pbs-newshour": {
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"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/PBS-NewsHour---Full-Show-p425698/",
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},
"perspectives": {
"id": "perspectives",
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"order": 14
},
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"planet-money": {
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"info": "The economy explained. Imagine you could call up a friend and say, Meet me at the bar and tell me what's going on with the economy. Now imagine that's actually a fun evening.",
"airtime": "SUN 3pm-4pm",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/planetmoney.jpg",
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},
"link": "/radio/program/planet-money",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/planet-money/id290783428?mt=2",
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},
"politicalbreakdown": {
"id": "politicalbreakdown",
"title": "Political Breakdown",
"tagline": "Politics from a personal perspective",
"info": "Political Breakdown is a new series that explores the political intersection of California and the nation. Each week hosts Scott Shafer and Marisa Lagos are joined with a new special guest to unpack politics -- with personality — and offer an insider’s glimpse at how politics happens.",
"airtime": "THU 6:30pm-7pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Political-Breakdown-2024-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"order": 5
},
"link": "/podcasts/politicalbreakdown",
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"amazon": "https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/e0c2d153-ad36-4c8d-901d-f1da6a724824/political-breakdown",
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"possible": {
"id": "possible",
"title": "Possible",
"info": "Possible is hosted by entrepreneur Reid Hoffman and writer Aria Finger. Together in Possible, Hoffman and Finger lead enlightening discussions about building a brighter collective future. The show features interviews with visionary guests like Trevor Noah, Sam Altman and Janette Sadik-Khan. Possible paints an optimistic portrait of the world we can create through science, policy, business, art and our shared humanity. It asks: What if everything goes right for once? How can we get there? Each episode also includes a short fiction story generated by advanced AI GPT-4, serving as a thought-provoking springboard to speculate how humanity could leverage technology for good.",
"airtime": "SUN 2pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Possible-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.possible.fm/",
"meta": {
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"source": "Possible"
},
"link": "/radio/program/possible",
"subscribe": {
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"spotify": "https://open.spotify.com/show/730YpdUSNlMyPQwNnyjp4k"
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},
"pri-the-world": {
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