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"content": "\u003cp>In a year marked by the costliest \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/california\">California\u003c/a> fires on record, state lawmakers sent a large package of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/wildfires\">wildfire\u003c/a> bills to the governor’s desk. One measure in particular promises outsized impacts for protecting neighborhoods — and it’s largely flown under the radar.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billVersionsCompareClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260SB326&cversion=20250SB32698AMD\">Senate Bill 326\u003c/a>, sponsored by State Sen. Josh Becker (D-Menlo Park), would accelerate fire mitigation efforts, particularly in these older, at-risk neighborhoods, by mandating the removal of flammable trees and bushes for certain homes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re seeing more extreme weather conditions and we’re seeing wildfires spread at a speed that we’ve never seen before,” Becker said. “That’s why we need this bill.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While “not a panacea,” said Michael Wara, director of the Climate and Energy Policy Program and senior research scholar at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, “it’s the biggest step we can take this year.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The thorniest problem in the state’s effort to guard against wildfire devastation is how to protect the millions of homes that already exist in fire-prone areas, Wara said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1996121\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1996121\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/02/IMG_5331_duo.jpg\" alt=\"A before and after picture of a small, one-story, nicely kept home, and the remains of it after it was burned down.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"990\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/02/IMG_5331_duo.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/02/IMG_5331_duo-800x396.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/02/IMG_5331_duo-1020x505.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/02/IMG_5331_duo-160x79.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/02/IMG_5331_duo-768x380.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/02/IMG_5331_duo-1536x760.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/02/IMG_5331_duo-1920x950.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A family home in Altadena, California, before and after the Eaton Fire ravaged the community in January. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of the Moreno family)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“What we need to do is change how flammable people’s gardens are in places where there’s high risk,” he said. “That’s important if we want to have affordable insurance, affordable electricity. It’s important if we don’t want to lose communities like we did in Altadena.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While newer homes are built to relatively high fire safety standards, the vast \u003ca href=\"https://www.infoplease.com/us/census/california/housing-statistics\">majority\u003c/a> of California’s housing stock — built before the 1990s — was not designed with fire resilience in mind.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new regulations mandate a Zone 0 space, or an ember-resistant zone extending five feet around a house, where there is non-burnable material like river rocks instead of plants or mulch. It’s controversial, in part because it would dramatically alter the appearance of many neighborhoods. Homeowners are understandably reluctant to tear out beloved, beautiful plants.[aside postID=news_12059123 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/GettyImages-2194137909-1020x696.jpg']However, fire prevention advocates see this as the simplest, most affordable way to quickly improve fire resilience in vulnerable neighborhoods. Tearing out a bush, for instance, costs far less — and is much quicker — than retrofits like replacing a roof. And the \u003ca href=\"https://34c031f8-c9fd-4018-8c5a-4159cdff6b0d-cdn-endpoint.azureedge.net/-/media/bof-website/projects-and-programs/defensible-space-zones-0-1-2/previous-public-workshops-and-materials/2025/sept-22/august-zone-0-rule-plead.pdf?rev=86f548de3486423c995bb2394aaaa4c1&hash=F8723E42A201545B808CBC0B68FF937B\">current draft regulations\u003c/a> do not call for removing permanent features like a wooden deck or fence within 5 feet of the home. Supporters argue that the absence of coordinated fire-resilience planning wastes state resources. While California develops long-term plans for resources like water, it lacks a comparable approach for wildfire prevention.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The bill moves up the timeline for Zone 0 requirements in high-risk areas, implementing some of the requirements as early as Jan. 1, 2026. If enacted, the legislation would also require Cal Fire to create a strategic, regularly updated plan for better assessing fire danger in the state and planning how to prevent destruction before a disaster hits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If vetoed, Zone 0 requirements — the details of which are still being \u003ca href=\"https://bof.fire.ca.gov/projects-and-programs/defensible-space-zones-0-1-and-2\">hammered out\u003c/a> by the state Board of Forestry — would apply to new construction after Jan.1. Three years from now, at the end of 2028, it would apply to all homes in high-risk zones.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If SB 326 is signed, it would also apply to rental properties and houses for sale as of Jan.1. Wara said the rationale is to take a measured approach.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1994257\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1994257\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/09/240909-BOYLESFIRE-22-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/09/240909-BOYLESFIRE-22-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/09/240909-BOYLESFIRE-22-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/09/240909-BOYLESFIRE-22-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/09/240909-BOYLESFIRE-22-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/09/240909-BOYLESFIRE-22-BL-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/09/240909-BOYLESFIRE-22-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/09/240909-BOYLESFIRE-22-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A home destroyed by the Boyles Fire in Clearlake on Sept. 9, 2024, after the wildfire swept through the area on Sept. 8, 2024. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“It doesn’t say everybody has to do this right away, because that would be too much,” Wara said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, the bill authors believe, people who have rentals and are making money from their house in a high-risk area should contribute to reducing risk in the community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Also, if you’re selling your house, you’ve got to do this,” Wara said, “because it’s a time when there’s cash available and where you might be more open to making changes in your backyard that will create safety.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California has 1.3 million homes in high or very high severity areas, and retrofitting those homes would cost tens of billions of dollars, said Matt Weiner, CEO of Megafire Action, a nonprofit advancing policy to avoid catastrophic wildfire.[aside postID=news_12056655 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2021/08/Middlebrook-2-1020x765.jpg']For right now, Zone 0 is “the most important tool that we can move quickly on to guard against ember-driven fires like we saw in Palisades and Altadena,” Weiner said. The bill also provides funding to counties working to implement Zone 0.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Up to 90% of homes destroyed in a wildfire burn down from embers finding their way inside the structure and burning it down from the inside. Relatively few homes burn down from coming into contact with a flaming front.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://news.berkeley.edu/2025/08/28/california-communities-can-reduce-wildfire-damage-by-half-heres-how/\">Researchers from UC Berkeley estimate\u003c/a> that 50% fewer homes would burn down in the extreme kind of conditions seen in the L.A. fires if neighborhoods hardened homes and had defensible space. Just complying with Zone 0 alone would reduce structure loss by an estimated 17%.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With California spending billions on firefighting and homeowners bearing soaring insurance costs, advocates have argued that it’s time to move beyond the traditional “business as usual” approach.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Frankly, we knew we needed to do this back in 2017 and 2018,” Wara said. Those years saw terrible losses in Wine Country fires and the fire that destroyed the town of Paradise. “There was legislation [passed in 2020] that would have required it; it was supposed to take effect in 2023,” Wara said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1976871\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1976871\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/RS51646_GettyImages-1235453439-qut.jpg\" alt=\"Governor Gavin Newsom speaks at a podium in a cloud of wildfire smoke.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/RS51646_GettyImages-1235453439-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/RS51646_GettyImages-1235453439-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/RS51646_GettyImages-1235453439-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/RS51646_GettyImages-1235453439-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/RS51646_GettyImages-1235453439-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/RS51646_GettyImages-1235453439-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Gov. Gavin Newsom discusses California’s wildfires, before signing a $15 billion climate package, during a ceremony at Sequoia National Park near Three Rivers, on Sept. 23, 2021. \u003ccite>(Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But the state’s Board of Forestry missed the deadline, struggling to balance the concerns of homeowners with the desires of the insurance industry. In February, following the Los Angeles firestorm, Gov. Gavin Newsom \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/2025/02/06/governor-newsom-signs-executive-order-to-further-prepare-for-future-urban-firestorms-stepping-up-already-nation-leading-strategies/\">ordered the rules\u003c/a> to be completed by the end of this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The bill will also require Cal Fire and the State Fire Marshal to develop and use models to assess where risk is highest and how risk changes as safety projects are completed. The key, Weiner said, is to have cohesion between wildfire prevention work being done on the landscape level, the neighborhood level and the parcel level, by communities, utilities and homeowners. Currently, there is little to no coordination, which advocates have said risks wasting money and effort.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Proposals to require comprehensive fire planning have been introduced before, but have never made it to the governor’s desk. The heart- and record-breaking devastation from January’s fires in Los Angeles helped give it added urgency this year, advocates said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You want “somebody looking at the entire picture and helping inform the highest impact work to be done,” Weiner said. The state is spending hundreds of millions of dollars to prepare for fires. “You want somebody to assess that holistically.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The bill’s technical nature may have hidden it from public attention — despite its potential to save homes and lives, Weiner said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1994224\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1994224\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/09/AP24253126507105-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/09/AP24253126507105-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/09/AP24253126507105-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/09/AP24253126507105-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/09/AP24253126507105-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/09/AP24253126507105-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/09/AP24253126507105-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/09/AP24253126507105-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Firefighter Nolan Graham sprays water around a scorched garage as the Boyles fire burns in Clearlake on Sept. 8, 2024. \u003ccite>(Noah Berger/AP Photo)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“I think one of the reasons [this proposal] doesn’t get enough attention is because whenever you start talking ‘tech,’ people think about it as a sideshow, nice to have but not a fundamental need,” Weiner said. “And nobody gets excited about creating the enabling conditions for future work.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If signed, the bill would increase the responsibility and work demands placed on Cal Fire and the State Fire Marshal. It would also impose some accountability in the form of requiring annual reports that would give a comprehensive overview of how they could strategically lessen wildfire risk.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those reports would aid lawmakers in overseeing their work. When it passed its \u003ca href=\"http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billVotesClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260SB326\">final vote\u003c/a> in September, no representatives voted against it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>KQED reached out to Cal Fire to discuss SB 326. An agency spokesperson said they do not comment on pending legislation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Critics have claimed that the state’s fire agency has been more motivated by responding to and fighting fires than working to prevent them, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1979560/cal-fire-fumbles-key-responsibilities-to-prevent-catastrophic-wildfires-despite-historic-budget\">and has fumbled key \u003c/a>responsibilities for management and mitigation, despite a historic budget.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1979588\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1979588\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/06/RS56654_52052067027_34755aed5d_o-qut.jpg\" alt=\"A man in a blue uniform stands at a podium in front of a bulldozer.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/06/RS56654_52052067027_34755aed5d_o-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/06/RS56654_52052067027_34755aed5d_o-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/06/RS56654_52052067027_34755aed5d_o-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/06/RS56654_52052067027_34755aed5d_o-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/06/RS56654_52052067027_34755aed5d_o-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/06/RS56654_52052067027_34755aed5d_o-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Cal Fire Chief Joe Tyler speaks in Santa Rosa for Wildfire Preparedness Week, May 5, 2022. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Cal Fire)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Cal Fire Chief Joe Tyler has, however, spoken extensively about the need for the agency to be able to both prevent and fight fires, and is making progress in their preparedness goals. Becker aided Cal Fire in getting their budget doubled to 4 billion dollars this year as chair of the state’s budget subcommittee for natural resources.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We need better, more targeted prevention action to reduce the risk of losing entire communities like what happened in January,” the lawmaker said. “This is about getting every dollar we spend on wildfire prevention exactly where it needs to be as fast as possible … and making sure every dollar truly reduces wildfire risk.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For homeowners, wildfires costs have exploded. Recent analysis by Wara and colleagues indicates that the average state homeowner is paying $266 more per month in insurance and electricity costs than they were in 2020, largely because of wildfires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://ibhs.org/ibhs-news-releases/ibhs-releases-updated-wildfire-prepared-home-standard/\">insurance industry\u003c/a> has also openly supported the bill. Industry scientists said in a report this summer that Zone 0 was critical in preventing home ignitions. In a September letter to Newsom urging his signature on SB 326, the state’s top insurance regulator, Ricardo Lara, said: “With millions of homes in the Wildland Urban Interface, the early adoption of mitigation is critical to wildfire safety and insurability.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "A little-known bill will accelerate fire mitigation efforts by clearing space around housing across the state.",
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"title": "Will Newsom Sign California’s ‘Biggest Step’ Toward Saving Fire-Prone Neighborhoods? | KQED",
"description": "A little-known bill will accelerate fire mitigation efforts by clearing space around housing across the state.",
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"headline": "Will Newsom Sign California’s ‘Biggest Step’ Toward Saving Fire-Prone Neighborhoods?",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>In a year marked by the costliest \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/california\">California\u003c/a> fires on record, state lawmakers sent a large package of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/wildfires\">wildfire\u003c/a> bills to the governor’s desk. One measure in particular promises outsized impacts for protecting neighborhoods — and it’s largely flown under the radar.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billVersionsCompareClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260SB326&cversion=20250SB32698AMD\">Senate Bill 326\u003c/a>, sponsored by State Sen. Josh Becker (D-Menlo Park), would accelerate fire mitigation efforts, particularly in these older, at-risk neighborhoods, by mandating the removal of flammable trees and bushes for certain homes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re seeing more extreme weather conditions and we’re seeing wildfires spread at a speed that we’ve never seen before,” Becker said. “That’s why we need this bill.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While “not a panacea,” said Michael Wara, director of the Climate and Energy Policy Program and senior research scholar at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, “it’s the biggest step we can take this year.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The thorniest problem in the state’s effort to guard against wildfire devastation is how to protect the millions of homes that already exist in fire-prone areas, Wara said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1996121\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1996121\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/02/IMG_5331_duo.jpg\" alt=\"A before and after picture of a small, one-story, nicely kept home, and the remains of it after it was burned down.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"990\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/02/IMG_5331_duo.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/02/IMG_5331_duo-800x396.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/02/IMG_5331_duo-1020x505.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/02/IMG_5331_duo-160x79.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/02/IMG_5331_duo-768x380.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/02/IMG_5331_duo-1536x760.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/02/IMG_5331_duo-1920x950.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A family home in Altadena, California, before and after the Eaton Fire ravaged the community in January. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of the Moreno family)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“What we need to do is change how flammable people’s gardens are in places where there’s high risk,” he said. “That’s important if we want to have affordable insurance, affordable electricity. It’s important if we don’t want to lose communities like we did in Altadena.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While newer homes are built to relatively high fire safety standards, the vast \u003ca href=\"https://www.infoplease.com/us/census/california/housing-statistics\">majority\u003c/a> of California’s housing stock — built before the 1990s — was not designed with fire resilience in mind.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new regulations mandate a Zone 0 space, or an ember-resistant zone extending five feet around a house, where there is non-burnable material like river rocks instead of plants or mulch. It’s controversial, in part because it would dramatically alter the appearance of many neighborhoods. Homeowners are understandably reluctant to tear out beloved, beautiful plants.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>However, fire prevention advocates see this as the simplest, most affordable way to quickly improve fire resilience in vulnerable neighborhoods. Tearing out a bush, for instance, costs far less — and is much quicker — than retrofits like replacing a roof. And the \u003ca href=\"https://34c031f8-c9fd-4018-8c5a-4159cdff6b0d-cdn-endpoint.azureedge.net/-/media/bof-website/projects-and-programs/defensible-space-zones-0-1-2/previous-public-workshops-and-materials/2025/sept-22/august-zone-0-rule-plead.pdf?rev=86f548de3486423c995bb2394aaaa4c1&hash=F8723E42A201545B808CBC0B68FF937B\">current draft regulations\u003c/a> do not call for removing permanent features like a wooden deck or fence within 5 feet of the home. Supporters argue that the absence of coordinated fire-resilience planning wastes state resources. While California develops long-term plans for resources like water, it lacks a comparable approach for wildfire prevention.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The bill moves up the timeline for Zone 0 requirements in high-risk areas, implementing some of the requirements as early as Jan. 1, 2026. If enacted, the legislation would also require Cal Fire to create a strategic, regularly updated plan for better assessing fire danger in the state and planning how to prevent destruction before a disaster hits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If vetoed, Zone 0 requirements — the details of which are still being \u003ca href=\"https://bof.fire.ca.gov/projects-and-programs/defensible-space-zones-0-1-and-2\">hammered out\u003c/a> by the state Board of Forestry — would apply to new construction after Jan.1. Three years from now, at the end of 2028, it would apply to all homes in high-risk zones.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If SB 326 is signed, it would also apply to rental properties and houses for sale as of Jan.1. Wara said the rationale is to take a measured approach.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1994257\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1994257\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/09/240909-BOYLESFIRE-22-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/09/240909-BOYLESFIRE-22-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/09/240909-BOYLESFIRE-22-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/09/240909-BOYLESFIRE-22-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/09/240909-BOYLESFIRE-22-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/09/240909-BOYLESFIRE-22-BL-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/09/240909-BOYLESFIRE-22-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/09/240909-BOYLESFIRE-22-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A home destroyed by the Boyles Fire in Clearlake on Sept. 9, 2024, after the wildfire swept through the area on Sept. 8, 2024. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“It doesn’t say everybody has to do this right away, because that would be too much,” Wara said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, the bill authors believe, people who have rentals and are making money from their house in a high-risk area should contribute to reducing risk in the community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Also, if you’re selling your house, you’ve got to do this,” Wara said, “because it’s a time when there’s cash available and where you might be more open to making changes in your backyard that will create safety.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California has 1.3 million homes in high or very high severity areas, and retrofitting those homes would cost tens of billions of dollars, said Matt Weiner, CEO of Megafire Action, a nonprofit advancing policy to avoid catastrophic wildfire.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>For right now, Zone 0 is “the most important tool that we can move quickly on to guard against ember-driven fires like we saw in Palisades and Altadena,” Weiner said. The bill also provides funding to counties working to implement Zone 0.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Up to 90% of homes destroyed in a wildfire burn down from embers finding their way inside the structure and burning it down from the inside. Relatively few homes burn down from coming into contact with a flaming front.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://news.berkeley.edu/2025/08/28/california-communities-can-reduce-wildfire-damage-by-half-heres-how/\">Researchers from UC Berkeley estimate\u003c/a> that 50% fewer homes would burn down in the extreme kind of conditions seen in the L.A. fires if neighborhoods hardened homes and had defensible space. Just complying with Zone 0 alone would reduce structure loss by an estimated 17%.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With California spending billions on firefighting and homeowners bearing soaring insurance costs, advocates have argued that it’s time to move beyond the traditional “business as usual” approach.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Frankly, we knew we needed to do this back in 2017 and 2018,” Wara said. Those years saw terrible losses in Wine Country fires and the fire that destroyed the town of Paradise. “There was legislation [passed in 2020] that would have required it; it was supposed to take effect in 2023,” Wara said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1976871\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1976871\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/RS51646_GettyImages-1235453439-qut.jpg\" alt=\"Governor Gavin Newsom speaks at a podium in a cloud of wildfire smoke.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/RS51646_GettyImages-1235453439-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/RS51646_GettyImages-1235453439-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/RS51646_GettyImages-1235453439-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/RS51646_GettyImages-1235453439-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/RS51646_GettyImages-1235453439-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/RS51646_GettyImages-1235453439-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Gov. Gavin Newsom discusses California’s wildfires, before signing a $15 billion climate package, during a ceremony at Sequoia National Park near Three Rivers, on Sept. 23, 2021. \u003ccite>(Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But the state’s Board of Forestry missed the deadline, struggling to balance the concerns of homeowners with the desires of the insurance industry. In February, following the Los Angeles firestorm, Gov. Gavin Newsom \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/2025/02/06/governor-newsom-signs-executive-order-to-further-prepare-for-future-urban-firestorms-stepping-up-already-nation-leading-strategies/\">ordered the rules\u003c/a> to be completed by the end of this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The bill will also require Cal Fire and the State Fire Marshal to develop and use models to assess where risk is highest and how risk changes as safety projects are completed. The key, Weiner said, is to have cohesion between wildfire prevention work being done on the landscape level, the neighborhood level and the parcel level, by communities, utilities and homeowners. Currently, there is little to no coordination, which advocates have said risks wasting money and effort.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Proposals to require comprehensive fire planning have been introduced before, but have never made it to the governor’s desk. The heart- and record-breaking devastation from January’s fires in Los Angeles helped give it added urgency this year, advocates said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You want “somebody looking at the entire picture and helping inform the highest impact work to be done,” Weiner said. The state is spending hundreds of millions of dollars to prepare for fires. “You want somebody to assess that holistically.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The bill’s technical nature may have hidden it from public attention — despite its potential to save homes and lives, Weiner said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1994224\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1994224\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/09/AP24253126507105-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/09/AP24253126507105-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/09/AP24253126507105-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/09/AP24253126507105-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/09/AP24253126507105-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/09/AP24253126507105-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/09/AP24253126507105-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/09/AP24253126507105-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Firefighter Nolan Graham sprays water around a scorched garage as the Boyles fire burns in Clearlake on Sept. 8, 2024. \u003ccite>(Noah Berger/AP Photo)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“I think one of the reasons [this proposal] doesn’t get enough attention is because whenever you start talking ‘tech,’ people think about it as a sideshow, nice to have but not a fundamental need,” Weiner said. “And nobody gets excited about creating the enabling conditions for future work.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If signed, the bill would increase the responsibility and work demands placed on Cal Fire and the State Fire Marshal. It would also impose some accountability in the form of requiring annual reports that would give a comprehensive overview of how they could strategically lessen wildfire risk.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those reports would aid lawmakers in overseeing their work. When it passed its \u003ca href=\"http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billVotesClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260SB326\">final vote\u003c/a> in September, no representatives voted against it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>KQED reached out to Cal Fire to discuss SB 326. An agency spokesperson said they do not comment on pending legislation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Critics have claimed that the state’s fire agency has been more motivated by responding to and fighting fires than working to prevent them, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1979560/cal-fire-fumbles-key-responsibilities-to-prevent-catastrophic-wildfires-despite-historic-budget\">and has fumbled key \u003c/a>responsibilities for management and mitigation, despite a historic budget.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1979588\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1979588\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/06/RS56654_52052067027_34755aed5d_o-qut.jpg\" alt=\"A man in a blue uniform stands at a podium in front of a bulldozer.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/06/RS56654_52052067027_34755aed5d_o-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/06/RS56654_52052067027_34755aed5d_o-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/06/RS56654_52052067027_34755aed5d_o-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/06/RS56654_52052067027_34755aed5d_o-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/06/RS56654_52052067027_34755aed5d_o-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/06/RS56654_52052067027_34755aed5d_o-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Cal Fire Chief Joe Tyler speaks in Santa Rosa for Wildfire Preparedness Week, May 5, 2022. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Cal Fire)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Cal Fire Chief Joe Tyler has, however, spoken extensively about the need for the agency to be able to both prevent and fight fires, and is making progress in their preparedness goals. Becker aided Cal Fire in getting their budget doubled to 4 billion dollars this year as chair of the state’s budget subcommittee for natural resources.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We need better, more targeted prevention action to reduce the risk of losing entire communities like what happened in January,” the lawmaker said. “This is about getting every dollar we spend on wildfire prevention exactly where it needs to be as fast as possible … and making sure every dollar truly reduces wildfire risk.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For homeowners, wildfires costs have exploded. Recent analysis by Wara and colleagues indicates that the average state homeowner is paying $266 more per month in insurance and electricity costs than they were in 2020, largely because of wildfires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://ibhs.org/ibhs-news-releases/ibhs-releases-updated-wildfire-prepared-home-standard/\">insurance industry\u003c/a> has also openly supported the bill. Industry scientists said in a report this summer that Zone 0 was critical in preventing home ignitions. In a September letter to Newsom urging his signature on SB 326, the state’s top insurance regulator, Ricardo Lara, said: “With millions of homes in the Wildland Urban Interface, the early adoption of mitigation is critical to wildfire safety and insurability.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>When \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/caltrain\">Caltrain\u003c/a> rolled out its electrified fleet last year, the new, more eco-friendly trains also came with the ability to recapture energy as they slow down and return it to the grid.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, the agency will start to be compensated for that power, following policy changes from local providers Peninsula Clean Energy and San José Clean Energy announced Wednesday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Caltrain’s regenerative braking is performing better than officials originally anticipated, returning 23% of the power used by its new electric trains. As a result, the commuter rail line revised down its estimated annual power cost from $19.5 million to $16.5 million. Caltrain’s service runs on 100% renewable energy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There is no legal requirement for the transit agency to be reimbursed for the energy generated by its trains; until now, Caltrain was providing that power back to the grid free of charge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s exciting and will bring down costs for Caltrain, compensate the system for the energy it’s giving back to the grid,” said San José Mayor Matt Mahan, who spoke to KQED after a press conference at the city’s Diridon Station.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>State lawmakers are considering legislation that would make this a standard model for any public agency, allowing them to be compensated for all the power they return to the grid. AB 1372, a two-year bill by Assemblymember Diane Papan, D-San Mateo, would also identify regenerative braking from electric trains as a renewable electrical generation facility.[aside postID=news_12058994 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/NobelPrizePhysicsGetty1.jpg']Papan introduced the bill in February to fill what she called a “gap in the system.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Caltrain was sending clean, renewable energy back to the grid, but it wasn’t getting credit for it,” Papan said. “If this were a rooftop solar situation, we would certainly be getting the credit for what we sent back to grid.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The bill did not pass this legislative session, but it will be considered next year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, Peninsula Clean Energy and San José Clean Energy voluntarily changed their policies to allow for a net billing tariff to compensate the transit agency for energy returned to the grid. “I’m delighted about it because it really does give Caltrain the credit that it deserves,” Papan said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mahan said that this model points to a more innovative future that extends to people’s homes, “where we have a connected grid with electric vehicles and devices on the grid that can charge two ways.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He recently installed two batteries at his house, which are capable of storing power and putting it back on the grid. “But the market and the financing structure still is not mature enough,” he said. “That’s a policy innovation that we need.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>When \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/caltrain\">Caltrain\u003c/a> rolled out its electrified fleet last year, the new, more eco-friendly trains also came with the ability to recapture energy as they slow down and return it to the grid.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, the agency will start to be compensated for that power, following policy changes from local providers Peninsula Clean Energy and San José Clean Energy announced Wednesday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Caltrain’s regenerative braking is performing better than officials originally anticipated, returning 23% of the power used by its new electric trains. As a result, the commuter rail line revised down its estimated annual power cost from $19.5 million to $16.5 million. Caltrain’s service runs on 100% renewable energy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There is no legal requirement for the transit agency to be reimbursed for the energy generated by its trains; until now, Caltrain was providing that power back to the grid free of charge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s exciting and will bring down costs for Caltrain, compensate the system for the energy it’s giving back to the grid,” said San José Mayor Matt Mahan, who spoke to KQED after a press conference at the city’s Diridon Station.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>State lawmakers are considering legislation that would make this a standard model for any public agency, allowing them to be compensated for all the power they return to the grid. AB 1372, a two-year bill by Assemblymember Diane Papan, D-San Mateo, would also identify regenerative braking from electric trains as a renewable electrical generation facility.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Papan introduced the bill in February to fill what she called a “gap in the system.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Caltrain was sending clean, renewable energy back to the grid, but it wasn’t getting credit for it,” Papan said. “If this were a rooftop solar situation, we would certainly be getting the credit for what we sent back to grid.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The bill did not pass this legislative session, but it will be considered next year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, Peninsula Clean Energy and San José Clean Energy voluntarily changed their policies to allow for a net billing tariff to compensate the transit agency for energy returned to the grid. “I’m delighted about it because it really does give Caltrain the credit that it deserves,” Papan said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mahan said that this model points to a more innovative future that extends to people’s homes, “where we have a connected grid with electric vehicles and devices on the grid that can charge two ways.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He recently installed two batteries at his house, which are capable of storing power and putting it back on the grid. “But the market and the financing structure still is not mature enough,” he said. “That’s a policy innovation that we need.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "californias-ancient-glaciers-are-melting-away-for-the-first-time-in-human-history",
"title": "California’s Ancient Glaciers Are Melting Away for the First Time in Human History",
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"content": "\u003cp>Glaciers in California’s mountains are \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/3284/californias-vanishing-glaciers-a-defining-moment\">disappearing fast and will likely be gone\u003c/a> by the end of the century. Geologists found that these glaciers have been in place since before humans came to the Americas. This means there is no precedent in the last 20,000 years for their disappearance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new research challenges a previous assumption that California’s glaciers had waxed and waned into disappearance since the end of the last glacial period, offering a new understanding of their history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Glaciers offer a touchstone — something we can literally hike to and touch — providing a link between our past and present.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The reason this work is important is because climate change feels abstract and nebulous,” said Andrew Jones, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and lead author on a study\u003ca href=\"https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adx9442\"> published Wednesday in \u003cem>Science Advances\u003c/em>\u003c/a>. “You hear about two degrees Celsius of warming. To most people, that’s just an imperceivable difference on their home thermostat. But our findings here are tangible.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To accompany the paper, Jones and his co-authors released comparative photographs showing before and after pictures. For instance, in the late 1880s, when John Muir was studying glacial flow with wooden stakes, the East Lyell Glacier in Yosemite covered a broad sweep of the mountainside. Today, it is just a few blobs clinging on in the hollows.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1998701\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250930-MACLURE-GLACIER-01-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1998701\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250930-MACLURE-GLACIER-01-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1500\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250930-MACLURE-GLACIER-01-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250930-MACLURE-GLACIER-01-KQED-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250930-MACLURE-GLACIER-01-KQED-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250930-MACLURE-GLACIER-01-KQED-1536x1152.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Maclure Glacier in Yosemite National Park. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Andrew Jones)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>This glacier will be familiar to anyone who has hiked south from Tuolumne Meadows toward Donahue Pass. Backpackers who love the Sierra Nevada may be likewise familiar with other glaciers evaluated by the research team: Maclure, Conness and Palisade.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The researchers, however, had to access these glaciers without the benefit of trails. The fieldwork was grueling, Jones admitted with a laugh: “Man, the hiking was really difficult, honestly.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The research team traversed glacial moraines — large deposits of rock out in front of glaciers — places that had been covered by ice until a few decades ago. From there, they collected samples of bedrock just below glaciers to determine, through isotopes, how long it had been since that rock was last exposed to sunlight. “The [moraines] are very loose, very treacherous. You step on a boulder and it slides,” said Jones. “You’re like, ‘Oh that’s not good.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jones also said he had to laugh at the effort he and other members of the research team put into packing ultralight, bare bones gear. They did things like snap toothbrushes in half to save a few ounces, only to then carry out backpacks full of pounds of rock for testing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was all the sacrifice of ultralight for none of the benefit,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To determine whether California’s glaciers had disappeared and reemerged since the last glacial maximum, the team used carbon-beryllium isotopes to evaluate those recently exposed rocks. Jones uses a battery analogy to explain. When the ice is gone and rock is exposed, the sun can “charge up” the rock. When the glacier comes back, the charge slowly recedes. But they found no “charge” at all in the glaciers tested in and around Yosemite.[aside postID=science_1992917 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/05/2014-05-12t120000z_163168172_gm1ea5d0e0o01_rtrmadp_3_climatechange-antarctica_wide-dc872b259e838b06facf859b790dcd5ad4af35cf-1020x573.jpg']“That tells us that rock has not seen the light of day for a very, very long time.” They estimate at least 10,000 years, probably 30,000 years. That’s before humans began living on this continent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This finding contrasts with the history of glaciers in the Swiss Alps, which have expanded, shrunk, expanded, and then, with global heating, begun to shrink again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many of the glaciers in the Sierra Nevada have shrunk so much that they no longer flow or move, which geologists consider “alive.” A slow slide downhill is a hallmark of normal glacial behavior — and it results in beautiful glacial carving of rock — but to do that, it has to be of a certain thickness. Many of California’s glaciers are now too small and thin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When the Sierra Nevada glaciers are all gone, as projected in 2100, the generation of kids living now will be the first humans ever to see the rocks below.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Glacial loss feels like emotional loss for many who love the mountains. But here, amid the sadness, there is room for perspective and hope.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mountain glaciers are more sensitive to climate signals than other indicators, like the polar ice sheets. Changing the trend of an ice sheet is a huge undertaking — like turning a colossal ship. A glacier, like Lyell, is comparatively a small boat — one that can turn quickly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our decisions really do matter in how many glaciers survive,” Jones said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If we succeed in bringing down the concentration of warming gases in our atmosphere closer to levels we saw in the late 1980s (350 parts per million), glaciers globally would have a good shot at stabilizing, perhaps even starting to grow again. Just as their loss has heralded a heating planet, one that is suffering as if from a fever, their reappearance one day could be an early signal of a planet returning to health.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Glaciers in California’s mountains are \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/3284/californias-vanishing-glaciers-a-defining-moment\">disappearing fast and will likely be gone\u003c/a> by the end of the century. Geologists found that these glaciers have been in place since before humans came to the Americas. This means there is no precedent in the last 20,000 years for their disappearance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new research challenges a previous assumption that California’s glaciers had waxed and waned into disappearance since the end of the last glacial period, offering a new understanding of their history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Glaciers offer a touchstone — something we can literally hike to and touch — providing a link between our past and present.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The reason this work is important is because climate change feels abstract and nebulous,” said Andrew Jones, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and lead author on a study\u003ca href=\"https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adx9442\"> published Wednesday in \u003cem>Science Advances\u003c/em>\u003c/a>. “You hear about two degrees Celsius of warming. To most people, that’s just an imperceivable difference on their home thermostat. But our findings here are tangible.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To accompany the paper, Jones and his co-authors released comparative photographs showing before and after pictures. For instance, in the late 1880s, when John Muir was studying glacial flow with wooden stakes, the East Lyell Glacier in Yosemite covered a broad sweep of the mountainside. Today, it is just a few blobs clinging on in the hollows.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1998701\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250930-MACLURE-GLACIER-01-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1998701\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250930-MACLURE-GLACIER-01-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1500\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250930-MACLURE-GLACIER-01-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250930-MACLURE-GLACIER-01-KQED-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250930-MACLURE-GLACIER-01-KQED-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250930-MACLURE-GLACIER-01-KQED-1536x1152.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Maclure Glacier in Yosemite National Park. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Andrew Jones)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>This glacier will be familiar to anyone who has hiked south from Tuolumne Meadows toward Donahue Pass. Backpackers who love the Sierra Nevada may be likewise familiar with other glaciers evaluated by the research team: Maclure, Conness and Palisade.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The researchers, however, had to access these glaciers without the benefit of trails. The fieldwork was grueling, Jones admitted with a laugh: “Man, the hiking was really difficult, honestly.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The research team traversed glacial moraines — large deposits of rock out in front of glaciers — places that had been covered by ice until a few decades ago. From there, they collected samples of bedrock just below glaciers to determine, through isotopes, how long it had been since that rock was last exposed to sunlight. “The [moraines] are very loose, very treacherous. You step on a boulder and it slides,” said Jones. “You’re like, ‘Oh that’s not good.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jones also said he had to laugh at the effort he and other members of the research team put into packing ultralight, bare bones gear. They did things like snap toothbrushes in half to save a few ounces, only to then carry out backpacks full of pounds of rock for testing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was all the sacrifice of ultralight for none of the benefit,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To determine whether California’s glaciers had disappeared and reemerged since the last glacial maximum, the team used carbon-beryllium isotopes to evaluate those recently exposed rocks. Jones uses a battery analogy to explain. When the ice is gone and rock is exposed, the sun can “charge up” the rock. When the glacier comes back, the charge slowly recedes. But they found no “charge” at all in the glaciers tested in and around Yosemite.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“That tells us that rock has not seen the light of day for a very, very long time.” They estimate at least 10,000 years, probably 30,000 years. That’s before humans began living on this continent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This finding contrasts with the history of glaciers in the Swiss Alps, which have expanded, shrunk, expanded, and then, with global heating, begun to shrink again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many of the glaciers in the Sierra Nevada have shrunk so much that they no longer flow or move, which geologists consider “alive.” A slow slide downhill is a hallmark of normal glacial behavior — and it results in beautiful glacial carving of rock — but to do that, it has to be of a certain thickness. Many of California’s glaciers are now too small and thin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When the Sierra Nevada glaciers are all gone, as projected in 2100, the generation of kids living now will be the first humans ever to see the rocks below.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Glacial loss feels like emotional loss for many who love the mountains. But here, amid the sadness, there is room for perspective and hope.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mountain glaciers are more sensitive to climate signals than other indicators, like the polar ice sheets. Changing the trend of an ice sheet is a huge undertaking — like turning a colossal ship. A glacier, like Lyell, is comparatively a small boat — one that can turn quickly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our decisions really do matter in how many glaciers survive,” Jones said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If we succeed in bringing down the concentration of warming gases in our atmosphere closer to levels we saw in the late 1980s (350 parts per million), glaciers globally would have a good shot at stabilizing, perhaps even starting to grow again. Just as their loss has heralded a heating planet, one that is suffering as if from a fever, their reappearance one day could be an early signal of a planet returning to health.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Many of the world’s largest and most devastating \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/earthquake\">earthquakes\u003c/a> strike beneath the ocean, where the lack of sensors makes quick warnings difficult. Most monitoring stations are on land.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If we have a big earthquake under the water, like that Kamchatka earthquake [this summer], our sensors that tell us an earthquake just happened are really quite far away,” said \u003ca href=\"https://seismo.sites.ucsc.edu/emily-brodsky/\">Emily Brodsky\u003c/a>, a geophysicist at UC Santa Cruz. “And so we’re sort of looking through this very fuzzy pair of glasses at the earthquake and making our best guess on what it’s gonna mean in terms of tsunamis or anything else.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>New \u003ca href=\"https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adx6858\">research published Thursday\u003c/a> suggests fiber optic cables on the ocean floor could serve as earthquake sensors, Brodsky said. She \u003ca href=\"https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aeb1414\">co-authored a commentary\u003c/a> accompanying the paper.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With 70% of the planet covered by water, using telecommunications infrastructure as seismometers could fill major blind spots in earthquake detection in a relatively affordable and scientifically robust way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While this is not the first paper describing the technique, it pushes the technology to new limits, focusing on how faults rupture underwater. That’s important because researchers could see that the fault was rupturing super fast, casting new light on the physics of earthquakes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To use fiber optic cables this way, researchers partner with a company running the cables — in this case, \u003ca href=\"https://www.verofiber.com/\">Vero Fiber Networks\u003c/a> — and attach a box containing a laser and a computer. The laser sends pulses into the fiber that echo all along its length.[aside postID=news_12057001 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/250922-BERKELEY-EARTHQUAKE-KQED-1.jpg']If the cable stretches due to earthquake movements, the light echoes change. The changes can be converted into measurements, giving a fine-grained view of the event. Even in California, which is relatively well-covered by seismometers, stations are spaced several miles apart. Fiber optic sensing allows measurements down to the scale of feet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With this higher resolution, earthquake early warning alerts, like \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1994754/emergency-alert-phone-earthquake-test-2024-myshake\">Californians receive through MyShake\u003c/a>, could improve.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Traditionally, it’s very, very hard to see for big earthquakes, how long is the fault that’s rupturing, in what direction is it going?” said \u003ca href=\"https://www.usgs.gov/staff-profiles/james-w-atterholt\">James Atterholt\u003c/a>, a seismologist with the U.S. Geological Survey and author on the research paper. “And this technology shows that with modifications, with advancements, that this could be done in real time.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some experts are skeptical that predicting earthquakes is possible. Others, including Brodsky, are cautiously optimistic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Just to be clear, no, we do not know how to predict earthquakes. But we do want to study whether or not they’re predictable,” she said. “We are in a totally different place than we were 15 years ago.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scientists now have better hypotheses for how prediction could work, Brodsky said, but “to a large extent, we’re instrumentally limited and we need the investment. And it’s kind of that simple.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Many of the world’s largest and most devastating \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/earthquake\">earthquakes\u003c/a> strike beneath the ocean, where the lack of sensors makes quick warnings difficult. Most monitoring stations are on land.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If we have a big earthquake under the water, like that Kamchatka earthquake [this summer], our sensors that tell us an earthquake just happened are really quite far away,” said \u003ca href=\"https://seismo.sites.ucsc.edu/emily-brodsky/\">Emily Brodsky\u003c/a>, a geophysicist at UC Santa Cruz. “And so we’re sort of looking through this very fuzzy pair of glasses at the earthquake and making our best guess on what it’s gonna mean in terms of tsunamis or anything else.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>New \u003ca href=\"https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adx6858\">research published Thursday\u003c/a> suggests fiber optic cables on the ocean floor could serve as earthquake sensors, Brodsky said. She \u003ca href=\"https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aeb1414\">co-authored a commentary\u003c/a> accompanying the paper.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With 70% of the planet covered by water, using telecommunications infrastructure as seismometers could fill major blind spots in earthquake detection in a relatively affordable and scientifically robust way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While this is not the first paper describing the technique, it pushes the technology to new limits, focusing on how faults rupture underwater. That’s important because researchers could see that the fault was rupturing super fast, casting new light on the physics of earthquakes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To use fiber optic cables this way, researchers partner with a company running the cables — in this case, \u003ca href=\"https://www.verofiber.com/\">Vero Fiber Networks\u003c/a> — and attach a box containing a laser and a computer. The laser sends pulses into the fiber that echo all along its length.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>If the cable stretches due to earthquake movements, the light echoes change. The changes can be converted into measurements, giving a fine-grained view of the event. Even in California, which is relatively well-covered by seismometers, stations are spaced several miles apart. Fiber optic sensing allows measurements down to the scale of feet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With this higher resolution, earthquake early warning alerts, like \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1994754/emergency-alert-phone-earthquake-test-2024-myshake\">Californians receive through MyShake\u003c/a>, could improve.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Traditionally, it’s very, very hard to see for big earthquakes, how long is the fault that’s rupturing, in what direction is it going?” said \u003ca href=\"https://www.usgs.gov/staff-profiles/james-w-atterholt\">James Atterholt\u003c/a>, a seismologist with the U.S. Geological Survey and author on the research paper. “And this technology shows that with modifications, with advancements, that this could be done in real time.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some experts are skeptical that predicting earthquakes is possible. Others, including Brodsky, are cautiously optimistic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Just to be clear, no, we do not know how to predict earthquakes. But we do want to study whether or not they’re predictable,” she said. “We are in a totally different place than we were 15 years ago.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scientists now have better hypotheses for how prediction could work, Brodsky said, but “to a large extent, we’re instrumentally limited and we need the investment. And it’s kind of that simple.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>This story was originally published in January 2019. It is being republished after a magnitude 4.3 earthquake centered near Berkeley rattled the Bay Area on Monday morning. Read more\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12057001/bay-area-earthquake-was-near-fault-thats-overdue-for-intense-quake\"> here\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On two straight mornings in January 2019, residents awoke to the familiar rock and roll from a\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11718873/another-morning-another-wake-up-quake-in-the-east-bay-hills\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> cluster of relatively small earthquakes\u003c/a> along the Hayward Fault, across the bay from San Francisco. It’s not the first time, nor will it be the last.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While neither the magnitude 3.4 nor 3.5 quakes broke the seismograph, the two events struck in essentially the same spot. Both had epicenters nestled in the Oakland-Berkeley Hills, just a few miles from the UC Berkeley campus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Such cluster quakes always get people wondering if they mean more than the usual random jiggling. To get a read on this, we spoke to earthquake experts with UC Berkeley’s \u003ca href=\"http://earthquakes.berkeley.edu/blog/2015/10/13/weak-stresses-strong-earthquakes.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Seismology Lab\u003c/a> about what it means, if anything, when it comes to forecasting the next Big One.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to Peggy Hellweg with UC Berkeley’s Seismology Lab, there’s minor earthquake activity occurring almost continuously along the Hayward Fault, though most of it goes unnoticed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And while January’s “felt quakes” were reported as individual events, they can be thought of as belonging to the same sequence of earthquakes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I would actually group them together since they’re so close together on the fault and call one the foreshock, and then the one from Thursday morning, the main shock,” Hellweg says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>What Kind of Fault?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The trouble with terms like “foreshock” and “aftershock” is that scientists never know how to categorize one or the other until after the shaking settles down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hellweg says she wouldn’t have been surprised to see tiny quakes or even another of similar size in the days following to finish out the sequence.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you look at the history of earthquakes along this section of the Hayward Fault, there can be from one to four earthquakes felt by the people who live here,” Hellweg says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>What do minor “felt quakes” foretell about the likelihood of the next Big One hitting the Hayward Fault?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Short answer: There’s no way to know for sure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the one hand, Hellweg says, in the last 20 to 30 years, “no big earthquake has happened on the Hayward Fault associated with one of these little sequences of earthquakes.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But here’s the bad news: pressure has been building up on the Hayward Fault. It’s been more than 150 years since the\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1933064/map-are-you-in-the-severe-damage-zone-for-the-bay-areas-next-big-earthquake\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> last major earthquake\u003c/a> to rattle the fault, which stretches through the most \u003ca href=\"http://seismo.berkeley.edu/hayward/\">densely populated\u003c/a> stretch of the East Bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Geological studies put the average interval between big quakes on the Hayward Fault at about 140 years, give or take 50 years. Meaning the Big One could happen any day now or not in the lifetime of many middle-aged residents. Scientists who developed the \u003ca href=\"https://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2016/3020/fs20163020.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">HayWired\u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2016/3020/fs20163020.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> modeling scenario\u003c/a> estimate that there’s about a one-in-three chance of a magnitude-7 quake on the Hayward within the next 30 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And here’s the other bad news: the oft-repeated idea that minor temblors serve to relieve pressure on the fault and lessen the chances of a major event, is a myth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the question of whether it happens tomorrow, Hellweg says, “Do I expect it? No. Would I be surprised? No.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://twitter.com/thepaintgrammer/status/1085905639077928969\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Where does that leave the current state of the Hayward Fault?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Reports from the U.S. Geological Survey suggest that damage caused by the next major quake along the Hayward Fault could be \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-hayward-fault-20180417-htmlstory.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">catastrophic\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What concerns UC Berkeley seismologist Roland Burgmann is where recent small quakes occurred on the fault line.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They’re right next to part of the Hayward Fault that — from the kind of research we do here at Berkeley — we know to be the part that’s fully locked,” Burgman says. “That’s the part that, when a really big earthquake — magnitude 7 or so — happens again on the Hayward Fault, it will likely rupture.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fault lines — or different portions of the same fault — can be classified as \u003ca href=\"https://geomaps.wr.usgs.gov/sfgeo/quaternary/stories/hayward_creep.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">locked or creeping\u003c/a>. Creeping faults shift slowly over time, and may undergo smaller quakes like the ones observed this week. Locked faults, however, don’t move, causing pressure to build until a large-magnitude earthquake releases it. The Hayward Fault is considered a mixed fault line, with sections that creep and ones that don’t. The ones that don’t pose the biggest danger.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This [latest] pair of events is small, but they’re right next to the sleeping beast of the Hayward Fault that we know is essentially ready to have a big earthquake today or in a couple of decades.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The danger, according to Burgmann, is that a cluster of small quakes adjacent to the locked portion of the fault could be “possible foreshocks” to a major quake. Unfortunately, he says, there’s no real way to predict this scenario.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Get those earthquake kits ready\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The takeaway here is probably already clear; Burgmann says small quakes are a good signal to get prepared — that whenever we have one, it boosts the probability of another occurring within a week by about 10 percent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Essentially what that means for people is whenever you feel an earthquake, that’s a good time to check on your earthquake kit.” Burgmann says. “It shouldn’t be a cause for true alarm, but it should be a reason to reassess.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And for what it’s worth: Burgmann muses that after years of studying the fault, a recent series of small shakers on the Hayward finally prompted him to buy earthquake insurance himself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>KQED Science Editor Craig Miller 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>\u003cem>This story was originally published in January 2019. It is being republished after a magnitude 4.3 earthquake centered near Berkeley rattled the Bay Area on Monday morning. Read more\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12057001/bay-area-earthquake-was-near-fault-thats-overdue-for-intense-quake\"> here\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On two straight mornings in January 2019, residents awoke to the familiar rock and roll from a\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11718873/another-morning-another-wake-up-quake-in-the-east-bay-hills\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> cluster of relatively small earthquakes\u003c/a> along the Hayward Fault, across the bay from San Francisco. It’s not the first time, nor will it be the last.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While neither the magnitude 3.4 nor 3.5 quakes broke the seismograph, the two events struck in essentially the same spot. Both had epicenters nestled in the Oakland-Berkeley Hills, just a few miles from the UC Berkeley campus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Such cluster quakes always get people wondering if they mean more than the usual random jiggling. To get a read on this, we spoke to earthquake experts with UC Berkeley’s \u003ca href=\"http://earthquakes.berkeley.edu/blog/2015/10/13/weak-stresses-strong-earthquakes.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Seismology Lab\u003c/a> about what it means, if anything, when it comes to forecasting the next Big One.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to Peggy Hellweg with UC Berkeley’s Seismology Lab, there’s minor earthquake activity occurring almost continuously along the Hayward Fault, though most of it goes unnoticed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And while January’s “felt quakes” were reported as individual events, they can be thought of as belonging to the same sequence of earthquakes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I would actually group them together since they’re so close together on the fault and call one the foreshock, and then the one from Thursday morning, the main shock,” Hellweg says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>What Kind of Fault?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The trouble with terms like “foreshock” and “aftershock” is that scientists never know how to categorize one or the other until after the shaking settles down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hellweg says she wouldn’t have been surprised to see tiny quakes or even another of similar size in the days following to finish out the sequence.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you look at the history of earthquakes along this section of the Hayward Fault, there can be from one to four earthquakes felt by the people who live here,” Hellweg says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>What do minor “felt quakes” foretell about the likelihood of the next Big One hitting the Hayward Fault?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Short answer: There’s no way to know for sure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the one hand, Hellweg says, in the last 20 to 30 years, “no big earthquake has happened on the Hayward Fault associated with one of these little sequences of earthquakes.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But here’s the bad news: pressure has been building up on the Hayward Fault. It’s been more than 150 years since the\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1933064/map-are-you-in-the-severe-damage-zone-for-the-bay-areas-next-big-earthquake\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> last major earthquake\u003c/a> to rattle the fault, which stretches through the most \u003ca href=\"http://seismo.berkeley.edu/hayward/\">densely populated\u003c/a> stretch of the East Bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Geological studies put the average interval between big quakes on the Hayward Fault at about 140 years, give or take 50 years. Meaning the Big One could happen any day now or not in the lifetime of many middle-aged residents. Scientists who developed the \u003ca href=\"https://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2016/3020/fs20163020.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">HayWired\u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2016/3020/fs20163020.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> modeling scenario\u003c/a> estimate that there’s about a one-in-three chance of a magnitude-7 quake on the Hayward within the next 30 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And here’s the other bad news: the oft-repeated idea that minor temblors serve to relieve pressure on the fault and lessen the chances of a major event, is a myth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the question of whether it happens tomorrow, Hellweg says, “Do I expect it? No. Would I be surprised? No.”\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Where does that leave the current state of the Hayward Fault?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Reports from the U.S. Geological Survey suggest that damage caused by the next major quake along the Hayward Fault could be \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-hayward-fault-20180417-htmlstory.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">catastrophic\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What concerns UC Berkeley seismologist Roland Burgmann is where recent small quakes occurred on the fault line.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They’re right next to part of the Hayward Fault that — from the kind of research we do here at Berkeley — we know to be the part that’s fully locked,” Burgman says. “That’s the part that, when a really big earthquake — magnitude 7 or so — happens again on the Hayward Fault, it will likely rupture.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fault lines — or different portions of the same fault — can be classified as \u003ca href=\"https://geomaps.wr.usgs.gov/sfgeo/quaternary/stories/hayward_creep.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">locked or creeping\u003c/a>. Creeping faults shift slowly over time, and may undergo smaller quakes like the ones observed this week. Locked faults, however, don’t move, causing pressure to build until a large-magnitude earthquake releases it. The Hayward Fault is considered a mixed fault line, with sections that creep and ones that don’t. The ones that don’t pose the biggest danger.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This [latest] pair of events is small, but they’re right next to the sleeping beast of the Hayward Fault that we know is essentially ready to have a big earthquake today or in a couple of decades.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The danger, according to Burgmann, is that a cluster of small quakes adjacent to the locked portion of the fault could be “possible foreshocks” to a major quake. Unfortunately, he says, there’s no real way to predict this scenario.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Get those earthquake kits ready\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The takeaway here is probably already clear; Burgmann says small quakes are a good signal to get prepared — that whenever we have one, it boosts the probability of another occurring within a week by about 10 percent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Essentially what that means for people is whenever you feel an earthquake, that’s a good time to check on your earthquake kit.” Burgmann says. “It shouldn’t be a cause for true alarm, but it should be a reason to reassess.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And for what it’s worth: Burgmann muses that after years of studying the fault, a recent series of small shakers on the Hayward finally prompted him to buy earthquake insurance himself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>KQED Science Editor Craig Miller contributed to this post.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"slug": "newsom-signs-climate-energy-bills-charting-state-course-through-perilous-mid-transition",
"title": "Newsom Signs Climate, Energy Bills Charting State Course Through Perilous ‘Mid-Transition’",
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"headTitle": "Newsom Signs Climate, Energy Bills Charting State Course Through Perilous ‘Mid-Transition’ | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>California embarked on a new phase of climate leadership on Friday, as Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12055461/california-lawmakers-reach-last-minute-deals-on-climate-energy\">package of bills\u003c/a> aimed at charting the state’s course through a perilous energy transition.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The legislation includes an extension of California’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12053867/affordability-concerns-at-center-of-cap-and-trade-renewal-debate\">marquee program\u003c/a> to reduce pollution from refineries and power plants, reaffirming the state’s commitment to limit planet-warming emissions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But changes to that cap-and-trade program — and accompanying bills on electricity and fuel supply — reflect a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12055786/energy-climate-and-ai-regulation-take-center-stage-in-sacramento\">struggle\u003c/a> by lawmakers to manage both the impacts of climate change and the move away from fossil fuels, which each threaten to drive up energy costs for residents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have to effectively transition,” Newsom said before signing the bills at the Academy of Sciences in San Francisco. “This is not an ideological endeavor.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are in the practical application business,” he said. “We have got to manifest our ideals and our goals. And so this lays it out, but it lays it out without laying tracks over folks.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California has reached a unique moment, state leaders and analysts argue. The state is far enough along in its transition away from fossil fuels that it needs to maintain two energy delivery systems at once: oil and gas on one side and electricity built on carbon-free energy on the other. The \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12023129/how-climate-change-complicating-california-democrats-affordability-agenda\">juggling act\u003c/a> is costly, messy, and requires intentional planning and often unsavory compromises.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1927246\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1927246\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/07/GettyImages-71394652-e1758301123123.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A truck carries a shipping container past an oil refinery at the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles on July 6, 2006, in Long Beach, California. \u003ccite>(David McNew/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The state of limbo, which will likely last decades in California, has been labeled “\u003ca href=\"https://emilygrubert.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Grubert-and-Hastings-Simon-2022-Designing-the-mid-transition-A-review-of-medium-t.pdf\">mid-transition\u003c/a>” by Emily Grubert, a sustainable energy researcher at the University of Notre Dame. Grubert said California is among the first places “actually dealing with many of these questions of managed transition” away from fossil fuels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“How the state of California deals with the transition of [oil] refining really is going to inform the way that many, many other transitions occur,” Grubert told lawmakers last month, including how the state will move away from gas and towards electricity for tasks like heating and cooling homes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Newsom and fellow Democrats faced a bevy of challenges as they \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12052825/whats-next-for-californias-landmark-climate-program\">negotiated\u003c/a> the climate package in the waning hours of the legislative year. Voters remain anxious about rising energy costs. Two \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101910826/california-considers-more-drilling-and-other-concessions-to-big-oil-as-gas-prices-rise\">refineries\u003c/a>, Phillips 66 in Los Angeles and Valero in Benicia, announced plans to close, threatening a spike in gas prices. And wildfires made more intense by climate change have devastated California communities and driven up insurance and electricity \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12027878/california-lawmakers-aim-lower-electricity-bills-but-theyll-face-tough-choices\">costs\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Balancing acts, political compromises\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The five bills Newsom signed on Friday reflect the delicate balancing act facing lawmakers during this transitory period. The agreements brought both wins and losses for the state’s powerful utilities and oil and gas companies — and left many environmental justice advocates frustrated over the lack of emphasis on reducing local air pollution in low-income communities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We had five huge planes all circling, and we had to make sure they didn’t crash into each other,” said Sen. Josh Becker, a Democrat representing the Peninsula. “Really, the feeling was they were all going to land or none of them were going to land.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1971419\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1971419\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/12/RS46184_GettyImages-2823144-qut.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1283\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/12/RS46184_GettyImages-2823144-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/12/RS46184_GettyImages-2823144-qut-800x535.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/12/RS46184_GettyImages-2823144-qut-1020x682.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/12/RS46184_GettyImages-2823144-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/12/RS46184_GettyImages-2823144-qut-768x513.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/12/RS46184_GettyImages-2823144-qut-1536x1026.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Wilmington ARCO refinery is seen before dawn on Dec. 19, 2003, in Los Angeles, California. \u003ccite>(David McNew/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Under Assembly Bill 1207, companies will face more strict pollution limits each year until 2045 — that’s the “cap” in the renamed Cap-and-Invest program. State regulators will more closely monitor the financial help oil companies get to follow the program’s rules.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is the most important U.S. climate policy for the foreseeable future,” said Kyle Meng, a professor at UC Santa Barbara. “In the absence of any climate action from D.C., for California to signal this commitment for two decades, that’s a really big deal.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But a separate bill, Senate Bill 237, eases regulations on oil drilling in Kern County and gives the governor new powers to loosen clean fuel standards if gas prices spike.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The compromise is an attempt to appease both environmental advocates and oil companies and address the upcoming \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12036695/shocking-news-valero-announces-plans-to-end-operations-at-benicia-refinery\">refinery closures\u003c/a>. The state’s demand for gas has consistently declined in recent years, peaking in 2017, according to California Energy Commission data. But supply of both crude and refined oil from California is dropping far faster, leaving a yawning gap that is concerning to state leaders.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition to legislative concessions, the Energy Commission voted last month to \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/oil-gas-newsom-profits-prices-california-435d63922284a93130c40bac9558f093\">delay\u003c/a> capping oil company profits until at least 2030 — an about-face from two years earlier, when Newsom called a special session that resulted in that very law.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Taken all together, the package of bills and policy changes is by no means a reversal of the state’s aggressive plan to wean itself off of fossil fuels. But the course correction showed that some leading Democrats are worried that the pace of its transition was too rapid.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I probably voted for every bill that went through the legislature to get us off of fossil fuels,” said Lorena Gonzalez, a former Assembly member, while speaking at a Public Policy Institute of California conference last month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I was very much and am very supportive of a transition to a new energy economy,” said Gonzalez, who is now president of the California Labor Federation. “That being said, the legislature, myself included, rushed this idea.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Real-time policy for real-time problems\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Senate Bill 254 adds $18 billion to the state’s Wildfire Fund, which utilities can tap into to stave off bankruptcy if their equipment has been found to spark a wildfire. With Southern California Edison facing potential exposure from the Eaton Fire, lawmakers leveraged the desire from utilities to replenish the fund to include reforms that aim to lower electricity rates.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>UC Berkeley professor Meredith Fowlie said Senate Bill 254 is an example of California acting as a laboratory for policies to make electricity more affordable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1995288\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1995288\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/12/84004858_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/12/84004858_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/12/84004858_qed-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/12/84004858_qed-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/12/84004858_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/12/84004858_qed-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/12/84004858_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/12/84004858_qed-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Department of Water and Power (DWP) San Fernando Valley Generating Station on Dec. 11, 2008, in Sun Valley, California. \u003ccite>(David McNew/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“A lot of this policy is being made in real time in response to challenges that are manifesting in real time,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Senate Bill 254 will allow the state to issue bonds to finance the construction of transmission lines at a cheaper price than utilities. The legislation also gives regulators more tools to rein in the money power companies spend to prevent wildfires, a key driver of higher electricity rates.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new cap-and-invest program will shift the biannual “climate credit” rebate that appears on customers’ bills to the hottest months of the year when Californians are using the most electricity. It will also boost the credit on electric bills by reducing it on gas bills — further incentivizing the energy transition at a household level.[aside postID=news_12056655 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2021/08/Middlebrook-2-1020x765.jpg']“You’ve got these too-high electricity prices distorting consumer incentives,” Fowlie said. “So when I’m choosing between a heat pump and a natural gas furnace, electricity sure looks expensive. It would be really nice to bring the differences and those prices closer to the true differences in costs.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, some analysts said Newsom and legislative leaders failed to strike the right balance in the climate-energy deal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have been producing oil for almost 140 years,” said Paasha Mahdavi, an associate professor in political science at UC Santa Barbara. Allowing the companies to drill more in Kern County is like “squeezing a lemon at its dear end.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mahdavi said the easier-to-reach fuel has already been extracted there, which means companies must rely on techniques that are energy-intensive. This creates significant pollution for nearby communities and the planet overall.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Through his own \u003ca href=\"https://static1.squarespace.com/static/60e06de426582d24ad4e2ab7/t/68bb4c15f1beef2669830de8/1757105173357/Mahdavi+-+Analysis+of+Californias+oil+refineries+amid+declining+demand.pdf\">analysis\u003c/a>, Mahdavi found that gasoline demand could be met by supply from in-state refineries and by imports.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mahdavi is on the side of a coalition of environmental justice groups that \u003ca href=\"https://mavensnotebook.com/2025/09/11/press-release-ca-environmental-groups-decry-this-year-as-the-states-worst-legislative-year-for-the-environment-and-climate-in-recent-history/\">labeled \u003c/a>the outcome “the worst legislative year for climate and environmental protection in recent memory.” The coalition said the balancing act between climate leadership and consumer prices failed to reduce\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12050096/californias-clean-air-program-for-polluted-communities-faces-crossroads\"> local pollution\u003c/a> for Californians who live near hotspots such as refineries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have a real responsibility to ensure that the fourth largest economy in the world, a progressive leader on climate, is really committed to not only climate policies, but ensuring that they’re deployed equitably,” said Asha Sharma, state policy manager with the Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>KQED’s \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/jlara\">\u003cem>Juan Carlos Lara\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> contributed to this story.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"title": "Newsom Signs Climate, Energy Bills Charting State Course Through Perilous ‘Mid-Transition’ | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>California embarked on a new phase of climate leadership on Friday, as Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12055461/california-lawmakers-reach-last-minute-deals-on-climate-energy\">package of bills\u003c/a> aimed at charting the state’s course through a perilous energy transition.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The legislation includes an extension of California’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12053867/affordability-concerns-at-center-of-cap-and-trade-renewal-debate\">marquee program\u003c/a> to reduce pollution from refineries and power plants, reaffirming the state’s commitment to limit planet-warming emissions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But changes to that cap-and-trade program — and accompanying bills on electricity and fuel supply — reflect a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12055786/energy-climate-and-ai-regulation-take-center-stage-in-sacramento\">struggle\u003c/a> by lawmakers to manage both the impacts of climate change and the move away from fossil fuels, which each threaten to drive up energy costs for residents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have to effectively transition,” Newsom said before signing the bills at the Academy of Sciences in San Francisco. “This is not an ideological endeavor.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are in the practical application business,” he said. “We have got to manifest our ideals and our goals. And so this lays it out, but it lays it out without laying tracks over folks.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California has reached a unique moment, state leaders and analysts argue. The state is far enough along in its transition away from fossil fuels that it needs to maintain two energy delivery systems at once: oil and gas on one side and electricity built on carbon-free energy on the other. The \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12023129/how-climate-change-complicating-california-democrats-affordability-agenda\">juggling act\u003c/a> is costly, messy, and requires intentional planning and often unsavory compromises.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1927246\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1927246\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/07/GettyImages-71394652-e1758301123123.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A truck carries a shipping container past an oil refinery at the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles on July 6, 2006, in Long Beach, California. \u003ccite>(David McNew/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The state of limbo, which will likely last decades in California, has been labeled “\u003ca href=\"https://emilygrubert.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Grubert-and-Hastings-Simon-2022-Designing-the-mid-transition-A-review-of-medium-t.pdf\">mid-transition\u003c/a>” by Emily Grubert, a sustainable energy researcher at the University of Notre Dame. Grubert said California is among the first places “actually dealing with many of these questions of managed transition” away from fossil fuels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“How the state of California deals with the transition of [oil] refining really is going to inform the way that many, many other transitions occur,” Grubert told lawmakers last month, including how the state will move away from gas and towards electricity for tasks like heating and cooling homes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Newsom and fellow Democrats faced a bevy of challenges as they \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12052825/whats-next-for-californias-landmark-climate-program\">negotiated\u003c/a> the climate package in the waning hours of the legislative year. Voters remain anxious about rising energy costs. Two \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101910826/california-considers-more-drilling-and-other-concessions-to-big-oil-as-gas-prices-rise\">refineries\u003c/a>, Phillips 66 in Los Angeles and Valero in Benicia, announced plans to close, threatening a spike in gas prices. And wildfires made more intense by climate change have devastated California communities and driven up insurance and electricity \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12027878/california-lawmakers-aim-lower-electricity-bills-but-theyll-face-tough-choices\">costs\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Balancing acts, political compromises\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The five bills Newsom signed on Friday reflect the delicate balancing act facing lawmakers during this transitory period. The agreements brought both wins and losses for the state’s powerful utilities and oil and gas companies — and left many environmental justice advocates frustrated over the lack of emphasis on reducing local air pollution in low-income communities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We had five huge planes all circling, and we had to make sure they didn’t crash into each other,” said Sen. Josh Becker, a Democrat representing the Peninsula. “Really, the feeling was they were all going to land or none of them were going to land.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1971419\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1971419\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/12/RS46184_GettyImages-2823144-qut.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1283\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/12/RS46184_GettyImages-2823144-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/12/RS46184_GettyImages-2823144-qut-800x535.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/12/RS46184_GettyImages-2823144-qut-1020x682.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/12/RS46184_GettyImages-2823144-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/12/RS46184_GettyImages-2823144-qut-768x513.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/12/RS46184_GettyImages-2823144-qut-1536x1026.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Wilmington ARCO refinery is seen before dawn on Dec. 19, 2003, in Los Angeles, California. \u003ccite>(David McNew/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Under Assembly Bill 1207, companies will face more strict pollution limits each year until 2045 — that’s the “cap” in the renamed Cap-and-Invest program. State regulators will more closely monitor the financial help oil companies get to follow the program’s rules.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is the most important U.S. climate policy for the foreseeable future,” said Kyle Meng, a professor at UC Santa Barbara. “In the absence of any climate action from D.C., for California to signal this commitment for two decades, that’s a really big deal.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But a separate bill, Senate Bill 237, eases regulations on oil drilling in Kern County and gives the governor new powers to loosen clean fuel standards if gas prices spike.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The compromise is an attempt to appease both environmental advocates and oil companies and address the upcoming \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12036695/shocking-news-valero-announces-plans-to-end-operations-at-benicia-refinery\">refinery closures\u003c/a>. The state’s demand for gas has consistently declined in recent years, peaking in 2017, according to California Energy Commission data. But supply of both crude and refined oil from California is dropping far faster, leaving a yawning gap that is concerning to state leaders.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition to legislative concessions, the Energy Commission voted last month to \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/oil-gas-newsom-profits-prices-california-435d63922284a93130c40bac9558f093\">delay\u003c/a> capping oil company profits until at least 2030 — an about-face from two years earlier, when Newsom called a special session that resulted in that very law.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Taken all together, the package of bills and policy changes is by no means a reversal of the state’s aggressive plan to wean itself off of fossil fuels. But the course correction showed that some leading Democrats are worried that the pace of its transition was too rapid.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I probably voted for every bill that went through the legislature to get us off of fossil fuels,” said Lorena Gonzalez, a former Assembly member, while speaking at a Public Policy Institute of California conference last month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I was very much and am very supportive of a transition to a new energy economy,” said Gonzalez, who is now president of the California Labor Federation. “That being said, the legislature, myself included, rushed this idea.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Real-time policy for real-time problems\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Senate Bill 254 adds $18 billion to the state’s Wildfire Fund, which utilities can tap into to stave off bankruptcy if their equipment has been found to spark a wildfire. With Southern California Edison facing potential exposure from the Eaton Fire, lawmakers leveraged the desire from utilities to replenish the fund to include reforms that aim to lower electricity rates.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>UC Berkeley professor Meredith Fowlie said Senate Bill 254 is an example of California acting as a laboratory for policies to make electricity more affordable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1995288\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1995288\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/12/84004858_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/12/84004858_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/12/84004858_qed-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/12/84004858_qed-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/12/84004858_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/12/84004858_qed-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/12/84004858_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/12/84004858_qed-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Department of Water and Power (DWP) San Fernando Valley Generating Station on Dec. 11, 2008, in Sun Valley, California. \u003ccite>(David McNew/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“A lot of this policy is being made in real time in response to challenges that are manifesting in real time,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Senate Bill 254 will allow the state to issue bonds to finance the construction of transmission lines at a cheaper price than utilities. The legislation also gives regulators more tools to rein in the money power companies spend to prevent wildfires, a key driver of higher electricity rates.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new cap-and-invest program will shift the biannual “climate credit” rebate that appears on customers’ bills to the hottest months of the year when Californians are using the most electricity. It will also boost the credit on electric bills by reducing it on gas bills — further incentivizing the energy transition at a household level.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“You’ve got these too-high electricity prices distorting consumer incentives,” Fowlie said. “So when I’m choosing between a heat pump and a natural gas furnace, electricity sure looks expensive. It would be really nice to bring the differences and those prices closer to the true differences in costs.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, some analysts said Newsom and legislative leaders failed to strike the right balance in the climate-energy deal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have been producing oil for almost 140 years,” said Paasha Mahdavi, an associate professor in political science at UC Santa Barbara. Allowing the companies to drill more in Kern County is like “squeezing a lemon at its dear end.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mahdavi said the easier-to-reach fuel has already been extracted there, which means companies must rely on techniques that are energy-intensive. This creates significant pollution for nearby communities and the planet overall.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Through his own \u003ca href=\"https://static1.squarespace.com/static/60e06de426582d24ad4e2ab7/t/68bb4c15f1beef2669830de8/1757105173357/Mahdavi+-+Analysis+of+Californias+oil+refineries+amid+declining+demand.pdf\">analysis\u003c/a>, Mahdavi found that gasoline demand could be met by supply from in-state refineries and by imports.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mahdavi is on the side of a coalition of environmental justice groups that \u003ca href=\"https://mavensnotebook.com/2025/09/11/press-release-ca-environmental-groups-decry-this-year-as-the-states-worst-legislative-year-for-the-environment-and-climate-in-recent-history/\">labeled \u003c/a>the outcome “the worst legislative year for climate and environmental protection in recent memory.” The coalition said the balancing act between climate leadership and consumer prices failed to reduce\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12050096/californias-clean-air-program-for-polluted-communities-faces-crossroads\"> local pollution\u003c/a> for Californians who live near hotspots such as refineries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have a real responsibility to ensure that the fourth largest economy in the world, a progressive leader on climate, is really committed to not only climate policies, but ensuring that they’re deployed equitably,” said Asha Sharma, state policy manager with the Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>KQED’s \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/jlara\">\u003cem>Juan Carlos Lara\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> contributed to this story.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"slug": "bay-area-turns-up-the-heat-as-dry-lightning-looms-later-this-week",
"title": "Bay Area Turns Up the Heat as Dry Lightning Looms Later This Week",
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"content": "\u003cp>Above average heat. A baby \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11682057/how-the-bay-areas-fog-came-to-be-named-karl\">Karl the fog\u003c/a>. Dry lightning. That’s the story meteorologists are forecasting through Friday for the entire Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A high-pressure system moving into the region is causing the three-day warmup on Monday through Wednesday, with offshore winds keeping the marine layer at bay and allowing incoming tropical moisture to gradually enter the atmosphere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Later this week, the fire risk increases after days of heat due to the chance of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12054466/lightning-sparked-fires-tear-through-historic-california-gold-rush-town\">thunderstorms and dry lightning\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Forecasters expect Tuesday to be the hottest day of the week with temperatures about 5 degrees above average along the coast and 15 degrees above average inland. The National Weather Service issued a moderate heat risk warning through Wednesday, which means the general public should be able to handle the warmth. Still, sensitive groups, such as older adults and children, should exercise caution.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’ve had hotter temperatures so far this summer, so we’re really not considering a heat advisory at this time unless it were to be significantly warmer,” said Roger Gass, a meteorologist with the weather service’s Bay Area office.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The strength of offshore winds will help determine how hot coastal areas will become through Wednesday. Forecasters said San Francisco could reach into the low 80s, while places like Santa Rosa, Livermore, Concord and San José could all get into the 90s.[aside postID=science_1998472 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/08/BayAreaHeatWaveGetty.jpg']Higher elevations may not cool below 70 degrees overnight inland, and forecasters expect relative humidity to be low, which would aid in drying out grasses that could easily burn if ignited.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re not expecting really strong offshore winds at this time, which should keep the conditions cooler near the coast, but it’ll still be warm,” Gass said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, the weather service anticipates conditions to shift on Thursday as tropical moisture moves into the region, increasing instability and potentially bringing thunderstorms. The primary concern is that the storms could bring dry lightning and erratic, gusty winds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These conditions could lead to new fire starts, especially given the increasingly dry fuels across the region,” meteorologists wrote in the weather service’s daily forecast email.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, Gass said the dry lightning is not a certainty, and he expects Thursday and Friday to “generally trend wetter” due to the amount of moisture entering the region later in the week. Gass also expects the weather to cool down this weekend and early next week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "Forecasters expect Tuesday to be the Bay Area’s hottest day of the week, with a chance of thunderstorms and dry lightning stirring trouble by Thursday.\r\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Above average heat. A baby \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11682057/how-the-bay-areas-fog-came-to-be-named-karl\">Karl the fog\u003c/a>. Dry lightning. That’s the story meteorologists are forecasting through Friday for the entire Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A high-pressure system moving into the region is causing the three-day warmup on Monday through Wednesday, with offshore winds keeping the marine layer at bay and allowing incoming tropical moisture to gradually enter the atmosphere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Later this week, the fire risk increases after days of heat due to the chance of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12054466/lightning-sparked-fires-tear-through-historic-california-gold-rush-town\">thunderstorms and dry lightning\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Forecasters expect Tuesday to be the hottest day of the week with temperatures about 5 degrees above average along the coast and 15 degrees above average inland. The National Weather Service issued a moderate heat risk warning through Wednesday, which means the general public should be able to handle the warmth. Still, sensitive groups, such as older adults and children, should exercise caution.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’ve had hotter temperatures so far this summer, so we’re really not considering a heat advisory at this time unless it were to be significantly warmer,” said Roger Gass, a meteorologist with the weather service’s Bay Area office.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The strength of offshore winds will help determine how hot coastal areas will become through Wednesday. Forecasters said San Francisco could reach into the low 80s, while places like Santa Rosa, Livermore, Concord and San José could all get into the 90s.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Higher elevations may not cool below 70 degrees overnight inland, and forecasters expect relative humidity to be low, which would aid in drying out grasses that could easily burn if ignited.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re not expecting really strong offshore winds at this time, which should keep the conditions cooler near the coast, but it’ll still be warm,” Gass said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, the weather service anticipates conditions to shift on Thursday as tropical moisture moves into the region, increasing instability and potentially bringing thunderstorms. The primary concern is that the storms could bring dry lightning and erratic, gusty winds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These conditions could lead to new fire starts, especially given the increasingly dry fuels across the region,” meteorologists wrote in the weather service’s daily forecast email.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, Gass said the dry lightning is not a certainty, and he expects Thursday and Friday to “generally trend wetter” due to the amount of moisture entering the region later in the week. Gass also expects the weather to cool down this weekend and early next week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Don’t stash away your summer swimsuit, sunscreen and towel just yet; Bay Area summer is almost here. After a week of gloomy \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/bay-area-weather\">weather\u003c/a>, forecasters expect the region to warm up this weekend.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The warm-up will likely come as the low-pressure system that has been enveloping the region in gloomy, muggy, and rainy weather is displaced by a high-pressure system. Although the transition to hotter days will be gradual, forecasters said temperatures could spike if offshore winds present themselves early next week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dial Hoang, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s Bay Area office, said temperatures could reach the 70s in San Francisco and the 80s in inland areas such as Napa by Sunday. If the high-pressure system develops as models suggest, Hoang said the region could experience a few days of summertime temperatures, but he doesn’t expect extreme heat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We might see the temperatures reach the upper 80s in downtown Oakland, and for San Francisco, we might get into the mid-80s,” Hoang said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By Tuesday, inland areas such as Walnut Creek could reach the low 90s.[aside postID=science_1998445 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/Delta-2000x1334.jpg']The high-pressure system forming isn’t the same as the type that creates record-breaking heat, but it will still likely push the marine layer farther out to sea, allowing for offshore winds to bring hotter days to the region.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hoang said the warm-up is typical for what people call “Bay Area summer,” when the warmest temperatures of the year usually occur.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If we do get that offshore flow, we might just see temperatures rising above what we currently expect,” Hoang said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, the heat is likely to last only a few days. Meteorologists wrote in \u003ca href=\"https://forecast.weather.gov/product.php?format=ci&glossary=1&issuedby=mtr&product=afd&site=mtr&version=1\">Friday’s daily forecast discussion\u003c/a> that while the end of the week’s weather is still “kind of fantasy land at this point,” another round of rain could be in the picture for the end of the week and into next weekend.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s worth keeping an eye on,” forecasters wrote. “Timing would be bad from a fire weather standpoint as warmer weather develops over the weekend and peaks early next week.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Don’t stash away your summer swimsuit, sunscreen and towel just yet; Bay Area summer is almost here. After a week of gloomy \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/bay-area-weather\">weather\u003c/a>, forecasters expect the region to warm up this weekend.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The warm-up will likely come as the low-pressure system that has been enveloping the region in gloomy, muggy, and rainy weather is displaced by a high-pressure system. Although the transition to hotter days will be gradual, forecasters said temperatures could spike if offshore winds present themselves early next week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dial Hoang, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s Bay Area office, said temperatures could reach the 70s in San Francisco and the 80s in inland areas such as Napa by Sunday. If the high-pressure system develops as models suggest, Hoang said the region could experience a few days of summertime temperatures, but he doesn’t expect extreme heat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We might see the temperatures reach the upper 80s in downtown Oakland, and for San Francisco, we might get into the mid-80s,” Hoang said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By Tuesday, inland areas such as Walnut Creek could reach the low 90s.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The high-pressure system forming isn’t the same as the type that creates record-breaking heat, but it will still likely push the marine layer farther out to sea, allowing for offshore winds to bring hotter days to the region.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hoang said the warm-up is typical for what people call “Bay Area summer,” when the warmest temperatures of the year usually occur.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If we do get that offshore flow, we might just see temperatures rising above what we currently expect,” Hoang said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, the heat is likely to last only a few days. Meteorologists wrote in \u003ca href=\"https://forecast.weather.gov/product.php?format=ci&glossary=1&issuedby=mtr&product=afd&site=mtr&version=1\">Friday’s daily forecast discussion\u003c/a> that while the end of the week’s weather is still “kind of fantasy land at this point,” another round of rain could be in the picture for the end of the week and into next weekend.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s worth keeping an eye on,” forecasters wrote. “Timing would be bad from a fire weather standpoint as warmer weather develops over the weekend and peaks early next week.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "newsoms-push-to-fast-track-delta-tunnel-fails-moving-fight-to-high-stakes-hearing",
"title": "Newsom’s Push to Fast-Track Delta Tunnel Fails, Moving Fight to High-Stakes Hearing",
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"content": "\u003cp>Gov. Gavin Newsom’s attempt to fast-track his proposal for a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1996769/newsom-pushes-fast-track-20-billion-delta-tunnel-california-water\">45-mile tunnel\u003c/a> under the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta failed to pass the Legislature before its deadline overnight Tuesday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Newsom administration’s tunnel plan aims to send more Northern California water south and prop up the State Water Project as climate change threatens water supplies. Some water agencies are supportive of the plan, along with agricultural and business groups.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After the trailer bill failed to pass before midnight, the fate of the tunnel plan is now in the hands of the State Water Resources Control Board, which is holding a monthslong hearing on the project’s viability and the delicate balance of water rights. That hearing, which is set to conclude next month but may be extended, will produce an opinion from the hearing officer as early as 2026 and a decision from the board members on whether to oppose the tunnel or side with Newsom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the same time, the board is updating the \u003ca href=\"https://mavensnotebook.com/explainers/statewide-and-delta-planning-processes/bay-delta-water-quality-control-plan-bay-delta-plan/\">Bay Delta Water Quality Control Plan\u003c/a>, a massive proposal for protecting the estuary that could reduce the likelihood of extracting water from the river system, essentially making a tunnel project less feasible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California leaders are grappling with an enormous question due to the significant alterations in the state’s waterways and the threat posed by human-caused climate change: How much water needs to remain in rivers to keep the system safe from environmental collapse?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That’s how far we’ve let this go,” said Ashley Overhouse, water policy adviser at Defenders of Wildlife. “We are at the point where we want to make sure that we are keeping the delta functional on a last lifeline.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1996925\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1996925\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/05/GavinNewsom2025AP2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/05/GavinNewsom2025AP2.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/05/GavinNewsom2025AP2-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/05/GavinNewsom2025AP2-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/05/GavinNewsom2025AP2-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/05/GavinNewsom2025AP2-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/05/GavinNewsom2025AP2-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/05/GavinNewsom2025AP2-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Gov. Gavin Newsom stands in front of a state flag during a press conference about President Donald Trump’s tariffs on April 16, 2025, at an almond farm in Ceres, California. \u003ccite>(Noah Berger/AP Photo)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>As part of the board’s water quality control plan process, it’s considering a request from the Newsom administration to relax regulations on the amount of water that must stay in the delta ecosystem, Overhouse said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Water advocates and environmental organizers are highly critical of Newsom’s plan, arguing that it would devastate riverine ecosystems and surrounding communities. They are dubious of the administration’s argument that the tunnel is the right solution to make the state system more resilient to climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>San Francisco Baykeeper Science Director Jon Rosenfield applauded the Legislature’s decision to rely on processes that would require the tunnel project to undergo environmental review.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think the Legislature got that message, understood it, and recognized it as true to California’s values and spurned the governor’s efforts to waive California laws for pet projects,” Rosenfield said.[aside postID=science_1996769 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/05/DeltaGetty-1020x574.jpg']Newsom’s trailer bill could have streamlined water rights and other aspects of the project, which his administration estimates could cost $20 billion. In June, Newsom tried to tie similar bills to the passage of the state budget, but legislators pushed those plans out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He continued to call on the Legislature to ease the permitting process, but his administration failed to get it passed during this legislative session. The Newsom administration did not respond to KQED’s request for comment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The State Water Contractors association of public water agencies, among the supporters of the tunnel project, said it would have helped save its customers millions of dollars and vowed to support legislation next year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Even if action is delayed this year, the need for modern delta conveyance has never been greater, and the sooner we are able to make a decision on construction, the less that construction will cost,” said Jennifer Pierre, general manager of the State Water Contractors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Californians for Water Security, a coalition of dozens of local governments, family farms, labor unions and business groups, said they are “disappointed that the negotiations” stalled. The group said the tunnel project could have captured enough water during last year’s atmospheric rivers “to meet the needs of 9.8 million people.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1996804\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1996804\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/05/DeltaGetty.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1125\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/05/DeltaGetty.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/05/DeltaGetty-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/05/DeltaGetty-1020x574.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/05/DeltaGetty-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/05/DeltaGetty-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/05/DeltaGetty-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/05/DeltaGetty-1920x1080.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The potential site of the water tunnel center intake on the Sacramento River on Sunday, March 1, 2020, in Courtland, California. Fishermen, water sports advocates, farmers and environmentalists are lining up on differing sides of the issue regarding plans to build a tunnel system to move San Joaquin River Delta water to southern California. \u003ccite>(Santiago Mejia/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Newsom said the tunnel is imperative for adapting the state to a hotter and drier climate that could result in a 10% reduction in water by the 2040s. California’s current water system is outdated and unprepared to handle the supercharged storms and droughts of the future, Newsom said in May, adding that not investing in a new tunnel would cost Californians more in the long run.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For at least six decades, and multiple governors, California leaders have sought to export more water from Northern California to the south. The proposal for the delta water project has had several transformations, including plans for a canal and twin tunnels. When Newsom came into office, he promoted the idea of a single tunnel, known as the \u003ca href=\"https://water.ca.gov/deltaconveyance\">Delta Conveyance Project.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today, the State Water Project captures, moves and stores enough water to be used by 27 million people and service 750,000 acres of farmland.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Richard Walker, professor emeritus of economic and urban geography at UC Berkeley, who said he helped defeat the original canal project with his research, called the project a “zombie idea that won’t … go away” because of Central Valley agribusiness and developers in Southern California who want more water to make more money.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I don’t care what the water board decides,” Walker said. “It won’t solve a problem that can’t be solved. We have to live within our variability.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1996921\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1996921\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/05/SacramentoDelta-8_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/05/SacramentoDelta-8_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/05/SacramentoDelta-8_qed-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/05/SacramentoDelta-8_qed-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/05/SacramentoDelta-8_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/05/SacramentoDelta-8_qed-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/05/SacramentoDelta-8_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/05/SacramentoDelta-8_qed-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Three Mile Slough Bridge on Sept. 10, 2021. The bridge runs alongside the Sacramento River, which is a main tributary of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. The Delta is the hub of California’s water supply, distributing fresh water to two-thirds of the state’s population and millions of acres of farmland. \u003ccite>(Joyce Tsai/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Walker called the single tunnel the “ugly stepchild” of an idea that Californians defeated more than half a century ago and has “no business being built because it’s a bad investment that will not do what it’s supposed to do, which is solve the water problems for California south of the Bay Area.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Opponents framed Newsom’s tunnel plan as one that aligns with President Donald Trump’s January \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12023248/trump-again-wades-into-california-water-use-fight-drawing-skepticism-from-experts\">executive action\u003c/a> that aimed to redirect more water from Northern California southward to farms and cities. At a rally last Friday on the steps of the Capitol, one opponent of the tunnels said the Legislature needs to stop Newsom from “turning into Trump in order to defeat Trump.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rosenfield, with San Francisco Baykeeper, said the tunnel project is likely to cost as much as $\u003ca href=\"https://baykeeper.org/press_release/tribal-leaders-and-environmental-advocates-demand-lawmakers-reject-delta-tunnel-fast-tracking-legislation-in-day-of-action-for-water-justice/#:~:text=Advocates%20cited%20a%20recent%20report,greater%20burdens%20on%20working%20families.\">100\u003c/a> billion, which is \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1996769/newsom-pushes-fast-track-20-billion-delta-tunnel-california-water\">five times higher than the amount\u003c/a> the Newsom administration proposed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Newsom desperately wants to win approval for his tunnel so he can claim that he’s done more than President Trump to help the Central Valley industrial nut farms and corporate landowners who export water from San Francisco Bay’s estuary,” Rosenfield said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Opponents said sucking more water out of the Sacramento River and into the tunnel would eviscerate delta communities, adding that the water is needed for the viability of fish and wildlife.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tribal leaders also believe diverting more water from the Sacramento River will put “tribes in a position of lacking access to the things that we need for our cultural practices,” said Malissa Tayaba, vice chair and director of traditional ecological knowledge of the Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians. “Everything that we need comes from the river. Our baskets come from the rivers. Our food sources came from the river.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Laurie Riggio and James Renwick farm 80 acres of asparagus and other crops on Sherman Island on the edge of Sacramento County. Holding a sign that read “Stop the Suck” at a recent rally against the project, Riggio said the tunnel would have “very severe” effects on the region, including allowing more saltwater to intrude deeper into the Delta where they live.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It will destroy Northern California farmland, and that’s one of the most pressing issues,” Riggio said. “The other is going to be loss of habitat for fish, including delta smelt, but also salmon.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"title": "Newsom’s Push to Fast-Track Delta Tunnel Fails, Moving Fight to High-Stakes Hearing | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Gov. Gavin Newsom’s attempt to fast-track his proposal for a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1996769/newsom-pushes-fast-track-20-billion-delta-tunnel-california-water\">45-mile tunnel\u003c/a> under the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta failed to pass the Legislature before its deadline overnight Tuesday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Newsom administration’s tunnel plan aims to send more Northern California water south and prop up the State Water Project as climate change threatens water supplies. Some water agencies are supportive of the plan, along with agricultural and business groups.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After the trailer bill failed to pass before midnight, the fate of the tunnel plan is now in the hands of the State Water Resources Control Board, which is holding a monthslong hearing on the project’s viability and the delicate balance of water rights. That hearing, which is set to conclude next month but may be extended, will produce an opinion from the hearing officer as early as 2026 and a decision from the board members on whether to oppose the tunnel or side with Newsom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the same time, the board is updating the \u003ca href=\"https://mavensnotebook.com/explainers/statewide-and-delta-planning-processes/bay-delta-water-quality-control-plan-bay-delta-plan/\">Bay Delta Water Quality Control Plan\u003c/a>, a massive proposal for protecting the estuary that could reduce the likelihood of extracting water from the river system, essentially making a tunnel project less feasible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California leaders are grappling with an enormous question due to the significant alterations in the state’s waterways and the threat posed by human-caused climate change: How much water needs to remain in rivers to keep the system safe from environmental collapse?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That’s how far we’ve let this go,” said Ashley Overhouse, water policy adviser at Defenders of Wildlife. “We are at the point where we want to make sure that we are keeping the delta functional on a last lifeline.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1996925\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1996925\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/05/GavinNewsom2025AP2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/05/GavinNewsom2025AP2.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/05/GavinNewsom2025AP2-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/05/GavinNewsom2025AP2-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/05/GavinNewsom2025AP2-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/05/GavinNewsom2025AP2-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/05/GavinNewsom2025AP2-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/05/GavinNewsom2025AP2-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Gov. Gavin Newsom stands in front of a state flag during a press conference about President Donald Trump’s tariffs on April 16, 2025, at an almond farm in Ceres, California. \u003ccite>(Noah Berger/AP Photo)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>As part of the board’s water quality control plan process, it’s considering a request from the Newsom administration to relax regulations on the amount of water that must stay in the delta ecosystem, Overhouse said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Water advocates and environmental organizers are highly critical of Newsom’s plan, arguing that it would devastate riverine ecosystems and surrounding communities. They are dubious of the administration’s argument that the tunnel is the right solution to make the state system more resilient to climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>San Francisco Baykeeper Science Director Jon Rosenfield applauded the Legislature’s decision to rely on processes that would require the tunnel project to undergo environmental review.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think the Legislature got that message, understood it, and recognized it as true to California’s values and spurned the governor’s efforts to waive California laws for pet projects,” Rosenfield said.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Newsom’s trailer bill could have streamlined water rights and other aspects of the project, which his administration estimates could cost $20 billion. In June, Newsom tried to tie similar bills to the passage of the state budget, but legislators pushed those plans out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He continued to call on the Legislature to ease the permitting process, but his administration failed to get it passed during this legislative session. The Newsom administration did not respond to KQED’s request for comment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The State Water Contractors association of public water agencies, among the supporters of the tunnel project, said it would have helped save its customers millions of dollars and vowed to support legislation next year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Even if action is delayed this year, the need for modern delta conveyance has never been greater, and the sooner we are able to make a decision on construction, the less that construction will cost,” said Jennifer Pierre, general manager of the State Water Contractors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Californians for Water Security, a coalition of dozens of local governments, family farms, labor unions and business groups, said they are “disappointed that the negotiations” stalled. The group said the tunnel project could have captured enough water during last year’s atmospheric rivers “to meet the needs of 9.8 million people.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1996804\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1996804\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/05/DeltaGetty.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1125\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/05/DeltaGetty.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/05/DeltaGetty-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/05/DeltaGetty-1020x574.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/05/DeltaGetty-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/05/DeltaGetty-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/05/DeltaGetty-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/05/DeltaGetty-1920x1080.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The potential site of the water tunnel center intake on the Sacramento River on Sunday, March 1, 2020, in Courtland, California. Fishermen, water sports advocates, farmers and environmentalists are lining up on differing sides of the issue regarding plans to build a tunnel system to move San Joaquin River Delta water to southern California. \u003ccite>(Santiago Mejia/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Newsom said the tunnel is imperative for adapting the state to a hotter and drier climate that could result in a 10% reduction in water by the 2040s. California’s current water system is outdated and unprepared to handle the supercharged storms and droughts of the future, Newsom said in May, adding that not investing in a new tunnel would cost Californians more in the long run.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For at least six decades, and multiple governors, California leaders have sought to export more water from Northern California to the south. The proposal for the delta water project has had several transformations, including plans for a canal and twin tunnels. When Newsom came into office, he promoted the idea of a single tunnel, known as the \u003ca href=\"https://water.ca.gov/deltaconveyance\">Delta Conveyance Project.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today, the State Water Project captures, moves and stores enough water to be used by 27 million people and service 750,000 acres of farmland.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Richard Walker, professor emeritus of economic and urban geography at UC Berkeley, who said he helped defeat the original canal project with his research, called the project a “zombie idea that won’t … go away” because of Central Valley agribusiness and developers in Southern California who want more water to make more money.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I don’t care what the water board decides,” Walker said. “It won’t solve a problem that can’t be solved. We have to live within our variability.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1996921\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1996921\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/05/SacramentoDelta-8_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/05/SacramentoDelta-8_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/05/SacramentoDelta-8_qed-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/05/SacramentoDelta-8_qed-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/05/SacramentoDelta-8_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/05/SacramentoDelta-8_qed-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/05/SacramentoDelta-8_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/05/SacramentoDelta-8_qed-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Three Mile Slough Bridge on Sept. 10, 2021. The bridge runs alongside the Sacramento River, which is a main tributary of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. The Delta is the hub of California’s water supply, distributing fresh water to two-thirds of the state’s population and millions of acres of farmland. \u003ccite>(Joyce Tsai/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Walker called the single tunnel the “ugly stepchild” of an idea that Californians defeated more than half a century ago and has “no business being built because it’s a bad investment that will not do what it’s supposed to do, which is solve the water problems for California south of the Bay Area.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Opponents framed Newsom’s tunnel plan as one that aligns with President Donald Trump’s January \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12023248/trump-again-wades-into-california-water-use-fight-drawing-skepticism-from-experts\">executive action\u003c/a> that aimed to redirect more water from Northern California southward to farms and cities. At a rally last Friday on the steps of the Capitol, one opponent of the tunnels said the Legislature needs to stop Newsom from “turning into Trump in order to defeat Trump.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rosenfield, with San Francisco Baykeeper, said the tunnel project is likely to cost as much as $\u003ca href=\"https://baykeeper.org/press_release/tribal-leaders-and-environmental-advocates-demand-lawmakers-reject-delta-tunnel-fast-tracking-legislation-in-day-of-action-for-water-justice/#:~:text=Advocates%20cited%20a%20recent%20report,greater%20burdens%20on%20working%20families.\">100\u003c/a> billion, which is \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1996769/newsom-pushes-fast-track-20-billion-delta-tunnel-california-water\">five times higher than the amount\u003c/a> the Newsom administration proposed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Newsom desperately wants to win approval for his tunnel so he can claim that he’s done more than President Trump to help the Central Valley industrial nut farms and corporate landowners who export water from San Francisco Bay’s estuary,” Rosenfield said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Opponents said sucking more water out of the Sacramento River and into the tunnel would eviscerate delta communities, adding that the water is needed for the viability of fish and wildlife.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tribal leaders also believe diverting more water from the Sacramento River will put “tribes in a position of lacking access to the things that we need for our cultural practices,” said Malissa Tayaba, vice chair and director of traditional ecological knowledge of the Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians. “Everything that we need comes from the river. Our baskets come from the rivers. Our food sources came from the river.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Laurie Riggio and James Renwick farm 80 acres of asparagus and other crops on Sherman Island on the edge of Sacramento County. Holding a sign that read “Stop the Suck” at a recent rally against the project, Riggio said the tunnel would have “very severe” effects on the region, including allowing more saltwater to intrude deeper into the Delta where they live.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It will destroy Northern California farmland, and that’s one of the most pressing issues,” Riggio said. “The other is going to be loss of habitat for fish, including delta smelt, but also salmon.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"headTitle": "A New Musical Revisits the Bay Area’s Apocalyptic Orange Sky Day | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>On the morning of Sept. 9, 2020, Rodney Earl Jackson, Jr. woke up to the buzz of his cell phone. It was his mother, telling him to open his \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/san-francisco\">San Francisco\u003c/a> apartment window and peer outside. It was late enough for the morning light to shine down on his Duboce Park neighborhood, but instead the streets were cloaked in darkness.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Where was the sun?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Immediately I shut the window, and I said, ‘I’m not dealing with this right now,’” Jackson recalled. His mother, based a few blocks away in the Fillmore, asked if he knew what was happening.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He had no idea, he said, and tried to go back to sleep. “Because I thought I was in a dream. It felt like I hadn’t really woken up yet,” Jackson said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More than a hundred miles north of the Bay Area,\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1998245/the-summer-that-changed-california-forever\"> wildfires\u003c/a> tore through towns, homes and forests. Winds carried massive amounts of smoke into the skies over the Bay Area. The pollution scattered blue-light wavelengths, leaving only reds and oranges to shine through. Not only was it dark, the sky was an eerie orange.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jackson is an actor who’s appeared on Broadway, with deep roots in the Bay Area. He was born and raised in San Francisco before attending college on the East Coast, and returned home more than a decade ago to co-found the \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfbatco.org/\">San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Company\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1998329\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1998329\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250819-ORANGESKYDAYART-24-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250819-ORANGESKYDAYART-24-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250819-ORANGESKYDAYART-24-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250819-ORANGESKYDAYART-24-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250819-ORANGESKYDAYART-24-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The cast of the musical The Day the Sky Turned Orange rehearses at the American Conservatory Theater studio space in San Francisco on Aug. 19, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The Bay Area is familiar and exciting to Jackson, but on that dark day, it was frightening.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He wanted to know how others felt: did it all seem like a dream to them, too? And what meaning were they making from it? So he started interviewing people. The product of those conversations is a musical called “The Day the Sky Turned Orange,” premiering this month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The play invites the audience back to that apocalyptic day, which crashed like a roaring wave on top of pandemic isolation and a national racial reckoning sparked by the murder of George Floyd. Jackson and his co-creators hope that revisiting a day marked by often-repressed emotions will help us process them and move forward.[aside postID=science_1998209 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/08/GettyImages-1271601364.jpg']“I don’t think that we’ve actually fully recovered from that moment. I know I haven’t,” playwright Julius Ernesto Rea said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rea said coming together in a physical space and going back in time gives the actors and the audience the opportunity to release some of their bottled-up emotions, especially those surrounding the changing climate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A lot of the play is trying to figure out how we grieve the future that we thought we had, so that we can invite new visions of the future,” Rea said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One memorable song is “\u003ca href=\"https://open.spotify.com/album/7ExTYE1QYCZMXjWtH5YEe3?si=ZlmDzrXQREyeGupFBM-Wtg\">How Far Gone\u003c/a>,” written by musicians Olivia Kuper Harris and David Michael Ott. It acknowledges the damage people have done to the planet and climate, and asks how long it will take to act on climate change:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>What’s crazy is how I exploit you\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>When you give and you give I ignore you\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>If I could take it back, I would take it all back, I would turn the clock back\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The show is an example of the belief held by Jamie Beck Alexander of Project Drawdown that “\u003ca href=\"https://www.edf.org/degrees/how-green-any-job-project-drawdown-s-jamie-beck-alexander\">every job is a climate job\u003c/a>,” and anyone can use their passions and skills to talk about climate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1998327\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1998327\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250819-ORANGESKYDAYART-19-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250819-ORANGESKYDAYART-19-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250819-ORANGESKYDAYART-19-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250819-ORANGESKYDAYART-19-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250819-ORANGESKYDAYART-19-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The cast of the musical The Day the Sky Turned Orange rehearses at the American Conservatory Theater studio space in San Francisco on Aug. 19, 2025. The new production reflects on the September 2020 day when wildfire smoke turned the Bay Area sky orange. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The creative team behind the production is furthering public conversation on climate, not just through the show but through a series of post-show “talkbacks,” short conversations, which will cover topics such as how to take action on climate change and eco-anxiety.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Furthering conversations about climate change is what scientist and communicator Katharine Hayhoe \u003ca href=\"https://www.ted.com/talks/katharine_hayhoe_the_most_important_thing_you_can_do_to_fight_climate_change_talk_about_it\">argues\u003c/a> is the most important thing an individual can do about the issue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Research shows the majority of people care about climate change, but don’t talk about it, skewing public perception of how important the issue is. A recent \u003ca href=\"https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-024-01925-3\">global survey\u003c/a> of 130,000 people showed that nearly 9 out of 10 want stronger action to combat climate change, but mistakenly think they are in the minority.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What can we do to break this vicious cycle?” Hayhoe asks in a TED Talk with more than four million views. “The number one thing we can do is the exact thing that we’re not doing: talk about it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1998330\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1998330\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250819-ORANGESKYDAYART-38-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250819-ORANGESKYDAYART-38-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250819-ORANGESKYDAYART-38-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250819-ORANGESKYDAYART-38-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250819-ORANGESKYDAYART-38-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The cast of the musical The Day the Sky Turned Orange rehearses at the American Conservatory Theater studio space in San Francisco on Aug. 19, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Sharing support for climate action could unlock a “social tipping point” and push leaders to act, the research suggests.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jackson knows many people don’t want to read the science surrounding climate change. “But maybe I can give them another lens so they can feel it’s accessible,” Jackson said about the musical.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The show’s music is inspired by pop, R&B and hip hop, with the goal of reaching a broad audience. It’s deeply rooted in the Bay Area, with clear celebrations of its diversity and even homegrown dance moves like the \u003ca href=\"https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/947949/\">Smeeze\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The play itself follows the arc of four main characters: a student, a teacher, a therapist and someone who has long COVID but doesn’t know it yet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1998268\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1998268\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/08/250819-ORANGESKYDAYART-15-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/08/250819-ORANGESKYDAYART-15-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/08/250819-ORANGESKYDAYART-15-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/08/250819-ORANGESKYDAYART-15-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/08/250819-ORANGESKYDAYART-15-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Director Rodney Earl Jackson Jr. holds a rendering of the set before a rehearsal for the musical The Day the Sky Turned Orange at the American Conservatory Theater studio space in San Francisco on Aug. 19, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“The Day the Sky Turned Orange” not only tackles climate, but brings the audience back to the overlapping crises of 2020. A powerful scene comes at the end of the production, as a high school student builds a time capsule to capture the moment. One by one, actors place items in a box: a COVID test, a knitting project, an oxygen mask. It’s a cathartic moment for the characters and begs the question– what do you still need to let go of so you can move forward?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s the medicine that you don’t think you need,” Rea said. The audience “walks out not realizing that they needed to talk about their feelings from the pandemic.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the show’s more catchy tunes is an ode to San Francisco, invoking the city’s energy and joy. It’s called “\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZKZPXtqiyM\">Good Day\u003c/a>.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>I see the Golden Gate, this is our home.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Wake up, new day in San Francisco,\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Sun’s up, see my people in the Castro. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Get up, we gotta change the world.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>It’s a good day, good day. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The Day the Sky Turned Orange” is co-produced by the San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Company and Z Space, and runs at Z Space in San Francisco from Sept. 5 to Oct. 5.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "A new musical, running this month at Z Space in San Francisco, uses hip hop, R&B and soul to ease us back to a day we’d like to forget.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>On the morning of Sept. 9, 2020, Rodney Earl Jackson, Jr. woke up to the buzz of his cell phone. It was his mother, telling him to open his \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/san-francisco\">San Francisco\u003c/a> apartment window and peer outside. It was late enough for the morning light to shine down on his Duboce Park neighborhood, but instead the streets were cloaked in darkness.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Where was the sun?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Immediately I shut the window, and I said, ‘I’m not dealing with this right now,’” Jackson recalled. His mother, based a few blocks away in the Fillmore, asked if he knew what was happening.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He had no idea, he said, and tried to go back to sleep. “Because I thought I was in a dream. It felt like I hadn’t really woken up yet,” Jackson said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More than a hundred miles north of the Bay Area,\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1998245/the-summer-that-changed-california-forever\"> wildfires\u003c/a> tore through towns, homes and forests. Winds carried massive amounts of smoke into the skies over the Bay Area. The pollution scattered blue-light wavelengths, leaving only reds and oranges to shine through. Not only was it dark, the sky was an eerie orange.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jackson is an actor who’s appeared on Broadway, with deep roots in the Bay Area. He was born and raised in San Francisco before attending college on the East Coast, and returned home more than a decade ago to co-found the \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfbatco.org/\">San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Company\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1998329\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1998329\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250819-ORANGESKYDAYART-24-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250819-ORANGESKYDAYART-24-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250819-ORANGESKYDAYART-24-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250819-ORANGESKYDAYART-24-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250819-ORANGESKYDAYART-24-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The cast of the musical The Day the Sky Turned Orange rehearses at the American Conservatory Theater studio space in San Francisco on Aug. 19, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The Bay Area is familiar and exciting to Jackson, but on that dark day, it was frightening.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He wanted to know how others felt: did it all seem like a dream to them, too? And what meaning were they making from it? So he started interviewing people. The product of those conversations is a musical called “The Day the Sky Turned Orange,” premiering this month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The play invites the audience back to that apocalyptic day, which crashed like a roaring wave on top of pandemic isolation and a national racial reckoning sparked by the murder of George Floyd. Jackson and his co-creators hope that revisiting a day marked by often-repressed emotions will help us process them and move forward.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“I don’t think that we’ve actually fully recovered from that moment. I know I haven’t,” playwright Julius Ernesto Rea said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rea said coming together in a physical space and going back in time gives the actors and the audience the opportunity to release some of their bottled-up emotions, especially those surrounding the changing climate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A lot of the play is trying to figure out how we grieve the future that we thought we had, so that we can invite new visions of the future,” Rea said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One memorable song is “\u003ca href=\"https://open.spotify.com/album/7ExTYE1QYCZMXjWtH5YEe3?si=ZlmDzrXQREyeGupFBM-Wtg\">How Far Gone\u003c/a>,” written by musicians Olivia Kuper Harris and David Michael Ott. It acknowledges the damage people have done to the planet and climate, and asks how long it will take to act on climate change:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>What’s crazy is how I exploit you\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>When you give and you give I ignore you\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>If I could take it back, I would take it all back, I would turn the clock back\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The show is an example of the belief held by Jamie Beck Alexander of Project Drawdown that “\u003ca href=\"https://www.edf.org/degrees/how-green-any-job-project-drawdown-s-jamie-beck-alexander\">every job is a climate job\u003c/a>,” and anyone can use their passions and skills to talk about climate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1998327\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1998327\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250819-ORANGESKYDAYART-19-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250819-ORANGESKYDAYART-19-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250819-ORANGESKYDAYART-19-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250819-ORANGESKYDAYART-19-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250819-ORANGESKYDAYART-19-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The cast of the musical The Day the Sky Turned Orange rehearses at the American Conservatory Theater studio space in San Francisco on Aug. 19, 2025. The new production reflects on the September 2020 day when wildfire smoke turned the Bay Area sky orange. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The creative team behind the production is furthering public conversation on climate, not just through the show but through a series of post-show “talkbacks,” short conversations, which will cover topics such as how to take action on climate change and eco-anxiety.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Furthering conversations about climate change is what scientist and communicator Katharine Hayhoe \u003ca href=\"https://www.ted.com/talks/katharine_hayhoe_the_most_important_thing_you_can_do_to_fight_climate_change_talk_about_it\">argues\u003c/a> is the most important thing an individual can do about the issue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Research shows the majority of people care about climate change, but don’t talk about it, skewing public perception of how important the issue is. A recent \u003ca href=\"https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-024-01925-3\">global survey\u003c/a> of 130,000 people showed that nearly 9 out of 10 want stronger action to combat climate change, but mistakenly think they are in the minority.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What can we do to break this vicious cycle?” Hayhoe asks in a TED Talk with more than four million views. “The number one thing we can do is the exact thing that we’re not doing: talk about it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1998330\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1998330\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250819-ORANGESKYDAYART-38-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250819-ORANGESKYDAYART-38-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250819-ORANGESKYDAYART-38-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250819-ORANGESKYDAYART-38-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250819-ORANGESKYDAYART-38-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The cast of the musical The Day the Sky Turned Orange rehearses at the American Conservatory Theater studio space in San Francisco on Aug. 19, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Sharing support for climate action could unlock a “social tipping point” and push leaders to act, the research suggests.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jackson knows many people don’t want to read the science surrounding climate change. “But maybe I can give them another lens so they can feel it’s accessible,” Jackson said about the musical.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The show’s music is inspired by pop, R&B and hip hop, with the goal of reaching a broad audience. It’s deeply rooted in the Bay Area, with clear celebrations of its diversity and even homegrown dance moves like the \u003ca href=\"https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/947949/\">Smeeze\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The play itself follows the arc of four main characters: a student, a teacher, a therapist and someone who has long COVID but doesn’t know it yet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1998268\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1998268\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/08/250819-ORANGESKYDAYART-15-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/08/250819-ORANGESKYDAYART-15-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/08/250819-ORANGESKYDAYART-15-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/08/250819-ORANGESKYDAYART-15-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/08/250819-ORANGESKYDAYART-15-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Director Rodney Earl Jackson Jr. holds a rendering of the set before a rehearsal for the musical The Day the Sky Turned Orange at the American Conservatory Theater studio space in San Francisco on Aug. 19, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“The Day the Sky Turned Orange” not only tackles climate, but brings the audience back to the overlapping crises of 2020. A powerful scene comes at the end of the production, as a high school student builds a time capsule to capture the moment. One by one, actors place items in a box: a COVID test, a knitting project, an oxygen mask. It’s a cathartic moment for the characters and begs the question– what do you still need to let go of so you can move forward?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s the medicine that you don’t think you need,” Rea said. The audience “walks out not realizing that they needed to talk about their feelings from the pandemic.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the show’s more catchy tunes is an ode to San Francisco, invoking the city’s energy and joy. It’s called “\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZKZPXtqiyM\">Good Day\u003c/a>.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>I see the Golden Gate, this is our home.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Wake up, new day in San Francisco,\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Sun’s up, see my people in the Castro. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Get up, we gotta change the world.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>It’s a good day, good day. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The Day the Sky Turned Orange” is co-produced by the San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Company and Z Space, and runs at Z Space in San Francisco from Sept. 5 to Oct. 5.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "At Burning Man, the Weather Can Feel Biblical. Will Climate Change Make It Even Worse?",
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"content": "\u003cp>Mariska Keasberry and her crew of builders got to\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/burning-man\"> Burning Man\u003c/a> in Nevada early this year. As they finished setting up camp — in anticipation of more than 100 people joining their setup in the coming days — they felt proud of their efforts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But then, from a distance, they saw a wall of white approaching them — fast.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For the next two hours, as the sandstorm enveloped them, they tried to save what they had just built. But the raging dust “ended up taking out about 70% of our infrastructure,” Keasberry said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over the course of the week, they would rebuild their camp again and again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In some ways, this felt a little bit like ‘Building Man,’” said Keasberry, an Oakland resident who has been going to the festival since 2016 and now co-leads a camp called The Heart Collective.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This year, the sandstorm was followed by several days of rain and near-triple-digit heat. And multiple years of this kind of extreme weather on the playa — including the torrential rain that created a “\u003ca href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8BwGNfm/\">mudpocalypse\u003c/a>” in 2023 — have caused some \u003ca href=\"https://www.reddit.com/r/BurningMan/comments/1n5svhh/processing_a_really_tough_burn_has_anyone_else/\">attendees to question\u003c/a> whether to return to Black Rock Desert. They’re also wondering if human-caused climate change is threatening the viability of future burns.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1998364\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1998364\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/BurningManGetty1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1499\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/BurningManGetty1.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/BurningManGetty1-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/BurningManGetty1-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/BurningManGetty1-1536x1151.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Tents between puddles and mud on the grounds of the Burning Man festival on Sept. 4, 2023. \u003ccite>(David Crane/picture alliance via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>From the outside in — \u003ca href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/@humminglion/video/7542051848904068382\">or even the inside out\u003c/a> — the weather at this year’s burn sure looked biblical. Burning Man officials state clearly on their website to “\u003ca href=\"https://burningman.org/event/preparation/faq/\">be prepared for volatile extremes\u003c/a>,” including excessive heat, freezing temperatures, swift thunderstorms, up to 70 mph winds and intense dust storms. The Burning Man Project, the nonprofit that organizes the festival each year, did not respond to KQED’s request for comment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Online, the organization \u003ca href=\"https://burningman.org/event/preparation/faq/#Preparation\">wrote\u003c/a>: “In Nevada, there is a saying: if you don’t like the weather, stick around for five minutes and it will change.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Only one thing is completely predictable about the weather in the Black Rock Desert: Unpredictability,” they added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So, how standard is this kind of extreme weather for Burning Man and how much do scientists think climate change could impact (or even cancel) this festival in the coming years?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jump straight to:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>\u003ca href=\"#HowtypicalwasthisyearswildweatherforBurningMan\">How typical was this year’s wild weather for Burning Man?\u003c/a>\u003c/strong>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>\u003ca href=\"#WhatabouttheduststormsBurningManisfamousfor\">What about the dust storms Burning Man is famous for?\u003c/a>\u003c/strong>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>\u003ca href=\"#SoclimatechangeisnotcancelingBurningMananytimesoon\">So, climate change is not canceling Burning Man anytime soon?\u003c/a>\u003c/strong>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>\u003ca href=\"#Isnttheinclementweatherkindofthepoint\">Isn’t the inclement weather kind of the point?\u003c/a>\u003c/strong>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca id=\"HowtypicalwasthisyearswildweatherforBurningMan\">\u003c/a>How typical was this year’s wild weather for Burning Man?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Daniel McEvoy, a climatologist at the Desert Research Institute in Reno, said the wind, rain, dust and heat Burners experienced this year were not out of the ordinary for late summer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It wasn’t all that unusual,” McEvoy said. “It was just sort of the timing of everything that seemed to happen to coincide right with the first few days of Burning Man.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Black Rock Desert is a barren lake bed — and during late August, this place often witnesses a wide range of weather, McEvoy said.[aside postID=news_12054241 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/01/HetchHetchyCentennial_05022023-qut-1020x680.jpg']Typically, this part of the Black Rock Desert is extremely hot in August, but McEvoy said excessive heat wasn’t an issue this year. Instead, multiple days of rain pelted attendees, along with strong winds and a dust storm. But those events were by no means the strongest that Burners have lived through in recent years. In 2023, as much as \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/burning-man-festival-flooding-entrance-closed-d6cd88ee009c6e1f6d2d92739ec1ca18\">an inch of rain fell\u003c/a> within a 24-hour period, swamping the camps and trapping tens of thousands of attendees in an impassable playa — a situation that drew international attention due to videos posted by high-profile attendees like \u003ca href=\"https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/03/entertainment/diplo-burning-man\">Diplo\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>McEvoy views that muddy year as “much more of an anomaly” than the 2025 burn. However, he said the effects of \u003ca href=\"https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/anthropogenic\">anthropogenic \u003c/a>climate change are likely slowly altering weather patterns on the playa. \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1995420/climate-scientists-warn-of-growing-whiplash-effect-on-weather-patterns\">A warming climate can mean a “juicier” atmosphere\u003c/a> — so when storms occur, especially thunderstorms, they can be more intense and cause major flooding.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In general, for the Great Basin area, which houses Burning Man, summertime rainfall is expected to \u003ca href=\"https://url.us.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/9b8hClYpANikLAl5h9hRtzJf7P?domain=climatetoolbox.org\">increase by around 10 to 15%\u003c/a> by the mid to late century, McEvoy said. He also noted that future Burns could be significantly hotter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, understanding how weather patterns are changing on the playa is challenging because of the lack of long-term weather stations there. The closest are in places like Reno, about 100 miles to the south, and Winnemucca, about 70 miles to the east.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca id=\"WhatabouttheduststormsBurningManisfamousfor\">\u003c/a>What about the dust storms Burning Man is famous for?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>McEvoy said it’s hard to quantify whether human-caused climate change is intensifying the winds that cause the festival’s legendary dust storms. But he notes that winds increase during the formation of a thunderstorm, picking up dust, which loosely suggests that if there are more or stronger thunderstorms, the sandstorms that precede them could also worsen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are other factors that can determine the intensity of a sandstorm, too. For instance, long-term droughts, exacerbated by a warming planet, supply more dust for winds to carry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1998369\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1998369\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/BurningManGetty2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1228\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/BurningManGetty2.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/BurningManGetty2-160x98.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/BurningManGetty2-768x472.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/BurningManGetty2-1536x943.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Maxar satellite imagery of the 2023 Burning Man Festival held in the Black Rock Desert, about 100 miles north of Reno, Nevada. \u003ccite>(Satellite image (c) 2024 Maxar Technologies via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“There are places on the planet that are so good for providing dust to the atmosphere, and the Black Rock Desert is one of those,” said Mike Kaplan, professor emeritus at the Desert Research Institute.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But it’s not just the Great Basin where sandstorms are downright nasty. Kaplan said Northern Mexico is going through a severe drought and is having “one of the \u003ca href=\"https://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/satellite-blog/archives/64258\">busiest dust storm years\u003c/a> in history.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For Kaplan, what Burners lived through this year mirrors more natural climate variability than a “man-made signal,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If Burning Man didn’t exist, nobody would know what even happened,” Kaplan said. “It would have just been another dust storm in the Black Rock Desert.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca id=\"SoclimatechangeisnotcancelingBurningMananytimesoon\">\u003c/a>So, climate change is not canceling Burning Man anytime soon?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Climate scientists, like McEvoy, suggest that if Burning Man organizers push the event back by a few weeks or even a month “to the end of September, the chances for a lot of these extremes would go way down.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s just a cooler time of the year,” McEvoy said.[aside postID=science_1998214 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/08/Newsom-Denmark-2000x1333.jpg']But by contrast, Kaplan isn’t so sure that moving the event would decrease the probability of poor weather, because the desert is already the land of extremes and is influenced by “very complicated” global systems. As a result, it can be “hard to sort out the relationship between these very massive circulation systems and one fairly localized weather event.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For many Burners, including Keasberry, the festival taking place around a holiday weekend is a key practicality for being able to make the trip. Stephen Wade, who is from San Francisco and participated in the Beardhaus camp this year — which provides beard care and hosts drag shows on the playa — also wondered if other issues, like bugs or wet weather, might become a problem later in the season.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But will climate change eventually phase out Burning Man’s viability in the coming years?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I don’t see any reason to believe that climate change would eliminate Burning Man,” McEvoy said, “at least not in the next few decades. I do think it will increase the likelihood of these extreme events becoming more common.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca id=\"Isnttheinclementweatherkindofthepoint\">\u003c/a>Isn’t the inclement weather kind of the point?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>For many Burners, including Keasberry, the high highs and low lows are part of what makes Burning Man so transformative.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While “all forms of going to Burning Man are valid,” she said, “if you’re not getting humbled, are you doing Burning Man right? I don’t think we go to Burning Man for it to be easy.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.reddit.com/r/BurningMan/comments/1mv4c3b/ok_its_time_for_my_annual_preburning_man_rant_and/\">Commenters on a recent Reddit thread\u003c/a> echoed Keasberry: “Burning Man is at its BEST when the weather is at its WORST,” the main author wrote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote class=\"tiktok-embed\" style=\"max-width: 605px;min-width: 325px\" cite=\"https://www.tiktok.com/@steelandfeels/video/7545216286356147487\" data-video-id=\"7545216286356147487\">\n\u003csection>\u003ca title=\"@steelandfeels\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/@steelandfeels?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">@steelandfeels\u003c/a>Burning Man is a protest of convenience culture. Break everything and then figure it out. Or find someone who can teach you how. After 9 years, I’ve become a generalist in electronics, welding, CAD, LEDs, automotive, batteries, solar, plumbing and team building. Necessity is the mother of figuring it the f*ck out, and convenience and self doubt prevents us from taking the first steps.\u003ca title=\"♬ original sound - David Date\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/music/original-sound-7545216240671787806?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">♬ original sound – David Date\u003c/a>\u003c/section>\n\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>[tiktok]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rachel Nuwer, a Brooklyn resident and first-time co-lead of the camp Burning Sensation, agreed that this year’s burn felt especially cathartic after enduring the wind and rain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I don’t want the lows to go too low, but I think having that juxtaposition of hardship and joy really helps to heighten the significance of the experience,” Nuwer said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But ultimately, she said, there is a point at which it’s no longer worth it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I had moments on the playa [this year] where I said, ‘this is a one and done for me,’” she said. “I remember thinking, when I was lying there crouched in this collapsed \u003ca href=\"https://shiftpod.com/\">shift pod\u003c/a>, ‘someone is gonna lose their life during this storm.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The weather hasn’t stopped Nuwer from going yet, but she said that could change. Black Rock City is a massive conglomeration of camps, each offering something different — from techno dance parties to smoothie stations to enormous art displays — and a huge part of the appeal for many Burners is exploring the site beyond their own camps and getting lost amid it all.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nuwer said if the bad weather was too constant to leave her camp, “it would no longer be worth it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even so, some Burners \u003cem>are \u003c/em>reassessing their future Burns. Wade said most camps already put tons of effort into creating a safe environment for participants. Now, it’s about informing campers about emergency procedures and adapting on the fly — like when his camp transformed their Budget rental truck into a mini club during the rain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You can either wallow in the fact that we have set up and take down our camp three times in three days, or we can learn how to adapt our structures to make them easier to take down,” he said. “And then also learn how to socialize and party in that space.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Following this year’s weather debacle, Keasberry said, after many years of camping, she might finally make an upgrade.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I finally feel like I’m one of those Burners who’s like, ‘it might be really nice to have an RV,’” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeCeDp_MY_h4G6VWj_-VPl-BJlQ3Uya2H0vxRZZd_47BpXwVA/viewform?embedded=true\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This article has been updated to correct the term “shift pod,” which is a type of shelter.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Mariska Keasberry and her crew of builders got to\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/burning-man\"> Burning Man\u003c/a> in Nevada early this year. As they finished setting up camp — in anticipation of more than 100 people joining their setup in the coming days — they felt proud of their efforts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But then, from a distance, they saw a wall of white approaching them — fast.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For the next two hours, as the sandstorm enveloped them, they tried to save what they had just built. But the raging dust “ended up taking out about 70% of our infrastructure,” Keasberry said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over the course of the week, they would rebuild their camp again and again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In some ways, this felt a little bit like ‘Building Man,’” said Keasberry, an Oakland resident who has been going to the festival since 2016 and now co-leads a camp called The Heart Collective.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This year, the sandstorm was followed by several days of rain and near-triple-digit heat. And multiple years of this kind of extreme weather on the playa — including the torrential rain that created a “\u003ca href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8BwGNfm/\">mudpocalypse\u003c/a>” in 2023 — have caused some \u003ca href=\"https://www.reddit.com/r/BurningMan/comments/1n5svhh/processing_a_really_tough_burn_has_anyone_else/\">attendees to question\u003c/a> whether to return to Black Rock Desert. They’re also wondering if human-caused climate change is threatening the viability of future burns.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1998364\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1998364\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/BurningManGetty1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1499\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/BurningManGetty1.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/BurningManGetty1-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/BurningManGetty1-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/BurningManGetty1-1536x1151.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Tents between puddles and mud on the grounds of the Burning Man festival on Sept. 4, 2023. \u003ccite>(David Crane/picture alliance via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>From the outside in — \u003ca href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/@humminglion/video/7542051848904068382\">or even the inside out\u003c/a> — the weather at this year’s burn sure looked biblical. Burning Man officials state clearly on their website to “\u003ca href=\"https://burningman.org/event/preparation/faq/\">be prepared for volatile extremes\u003c/a>,” including excessive heat, freezing temperatures, swift thunderstorms, up to 70 mph winds and intense dust storms. The Burning Man Project, the nonprofit that organizes the festival each year, did not respond to KQED’s request for comment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Online, the organization \u003ca href=\"https://burningman.org/event/preparation/faq/#Preparation\">wrote\u003c/a>: “In Nevada, there is a saying: if you don’t like the weather, stick around for five minutes and it will change.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Only one thing is completely predictable about the weather in the Black Rock Desert: Unpredictability,” they added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So, how standard is this kind of extreme weather for Burning Man and how much do scientists think climate change could impact (or even cancel) this festival in the coming years?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jump straight to:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>\u003ca href=\"#HowtypicalwasthisyearswildweatherforBurningMan\">How typical was this year’s wild weather for Burning Man?\u003c/a>\u003c/strong>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>\u003ca href=\"#WhatabouttheduststormsBurningManisfamousfor\">What about the dust storms Burning Man is famous for?\u003c/a>\u003c/strong>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>\u003ca href=\"#SoclimatechangeisnotcancelingBurningMananytimesoon\">So, climate change is not canceling Burning Man anytime soon?\u003c/a>\u003c/strong>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>\u003ca href=\"#Isnttheinclementweatherkindofthepoint\">Isn’t the inclement weather kind of the point?\u003c/a>\u003c/strong>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca id=\"HowtypicalwasthisyearswildweatherforBurningMan\">\u003c/a>How typical was this year’s wild weather for Burning Man?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Daniel McEvoy, a climatologist at the Desert Research Institute in Reno, said the wind, rain, dust and heat Burners experienced this year were not out of the ordinary for late summer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It wasn’t all that unusual,” McEvoy said. “It was just sort of the timing of everything that seemed to happen to coincide right with the first few days of Burning Man.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Black Rock Desert is a barren lake bed — and during late August, this place often witnesses a wide range of weather, McEvoy said.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Typically, this part of the Black Rock Desert is extremely hot in August, but McEvoy said excessive heat wasn’t an issue this year. Instead, multiple days of rain pelted attendees, along with strong winds and a dust storm. But those events were by no means the strongest that Burners have lived through in recent years. In 2023, as much as \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/burning-man-festival-flooding-entrance-closed-d6cd88ee009c6e1f6d2d92739ec1ca18\">an inch of rain fell\u003c/a> within a 24-hour period, swamping the camps and trapping tens of thousands of attendees in an impassable playa — a situation that drew international attention due to videos posted by high-profile attendees like \u003ca href=\"https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/03/entertainment/diplo-burning-man\">Diplo\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>McEvoy views that muddy year as “much more of an anomaly” than the 2025 burn. However, he said the effects of \u003ca href=\"https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/anthropogenic\">anthropogenic \u003c/a>climate change are likely slowly altering weather patterns on the playa. \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1995420/climate-scientists-warn-of-growing-whiplash-effect-on-weather-patterns\">A warming climate can mean a “juicier” atmosphere\u003c/a> — so when storms occur, especially thunderstorms, they can be more intense and cause major flooding.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In general, for the Great Basin area, which houses Burning Man, summertime rainfall is expected to \u003ca href=\"https://url.us.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/9b8hClYpANikLAl5h9hRtzJf7P?domain=climatetoolbox.org\">increase by around 10 to 15%\u003c/a> by the mid to late century, McEvoy said. He also noted that future Burns could be significantly hotter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, understanding how weather patterns are changing on the playa is challenging because of the lack of long-term weather stations there. The closest are in places like Reno, about 100 miles to the south, and Winnemucca, about 70 miles to the east.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca id=\"WhatabouttheduststormsBurningManisfamousfor\">\u003c/a>What about the dust storms Burning Man is famous for?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>McEvoy said it’s hard to quantify whether human-caused climate change is intensifying the winds that cause the festival’s legendary dust storms. But he notes that winds increase during the formation of a thunderstorm, picking up dust, which loosely suggests that if there are more or stronger thunderstorms, the sandstorms that precede them could also worsen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are other factors that can determine the intensity of a sandstorm, too. For instance, long-term droughts, exacerbated by a warming planet, supply more dust for winds to carry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1998369\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1998369\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/BurningManGetty2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1228\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/BurningManGetty2.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/BurningManGetty2-160x98.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/BurningManGetty2-768x472.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/BurningManGetty2-1536x943.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Maxar satellite imagery of the 2023 Burning Man Festival held in the Black Rock Desert, about 100 miles north of Reno, Nevada. \u003ccite>(Satellite image (c) 2024 Maxar Technologies via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“There are places on the planet that are so good for providing dust to the atmosphere, and the Black Rock Desert is one of those,” said Mike Kaplan, professor emeritus at the Desert Research Institute.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But it’s not just the Great Basin where sandstorms are downright nasty. Kaplan said Northern Mexico is going through a severe drought and is having “one of the \u003ca href=\"https://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/satellite-blog/archives/64258\">busiest dust storm years\u003c/a> in history.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For Kaplan, what Burners lived through this year mirrors more natural climate variability than a “man-made signal,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If Burning Man didn’t exist, nobody would know what even happened,” Kaplan said. “It would have just been another dust storm in the Black Rock Desert.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca id=\"SoclimatechangeisnotcancelingBurningMananytimesoon\">\u003c/a>So, climate change is not canceling Burning Man anytime soon?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Climate scientists, like McEvoy, suggest that if Burning Man organizers push the event back by a few weeks or even a month “to the end of September, the chances for a lot of these extremes would go way down.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s just a cooler time of the year,” McEvoy said.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>But by contrast, Kaplan isn’t so sure that moving the event would decrease the probability of poor weather, because the desert is already the land of extremes and is influenced by “very complicated” global systems. As a result, it can be “hard to sort out the relationship between these very massive circulation systems and one fairly localized weather event.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For many Burners, including Keasberry, the festival taking place around a holiday weekend is a key practicality for being able to make the trip. Stephen Wade, who is from San Francisco and participated in the Beardhaus camp this year — which provides beard care and hosts drag shows on the playa — also wondered if other issues, like bugs or wet weather, might become a problem later in the season.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But will climate change eventually phase out Burning Man’s viability in the coming years?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I don’t see any reason to believe that climate change would eliminate Burning Man,” McEvoy said, “at least not in the next few decades. I do think it will increase the likelihood of these extreme events becoming more common.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca id=\"Isnttheinclementweatherkindofthepoint\">\u003c/a>Isn’t the inclement weather kind of the point?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>For many Burners, including Keasberry, the high highs and low lows are part of what makes Burning Man so transformative.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While “all forms of going to Burning Man are valid,” she said, “if you’re not getting humbled, are you doing Burning Man right? I don’t think we go to Burning Man for it to be easy.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.reddit.com/r/BurningMan/comments/1mv4c3b/ok_its_time_for_my_annual_preburning_man_rant_and/\">Commenters on a recent Reddit thread\u003c/a> echoed Keasberry: “Burning Man is at its BEST when the weather is at its WORST,” the main author wrote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote class=\"tiktok-embed\" style=\"max-width: 605px;min-width: 325px\" cite=\"https://www.tiktok.com/@steelandfeels/video/7545216286356147487\" data-video-id=\"7545216286356147487\">\n\u003csection>\u003ca title=\"@steelandfeels\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/@steelandfeels?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">@steelandfeels\u003c/a>Burning Man is a protest of convenience culture. Break everything and then figure it out. Or find someone who can teach you how. After 9 years, I’ve become a generalist in electronics, welding, CAD, LEDs, automotive, batteries, solar, plumbing and team building. Necessity is the mother of figuring it the f*ck out, and convenience and self doubt prevents us from taking the first steps.\u003ca title=\"♬ original sound - David Date\" href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/music/original-sound-7545216240671787806?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">♬ original sound – David Date\u003c/a>\u003c/section>\n\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rachel Nuwer, a Brooklyn resident and first-time co-lead of the camp Burning Sensation, agreed that this year’s burn felt especially cathartic after enduring the wind and rain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I don’t want the lows to go too low, but I think having that juxtaposition of hardship and joy really helps to heighten the significance of the experience,” Nuwer said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But ultimately, she said, there is a point at which it’s no longer worth it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I had moments on the playa [this year] where I said, ‘this is a one and done for me,’” she said. “I remember thinking, when I was lying there crouched in this collapsed \u003ca href=\"https://shiftpod.com/\">shift pod\u003c/a>, ‘someone is gonna lose their life during this storm.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The weather hasn’t stopped Nuwer from going yet, but she said that could change. Black Rock City is a massive conglomeration of camps, each offering something different — from techno dance parties to smoothie stations to enormous art displays — and a huge part of the appeal for many Burners is exploring the site beyond their own camps and getting lost amid it all.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nuwer said if the bad weather was too constant to leave her camp, “it would no longer be worth it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even so, some Burners \u003cem>are \u003c/em>reassessing their future Burns. Wade said most camps already put tons of effort into creating a safe environment for participants. Now, it’s about informing campers about emergency procedures and adapting on the fly — like when his camp transformed their Budget rental truck into a mini club during the rain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You can either wallow in the fact that we have set up and take down our camp three times in three days, or we can learn how to adapt our structures to make them easier to take down,” he said. “And then also learn how to socialize and party in that space.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Following this year’s weather debacle, Keasberry said, after many years of camping, she might finally make an upgrade.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I finally feel like I’m one of those Burners who’s like, ‘it might be really nice to have an RV,’” she said.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cdiv class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__shortcodes__shortcodeWrapper'>\n \u003ciframe\n src='https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeCeDp_MY_h4G6VWj_-VPl-BJlQ3Uya2H0vxRZZd_47BpXwVA/viewform?embedded=true?embedded=true'\n title='https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeCeDp_MY_h4G6VWj_-VPl-BJlQ3Uya2H0vxRZZd_47BpXwVA/viewform?embedded=true'\n width='760' height='500'\n frameborder='0'\n marginheight='0' marginwidth='0'>\u003c/iframe>\u003c/div>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>This article has been updated to correct the term “shift pod,” which is a type of shelter.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>On Sept. 6, 2020,\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/san-francisco\"> San Francisco\u003c/a> hit 100 degrees — a rare event in the city’s recorded history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Eight months pregnant, Alana Semuels baked in her west-facing apartment. The air outside smelled like a campfire. The haze swallowed the sun and blurred the outlines of Alcatraz Island and the Golden Gate Bridge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was like an oven,” she recalled. “One night, I got so desperate that I went outside to sleep on our deck chairs. It felt like the only place I could go to really breathe. I remember waking up with a fine layer of grit on the chairs and on me.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A few weeks earlier, a barrage of dry lightning sparked hundreds of wildfires across the Bay Area. For 30 straight days, officials urged locals to stay inside because the air was so unhealthy. Tiny specks of soot and ash exceeded the safety guidelines set by the federal Environmental Protection Agency. It was even worse in the Sierra Nevada, the Sacramento Valley, and parts of Southern California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The month-long haze has become a grim preview of California’s new reality. Wildfire smoke is now \u003ca href=\"https://eartharxiv.org/repository/view/8187/\">three to six times worse\u003c/a> than it was a decade ago. Scientists have linked exposure to higher risks of heart disease, cognitive decline, and pregnancy complications. The evidence for these health effects is now stronger and more wide-ranging than many experts anticipated back in 2020.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1998201\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 1500px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1998201\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/08/250822-SMOKE-STORM-RETRO-MD-05-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1500\" height=\"2000\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/08/250822-SMOKE-STORM-RETRO-MD-05-KQED.jpg 1500w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/08/250822-SMOKE-STORM-RETRO-MD-05-KQED-160x213.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/08/250822-SMOKE-STORM-RETRO-MD-05-KQED-768x1024.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/08/250822-SMOKE-STORM-RETRO-MD-05-KQED-1152x1536.jpg 1152w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1500px) 100vw, 1500px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Alana Semuels wears a half-face respirator in September of 2020 she bought from a hardware store in the Inner Richmond neighborhood of San Francisco in an effort to protect herself and unborn child from the ash-filled air, \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Alana Semuels)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Before long, Semuels began coughing. Concerned for her baby’s developing lungs, she called her doctor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You just worry, is this gonna hurt my baby somehow?” she said. “That’s just really unnerving because there’s really nothing you could do about it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A nurse told Semuels to find an air-conditioned space. But it was the pandemic, so restaurants and theaters were closed. She tightened her mask and wandered through a Target, buying nothing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was like, this is the new paradise,” she said. “The inside of a box store.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was a smart move. Pregnant people are more likely to suffer from heat exhaustion or heat stroke because their bodies have to work harder to cool themselves. And, there’s growing evidence that wildfire smoke can increase the risk of \u003ca href=\"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S001393512101166X?via%3Dihub\">preterm births\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.4c10194\">lower birth weights\u003c/a>, and even hinder healthy development.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The placenta doesn’t fully protect the fetus from these kinds of stressors,” said Carlos Gould, environmental health scientist at UC San Diego. “There’s quite strong evidence that a bad wildfire smoke day can increase these risks by five to 10%.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Children are also vulnerable to smoke exposure because they breathe faster than adults and their lungs are still developing. It can worsen asthma, trigger respiratory infections and limit lung growth.[aside postID=news_12051854 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/240109-CAWindStorm-075_qed-1020x680.jpg']The most at risk, Gould said, are older adults. In 2020 alone, he estimated, wildfire smoke killed tens of thousands of people across the country, most of them seniors. And because smoke can travel thousands of miles, the danger isn’t limited to those near the flames.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Where the wind blows, so too goes smoke,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scientists are learning that wildfire plumes can trigger surprising medical issues like \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1974108/doctors-find-wildfire-smoke-may-damage-the-skin\">rashes\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36778437/\">stomach aches\u003c/a>, and raise a person’s \u003ca href=\"https://aaic.alz.org/downloads2024/AAIC-2024-Wildfire-smoke.pdf\">risk of developing dementia\u003c/a>. Even \u003ca href=\"https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10515164/\">suicide rates\u003c/a> rise when it’s smoky. \u003ca href=\"https://lafirehealth.org/nature-medicine-immune-impacts-of-fire-smoke-exposure/\">Emerging research\u003c/a> suggests that tiny particles in wildfire pollutants may weaken the immune system, even just weeks after a fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This chronic short burst exposure can have some lasting effects on the immune cells,” said Sharon Chinthrajah, an asthma specialist at Stanford. “These are your first lines of defense.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today wildfire smoke accounts for roughly half of the state’s air pollution, yet it’s classified as an “exceptional event” under the Clean Air Act — meaning much of the toxic air people breathe goes unrecorded by local air districts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To protect yourself, Dr. Chinthrajah advised checking local air quality regularly and avoiding outdoor activity on hazy days. She also recommended investing in air filters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1985846\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1985846\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/12/CMWildfire02.jpeg\" alt=\"The San Francisco skyline is illuminated in a burnt, orange smog during wildfire season.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/12/CMWildfire02.jpeg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/12/CMWildfire02-800x533.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/12/CMWildfire02-1020x680.jpeg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/12/CMWildfire02-160x107.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/12/CMWildfire02-768x512.jpeg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/12/CMWildfire02-1536x1024.jpeg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/12/CMWildfire02-1920x1280.jpeg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The San Francisco skyline in the distance behind Crissy Field is barely visible due to smoke from wildfires burning across California on Sept. 9, 2020. Researchers say smoke from wildfires accounted for up to half of all small particle air pollution in parts of the western U.S. in recent years. \u003ccite>(Eric Risberg/AP)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>For Semuels the stress of the 2020 smoke event — pregnant, overheated, and surrounded by toxic air — was too much – even though she says, ‘San Francisco is her favorite place on the planet.’\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s just a place that kind of makes my chest relax and I just love it,” she said. But I just felt like we couldn’t do that summer after summer after summer.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her family moved to New York’s Hudson Valley after her child was born, a healthy baby boy. But a few years later, smoke from Canadian wildfires drifted into the region, turning skies an eerie orange and sending air quality readings into the hazardous territory. And the wildfire smoke was back again this summer, too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A few weeks earlier, a barrage of dry lightning sparked hundreds of wildfires across the Bay Area. For 30 straight days, officials urged locals to stay inside because the air was so unhealthy. Tiny specks of soot and ash exceeded the safety guidelines set by the federal Environmental Protection Agency. It was even worse in the Sierra Nevada, the Sacramento Valley, and parts of Southern California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The month-long haze has become a grim preview of California’s new reality. Wildfire smoke is now \u003ca href=\"https://eartharxiv.org/repository/view/8187/\">three to six times worse\u003c/a> than it was a decade ago. Scientists have linked exposure to higher risks of heart disease, cognitive decline, and pregnancy complications. The evidence for these health effects is now stronger and more wide-ranging than many experts anticipated back in 2020.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1998201\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 1500px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1998201\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/08/250822-SMOKE-STORM-RETRO-MD-05-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1500\" height=\"2000\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/08/250822-SMOKE-STORM-RETRO-MD-05-KQED.jpg 1500w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/08/250822-SMOKE-STORM-RETRO-MD-05-KQED-160x213.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/08/250822-SMOKE-STORM-RETRO-MD-05-KQED-768x1024.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/08/250822-SMOKE-STORM-RETRO-MD-05-KQED-1152x1536.jpg 1152w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1500px) 100vw, 1500px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Alana Semuels wears a half-face respirator in September of 2020 she bought from a hardware store in the Inner Richmond neighborhood of San Francisco in an effort to protect herself and unborn child from the ash-filled air, \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Alana Semuels)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Before long, Semuels began coughing. Concerned for her baby’s developing lungs, she called her doctor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You just worry, is this gonna hurt my baby somehow?” she said. “That’s just really unnerving because there’s really nothing you could do about it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A nurse told Semuels to find an air-conditioned space. But it was the pandemic, so restaurants and theaters were closed. She tightened her mask and wandered through a Target, buying nothing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was like, this is the new paradise,” she said. “The inside of a box store.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was a smart move. Pregnant people are more likely to suffer from heat exhaustion or heat stroke because their bodies have to work harder to cool themselves. And, there’s growing evidence that wildfire smoke can increase the risk of \u003ca href=\"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S001393512101166X?via%3Dihub\">preterm births\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.4c10194\">lower birth weights\u003c/a>, and even hinder healthy development.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The placenta doesn’t fully protect the fetus from these kinds of stressors,” said Carlos Gould, environmental health scientist at UC San Diego. “There’s quite strong evidence that a bad wildfire smoke day can increase these risks by five to 10%.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Children are also vulnerable to smoke exposure because they breathe faster than adults and their lungs are still developing. It can worsen asthma, trigger respiratory infections and limit lung growth.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The most at risk, Gould said, are older adults. In 2020 alone, he estimated, wildfire smoke killed tens of thousands of people across the country, most of them seniors. And because smoke can travel thousands of miles, the danger isn’t limited to those near the flames.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Where the wind blows, so too goes smoke,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scientists are learning that wildfire plumes can trigger surprising medical issues like \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1974108/doctors-find-wildfire-smoke-may-damage-the-skin\">rashes\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36778437/\">stomach aches\u003c/a>, and raise a person’s \u003ca href=\"https://aaic.alz.org/downloads2024/AAIC-2024-Wildfire-smoke.pdf\">risk of developing dementia\u003c/a>. Even \u003ca href=\"https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10515164/\">suicide rates\u003c/a> rise when it’s smoky. \u003ca href=\"https://lafirehealth.org/nature-medicine-immune-impacts-of-fire-smoke-exposure/\">Emerging research\u003c/a> suggests that tiny particles in wildfire pollutants may weaken the immune system, even just weeks after a fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This chronic short burst exposure can have some lasting effects on the immune cells,” said Sharon Chinthrajah, an asthma specialist at Stanford. “These are your first lines of defense.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today wildfire smoke accounts for roughly half of the state’s air pollution, yet it’s classified as an “exceptional event” under the Clean Air Act — meaning much of the toxic air people breathe goes unrecorded by local air districts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To protect yourself, Dr. Chinthrajah advised checking local air quality regularly and avoiding outdoor activity on hazy days. She also recommended investing in air filters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1985846\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1985846\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/12/CMWildfire02.jpeg\" alt=\"The San Francisco skyline is illuminated in a burnt, orange smog during wildfire season.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/12/CMWildfire02.jpeg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/12/CMWildfire02-800x533.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/12/CMWildfire02-1020x680.jpeg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/12/CMWildfire02-160x107.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/12/CMWildfire02-768x512.jpeg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/12/CMWildfire02-1536x1024.jpeg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/12/CMWildfire02-1920x1280.jpeg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The San Francisco skyline in the distance behind Crissy Field is barely visible due to smoke from wildfires burning across California on Sept. 9, 2020. Researchers say smoke from wildfires accounted for up to half of all small particle air pollution in parts of the western U.S. in recent years. \u003ccite>(Eric Risberg/AP)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>For Semuels the stress of the 2020 smoke event — pregnant, overheated, and surrounded by toxic air — was too much – even though she says, ‘San Francisco is her favorite place on the planet.’\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s just a place that kind of makes my chest relax and I just love it,” she said. But I just felt like we couldn’t do that summer after summer after summer.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her family moved to New York’s Hudson Valley after her child was born, a healthy baby boy. But a few years later, smoke from Canadian wildfires drifted into the region, turning skies an eerie orange and sending air quality readings into the hazardous territory. And the wildfire smoke was back again this summer, too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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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.",
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"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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"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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"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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"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.",
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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",
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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",
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},
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},
"pri-the-world": {
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"title": "PRI's The World: Latest Edition",
"info": "Each weekday, host Marco Werman and his team of producers bring you the world's most interesting stories in an hour of radio that reminds us just how small our planet really is.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 2pm-3pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-World-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
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},
"radiolab": {
"id": "radiolab",
"title": "Radiolab",
"info": "A two-time Peabody Award-winner, Radiolab is an investigation told through sounds and stories, and centered around one big idea. In the Radiolab world, information sounds like music and science and culture collide. Hosted by Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich, the show is designed for listeners who demand skepticism, but appreciate wonder. WNYC Studios is the producer of other leading podcasts including Freakonomics Radio, Death, Sex & Money, On the Media and many more.",
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},
"reveal": {
"id": "reveal",
"title": "Reveal",
"info": "Created by The Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX, Reveal is public radios first one-hour weekly radio show and podcast dedicated to investigative reporting. Credible, fact based and without a partisan agenda, Reveal combines the power and artistry of driveway moment storytelling with data-rich reporting on critically important issues. The result is stories that inform and inspire, arming our listeners with information to right injustices, hold the powerful accountable and improve lives.Reveal is hosted by Al Letson and showcases the award-winning work of CIR and newsrooms large and small across the nation. In a radio and podcast market crowded with choices, Reveal focuses on important and often surprising stories that illuminate the world for our listeners.",
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"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/reveal300px.png",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.revealnews.org/episodes/",
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"link": "/radio/program/reveal",
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"rss": "http://feeds.revealradio.org/revealpodcast"
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},
"rightnowish": {
"id": "rightnowish",
"title": "Rightnowish",
"tagline": "Art is where you find it",
"info": "Rightnowish digs into life in the Bay Area right now… ish. Journalist Pendarvis Harshaw takes us to galleries painted on the sides of liquor stores in West Oakland. We'll dance in warehouses in the Bayview, make smoothies with kids in South Berkeley, and listen to classical music in a 1984 Cutlass Supreme in Richmond. Every week, Pen talks to movers and shakers about how the Bay Area shapes what they create, and how they shape the place we call home.",
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"order": 16
},
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},
"science-friday": {
"id": "science-friday",
"title": "Science Friday",
"info": "Science Friday is a weekly science talk show, broadcast live over public radio stations nationwide. Each week, the show focuses on science topics that are in the news and tries to bring an educated, balanced discussion to bear on the scientific issues at hand. Panels of expert guests join host Ira Flatow, a veteran science journalist, to discuss science and to take questions from listeners during the call-in portion of the program.",
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