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"title": "As California Megafires Burn, Forest Service Ditches 'Good Fire' Under Political Pressure",
"headTitle": "As California Megafires Burn, Forest Service Ditches ‘Good Fire’ Under Political Pressure | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>Facing record-breaking dry conditions across the West, the U.S. Forest Service announced it will aggressively put out wildfires this summer. As a result, the agency’s use of “good fire,” the lower-intensity blazes that clear out overgrown forests, will also stop.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With thousands of firefighting personnel battling extreme blazes, federal officials say no one can be spared for fire prevention work. But some fire scientists worry that the blanket rule takes away the most important tools foresters have to reduce future wildfire risk, even in parts of the country where it may be safe to use them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s a tough decision, I think, because politically, there’s a lot of pressure to put every single fire out,” says Crystal Kolden, a fire scientist at the UC Merced. “The problem is that political pressure is not based on good science.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many extreme fires across the West are being fueled by overgrown forests, where dense vegetation has accumulated over a century of fire suppression. In recent years, the Forest Service has worked to reduce that risk by using fire proactively.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The agency is now suspending the use of prescribed burns, where foresters set carefully controlled fires that remove brush and vegetation, but don’t kill the mature trees. It’s also suspending what’s known as “managed wildfires for resource benefit,” where naturally caused fires are cautiously allowed to burn if they’re in remote areas and don’t pose a risk to people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are in a ‘triage mode’ where our primary focus must be on fires that threaten communities and infrastructure,” Forest Service Chief Randy Moore wrote in a letter announcing the change. “When western fire activity abates, we will resume using all the tools in our toolbox.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Political Pressure Grows to Attack Wildfires\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The agency has faced growing pressure since the Tamarack Fire exploded south of Lake Tahoe, Calif., in July, destroying at least 14 homes. Sparked by lightning in high mountain wilderness, the Forest Service \u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/HumboldtToiyabeNF/videos/the-tamarackfire-burning-in-the-mokelumne-wilderness-was-ignited-july-4-from-lig/2955306648085725/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">didn’t send fire crews due to safety concerns\u003c/a> over the remoteness of the location. After burning for more than a week, winds drove the fire into the town of Markleeville.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the Tamarack Fire was not considered a managed burn to benefit the ecosystem, California Gov. Gavin Newsom called for a policy shift.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We need your help to change the culture in terms of the suppression strategies, in this climate, literally and figuratively, to be more aggressive on these federal fires,” Newsom told President Biden.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Biden administration responded quickly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have to have more boots on the ground,” U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/2021/08/04/governor-newsom-u-s-agriculture-secretary-vilsack-and-forest-service-chief-moore-discuss-state-federal-efforts-to-build-wildfire-resilience/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">told Newsom last week\u003c/a>. “And I pledge to you and commit to you that will happen.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kicking the Can Down the Road\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, the suspension is raising flags for some forest ecologists who say, with millions of acres of forest overloaded with vegetation, the agency can’t afford to fall farther behind on reducing fire risk in the West.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If we’re going to stop managed wildfire now, then we’re kicking the can down the road for those fuels to burn and they may burn in even hotter and drier conditions,” Kolden said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While summertime burns aren’t used in all Western forests, banning beneficial fires could limit the number of acres the Forest Service treats by reducing vegetation this year, leaving overgrowth that may be the fuel for dangerous fires down the road.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Summer in California can be a useful time for the Forest Service to do prescribed burns and other vegetation treatments. In June through September 2019, the \u003ca href=\"https://gis.data.cnra.ca.gov/datasets/CALFIRE-Forestry::prescribed-burns-1/explore?location=37.570937%2C-119.381350%2C8.93\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">agency completed burns on almost 13,000 acres\u003c/a>, according to public data.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Summer is also when many naturally caused wildfires begin, sparked by lightning in wilderness areas. In 2009, the Forest Service adopted a policy to allow more of these fires to spread, especially where the terrain is too remote for prescribed burns.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the Southwest, the Forest Service managed fires like this on more than 270,000 acres in 2020 to benefit the ecosystem. In that part of the country, managed wildfires have become a significant strategy, because summer monsoon rains reduce the risk those fires could get out of hand. But the policy is controversial, because in rare cases, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1134217/let-it-burn-the-forest-service-wants-to-stop-putting-out-some-fires\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">managed wildfires have escaped\u003c/a>, threatening homes and people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Western U.S. Still Has a Fire Deficit\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Where federal agencies have completed their work, this approach of controlling and managing has helped prevent wildfires from reaching extremes. With less vegetation on the ground in those areas, the fires don’t reach high intensity, \u003ca href=\"https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/629915\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">as was seen in parts of the 2013 Rim Fire\u003c/a> around Yosemite National Park.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Every time I’ve been out on a large wildfire, the only thing that has moderated fire spread has been past fire footprints on the landscape,” says Mike Beasley, a retired fire manager who worked for the National Park Service and Forest Service for decades.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite the record-breaking wildfires of recent years, the Western U.S. still has a fire deficit. Millions of acres once burned every year, either in fires caused by lightning or set by \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2020/08/24/899422710/to-manage-wildfire-california-looks-to-what-tribes-have-known-all-along\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Native American tribes who used fire\u003c/a> to shape the landscape. Over millennia, forest ecosystems were accustomed to these low-grade fires, but that changed when the era of fire suppression began. For much of the last century, the Forest Service actively stopped all fires, adopting the “10 a.m. rule,” where fires had to be extinguished by 10 a.m. the next day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That policy helped set the stage for the extreme wildfires today, which have burned hotter and more intensely than many forests are adapted to.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The amount of fuel that’s built up over that time period is bigger than anything these forests have experienced in recent millennia,” says Keala Hagmann, research ecologist at the University of Washington. “We do have tools at our disposal to change the ways these fires are burning and the window of opportunity is closing rapidly.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>An estimated 20 million acres of forested land in California, nearly 20% of the state, needs some form of fuel reduction. California \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/2020/08/13/california-u-s-forest-service-establish-shared-long-term-strategy-to-manage-forests-and-rangelands/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">signed an agreement\u003c/a> with the Forest Service last year to reduce vegetation on 1 million acres a year collectively, but the goal is still far off. In 2019, projects only took place on 100,000 acres statewide.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Hotter Climate Boosts Fire Risk and Chances to Reduce It\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With thousands of firefighters occupied on wildfires in extremely dry conditions, some say the shift in policy is a necessary trade-off this summer to protect communities and prevent more homes from burning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Governor Newsom supports the science of ‘good fires,'” a spokesperson for Newsom responded by email. “But there are no ‘good fires’ in atrocious conditions, and that’s what the western states are experiencing right now.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the climate warms, hotter droughts are becoming increasingly common in the Western U.S.. Just as is happening this year, dry conditions could continue to limit the use of beneficial fire when burning is deemed too risky. Firefighters, exhausted from months of battling extreme blazes, are less available to assist with prescribed burns.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The challenge here is that it’s easy to say: with climate change, we shouldn’t do this anymore,” Kolden says. “But that is a fire suppression mentality and that’s what got us in this situation in the first place.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fire experts say Western states will need to embrace “good fire” at a much more dramatic scale to stave off the record-breaking fires seen in recent years. \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1941685/this-california-neighborhood-was-built-to-survive-a-wildfire-and-it-worked\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Communities need to create defensible space\u003c/a>, reducing the flammable vegetation around them, as well as \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2020/11/25/936685629/rebuilding-after-a-wildfire-most-states-dont-require-fire-resistant-materials\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">embracing wildfire building codes\u003c/a> and retrofitting existing homes with fire-resistant materials.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m afraid for the future,” says Beasley. “It’s going to be such a political hot button topic. They’re going to take the path of least risk and that’s just going to be to suppress. And that’s not going to be successful in all cases and we better be prepared for that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=With+Extreme+Fires+Burning%2C+Forest+Service+Stops+%27Good+Fires%27+Too&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Facing record-breaking dry conditions across the West, the U.S. Forest Service announced it will aggressively put out wildfires this summer. As a result, the agency’s use of “good fire,” the lower-intensity blazes that clear out overgrown forests, will also stop.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With thousands of firefighting personnel battling extreme blazes, federal officials say no one can be spared for fire prevention work. But some fire scientists worry that the blanket rule takes away the most important tools foresters have to reduce future wildfire risk, even in parts of the country where it may be safe to use them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s a tough decision, I think, because politically, there’s a lot of pressure to put every single fire out,” says Crystal Kolden, a fire scientist at the UC Merced. “The problem is that political pressure is not based on good science.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many extreme fires across the West are being fueled by overgrown forests, where dense vegetation has accumulated over a century of fire suppression. In recent years, the Forest Service has worked to reduce that risk by using fire proactively.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The agency is now suspending the use of prescribed burns, where foresters set carefully controlled fires that remove brush and vegetation, but don’t kill the mature trees. It’s also suspending what’s known as “managed wildfires for resource benefit,” where naturally caused fires are cautiously allowed to burn if they’re in remote areas and don’t pose a risk to people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are in a ‘triage mode’ where our primary focus must be on fires that threaten communities and infrastructure,” Forest Service Chief Randy Moore wrote in a letter announcing the change. “When western fire activity abates, we will resume using all the tools in our toolbox.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Political Pressure Grows to Attack Wildfires\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The agency has faced growing pressure since the Tamarack Fire exploded south of Lake Tahoe, Calif., in July, destroying at least 14 homes. Sparked by lightning in high mountain wilderness, the Forest Service \u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/HumboldtToiyabeNF/videos/the-tamarackfire-burning-in-the-mokelumne-wilderness-was-ignited-july-4-from-lig/2955306648085725/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">didn’t send fire crews due to safety concerns\u003c/a> over the remoteness of the location. After burning for more than a week, winds drove the fire into the town of Markleeville.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the Tamarack Fire was not considered a managed burn to benefit the ecosystem, California Gov. Gavin Newsom called for a policy shift.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We need your help to change the culture in terms of the suppression strategies, in this climate, literally and figuratively, to be more aggressive on these federal fires,” Newsom told President Biden.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Biden administration responded quickly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have to have more boots on the ground,” U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/2021/08/04/governor-newsom-u-s-agriculture-secretary-vilsack-and-forest-service-chief-moore-discuss-state-federal-efforts-to-build-wildfire-resilience/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">told Newsom last week\u003c/a>. “And I pledge to you and commit to you that will happen.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kicking the Can Down the Road\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, the suspension is raising flags for some forest ecologists who say, with millions of acres of forest overloaded with vegetation, the agency can’t afford to fall farther behind on reducing fire risk in the West.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If we’re going to stop managed wildfire now, then we’re kicking the can down the road for those fuels to burn and they may burn in even hotter and drier conditions,” Kolden said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While summertime burns aren’t used in all Western forests, banning beneficial fires could limit the number of acres the Forest Service treats by reducing vegetation this year, leaving overgrowth that may be the fuel for dangerous fires down the road.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Summer in California can be a useful time for the Forest Service to do prescribed burns and other vegetation treatments. In June through September 2019, the \u003ca href=\"https://gis.data.cnra.ca.gov/datasets/CALFIRE-Forestry::prescribed-burns-1/explore?location=37.570937%2C-119.381350%2C8.93\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">agency completed burns on almost 13,000 acres\u003c/a>, according to public data.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Summer is also when many naturally caused wildfires begin, sparked by lightning in wilderness areas. In 2009, the Forest Service adopted a policy to allow more of these fires to spread, especially where the terrain is too remote for prescribed burns.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the Southwest, the Forest Service managed fires like this on more than 270,000 acres in 2020 to benefit the ecosystem. In that part of the country, managed wildfires have become a significant strategy, because summer monsoon rains reduce the risk those fires could get out of hand. But the policy is controversial, because in rare cases, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1134217/let-it-burn-the-forest-service-wants-to-stop-putting-out-some-fires\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">managed wildfires have escaped\u003c/a>, threatening homes and people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Western U.S. Still Has a Fire Deficit\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Where federal agencies have completed their work, this approach of controlling and managing has helped prevent wildfires from reaching extremes. With less vegetation on the ground in those areas, the fires don’t reach high intensity, \u003ca href=\"https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/629915\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">as was seen in parts of the 2013 Rim Fire\u003c/a> around Yosemite National Park.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Every time I’ve been out on a large wildfire, the only thing that has moderated fire spread has been past fire footprints on the landscape,” says Mike Beasley, a retired fire manager who worked for the National Park Service and Forest Service for decades.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite the record-breaking wildfires of recent years, the Western U.S. still has a fire deficit. Millions of acres once burned every year, either in fires caused by lightning or set by \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2020/08/24/899422710/to-manage-wildfire-california-looks-to-what-tribes-have-known-all-along\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Native American tribes who used fire\u003c/a> to shape the landscape. Over millennia, forest ecosystems were accustomed to these low-grade fires, but that changed when the era of fire suppression began. For much of the last century, the Forest Service actively stopped all fires, adopting the “10 a.m. rule,” where fires had to be extinguished by 10 a.m. the next day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That policy helped set the stage for the extreme wildfires today, which have burned hotter and more intensely than many forests are adapted to.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The amount of fuel that’s built up over that time period is bigger than anything these forests have experienced in recent millennia,” says Keala Hagmann, research ecologist at the University of Washington. “We do have tools at our disposal to change the ways these fires are burning and the window of opportunity is closing rapidly.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>An estimated 20 million acres of forested land in California, nearly 20% of the state, needs some form of fuel reduction. California \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/2020/08/13/california-u-s-forest-service-establish-shared-long-term-strategy-to-manage-forests-and-rangelands/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">signed an agreement\u003c/a> with the Forest Service last year to reduce vegetation on 1 million acres a year collectively, but the goal is still far off. In 2019, projects only took place on 100,000 acres statewide.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Hotter Climate Boosts Fire Risk and Chances to Reduce It\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With thousands of firefighters occupied on wildfires in extremely dry conditions, some say the shift in policy is a necessary trade-off this summer to protect communities and prevent more homes from burning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Governor Newsom supports the science of ‘good fires,'” a spokesperson for Newsom responded by email. “But there are no ‘good fires’ in atrocious conditions, and that’s what the western states are experiencing right now.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the climate warms, hotter droughts are becoming increasingly common in the Western U.S.. Just as is happening this year, dry conditions could continue to limit the use of beneficial fire when burning is deemed too risky. Firefighters, exhausted from months of battling extreme blazes, are less available to assist with prescribed burns.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The challenge here is that it’s easy to say: with climate change, we shouldn’t do this anymore,” Kolden says. “But that is a fire suppression mentality and that’s what got us in this situation in the first place.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fire experts say Western states will need to embrace “good fire” at a much more dramatic scale to stave off the record-breaking fires seen in recent years. \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1941685/this-california-neighborhood-was-built-to-survive-a-wildfire-and-it-worked\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Communities need to create defensible space\u003c/a>, reducing the flammable vegetation around them, as well as \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2020/11/25/936685629/rebuilding-after-a-wildfire-most-states-dont-require-fire-resistant-materials\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">embracing wildfire building codes\u003c/a> and retrofitting existing homes with fire-resistant materials.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m afraid for the future,” says Beasley. “It’s going to be such a political hot button topic. They’re going to take the path of least risk and that’s just going to be to suppress. And that’s not going to be successful in all cases and we better be prepared for that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=With+Extreme+Fires+Burning%2C+Forest+Service+Stops+%27Good+Fires%27+Too&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "A Major Report Warns Climate Change Is Accelerating And Humans Must Cut Emissions Now",
"headTitle": "A Major Report Warns Climate Change Is Accelerating And Humans Must Cut Emissions Now | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>Global climate change is accelerating and human-caused emissions of greenhouse gases are the overwhelming cause, according to a landmark report released Monday by the United Nations. There is still time to avoid catastrophic warming this century, but only if countries around the world stop burning fossil fuels as quickly as possible, the authors warn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The message to world leaders is more dire, and more unequivocal, than ever before.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It is indisputable that human activities are causing climate change,” says Ko Barrett, the vice chair of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the senior adviser for climate at the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “Each of the last four decades has been the warmest on record since preindustrial times.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The authors — nearly 200 leading climate scientists — hope the report’s findings will be front and center when world leaders meet for a major climate conference in November.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The effects of that warming are obvious and deadly around the world. \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2021/07/29/1022241936/climate-change-is-driving-deadly-weather-disasters-from-arizona-to-mumbai\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Heat waves, droughts and floods\u003c/a> are killing people and disrupting lives around the world this summer. Wildfires are burning with unprecedented frequency and intensity, including in places that used to rarely burn. Smoke and smog are choking people in cities and towns from Asia to the Arctic. Ocean heat waves are threatening entire ecosystems and supercharging hurricanes and typhoons.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The science is clear: Human-caused emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are the primary driver of such changes.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Human-caused Greenhouse Gas Emissions Are Causing Extreme Weather\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>One of the biggest recent advances in climate research is in the field of so-called attribution science, which ties global warming to individual weather events such as hurricanes or heat waves. Scientists can now say with certainty that humans are causing more extreme weather, including heavy downpours and extended heat waves and droughts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This whiplash — this increase in both extreme wet and dry events — is projected to increase through the 21st century,” says Kim Cobb, one of the report authors and a paleoclimate scientist at Georgia Institute of Technology.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is the first time that paleoclimate researchers, who study the climate of the past to understand how Earth will change in the future, have helped write every chapter of the report. Their work helps put today’s climate in perspective. “We can now say global surface temps are reaching levels not seen in 100,000 years,” says Cobb. “The rate of warming since 1970 is higher than any 50-year period in the last 2,000 years.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The report also confirms that global sea level rise is accelerating. Globally, sea levels rose about 8 inches on average between 1901 and 2018, although the water rose much more in some places, including in some cities on the East Coast and Gulf Coast of the United States.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sea level rise is primarily driven by melting glaciers, and Arctic ice. There’s a lag between emissions and ice melting, which means even if humans were to stop all greenhouse gas emissions today, sea levels would \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2021/04/14/981333730/carbon-emissions-could-plummet-the-atmosphere-will-lag-behind\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">continue to rise for a few decades\u003c/a>, the report notes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Sea level change through the middle of this century has largely been locked in,” says Bob Kopp, one of the report’s authors and the director of the Institute of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences at Rutgers University. That means no matter what, people living in coastal areas will need to adapt to higher seas.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Scientists Say It’s Not too Late\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Despite the disastrous descriptions of our hotter Earth, the new report also makes clear that it is not too late to curb global warming. The more humans reduce emissions this decade, the more livable Earth will be for the rest of this century and for many centuries to come.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the big questions posed by world leaders is whether it’s still possible to meet the targets set by the 2015 Paris climate agreement. That agreement seeks to limit global warming to well under 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), and ideally keep it below 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees F). Earth is already about 1 degree Celsius hotter than it was in the late 1800s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most of the biggest economies in the world are not on track to meet those temperature targets because they continue to rely too heavily on fossil fuels for electricity, transportation and industry — including most polluting fuels such as coal. That \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2020/11/05/931837310/the-us-and-the-paris-climate-agreement-5-things-to-know\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">includes the U.S.\u003c/a>, which has cut emissions very slowly in recent years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new report finds that it is still possible to meet the targets set under the Paris agreement, but it gets more difficult with every passing day. The authors used five theoretical scenarios to predict future global warming. The scenarios include different levels of greenhouse gas emissions, as well as economic and population growth and political collaboration. Under all five scenarios, Earth hits 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) in the next two decades.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Is it still possible to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees [Celsius]? The answer is yes,” says Maisa Rojas Corradi, a report author and climate scientist at the University of Chile. “But unless there are immediate, rapid and large-scale reductions of all greenhouse gases, limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees will be beyond reach.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The authors found that if countries around the world dramatically and permanently cut emissions immediately, Earth will start getting cooler around the middle of this century. On the other hand, if countries move more slowly to curb emissions or fail to transition to cleaner sources of energy, Earth could warm by 4 degrees Celsius (7.2 degrees F) or more by the end of the century.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think a key message here is that it is still possible to forestall most of the most dire impacts, but it really requires unprecedented, transformational change,” says Barrett, the IPCC vice chair. “But the idea that there still is a pathway forward I think is a point that should give us some hope.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQlQL5obqDs\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Climate Change is Global, But Solutions Are Local\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>This is the sixth edition of the IPCC’s climate science report, and it is the first time scientists have broken down their findings and predictions by region. That’s a big deal because many countries rely on such reports to understand what the future will look like for their citizens and which policies make the most sense.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For example, the pace of sea level rise varies dramatically depending on where you live. Governments need regional information to decide where to build new infrastructure and how to protect existing coastal cities. The same is true for drought and flooding from rainstorms, which disrupt agriculture and drinking water supplies. Major cities including \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2018/09/14/648016169/did-cape-town-learn-from-day-zero\">Cape Town, South Africa\u003c/a>, and \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2019/07/18/742688141/the-water-crisis-in-chennai-whos-to-blame-how-do-you-fix-it\">Chennai, India\u003c/a>, have struggled to maintain reservoirs in recent years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s very important that this report gives regional information that is going to help us make decisions at the regional level,” says Paola Arias, one of the report authors and a climate scientist at the University of Antioquia in Colombia.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When it comes to adaptation, the U.S. relies less on the specific information in this report because the federal government regularly releases \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2018/11/23/668555773/climate-change-is-already-hurting-u-s-communities-federal-report-says\">national climate assessments\u003c/a>. However, the U.N. report does provide important global context for the \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2021/04/16/987667828/how-the-u-s-could-halve-climate-emissions-by-2030\">Biden administration’s promise\u003c/a> to cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in half this decade.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The target that the Biden-Harris administration articulated earlier this year is the most ambitious ever in U.S. history,” says Jane Lubchenco, the deputy director for climate and environment at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. “This report is telling us we need to be ambitious. We probably need to be even more so.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s unclear how the U.S. will achieve the goal it has already set, let alone an accelerated goal. The infrastructure package Congress is currently considering includes some investments in cleaner electricity, public transit and electric appliances and vehicles. Meanwhile, other major economies including China and India are not on track to reduce their emissions this decade.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org\">NPR.org\u003c/a>.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=A+Major+Report+Warns+Climate+Change+Is+Accelerating+And+Humans+Must+Cut+Emissions+Now&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Global climate change is accelerating and human-caused emissions of greenhouse gases are the overwhelming cause, according to a landmark report released Monday by the United Nations. There is still time to avoid catastrophic warming this century, but only if countries around the world stop burning fossil fuels as quickly as possible, the authors warn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The message to world leaders is more dire, and more unequivocal, than ever before.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It is indisputable that human activities are causing climate change,” says Ko Barrett, the vice chair of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the senior adviser for climate at the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “Each of the last four decades has been the warmest on record since preindustrial times.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The authors — nearly 200 leading climate scientists — hope the report’s findings will be front and center when world leaders meet for a major climate conference in November.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The effects of that warming are obvious and deadly around the world. \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2021/07/29/1022241936/climate-change-is-driving-deadly-weather-disasters-from-arizona-to-mumbai\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Heat waves, droughts and floods\u003c/a> are killing people and disrupting lives around the world this summer. Wildfires are burning with unprecedented frequency and intensity, including in places that used to rarely burn. Smoke and smog are choking people in cities and towns from Asia to the Arctic. Ocean heat waves are threatening entire ecosystems and supercharging hurricanes and typhoons.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The science is clear: Human-caused emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are the primary driver of such changes.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Human-caused Greenhouse Gas Emissions Are Causing Extreme Weather\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>One of the biggest recent advances in climate research is in the field of so-called attribution science, which ties global warming to individual weather events such as hurricanes or heat waves. Scientists can now say with certainty that humans are causing more extreme weather, including heavy downpours and extended heat waves and droughts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This whiplash — this increase in both extreme wet and dry events — is projected to increase through the 21st century,” says Kim Cobb, one of the report authors and a paleoclimate scientist at Georgia Institute of Technology.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is the first time that paleoclimate researchers, who study the climate of the past to understand how Earth will change in the future, have helped write every chapter of the report. Their work helps put today’s climate in perspective. “We can now say global surface temps are reaching levels not seen in 100,000 years,” says Cobb. “The rate of warming since 1970 is higher than any 50-year period in the last 2,000 years.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The report also confirms that global sea level rise is accelerating. Globally, sea levels rose about 8 inches on average between 1901 and 2018, although the water rose much more in some places, including in some cities on the East Coast and Gulf Coast of the United States.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sea level rise is primarily driven by melting glaciers, and Arctic ice. There’s a lag between emissions and ice melting, which means even if humans were to stop all greenhouse gas emissions today, sea levels would \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2021/04/14/981333730/carbon-emissions-could-plummet-the-atmosphere-will-lag-behind\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">continue to rise for a few decades\u003c/a>, the report notes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Sea level change through the middle of this century has largely been locked in,” says Bob Kopp, one of the report’s authors and the director of the Institute of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences at Rutgers University. That means no matter what, people living in coastal areas will need to adapt to higher seas.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Scientists Say It’s Not too Late\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Despite the disastrous descriptions of our hotter Earth, the new report also makes clear that it is not too late to curb global warming. The more humans reduce emissions this decade, the more livable Earth will be for the rest of this century and for many centuries to come.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the big questions posed by world leaders is whether it’s still possible to meet the targets set by the 2015 Paris climate agreement. That agreement seeks to limit global warming to well under 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), and ideally keep it below 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees F). Earth is already about 1 degree Celsius hotter than it was in the late 1800s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most of the biggest economies in the world are not on track to meet those temperature targets because they continue to rely too heavily on fossil fuels for electricity, transportation and industry — including most polluting fuels such as coal. That \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2020/11/05/931837310/the-us-and-the-paris-climate-agreement-5-things-to-know\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">includes the U.S.\u003c/a>, which has cut emissions very slowly in recent years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new report finds that it is still possible to meet the targets set under the Paris agreement, but it gets more difficult with every passing day. The authors used five theoretical scenarios to predict future global warming. The scenarios include different levels of greenhouse gas emissions, as well as economic and population growth and political collaboration. Under all five scenarios, Earth hits 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) in the next two decades.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Is it still possible to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees [Celsius]? The answer is yes,” says Maisa Rojas Corradi, a report author and climate scientist at the University of Chile. “But unless there are immediate, rapid and large-scale reductions of all greenhouse gases, limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees will be beyond reach.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The authors found that if countries around the world dramatically and permanently cut emissions immediately, Earth will start getting cooler around the middle of this century. On the other hand, if countries move more slowly to curb emissions or fail to transition to cleaner sources of energy, Earth could warm by 4 degrees Celsius (7.2 degrees F) or more by the end of the century.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think a key message here is that it is still possible to forestall most of the most dire impacts, but it really requires unprecedented, transformational change,” says Barrett, the IPCC vice chair. “But the idea that there still is a pathway forward I think is a point that should give us some hope.”\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/cQlQL5obqDs'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/cQlQL5obqDs'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003ch3>Climate Change is Global, But Solutions Are Local\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>This is the sixth edition of the IPCC’s climate science report, and it is the first time scientists have broken down their findings and predictions by region. That’s a big deal because many countries rely on such reports to understand what the future will look like for their citizens and which policies make the most sense.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For example, the pace of sea level rise varies dramatically depending on where you live. Governments need regional information to decide where to build new infrastructure and how to protect existing coastal cities. The same is true for drought and flooding from rainstorms, which disrupt agriculture and drinking water supplies. Major cities including \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2018/09/14/648016169/did-cape-town-learn-from-day-zero\">Cape Town, South Africa\u003c/a>, and \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2019/07/18/742688141/the-water-crisis-in-chennai-whos-to-blame-how-do-you-fix-it\">Chennai, India\u003c/a>, have struggled to maintain reservoirs in recent years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s very important that this report gives regional information that is going to help us make decisions at the regional level,” says Paola Arias, one of the report authors and a climate scientist at the University of Antioquia in Colombia.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When it comes to adaptation, the U.S. relies less on the specific information in this report because the federal government regularly releases \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2018/11/23/668555773/climate-change-is-already-hurting-u-s-communities-federal-report-says\">national climate assessments\u003c/a>. However, the U.N. report does provide important global context for the \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2021/04/16/987667828/how-the-u-s-could-halve-climate-emissions-by-2030\">Biden administration’s promise\u003c/a> to cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in half this decade.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The target that the Biden-Harris administration articulated earlier this year is the most ambitious ever in U.S. history,” says Jane Lubchenco, the deputy director for climate and environment at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. “This report is telling us we need to be ambitious. We probably need to be even more so.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s unclear how the U.S. will achieve the goal it has already set, let alone an accelerated goal. The infrastructure package Congress is currently considering includes some investments in cleaner electricity, public transit and electric appliances and vehicles. Meanwhile, other major economies including China and India are not on track to reduce their emissions this decade.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org\">NPR.org\u003c/a>.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=A+Major+Report+Warns+Climate+Change+Is+Accelerating+And+Humans+Must+Cut+Emissions+Now&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "California's Big Summer Wildfires Keep Sending Up Dangerous Fire-Triggered Thunderstorms",
"headTitle": "California’s Big Summer Wildfires Keep Sending Up Dangerous Fire-Triggered Thunderstorms | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>The photo of the Dixie Fire captured by Cal Fire’s Santa Clara unit last month is composed like a Renaissance religious painting. Rocks frame the subject — in this case, a towering smoke plume — pine trees point to the sky, while small human figures stand in awe. But the cloud is a product of an earthly inferno, not heaven sent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The pyrocumulus cloud rose above the Dixie Fire on the afternoon of July 19, nearly growing into pyrocumulonimbus — a wildfire-driven thunderhead. Meteorologists call these massive smoke columns “pyroCbs” for short (pronounced “pie-roh-cee-bee”).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://twitter.com/calfireSCU/status/1417566553206181890?s=20\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scientists are seeing more of them around the world, as fires burn bigger, fiercer and more frequently.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This week, the Dixie fire erupted again with high heat, low humidity, and blustery conditions. The fire ran parallel to a canyon that served as a chimney, stoking the fire and sending up an enormous columns of smoke, the Associated Press \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/fires-environment-and-nature-weather-b963da1ea3e742a6d06cf67dcb2f30cb\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">reported\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These pyro clouds present a danger to firefighters and have the potential to spread flames faster.[pullquote align='right' citation=' Neil Lareau, University of Nevada-Reno']‘We’re witnessing emergent trends right now, in fire severity, fire size, in these extremes of fire weather. My basic prediction would just be more, more of that in the years to come.’[/pullquote]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Julia Ruthford is an incident meteorologist with the National Weather Service. She was assigned to the Dixie Fire last month, entrusted with tracking weather around the fire to spot the potential for dangerous smoke columns and communicate the potential risk to fire officials and crews. She described seeing the July 19 event coming — in the forecast, on radar, satellite imagery, on fire alert cameras, and towering above her right outside the incident command center — as the column of smoke climbed higher and higher into the sky all afternoon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was very sudden that it reached that tipping point,” she said. “It was right about up to 30,000 feet, with the potential to grow quite a bit taller with ice clouds on top.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hot air, smoke, and ash from fires like this one cool as they rise into the atmosphere. Water vapor condenses into liquid, which forms a cloud and creates precipitation. Because of the fire, it’s too hot for the rain to reach the ground. But the downward rush of air sends flames outward in all directions, ripping through forests and endangering firefighters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1976161\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1976161\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/KQED_NASA_TERRA_MODIS_210805-800x1422.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"1422\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/KQED_NASA_TERRA_MODIS_210805-800x1422.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/KQED_NASA_TERRA_MODIS_210805-1020x1813.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/KQED_NASA_TERRA_MODIS_210805-160x284.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/KQED_NASA_TERRA_MODIS_210805-768x1365.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/KQED_NASA_TERRA_MODIS_210805-864x1536.jpg 864w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/KQED_NASA_TERRA_MODIS_210805.jpg 1080w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">August 5, 2021. \u003ccite>(NOAA GOES-West.)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“Think of it as a giant chimney sitting over that fire,” said David Peterson, a scientist at the Naval Research Laboratory in Monterey. The smoke is funneled up into a massive thundercloud that can reach above the cruising altitude of jet aircraft.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This summer, ever since a heat wave baked the West in late June, North America has seen “a nearly continuous wave of pyroCb activity,” Peterson said, at least one per week, including an “outbreak” of 10 separate pyro clouds in Canada on June 30.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Massive pyrocumulonimbus clouds grew on the Bootleg Fire in Southern Oregon every afternoon for a week, and the Tamarack fire in Northern California created them, too. “The cloud actually takes on a life of its own,” said Neil Lareau, professor of atmospheric science at the University of Nevada-Reno.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Smoke columns this large create their own weather and present two different dangers: cloud-to-ground lightning that can ignite new fires and downdrafts that can shift the wind so quickly that fire crews on the ground can’t get out of the way fast enough.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You get downdrafts, a strong outflow that can cause really sudden wind shifts.” Ruthford said. “If crews are working near the fire, they’re used to in-drafts into the fire. And that can all of a sudden reverse to the opposite direction — a sudden, rapid change and then [the downdraft] blows the fire in a completely different direction.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://twitter.com/nplareau/status/1417351236542636034?s=20\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The field of research looking at this type of fire behavior is new. But meteorologists say wildfires are producing more of them in recent years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The more fire on the landscape, the longer the fire season, the more opportunities you have for extreme fire behavior and things like pyroCbs,” Peterson said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The conditions have to be right to produce these particularly explosive plumes — moist air with a fire that’s hot and dry enough to support very active behavior. They’re especially likely with monsoonal fronts. Like the one that blew through on July 19 and several times since, adding moisture and destabilizing the upper atmosphere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s really this kind of Goldilocks thing,” Lareau said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>‘That Afternoon, It Looked Like All of The Elements Lined Up’\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Ruthford is assigned to a fire, she works in a trailer at the incident command headquarters where she monitors multiple screens, working with other specialists to anticipate dangerous fire behavior. She communicates with the top firefighter brass on the incident. There’s a lot of back-and-forth discussion between her and the other fire officials as the cloud grows.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://twitter.com/AlertWildfire/status/1417305186565910528?s=20\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That afternoon, it looked like all of the elements lined up,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On July 19, monsoonal moisture was blowing on the Dixie Fire, prompting an early warning from Ruthford during the daily firefighter briefing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The conditions were ripe for a thundercloud to grow and collapse, creating lightning and howling winds. When the weather conditions shifted dangerously, she warned firefighters over the radio, an emergency step that can hinder the firefight by pulling crews off the fireline.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She sent out two warnings over the radio that day, for two separate pyro clouds, on two different parts of the fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://twitter.com/NWSSacramento/status/1417266260505632791?s=20\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Firefighters are savvy to this and sometimes even ahead of the science, just through their anecdotal experience,” Lareau said. “They know that to watch out for that kind of situation because it can lead to all these potentially erratic and extreme fire behaviors.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scientists are learning too, sending weather balloons up into these giant clouds. The equipment is often never seen again, after sending readings to researchers on the ground. They also fly research aircrafts straight through the dark, gray columns. One research group flew NASA’s DC-8 over a wildfire in western Washington in 2019. The specialized radar, lidar, and sensors on the \u003ca href=\"https://csl.noaa.gov/projects/firex-aq/\">flying laboratories\u003c/a> revealed an \u003ca href=\"https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/145446/flying-through-a-fire-cloud\">extreme environment:\u003c/a> winds inside the fire clouds blowing as strong as 130 miles per hour, rivaling the strongest thunderstorms on Earth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Once fires get to the point where they’re producing their own weather, that’s when we get all these feedbacks and a vicious cycle between what the fire is doing and what it’s forcing the atmosphere to do. And then what the atmosphere is making the fire do. That can lead to these kind of explosive growth phases in the fire,” Lareau said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>‘We’re Witnessing Emergent Trends Right Now’\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Warming temperatures are roasting forests, drying out soil and vegetation and priming them to burn. If climate change means the future will have more fire, Lareau says there will be more pyro clouds rising above California fires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re witnessing emergent trends right now, in fire severity, fire size, in these extremes of fire weather,” he said. “My basic prediction would just be more, more of that in the years to come.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Peterson, the Navy researcher, studies the impact of pyrocumulonimbus clouds on the global atmospheric composition.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There will be a smoke plume left over, usually up at the level of the jetstream winds. When you push smoke up high, it can be transported long distances rapidly,” he said. “Sometimes these fires are so intense that they penetrate into the next level of the atmosphere above the weather, the stratosphere. An aerosol plume at that level tends to stay there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Over the past four, five years, we have definitely seen some of the largest known pyroCb outbreaks across the globe,” Peterson said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The task now is to predict them better, especially the atmospheric conditions that create that characteristic uplift around a fire. Scientists are also trying to model and forecast the movements of aerosol particles around the globe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What we do know is that these plumes can rival volcanic plumes in terms of their size and magnitude. But the chemistry is different — it’s smoke, not volcanic material,” he said. “Just imagine this blob of smoke sitting at like 60,000 feet. The smoke is an aerosol particle that will absorb solar radiation and heat the layer that it’s in, which can affect the stratospheric weather.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The way to study this is to gather more direct measurements usually from planes equipped with specialized radar.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This week, the Dixie fire erupted again with high heat, low humidity, and blustery conditions. The fire ran parallel to a canyon that served as a chimney, stoking the fire and sending up an enormous columns of smoke, the Associated Press \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/fires-environment-and-nature-weather-b963da1ea3e742a6d06cf67dcb2f30cb\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">reported\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These pyro clouds present a danger to firefighters and have the potential to spread flames faster.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Julia Ruthford is an incident meteorologist with the National Weather Service. She was assigned to the Dixie Fire last month, entrusted with tracking weather around the fire to spot the potential for dangerous smoke columns and communicate the potential risk to fire officials and crews. She described seeing the July 19 event coming — in the forecast, on radar, satellite imagery, on fire alert cameras, and towering above her right outside the incident command center — as the column of smoke climbed higher and higher into the sky all afternoon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was very sudden that it reached that tipping point,” she said. “It was right about up to 30,000 feet, with the potential to grow quite a bit taller with ice clouds on top.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hot air, smoke, and ash from fires like this one cool as they rise into the atmosphere. Water vapor condenses into liquid, which forms a cloud and creates precipitation. Because of the fire, it’s too hot for the rain to reach the ground. But the downward rush of air sends flames outward in all directions, ripping through forests and endangering firefighters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1976161\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1976161\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/KQED_NASA_TERRA_MODIS_210805-800x1422.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"1422\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/KQED_NASA_TERRA_MODIS_210805-800x1422.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/KQED_NASA_TERRA_MODIS_210805-1020x1813.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/KQED_NASA_TERRA_MODIS_210805-160x284.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/KQED_NASA_TERRA_MODIS_210805-768x1365.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/KQED_NASA_TERRA_MODIS_210805-864x1536.jpg 864w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/KQED_NASA_TERRA_MODIS_210805.jpg 1080w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">August 5, 2021. \u003ccite>(NOAA GOES-West.)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“Think of it as a giant chimney sitting over that fire,” said David Peterson, a scientist at the Naval Research Laboratory in Monterey. The smoke is funneled up into a massive thundercloud that can reach above the cruising altitude of jet aircraft.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This summer, ever since a heat wave baked the West in late June, North America has seen “a nearly continuous wave of pyroCb activity,” Peterson said, at least one per week, including an “outbreak” of 10 separate pyro clouds in Canada on June 30.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Massive pyrocumulonimbus clouds grew on the Bootleg Fire in Southern Oregon every afternoon for a week, and the Tamarack fire in Northern California created them, too. “The cloud actually takes on a life of its own,” said Neil Lareau, professor of atmospheric science at the University of Nevada-Reno.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Smoke columns this large create their own weather and present two different dangers: cloud-to-ground lightning that can ignite new fires and downdrafts that can shift the wind so quickly that fire crews on the ground can’t get out of the way fast enough.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You get downdrafts, a strong outflow that can cause really sudden wind shifts.” Ruthford said. “If crews are working near the fire, they’re used to in-drafts into the fire. And that can all of a sudden reverse to the opposite direction — a sudden, rapid change and then [the downdraft] blows the fire in a completely different direction.”\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\n\u003cp>The field of research looking at this type of fire behavior is new. But meteorologists say wildfires are producing more of them in recent years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The more fire on the landscape, the longer the fire season, the more opportunities you have for extreme fire behavior and things like pyroCbs,” Peterson said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The conditions have to be right to produce these particularly explosive plumes — moist air with a fire that’s hot and dry enough to support very active behavior. They’re especially likely with monsoonal fronts. Like the one that blew through on July 19 and several times since, adding moisture and destabilizing the upper atmosphere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s really this kind of Goldilocks thing,” Lareau said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>‘That Afternoon, It Looked Like All of The Elements Lined Up’\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Ruthford is assigned to a fire, she works in a trailer at the incident command headquarters where she monitors multiple screens, working with other specialists to anticipate dangerous fire behavior. She communicates with the top firefighter brass on the incident. There’s a lot of back-and-forth discussion between her and the other fire officials as the cloud grows.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\n\u003cp>“That afternoon, it looked like all of the elements lined up,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On July 19, monsoonal moisture was blowing on the Dixie Fire, prompting an early warning from Ruthford during the daily firefighter briefing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The conditions were ripe for a thundercloud to grow and collapse, creating lightning and howling winds. When the weather conditions shifted dangerously, she warned firefighters over the radio, an emergency step that can hinder the firefight by pulling crews off the fireline.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She sent out two warnings over the radio that day, for two separate pyro clouds, on two different parts of the fire.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\n\u003cp>“Firefighters are savvy to this and sometimes even ahead of the science, just through their anecdotal experience,” Lareau said. “They know that to watch out for that kind of situation because it can lead to all these potentially erratic and extreme fire behaviors.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scientists are learning too, sending weather balloons up into these giant clouds. The equipment is often never seen again, after sending readings to researchers on the ground. They also fly research aircrafts straight through the dark, gray columns. One research group flew NASA’s DC-8 over a wildfire in western Washington in 2019. The specialized radar, lidar, and sensors on the \u003ca href=\"https://csl.noaa.gov/projects/firex-aq/\">flying laboratories\u003c/a> revealed an \u003ca href=\"https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/145446/flying-through-a-fire-cloud\">extreme environment:\u003c/a> winds inside the fire clouds blowing as strong as 130 miles per hour, rivaling the strongest thunderstorms on Earth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Once fires get to the point where they’re producing their own weather, that’s when we get all these feedbacks and a vicious cycle between what the fire is doing and what it’s forcing the atmosphere to do. And then what the atmosphere is making the fire do. That can lead to these kind of explosive growth phases in the fire,” Lareau said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>‘We’re Witnessing Emergent Trends Right Now’\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Warming temperatures are roasting forests, drying out soil and vegetation and priming them to burn. If climate change means the future will have more fire, Lareau says there will be more pyro clouds rising above California fires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re witnessing emergent trends right now, in fire severity, fire size, in these extremes of fire weather,” he said. “My basic prediction would just be more, more of that in the years to come.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Peterson, the Navy researcher, studies the impact of pyrocumulonimbus clouds on the global atmospheric composition.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There will be a smoke plume left over, usually up at the level of the jetstream winds. When you push smoke up high, it can be transported long distances rapidly,” he said. “Sometimes these fires are so intense that they penetrate into the next level of the atmosphere above the weather, the stratosphere. An aerosol plume at that level tends to stay there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Over the past four, five years, we have definitely seen some of the largest known pyroCb outbreaks across the globe,” Peterson said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The task now is to predict them better, especially the atmospheric conditions that create that characteristic uplift around a fire. Scientists are also trying to model and forecast the movements of aerosol particles around the globe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What we do know is that these plumes can rival volcanic plumes in terms of their size and magnitude. But the chemistry is different — it’s smoke, not volcanic material,” he said. “Just imagine this blob of smoke sitting at like 60,000 feet. The smoke is an aerosol particle that will absorb solar radiation and heat the layer that it’s in, which can affect the stratospheric weather.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The way to study this is to gather more direct measurements usually from planes equipped with specialized radar.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Scientists Are on a Mission to Save These 24-Armed, Bike-Wheel-Sized Sea Creatures",
"headTitle": "Scientists Are on a Mission to Save These 24-Armed, Bike-Wheel-Sized Sea Creatures | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://staff.washington.edu/hodin/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jason Hodin\u003c/a> hauls up a rope that’s hanging from a dock in the waters off San Juan Island in the Pacific Northwest. At the end is a square, sandwich-size Tupperware container, with mesh-covered holes in the sides to let water flow through. Hodin pulls off the lid and peers inside at some crushed bits of shell. He points to some reddish-orange dots.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“See that? That little dot right there in front of my finger?” Hodin says. “That’s a juvenile sea star that’s about a month old.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s only the size of a poppy seed. But when this baby is all grown up, it could be as big as a manhole cover. That’s because this is \u003cem>Pycnopodia helianthoides\u003c/em>, aka the \u003ca href=\"https://nc.iucnredlist.org/redlist/amazing-species/pycnopodia-helianthoides/pdfs/original/pycnopodia-helianthoides.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">sunflower sea star\u003c/a>. It’s one of the biggest sea stars in the world, with an arm span that can be more than 3 feet across, and it used to be a common sight in the waters off the West Coast.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, though, it’s critically endangered and is being driven toward extinction by a mysterious, devastating disease.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is why Hodin and his colleagues at the University of Washington’s Friday Harbor Laboratories have spent the last two years figuring out how to raise this species in captivity. It’s an act of desperation born out of the hope that someday, lab-grown sunflower sea stars could be reintroduced into places where this species has disappeared.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1976130\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1976130\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/research-lab-3_custom-96fc615a2325fa5450d6855bcebaf0250b7d8137-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/research-lab-3_custom-96fc615a2325fa5450d6855bcebaf0250b7d8137-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/research-lab-3_custom-96fc615a2325fa5450d6855bcebaf0250b7d8137-1020x679.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/research-lab-3_custom-96fc615a2325fa5450d6855bcebaf0250b7d8137-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/research-lab-3_custom-96fc615a2325fa5450d6855bcebaf0250b7d8137-768x511.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/research-lab-3_custom-96fc615a2325fa5450d6855bcebaf0250b7d8137-1536x1023.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/research-lab-3_custom-96fc615a2325fa5450d6855bcebaf0250b7d8137-1920x1279.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/research-lab-3_custom-96fc615a2325fa5450d6855bcebaf0250b7d8137.jpg 2000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jason Hodin, research scientist at the University of Washington’s Friday Harbor Laboratories, works in the sea star captive rearing lab. The sunflower sea star breeding program is a partnership between the university and the Nature Conservancy. \u003ccite>(Dennis Wise/University of Washington)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>This voracious predator used to prowl the waters across a nearly 2,000-mile range, from Alaska to Baja California. Their brightly colored bodies — which come in vivid shades of orange, pink, blue and green — would move along the seafloor on as many as 24 arms, gobbling up mussels and scallops and sea urchins. Their consumption of sea urchins, in particular, helped to protect vital forests of kelp, which are home to numerous marine species.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In recent years, however, populations of the sunflower sea star \u003ca href=\"https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/1/eaau7042\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">have declined\u003c/a> by 80% to 100%. In California, “sunflower sea stars are more than 95% gone,” Hodin says. “Some people think that they are entirely extinct in the wild down there. I’ve heard scattered reports of people maybe seeing a few.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This species seems particularly susceptible to a wasting disease that’s hit more than 20 sea star species since 2013. Hodin says the sick sea stars are horrible to behold. “I witnessed it, and it’s not pretty,” he says. “They really do kind of like dissolve into a pile of goo.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2019, Hodin says, the Nature Conservancy approached him about the possibility of setting up a program to breed sunflower sea stars. He’d already been interested in the basic science of sea stars because of the way they are able to transform themselves from bilaterally symmetrical larvae to juveniles with five-sided symmetry. He agreed to try raising large numbers of sunflower sea stars to adulthood, even though no one had tried to do anything like this before.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1976131\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1976131\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/adult-feeding-4_custom-1a2ab2ba952bbd281e56f8bb0fc852e36a901d2e-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/adult-feeding-4_custom-1a2ab2ba952bbd281e56f8bb0fc852e36a901d2e-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/adult-feeding-4_custom-1a2ab2ba952bbd281e56f8bb0fc852e36a901d2e-1020x679.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/adult-feeding-4_custom-1a2ab2ba952bbd281e56f8bb0fc852e36a901d2e-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/adult-feeding-4_custom-1a2ab2ba952bbd281e56f8bb0fc852e36a901d2e-768x511.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/adult-feeding-4_custom-1a2ab2ba952bbd281e56f8bb0fc852e36a901d2e-1536x1023.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/adult-feeding-4_custom-1a2ab2ba952bbd281e56f8bb0fc852e36a901d2e-1920x1279.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/adult-feeding-4_custom-1a2ab2ba952bbd281e56f8bb0fc852e36a901d2e.jpg 2000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Adult sunflower sea stars feed on mussels at the Friday Harbor Laboratories. Shells from earlier meals collect at the bottom of the tank. The sea star on the bottom, called Charlotte, is the mother of the lab’s 1-year-old juvenile stars. \u003ccite>(Dennis Wise/University of Washington)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“For this species in particular, there were very few published efforts to raise them at all, even through embryo or larval stages,” Hodin says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He didn’t know the answer to some of the most basic questions, such as what did this species eat early on? And how fast could it grow?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Nobody knows how to age a sea star, so you see something in the wild and you have no idea how old it is,” Hodin says. “It could be 2 years old. It could be 50. It could be 100.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>His team started by taking some sunflower sea stars from the wild. About 30 of these giants now live outside the lab in large, burbling tanks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I didn’t really anticipate how exuberant their behaviors are,” Hodin says. “You get to know them, and you get to know them individually. We noticed early on that we could tell them apart by their color patterns. And we gave them names.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A lot of their names are linked to their colors. Prince, for example, has arms with tips that are purple.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1976132\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1976132\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/adult-2_custom-9418999650d5ec9060a3ae1cdd9866eaf3953bcf-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/adult-2_custom-9418999650d5ec9060a3ae1cdd9866eaf3953bcf-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/adult-2_custom-9418999650d5ec9060a3ae1cdd9866eaf3953bcf-1020x679.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/adult-2_custom-9418999650d5ec9060a3ae1cdd9866eaf3953bcf-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/adult-2_custom-9418999650d5ec9060a3ae1cdd9866eaf3953bcf-768x511.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/adult-2_custom-9418999650d5ec9060a3ae1cdd9866eaf3953bcf-1536x1023.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/adult-2_custom-9418999650d5ec9060a3ae1cdd9866eaf3953bcf-1920x1279.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/adult-2_custom-9418999650d5ec9060a3ae1cdd9866eaf3953bcf.jpg 2000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An arm of an adult sunflower sea star has numerous orange and white tube feet that it uses for walking, breathing and sensing. \u003ccite>(Dennis Wise/University of Washington)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“This here’s Deep Blue, and she’s our biggest,” researcher \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/fleur__flower?lang=en\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Fleur Anteau\u003c/a> says as she feeds the sea stars by gently tucking mussels under their arms. “Some of them, when I open the cage, will basically really start moving their arms to the surface, like Olga here. Some of them are a little shyer.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even the shy ones suddenly come to life once they clutch a mussel. They hunch over the prey so they can swallow it whole. “When food comes, then you really see the predator come out,” Anteau notes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pointing to the red eye spot at the end of each arm, she adds, “They’re looking at you. They don’t have eyes like us, but they can see a light-and-dark kind of vision.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This lab has figured out how to get sperm and eggs from the wild-caught adults and grow up their offspring. The oldest sea stars they’ve produced are now nearly a year and a half, and they are about 3 inches across.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The lab only has about a dozen young sea stars that have reached this stage. But considering how little was known at the start — and the fact that they had to work out their techniques during a pandemic that restricted who could go to the lab — Hodin says he feels lucky to have gotten that many.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re assuming that by next year, they might be reproductive, based on ones that we’ve seen in the field,” Hodin says. “It’s good news that they can grow relatively quickly.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1976133\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1976133\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/starfish_diptych_custom-7cdd2cdc72a88ff42af021707c3b6e4c62d731fb-800x266.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"266\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/starfish_diptych_custom-7cdd2cdc72a88ff42af021707c3b6e4c62d731fb-800x266.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/starfish_diptych_custom-7cdd2cdc72a88ff42af021707c3b6e4c62d731fb-1020x339.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/starfish_diptych_custom-7cdd2cdc72a88ff42af021707c3b6e4c62d731fb-160x53.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/starfish_diptych_custom-7cdd2cdc72a88ff42af021707c3b6e4c62d731fb-768x255.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/starfish_diptych_custom-7cdd2cdc72a88ff42af021707c3b6e4c62d731fb-1536x510.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/starfish_diptych_custom-7cdd2cdc72a88ff42af021707c3b6e4c62d731fb-1920x638.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/starfish_diptych_custom-7cdd2cdc72a88ff42af021707c3b6e4c62d731fb.jpg 2005w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Left: Hodin, the research scientist who is leading the captive rearing program, prepares to view sea star larvae under a microscope. Right: Sunflower sea star larvae, born in mid-January, are seen under a microscope. The dark oval shapes are stomachs. \u003ccite>(Dennis Wise/University of Washington)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Having learned the tricks needed to raise these sea stars, the research team’s new goal is to produce up to 1,000 more young stars. The lab is full of glass pickle jars that contain larvae, and food containers that hold the poppy seed-size juveniles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hodin says that first, lab-grown sea stars could be put into the local waters, where their parents came from, to test how well they fare in the wild. If that goes well, it might be possible in the coming years to try to restore populations off the California coast.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the danger of sea star wasting disease could still be out there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I would say at the outset that it’s critical to understand more about what’s killing them before trying to put them back,” says \u003ca href=\"http://www.eeb.cornell.edu/harvell/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Drew Harvell\u003c/a>, a professor emeritus with Cornell University who is also a researcher at the Friday Harbor Laboratories.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Currently, she says, scientists disagree on the nature of the killer. Some blame an infectious agent, such as a virus, while others point to \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2019/01/30/690003678/massive-starfish-die-off-is-tied-to-global-warming\">warming oceans\u003c/a> or other environmental changes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s extremely controversial,” says Harvell, author of a book called \u003cem>Ocean Outbreak: Confronting the Rising Tide of Marine Disease\u003c/em>. She believes there’s a lot of evidence that sea star wasting disease is infectious.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This month, she and her colleagues are starting new lab experiments to test that idea. In a fish pathogen lab, extracts from sick sea stars will be injected into seemingly healthy ones. She’ll be using sunflower sea stars since they are so susceptible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These are difficult experiments to get to run consistently, and so if you try to do them with a species that is somewhat resistant, sometimes just nothing happens,” Harvell says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even if scientists never are able to figure out what causes this illness, she says, eventually it could still be worth trying some kind of reintroduction of captive-bred sea stars to the wild.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“At some point we would just have to probably go forward,” Harvell says, “even though scientifically that wouldn’t be the very best plan.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hodin wishes he knew whether the sea stars his lab is raising are susceptible to the disease. He’s constantly on the lookout for any signs that his beloved animals are falling ill. “We hope they don’t get it obviously,” he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He uses a pair of tweezers to tenderly feed a tiny mussel to one of the young sea stars. It curls its arm around the treat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Their adult-like behaviors are starting to emerge at these small sizes, and that’s been really fascinating to watch,” says Hodin, who adds he feels a deep attachment to all of the animals that he’s raised. “I think of myself as their foster parent. I’m caring for them and trying to optimize their growth and watching them grow.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He says he even dreams about them. Just the night before, he’d dreamed of being surrounded by water in a house-size version of one of their tanks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=To+Save+A+Huge%2C+24-Armed+Sea+Creature%2C+Scientists+Become+Loving+Foster+Parents&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "A mysterious disease is killing off the West Coast's enormous sunflower sea star, so researchers have launched an ambitious effort to breed this species in captivity.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://staff.washington.edu/hodin/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jason Hodin\u003c/a> hauls up a rope that’s hanging from a dock in the waters off San Juan Island in the Pacific Northwest. At the end is a square, sandwich-size Tupperware container, with mesh-covered holes in the sides to let water flow through. Hodin pulls off the lid and peers inside at some crushed bits of shell. He points to some reddish-orange dots.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“See that? That little dot right there in front of my finger?” Hodin says. “That’s a juvenile sea star that’s about a month old.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s only the size of a poppy seed. But when this baby is all grown up, it could be as big as a manhole cover. That’s because this is \u003cem>Pycnopodia helianthoides\u003c/em>, aka the \u003ca href=\"https://nc.iucnredlist.org/redlist/amazing-species/pycnopodia-helianthoides/pdfs/original/pycnopodia-helianthoides.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">sunflower sea star\u003c/a>. It’s one of the biggest sea stars in the world, with an arm span that can be more than 3 feet across, and it used to be a common sight in the waters off the West Coast.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, though, it’s critically endangered and is being driven toward extinction by a mysterious, devastating disease.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is why Hodin and his colleagues at the University of Washington’s Friday Harbor Laboratories have spent the last two years figuring out how to raise this species in captivity. It’s an act of desperation born out of the hope that someday, lab-grown sunflower sea stars could be reintroduced into places where this species has disappeared.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1976130\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1976130\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/research-lab-3_custom-96fc615a2325fa5450d6855bcebaf0250b7d8137-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/research-lab-3_custom-96fc615a2325fa5450d6855bcebaf0250b7d8137-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/research-lab-3_custom-96fc615a2325fa5450d6855bcebaf0250b7d8137-1020x679.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/research-lab-3_custom-96fc615a2325fa5450d6855bcebaf0250b7d8137-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/research-lab-3_custom-96fc615a2325fa5450d6855bcebaf0250b7d8137-768x511.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/research-lab-3_custom-96fc615a2325fa5450d6855bcebaf0250b7d8137-1536x1023.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/research-lab-3_custom-96fc615a2325fa5450d6855bcebaf0250b7d8137-1920x1279.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/research-lab-3_custom-96fc615a2325fa5450d6855bcebaf0250b7d8137.jpg 2000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jason Hodin, research scientist at the University of Washington’s Friday Harbor Laboratories, works in the sea star captive rearing lab. The sunflower sea star breeding program is a partnership between the university and the Nature Conservancy. \u003ccite>(Dennis Wise/University of Washington)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>This voracious predator used to prowl the waters across a nearly 2,000-mile range, from Alaska to Baja California. Their brightly colored bodies — which come in vivid shades of orange, pink, blue and green — would move along the seafloor on as many as 24 arms, gobbling up mussels and scallops and sea urchins. Their consumption of sea urchins, in particular, helped to protect vital forests of kelp, which are home to numerous marine species.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In recent years, however, populations of the sunflower sea star \u003ca href=\"https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/1/eaau7042\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">have declined\u003c/a> by 80% to 100%. In California, “sunflower sea stars are more than 95% gone,” Hodin says. “Some people think that they are entirely extinct in the wild down there. I’ve heard scattered reports of people maybe seeing a few.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This species seems particularly susceptible to a wasting disease that’s hit more than 20 sea star species since 2013. Hodin says the sick sea stars are horrible to behold. “I witnessed it, and it’s not pretty,” he says. “They really do kind of like dissolve into a pile of goo.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2019, Hodin says, the Nature Conservancy approached him about the possibility of setting up a program to breed sunflower sea stars. He’d already been interested in the basic science of sea stars because of the way they are able to transform themselves from bilaterally symmetrical larvae to juveniles with five-sided symmetry. He agreed to try raising large numbers of sunflower sea stars to adulthood, even though no one had tried to do anything like this before.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1976131\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1976131\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/adult-feeding-4_custom-1a2ab2ba952bbd281e56f8bb0fc852e36a901d2e-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/adult-feeding-4_custom-1a2ab2ba952bbd281e56f8bb0fc852e36a901d2e-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/adult-feeding-4_custom-1a2ab2ba952bbd281e56f8bb0fc852e36a901d2e-1020x679.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/adult-feeding-4_custom-1a2ab2ba952bbd281e56f8bb0fc852e36a901d2e-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/adult-feeding-4_custom-1a2ab2ba952bbd281e56f8bb0fc852e36a901d2e-768x511.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/adult-feeding-4_custom-1a2ab2ba952bbd281e56f8bb0fc852e36a901d2e-1536x1023.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/adult-feeding-4_custom-1a2ab2ba952bbd281e56f8bb0fc852e36a901d2e-1920x1279.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/adult-feeding-4_custom-1a2ab2ba952bbd281e56f8bb0fc852e36a901d2e.jpg 2000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Adult sunflower sea stars feed on mussels at the Friday Harbor Laboratories. Shells from earlier meals collect at the bottom of the tank. The sea star on the bottom, called Charlotte, is the mother of the lab’s 1-year-old juvenile stars. \u003ccite>(Dennis Wise/University of Washington)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“For this species in particular, there were very few published efforts to raise them at all, even through embryo or larval stages,” Hodin says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He didn’t know the answer to some of the most basic questions, such as what did this species eat early on? And how fast could it grow?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Nobody knows how to age a sea star, so you see something in the wild and you have no idea how old it is,” Hodin says. “It could be 2 years old. It could be 50. It could be 100.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>His team started by taking some sunflower sea stars from the wild. About 30 of these giants now live outside the lab in large, burbling tanks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I didn’t really anticipate how exuberant their behaviors are,” Hodin says. “You get to know them, and you get to know them individually. We noticed early on that we could tell them apart by their color patterns. And we gave them names.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A lot of their names are linked to their colors. Prince, for example, has arms with tips that are purple.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1976132\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1976132\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/adult-2_custom-9418999650d5ec9060a3ae1cdd9866eaf3953bcf-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/adult-2_custom-9418999650d5ec9060a3ae1cdd9866eaf3953bcf-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/adult-2_custom-9418999650d5ec9060a3ae1cdd9866eaf3953bcf-1020x679.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/adult-2_custom-9418999650d5ec9060a3ae1cdd9866eaf3953bcf-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/adult-2_custom-9418999650d5ec9060a3ae1cdd9866eaf3953bcf-768x511.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/adult-2_custom-9418999650d5ec9060a3ae1cdd9866eaf3953bcf-1536x1023.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/adult-2_custom-9418999650d5ec9060a3ae1cdd9866eaf3953bcf-1920x1279.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/adult-2_custom-9418999650d5ec9060a3ae1cdd9866eaf3953bcf.jpg 2000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An arm of an adult sunflower sea star has numerous orange and white tube feet that it uses for walking, breathing and sensing. \u003ccite>(Dennis Wise/University of Washington)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“This here’s Deep Blue, and she’s our biggest,” researcher \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/fleur__flower?lang=en\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Fleur Anteau\u003c/a> says as she feeds the sea stars by gently tucking mussels under their arms. “Some of them, when I open the cage, will basically really start moving their arms to the surface, like Olga here. Some of them are a little shyer.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even the shy ones suddenly come to life once they clutch a mussel. They hunch over the prey so they can swallow it whole. “When food comes, then you really see the predator come out,” Anteau notes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pointing to the red eye spot at the end of each arm, she adds, “They’re looking at you. They don’t have eyes like us, but they can see a light-and-dark kind of vision.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This lab has figured out how to get sperm and eggs from the wild-caught adults and grow up their offspring. The oldest sea stars they’ve produced are now nearly a year and a half, and they are about 3 inches across.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The lab only has about a dozen young sea stars that have reached this stage. But considering how little was known at the start — and the fact that they had to work out their techniques during a pandemic that restricted who could go to the lab — Hodin says he feels lucky to have gotten that many.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re assuming that by next year, they might be reproductive, based on ones that we’ve seen in the field,” Hodin says. “It’s good news that they can grow relatively quickly.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1976133\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1976133\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/starfish_diptych_custom-7cdd2cdc72a88ff42af021707c3b6e4c62d731fb-800x266.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"266\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/starfish_diptych_custom-7cdd2cdc72a88ff42af021707c3b6e4c62d731fb-800x266.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/starfish_diptych_custom-7cdd2cdc72a88ff42af021707c3b6e4c62d731fb-1020x339.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/starfish_diptych_custom-7cdd2cdc72a88ff42af021707c3b6e4c62d731fb-160x53.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/starfish_diptych_custom-7cdd2cdc72a88ff42af021707c3b6e4c62d731fb-768x255.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/starfish_diptych_custom-7cdd2cdc72a88ff42af021707c3b6e4c62d731fb-1536x510.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/starfish_diptych_custom-7cdd2cdc72a88ff42af021707c3b6e4c62d731fb-1920x638.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/starfish_diptych_custom-7cdd2cdc72a88ff42af021707c3b6e4c62d731fb.jpg 2005w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Left: Hodin, the research scientist who is leading the captive rearing program, prepares to view sea star larvae under a microscope. Right: Sunflower sea star larvae, born in mid-January, are seen under a microscope. The dark oval shapes are stomachs. \u003ccite>(Dennis Wise/University of Washington)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Having learned the tricks needed to raise these sea stars, the research team’s new goal is to produce up to 1,000 more young stars. The lab is full of glass pickle jars that contain larvae, and food containers that hold the poppy seed-size juveniles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hodin says that first, lab-grown sea stars could be put into the local waters, where their parents came from, to test how well they fare in the wild. If that goes well, it might be possible in the coming years to try to restore populations off the California coast.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the danger of sea star wasting disease could still be out there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I would say at the outset that it’s critical to understand more about what’s killing them before trying to put them back,” says \u003ca href=\"http://www.eeb.cornell.edu/harvell/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Drew Harvell\u003c/a>, a professor emeritus with Cornell University who is also a researcher at the Friday Harbor Laboratories.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Currently, she says, scientists disagree on the nature of the killer. Some blame an infectious agent, such as a virus, while others point to \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2019/01/30/690003678/massive-starfish-die-off-is-tied-to-global-warming\">warming oceans\u003c/a> or other environmental changes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s extremely controversial,” says Harvell, author of a book called \u003cem>Ocean Outbreak: Confronting the Rising Tide of Marine Disease\u003c/em>. She believes there’s a lot of evidence that sea star wasting disease is infectious.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This month, she and her colleagues are starting new lab experiments to test that idea. In a fish pathogen lab, extracts from sick sea stars will be injected into seemingly healthy ones. She’ll be using sunflower sea stars since they are so susceptible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These are difficult experiments to get to run consistently, and so if you try to do them with a species that is somewhat resistant, sometimes just nothing happens,” Harvell says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even if scientists never are able to figure out what causes this illness, she says, eventually it could still be worth trying some kind of reintroduction of captive-bred sea stars to the wild.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“At some point we would just have to probably go forward,” Harvell says, “even though scientifically that wouldn’t be the very best plan.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hodin wishes he knew whether the sea stars his lab is raising are susceptible to the disease. He’s constantly on the lookout for any signs that his beloved animals are falling ill. “We hope they don’t get it obviously,” he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He uses a pair of tweezers to tenderly feed a tiny mussel to one of the young sea stars. It curls its arm around the treat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Their adult-like behaviors are starting to emerge at these small sizes, and that’s been really fascinating to watch,” says Hodin, who adds he feels a deep attachment to all of the animals that he’s raised. “I think of myself as their foster parent. I’m caring for them and trying to optimize their growth and watching them grow.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He says he even dreams about them. Just the night before, he’d dreamed of being surrounded by water in a house-size version of one of their tanks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=To+Save+A+Huge%2C+24-Armed+Sea+Creature%2C+Scientists+Become+Loving+Foster+Parents&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>It’s been nearly a decade since the United Nations released its last climate change assessment. That dire \u003ca href=\"https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg1/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">report\u003c/a>, which was published in 2014, described in detail how the burning of fossil fuels is altering the climate, leading to increasingly severe drought, worsening wildfires, and mass die-offs of coral reefs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last week, hundreds of the world’s top scientists hashed out final details of the next U.N. report, as much of the world is tested, again, by scorching heat waves, destructive floods, and megafires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote align=\"right\" size=\"medium\" citation=\"Lara Kueppers, climate scientist at Berkeley Lab\"]‘This is our best and most comprehensive update on the state of international climate science, and it provides a foundation for international policy development as we move forward.’[/pullquote]The next iteration of the assessment could be published on Aug. 9, pending approval by the researchers convened by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). It will be the sixth edition.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This latest report aims to guide government decisions on addressing global warming and adapting to its impacts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>NPR\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1975970/climate-scientists-meet-as-dangerous-fires-floods-and-droughts-test-the-world\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> reported\u003c/a> that the new IPCC study will include a set of five hypothetical policy scenarios, “a collection of imaginary worlds in which countries pursue different sets of climate policies.” These scenarios will take into account carbon emissions reductions, population growth, economic development, and technological change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is our best and most comprehensive update on the state of international climate science, and it provides a foundation for international policy development as we move forward,” Lara Kueppers, a UC Berkeley professor and climate scientist at Berkeley Lab, told KQED’s Brian Watt last week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But given the breakneck pace at which climate science is evolving, and the escalating destruction from warming-driven environmental disasters, Kueppers thinks it’s time for faster, locally focused assessments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’ve really left it up to the IPCC, but it’s clear that scientific support for local planning and decision-making is necessary — and the need for this is only growing,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kueppers interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>How do the IPCC assessments get used?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At best, this document will spur more concerted policy action on climate. At worst it will be a virtual doorstop. The printed and bound versions of these past assessments are quite weighty. Unfortunately, current climate commitments, including the pledges by the Biden administration and other nations, are still insufficient to meet the Paris Agreement’s goal to limit warming to one-and-a-half degrees globally, according to the \u003ca href=\"https://climateactiontracker.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Climate Action Tracker,\u003c/a> which follows all of these commitments closely.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]My hope is really that all that we’ve learned [since the last assessment published], from the warming that we’ve seen in the ocean, to the rapid changes that we’ve seen in the cryosphere, to even the more finely resolved images of future impacts on human health and livelihoods, spurs the needed policy progress that nations around the world hope to see.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Can you describe the pace at which climate science is evolving?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Climate research and the effects of human economic activity on the climate really have a long history. And the scope and the depth of the science has really advanced quite rapidly in recent decades. But at the same time, the fundamentals have really remained the same for a century.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Back at the end of the 1800s, a Swedish scientist named \u003ca href=\"https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/1903/arrhenius/biographical/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Svante Arrhenius\u003c/a> provided the first \u003ca href=\"https://www.rsc.org/images/Arrhenius1896_tcm18-173546.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">estimate \u003c/a> of how increasing global CO2 from burning coal would push up temperatures around the globe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This was a grainy black and white photograph of future climate. But the subsequent research has really added important color and resolution to that photograph. And I would say now the state of climate science has provided a high-definition image of what we can expect as the climate continues to evolve. And these recent events, even just the last year, are a trailer of our climate future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Our governor says California is experiencing climate change fast forward. The impacts are here now and happening fast. Sounds like you agree with him? \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside label=\"related coverage\" tag=\"climate-change\"]I absolutely agree. California, like everywhere else on the planet, is experiencing the changing climate right now. We know that episodic droughts are natural occurrences in the state, but coupled with higher temperatures, this really puts incredible stress on agriculture and on our natural ecosystems. The warmer temperatures are drying vegetation faster and leading to longer fire seasons. And our firefighters really recognize this as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the same time, the warmer winters are allowing populations of tree-damaging insects to multiply faster, and they’re putting drought-stressed forests at greater risk. We are well on the path to a new climate normal. And that path is going to be pretty rocky in nearly every part of the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Given all of that, do we need these big U.N. reports to come faster?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I think so. In the past decades, we’ve really been content to leave the climate change policy to international diplomats, our federal, and even state representatives. The science input that they get, we’ve left up to the IPCC. But it’s clear that scientific support for local planning and decision-making is necessary — and the need for this is only growing. An influx of information every seven years is not quite adequate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even the U.N. has asked the IPCC for more specific, policy-directed interim reports. We need to address these needs. And to do that, we require new kinds of partnerships between scientists and communities and new organizational infrastructure as well. This is a pretty tall order, but I know it’s one that many climate researchers are willing to support. And I expect that there are communities around the state who would be very grateful to have more regular input and a clearer vision for what their communities can expect as they make decisions about issues like land-use planning or public safety.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>It’s been nearly a decade since the United Nations released its last climate change assessment. That dire \u003ca href=\"https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg1/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">report\u003c/a>, which was published in 2014, described in detail how the burning of fossil fuels is altering the climate, leading to increasingly severe drought, worsening wildfires, and mass die-offs of coral reefs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last week, hundreds of the world’s top scientists hashed out final details of the next U.N. report, as much of the world is tested, again, by scorching heat waves, destructive floods, and megafires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The next iteration of the assessment could be published on Aug. 9, pending approval by the researchers convened by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). It will be the sixth edition.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This latest report aims to guide government decisions on addressing global warming and adapting to its impacts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>NPR\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1975970/climate-scientists-meet-as-dangerous-fires-floods-and-droughts-test-the-world\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> reported\u003c/a> that the new IPCC study will include a set of five hypothetical policy scenarios, “a collection of imaginary worlds in which countries pursue different sets of climate policies.” These scenarios will take into account carbon emissions reductions, population growth, economic development, and technological change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is our best and most comprehensive update on the state of international climate science, and it provides a foundation for international policy development as we move forward,” Lara Kueppers, a UC Berkeley professor and climate scientist at Berkeley Lab, told KQED’s Brian Watt last week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But given the breakneck pace at which climate science is evolving, and the escalating destruction from warming-driven environmental disasters, Kueppers thinks it’s time for faster, locally focused assessments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’ve really left it up to the IPCC, but it’s clear that scientific support for local planning and decision-making is necessary — and the need for this is only growing,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kueppers interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>How do the IPCC assessments get used?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At best, this document will spur more concerted policy action on climate. At worst it will be a virtual doorstop. The printed and bound versions of these past assessments are quite weighty. Unfortunately, current climate commitments, including the pledges by the Biden administration and other nations, are still insufficient to meet the Paris Agreement’s goal to limit warming to one-and-a-half degrees globally, according to the \u003ca href=\"https://climateactiontracker.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Climate Action Tracker,\u003c/a> which follows all of these commitments closely.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>My hope is really that all that we’ve learned [since the last assessment published], from the warming that we’ve seen in the ocean, to the rapid changes that we’ve seen in the cryosphere, to even the more finely resolved images of future impacts on human health and livelihoods, spurs the needed policy progress that nations around the world hope to see.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Can you describe the pace at which climate science is evolving?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Climate research and the effects of human economic activity on the climate really have a long history. And the scope and the depth of the science has really advanced quite rapidly in recent decades. But at the same time, the fundamentals have really remained the same for a century.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Back at the end of the 1800s, a Swedish scientist named \u003ca href=\"https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/1903/arrhenius/biographical/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Svante Arrhenius\u003c/a> provided the first \u003ca href=\"https://www.rsc.org/images/Arrhenius1896_tcm18-173546.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">estimate \u003c/a> of how increasing global CO2 from burning coal would push up temperatures around the globe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This was a grainy black and white photograph of future climate. But the subsequent research has really added important color and resolution to that photograph. And I would say now the state of climate science has provided a high-definition image of what we can expect as the climate continues to evolve. And these recent events, even just the last year, are a trailer of our climate future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Our governor says California is experiencing climate change fast forward. The impacts are here now and happening fast. Sounds like you agree with him? \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>I absolutely agree. California, like everywhere else on the planet, is experiencing the changing climate right now. We know that episodic droughts are natural occurrences in the state, but coupled with higher temperatures, this really puts incredible stress on agriculture and on our natural ecosystems. The warmer temperatures are drying vegetation faster and leading to longer fire seasons. And our firefighters really recognize this as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the same time, the warmer winters are allowing populations of tree-damaging insects to multiply faster, and they’re putting drought-stressed forests at greater risk. We are well on the path to a new climate normal. And that path is going to be pretty rocky in nearly every part of the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Given all of that, do we need these big U.N. reports to come faster?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I think so. In the past decades, we’ve really been content to leave the climate change policy to international diplomats, our federal, and even state representatives. The science input that they get, we’ve left up to the IPCC. But it’s clear that scientific support for local planning and decision-making is necessary — and the need for this is only growing. An influx of information every seven years is not quite adequate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even the U.N. has asked the IPCC for more specific, policy-directed interim reports. We need to address these needs. And to do that, we require new kinds of partnerships between scientists and communities and new organizational infrastructure as well. This is a pretty tall order, but I know it’s one that many climate researchers are willing to support. And I expect that there are communities around the state who would be very grateful to have more regular input and a clearer vision for what their communities can expect as they make decisions about issues like land-use planning or public safety.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Gripped by Drought, Marin Considers Desalination, Water Pipeline Over the Richmond Bridge",
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"content": "\u003cp>As the drought deepens across the West, coastal cities are considering whether or not to filter ocean water as a solution to their water woes. In the Bay Area, \u003ca href=\"https://www.marinwater.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Marin Water\u003c/a> is mulling plans to draw its drinking water from the San Francisco Bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Reservoir levels in Marin County are at historic lows this year, and water leaders are calling for a 40% reduction. So far the county has reached a 23% reduction, says \u003ca href=\"https://www.marinwater.org/board-contact\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Cynthia Koehler\u003c/a>, president of the agency’s board of directors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We need to do more,” she said. “We’re expecting another relatively low rainfall year. So, we’re preparing not just for right now, but really for 2022.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The harrowing prospect of another dry winter has the district toying, once again, with the idea of desalination, a process — removing salt and minerals from the sea for clean drinking water — that is simple in principle, maddeningly complicated in practice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here’s how it works: Salty water is pumped in from the ocean, filtered, chemically treated and then forced with high pressure through hole-lined pipes, which are tightly bound by a special polymer membrane — basically a microscopic strainer. Salt, bacteria and viruses can’t get through the membrane. Fresh water escapes, brine remains in the tubes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Marin Water looked at desalination twice in three decades. It shelved a desalination project in 2010 after water use declined, following a couple of dry years. One reason the agency ditched the idea? Cost concerns, which — at the time — could have been as much as $173 million.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The cost was disproportionately high,” Koehler said, who joined the district 15 years ago “It’s not a light switch, you can’t turn it on or off, you’ve got to run it all the time. And so it would have been our most expensive source of supply.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A shoreline project the district is now considering would cost in the ballpark of $37 million, and could clean enough water to fulfill about a third of the county’s drinking water needs. The agency could lease some facilities, keeping the costs down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Agency staff are considering a floating facility on a barge, too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They say the boat is likely more expensive and does “not appear feasible for a number of reasons” Koehler said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The terrestrial plant, while cheaper than the floating barge and “technically feasible” still has “fairly high costs associated with it,” she noted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A third option — not desalination, a pipeline over the bridge from Richmond to San Rafael to pump water from the East Bay — is likely to win out, Koehler said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The agency could buy water from farmers in the Central Valley and elsewhere. Koehler said it is still somewhat up in the air about where the water would come from, but staff is meeting with neighbor agencies like the East Bay Municipal Utility District and others much further away in Amador, Placer and Yuba counties.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But if the drought worsens other areas of the state could be more in need and the water may go to them instead. If the 6-mile pipeline is successful it could provide for all essential homes, businesses, and other indoor water use, and it would cost between $66 million and $88 million — which is more expensive than the desalination option, but would cover a large percentage of the county’s water needs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The preliminary information is that there would be water on the market in California, if we were able to get that infrastructure in place,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But these options are not quick fixes to the current water shortage and wouldn’t be ready until at least June 2022.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A decision could come by the end of the year, but Koehler says the best current option is water conservation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We want a community that is beautiful and that has landscaping, but native landscaping, low-water landscaping, Earthscape, all of these are options that don’t require that level of investment,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Marin isn’t the only Bay Area community considering desalination. The city of Antioch is \u003ca href=\"http://www.antiochbrackishdesal.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">building a plant to clean brackish water from the San Joaquin River\u003c/a>. It’s supposed to be completed in 2023. When the $100 million project is finished it will allow water to be used from the river year-round instead of purchasing costly water from other agencies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Environmental factors essentially forced the city’s hand, says\u003ca href=\"https://eesa.lbl.gov/profiles/peter-sewell-fiske/\"> Peter Fiske\u003c/a>, director for the National Alliance for Water Innovation at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Because of climate change and the drought the salinity of that river is getting worse and worse,” he said “They got to the point where they were like, ‘Oh, my God, I guess we’re going to have to desalinate.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Desalination doesn’t make sense for every city, because of the high cost and harm it can cause to marine ecosystems. Fiske says other options should be adopted first, like cleaning wastewater.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Across the Bay Area, we generate a lot of wastewater,” he said. “We are essentially throwing it back into the bay and much of that wastewater could be reprocessed and reused.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/AdrianCovert?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Adrian Covert\u003c/a>, senior vice president of public policy at the Bay Area Council, a business and industry group, \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">recently \u003ca href=\"https://adriancovert.substack.com/p/how-much-would-it-cost-to-drought\">evaluated desalination regionally\u003c/a> and found that recycling water could have a large impact. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Every year, the Bay Area pumps about 500,000 acre feet of highly treated wastewater into the bay,” he said. “It’s more than enough to meet the Bay Area’s water demand through 2040. And because wastewater is cleaner than ocean water, treating it to potable standards is also about 20% cheaper than desalinating water.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Agencies like Santa Clara Valley Water, which provides water to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1975989/san-jose-relies-on-water-from-the-sierra-nevada-climate-change-is-challenging-that-system\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">2 million people in the San Jose area\u003c/a>, are planning on doubling recycling water efforts. But that still only equals about 10% of their water supply.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://innovation.luskin.ucla.edu/team/gregory-pierce/\">Gregory Pierce \u003c/a>agrees that recycling water or fixing infrastructure is a faster solution than constructing a desalination plant. In a \u003ca href=\"https://innovation.luskin.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Analyzing_Southern_CA_Supply_Investments_from_a_Human_Right_to_Water_Perspective.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">2019 study,\u003c/a> he examined the impact desalination could have on low-income or marginalized communities as the co-director of the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pierce says people need “an even higher ethic of water conservation” because saving water is about preserving life for all Californians, not just the wealthy, with sprawling green lawns.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In California, I think desalination can be part of the answer. But it’s not the best answer right now or in the near term,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pierce says desalination can hurt the environment and water agencies often push the high cost onto ratepayers. Desalination doesn’t encourage people to use less water and could lead to agencies delaying upgrades to aging, leaky water systems.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As a concept, desalination sounds good, he says, but it’s not usually delivered equitably. If water is truly a human right, it should be affordable to everyone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/AndreaLeon?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Andrea León-Grossmann\u003c/a>, director of climate action for the ocean conservation group Azul, advocates against desalination because the high costs are shouldered by ratepayers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Proponents claim it will be a few dollars a month,” she said. “For them, it might be a few dollars a month, but for someone who’s struggling to put food on the table that is a struggle.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She says there are better options for dealing with water shortages, like recycling water and fixing leaky pipes that waste water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If we were to plug all those pipes and invest in maintaining our infrastructure that could provide a lot more water than building desalination plants,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Desalination isn’t just expensive, it’s hard on ocean life, says \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/DanielOceanPhys\">Daniel Ellis\u003c/a>, a senior scientist with the state water board.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You’re not just killing the phytoplankton, you’re also killing the food source for the broader food web,” he said. “The second part of the environmental impact is you take in ocean water, you take out the freshwater and you’re left with a lot of salt.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ellis says the brine byproduct can be twice as salty, and when it’s pumped back into the ocean, can be toxic for some aquatic life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even though desalination is theoretically becoming more popular — there are, at least, \u003ca href=\"https://adriancovert.substack.com/p/how-much-would-it-cost-to-drought\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">11 active seawater desalination plants statewide\u003c/a> — he says there are only a few new pending projects in the state, like those in \u003ca href=\"https://www.poseidonwater.com/huntington-beach-desalination-plant.html#:~:text=The%20Huntington%20Beach%20Desalination%20Plant,to%20be%20operational%20by%202023.\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Huntington Beach\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://scwd.org/depts/engineering/projects/water_supply_projects/oceandesal3/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Laguna Beach\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Correction: A previous version of the story mislabeled the San Joaquin River. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "The harrowing prospect of another dry winter has Marin County toying, once again, with the idea of desalination.",
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"title": "Gripped by Drought, Marin Considers Desalination, Water Pipeline Over the Richmond Bridge | KQED",
"description": "The harrowing prospect of another dry winter has Marin County toying, once again, with the idea of desalination.",
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"headline": "Gripped by Drought, Marin Considers Desalination, Water Pipeline Over the Richmond Bridge",
"datePublished": "2021-08-02T06:00:18-07:00",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>As the drought deepens across the West, coastal cities are considering whether or not to filter ocean water as a solution to their water woes. In the Bay Area, \u003ca href=\"https://www.marinwater.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Marin Water\u003c/a> is mulling plans to draw its drinking water from the San Francisco Bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Reservoir levels in Marin County are at historic lows this year, and water leaders are calling for a 40% reduction. So far the county has reached a 23% reduction, says \u003ca href=\"https://www.marinwater.org/board-contact\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Cynthia Koehler\u003c/a>, president of the agency’s board of directors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We need to do more,” she said. “We’re expecting another relatively low rainfall year. So, we’re preparing not just for right now, but really for 2022.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The harrowing prospect of another dry winter has the district toying, once again, with the idea of desalination, a process — removing salt and minerals from the sea for clean drinking water — that is simple in principle, maddeningly complicated in practice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here’s how it works: Salty water is pumped in from the ocean, filtered, chemically treated and then forced with high pressure through hole-lined pipes, which are tightly bound by a special polymer membrane — basically a microscopic strainer. Salt, bacteria and viruses can’t get through the membrane. Fresh water escapes, brine remains in the tubes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Marin Water looked at desalination twice in three decades. It shelved a desalination project in 2010 after water use declined, following a couple of dry years. One reason the agency ditched the idea? Cost concerns, which — at the time — could have been as much as $173 million.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The cost was disproportionately high,” Koehler said, who joined the district 15 years ago “It’s not a light switch, you can’t turn it on or off, you’ve got to run it all the time. And so it would have been our most expensive source of supply.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A shoreline project the district is now considering would cost in the ballpark of $37 million, and could clean enough water to fulfill about a third of the county’s drinking water needs. The agency could lease some facilities, keeping the costs down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Agency staff are considering a floating facility on a barge, too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They say the boat is likely more expensive and does “not appear feasible for a number of reasons” Koehler said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The terrestrial plant, while cheaper than the floating barge and “technically feasible” still has “fairly high costs associated with it,” she noted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A third option — not desalination, a pipeline over the bridge from Richmond to San Rafael to pump water from the East Bay — is likely to win out, Koehler said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The agency could buy water from farmers in the Central Valley and elsewhere. Koehler said it is still somewhat up in the air about where the water would come from, but staff is meeting with neighbor agencies like the East Bay Municipal Utility District and others much further away in Amador, Placer and Yuba counties.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But if the drought worsens other areas of the state could be more in need and the water may go to them instead. If the 6-mile pipeline is successful it could provide for all essential homes, businesses, and other indoor water use, and it would cost between $66 million and $88 million — which is more expensive than the desalination option, but would cover a large percentage of the county’s water needs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The preliminary information is that there would be water on the market in California, if we were able to get that infrastructure in place,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But these options are not quick fixes to the current water shortage and wouldn’t be ready until at least June 2022.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A decision could come by the end of the year, but Koehler says the best current option is water conservation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We want a community that is beautiful and that has landscaping, but native landscaping, low-water landscaping, Earthscape, all of these are options that don’t require that level of investment,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Marin isn’t the only Bay Area community considering desalination. The city of Antioch is \u003ca href=\"http://www.antiochbrackishdesal.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">building a plant to clean brackish water from the San Joaquin River\u003c/a>. It’s supposed to be completed in 2023. When the $100 million project is finished it will allow water to be used from the river year-round instead of purchasing costly water from other agencies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Environmental factors essentially forced the city’s hand, says\u003ca href=\"https://eesa.lbl.gov/profiles/peter-sewell-fiske/\"> Peter Fiske\u003c/a>, director for the National Alliance for Water Innovation at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Because of climate change and the drought the salinity of that river is getting worse and worse,” he said “They got to the point where they were like, ‘Oh, my God, I guess we’re going to have to desalinate.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Desalination doesn’t make sense for every city, because of the high cost and harm it can cause to marine ecosystems. Fiske says other options should be adopted first, like cleaning wastewater.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Across the Bay Area, we generate a lot of wastewater,” he said. “We are essentially throwing it back into the bay and much of that wastewater could be reprocessed and reused.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/AdrianCovert?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Adrian Covert\u003c/a>, senior vice president of public policy at the Bay Area Council, a business and industry group, \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">recently \u003ca href=\"https://adriancovert.substack.com/p/how-much-would-it-cost-to-drought\">evaluated desalination regionally\u003c/a> and found that recycling water could have a large impact. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Every year, the Bay Area pumps about 500,000 acre feet of highly treated wastewater into the bay,” he said. “It’s more than enough to meet the Bay Area’s water demand through 2040. And because wastewater is cleaner than ocean water, treating it to potable standards is also about 20% cheaper than desalinating water.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Agencies like Santa Clara Valley Water, which provides water to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1975989/san-jose-relies-on-water-from-the-sierra-nevada-climate-change-is-challenging-that-system\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">2 million people in the San Jose area\u003c/a>, are planning on doubling recycling water efforts. But that still only equals about 10% of their water supply.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://innovation.luskin.ucla.edu/team/gregory-pierce/\">Gregory Pierce \u003c/a>agrees that recycling water or fixing infrastructure is a faster solution than constructing a desalination plant. In a \u003ca href=\"https://innovation.luskin.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Analyzing_Southern_CA_Supply_Investments_from_a_Human_Right_to_Water_Perspective.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">2019 study,\u003c/a> he examined the impact desalination could have on low-income or marginalized communities as the co-director of the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pierce says people need “an even higher ethic of water conservation” because saving water is about preserving life for all Californians, not just the wealthy, with sprawling green lawns.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In California, I think desalination can be part of the answer. But it’s not the best answer right now or in the near term,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pierce says desalination can hurt the environment and water agencies often push the high cost onto ratepayers. Desalination doesn’t encourage people to use less water and could lead to agencies delaying upgrades to aging, leaky water systems.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As a concept, desalination sounds good, he says, but it’s not usually delivered equitably. If water is truly a human right, it should be affordable to everyone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/AndreaLeon?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Andrea León-Grossmann\u003c/a>, director of climate action for the ocean conservation group Azul, advocates against desalination because the high costs are shouldered by ratepayers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Proponents claim it will be a few dollars a month,” she said. “For them, it might be a few dollars a month, but for someone who’s struggling to put food on the table that is a struggle.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She says there are better options for dealing with water shortages, like recycling water and fixing leaky pipes that waste water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If we were to plug all those pipes and invest in maintaining our infrastructure that could provide a lot more water than building desalination plants,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Desalination isn’t just expensive, it’s hard on ocean life, says \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/DanielOceanPhys\">Daniel Ellis\u003c/a>, a senior scientist with the state water board.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You’re not just killing the phytoplankton, you’re also killing the food source for the broader food web,” he said. “The second part of the environmental impact is you take in ocean water, you take out the freshwater and you’re left with a lot of salt.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ellis says the brine byproduct can be twice as salty, and when it’s pumped back into the ocean, can be toxic for some aquatic life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even though desalination is theoretically becoming more popular — there are, at least, \u003ca href=\"https://adriancovert.substack.com/p/how-much-would-it-cost-to-drought\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">11 active seawater desalination plants statewide\u003c/a> — he says there are only a few new pending projects in the state, like those in \u003ca href=\"https://www.poseidonwater.com/huntington-beach-desalination-plant.html#:~:text=The%20Huntington%20Beach%20Desalination%20Plant,to%20be%20operational%20by%202023.\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Huntington Beach\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://scwd.org/depts/engineering/projects/water_supply_projects/oceandesal3/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Laguna Beach\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Correction: A previous version of the story mislabeled the San Joaquin River. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "San Jose Relies On Water From the Sierra Nevada. Climate Change Is Challenging That System",
"headTitle": "San Jose Relies On Water From the Sierra Nevada. Climate Change Is Challenging That System | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>In Santa Clara County, lawns are dry, a reservoir is nearly empty, and water restrictions are mandated. After two winters with very little rain — and San Jose’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.mercurynews.com/2021/07/11/how-bad-is-this-fire-season-in-california-really-going-to-be/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">driest year in 128 years of record keeping\u003c/a> — the county is marked by one of the worst droughts in modern history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Santa Clara County’s experience of drought is set apart from the rest of the state by a myriad of issues — less water from the Sierra Nevada, the effect of human-caused climate change on water supplies, and a case of incredibly bad luck.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is a dire emergency caused by the confluence of several horrible things happening all at the same time,” said Gary Kremen, director of \u003ca href=\"https://www.valleywater.org/director-gary-kremen-biography\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Santa Clara Valley Water\u003c/a>. “This isn’t like someone crying wolf.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Valley Water relies heavily on water from the Sierra Nevada snowpack more than 100 miles away. But the agency only received 5% of the water it contracts from the state this year, a quarter of what it sources from the feds, and very little local rainfall.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have 2 million people in the county, compared to San Francisco’s 800,000 or Oakland’s 500,000,” he noted. “This is where the people live. We use a lot of water.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kremen likens the drought situation in his water district to someone losing their job without savings to fall back on and no outside help to get them through.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You got no money coming in and none of your relatives want to send you any money because they have their own difficulties,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Santa Clara County is so dry and the water levels so low, that Kremen’s agency now requires a 15% reduction in water use from all people and businesses. That amount may not not sound like a lot, but if it doesn’t rain this winter, places like San Jose could be in deep trouble next spring or summer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I do not believe there’s enough water for a third year [of drought],” Kremen said. “It’s gotten horrible very quick.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1975990\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1975990\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/RS50396_IMG_5850_Science_EzraRomero_SanJose-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/RS50396_IMG_5850_Science_EzraRomero_SanJose-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/RS50396_IMG_5850_Science_EzraRomero_SanJose-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/RS50396_IMG_5850_Science_EzraRomero_SanJose-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/RS50396_IMG_5850_Science_EzraRomero_SanJose-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/RS50396_IMG_5850_Science_EzraRomero_SanJose-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/RS50396_IMG_5850_Science_EzraRomero_SanJose-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Anderson Lake is 3% full after it was drained so the dam could undergo a seismic retrofit. \u003ccite>(Ezra David Romero/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>The Kicker\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The kicker on top of two very dry years in a row? The largest reservoir in Valley Water’s system is virtually empty at 3% full, after it was emptied so that the Anderson Dam near Morgan Hill could undergo seismic retrofitting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When it’s full this is our primary water supply in addition to our aquifer,” said \u003ca href=\"https://www.valleywater.org/director-john-varela-biography\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">John Varela\u003c/a> , a director on the Santa Clara Valley Water District Board of Directors. “But it’s empty, and we’re in a drought, so it’s not a good time.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The agency drained the reservoir because the dam is vulnerable to shaking from a severe earthquake. The state wanted to make sure it could withstand at least a magnitude 7.0 quake, and the federal government mandated the retrofit. The work won’t be finished for about a decade.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>A Fundamentally Different Climate\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the meantime, Varela says the water district is exploring one possible solution for future water shortages: recycling wastewater. That clean water would then go back into the earth, restoring aquifers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We feel that recycled water is the sustainable water supply of the future,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The agency currently recycles 5% of its water at a facility in San Jose. Varela says the district is partnering with Palo Alto and Mountain View to build a second facility, and with Morgan Hill and Gilroy for a third. He said preliminary conversations are taking place around creating pipelines throughout the county to share water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The district would like to double the amount of recycled water in the coming years. But warming temperatures are threatening the very system that supplies water to San Jose, and recycling efforts and other measures might not be enough.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We now live in a fundamentally different climate,” said climate scientist \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/katerina_gonz\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Katerina Gonzales,\u003c/a> who studies the causes and impacts of extreme precipitation at the University of Minnesota. She recently finished her dissertation at Stanford, where she focused on the West.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1975993\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1975993\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/RS50378_013_SanJose_Drought_07212021-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/RS50378_013_SanJose_Drought_07212021-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/RS50378_013_SanJose_Drought_07212021-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/RS50378_013_SanJose_Drought_07212021-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/RS50378_013_SanJose_Drought_07212021-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/RS50378_013_SanJose_Drought_07212021-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/RS50378_013_SanJose_Drought_07212021-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Tall, dry grass grows across from a green yard in the Cambrian neighborhood located in West San Jose on July 21, 2021. (Beth LaBerge/KQED).\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>She says warming has condensed the rainy season and is decreasing the annual snowpack. Both are challenging California’s aging water system, which was designed to gradually collect runoff from snowmelt. Not to capture a winter’s worth of rainfall during a couple big, wet storms, known as atmospheric rivers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Changes in atmospheric rivers affect almost every part of our infrastructure that deals with our relationship to water,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If storms come too early in the rain season, reservoirs fill up, creating a flooding risk. If water managers release water too soon in a drought year, it could mean dry reservoirs down the line.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We can’t rely on this assurance of drought busting atmospheric rivers because of the way that the ingredients in the atmosphere have changed,” Gonzales said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If California’s water system doesn’t evolve to mitigate impacts from climate change, Gonzales says places like San Jose will continue to have water issues.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>State water officials seem to agree that the system has to change. \u003ca href=\"https://water.ca.gov/Executive-Bios-Director\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Karla Nemeth\u003c/a>, director of the California Department of Water Resources, says the state’s water system needs a major overhaul and Californians will need to save more water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re still working off past hydrology that was feeding a state that had fewer people,” she said. “All that needs to change, and it can change, if we get focused on how we adapt all of our modeling and operations to accommodate more climate extremes.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1975995\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1975995\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/RS50394_IMG_5815_Science_EzraRomero_SanJose-qut-800x600.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/RS50394_IMG_5815_Science_EzraRomero_SanJose-qut-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/RS50394_IMG_5815_Science_EzraRomero_SanJose-qut-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/RS50394_IMG_5815_Science_EzraRomero_SanJose-qut-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/RS50394_IMG_5815_Science_EzraRomero_SanJose-qut-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/RS50394_IMG_5815_Science_EzraRomero_SanJose-qut-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/RS50394_IMG_5815_Science_EzraRomero_SanJose-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Adam Whyte, 18, spreads mulch around his front yard. The family lawn died in the last drought. \u003ccite>(Ezra David Romero/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>What Drought Means For Residents\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For residents in the San Jose region, these water woes translate to mandatory 15% water restrictions. People are cutting back mostly on irrigation, like watering lawns, gardens and parks. Even though people are letting their lawns go, water leaders say that can be avoided.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Your lawn is still going to be nice, it just takes a little bit more time to be judicious about it, reprogramming your irrigation control to the right duration,” said John Tang, vice president of regulatory affairs for \u003ca href=\"https://www.sjwater.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">San Jose Water. \u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tang says people have learned to save water since the last drought in San Jose. Statewide, Californians use 16% less water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s certain homes around here that have really heeded the call for conservation,” he said. “People are ripping out lawns and putting in drought tolerant landscaping.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He says the 15% water reduction is mandatory, but the city is focusing on education and not enforcement. During the last drought, reduction grew to 30%.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We don’t have any water cops driving around giving people tickets,” he said. “We see it as more of a cooperative partnership.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In San Jose, brown lawns and drought-tolerant yards are becoming commonplace.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Eighteen-year-old Adam Whyte’s family allowed their lawn to die during the last drought. “It was an eyesore compared to everybody else in the neighborhood who had all this perfectly nice grass,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This year, his family is mulching the yard with bark from a neighbor. The high school senior is spending part of his summer break with a shovel in hand.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re just gonna spread it out, put up some bricks, maybe a little border,” he said. “Clearly, if we want grass that’s just gonna up the water bill. We’re not doing that.”\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"title": "San Jose Relies On Water From the Sierra Nevada. Climate Change Is Challenging That System | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>In Santa Clara County, lawns are dry, a reservoir is nearly empty, and water restrictions are mandated. After two winters with very little rain — and San Jose’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.mercurynews.com/2021/07/11/how-bad-is-this-fire-season-in-california-really-going-to-be/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">driest year in 128 years of record keeping\u003c/a> — the county is marked by one of the worst droughts in modern history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Santa Clara County’s experience of drought is set apart from the rest of the state by a myriad of issues — less water from the Sierra Nevada, the effect of human-caused climate change on water supplies, and a case of incredibly bad luck.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is a dire emergency caused by the confluence of several horrible things happening all at the same time,” said Gary Kremen, director of \u003ca href=\"https://www.valleywater.org/director-gary-kremen-biography\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Santa Clara Valley Water\u003c/a>. “This isn’t like someone crying wolf.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Valley Water relies heavily on water from the Sierra Nevada snowpack more than 100 miles away. But the agency only received 5% of the water it contracts from the state this year, a quarter of what it sources from the feds, and very little local rainfall.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have 2 million people in the county, compared to San Francisco’s 800,000 or Oakland’s 500,000,” he noted. “This is where the people live. We use a lot of water.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kremen likens the drought situation in his water district to someone losing their job without savings to fall back on and no outside help to get them through.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You got no money coming in and none of your relatives want to send you any money because they have their own difficulties,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Santa Clara County is so dry and the water levels so low, that Kremen’s agency now requires a 15% reduction in water use from all people and businesses. That amount may not not sound like a lot, but if it doesn’t rain this winter, places like San Jose could be in deep trouble next spring or summer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I do not believe there’s enough water for a third year [of drought],” Kremen said. “It’s gotten horrible very quick.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1975990\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1975990\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/RS50396_IMG_5850_Science_EzraRomero_SanJose-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/RS50396_IMG_5850_Science_EzraRomero_SanJose-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/RS50396_IMG_5850_Science_EzraRomero_SanJose-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/RS50396_IMG_5850_Science_EzraRomero_SanJose-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/RS50396_IMG_5850_Science_EzraRomero_SanJose-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/RS50396_IMG_5850_Science_EzraRomero_SanJose-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/RS50396_IMG_5850_Science_EzraRomero_SanJose-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Anderson Lake is 3% full after it was drained so the dam could undergo a seismic retrofit. \u003ccite>(Ezra David Romero/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>The Kicker\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The kicker on top of two very dry years in a row? The largest reservoir in Valley Water’s system is virtually empty at 3% full, after it was emptied so that the Anderson Dam near Morgan Hill could undergo seismic retrofitting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When it’s full this is our primary water supply in addition to our aquifer,” said \u003ca href=\"https://www.valleywater.org/director-john-varela-biography\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">John Varela\u003c/a> , a director on the Santa Clara Valley Water District Board of Directors. “But it’s empty, and we’re in a drought, so it’s not a good time.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The agency drained the reservoir because the dam is vulnerable to shaking from a severe earthquake. The state wanted to make sure it could withstand at least a magnitude 7.0 quake, and the federal government mandated the retrofit. The work won’t be finished for about a decade.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>A Fundamentally Different Climate\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the meantime, Varela says the water district is exploring one possible solution for future water shortages: recycling wastewater. That clean water would then go back into the earth, restoring aquifers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We feel that recycled water is the sustainable water supply of the future,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The agency currently recycles 5% of its water at a facility in San Jose. Varela says the district is partnering with Palo Alto and Mountain View to build a second facility, and with Morgan Hill and Gilroy for a third. He said preliminary conversations are taking place around creating pipelines throughout the county to share water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The district would like to double the amount of recycled water in the coming years. But warming temperatures are threatening the very system that supplies water to San Jose, and recycling efforts and other measures might not be enough.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We now live in a fundamentally different climate,” said climate scientist \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/katerina_gonz\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Katerina Gonzales,\u003c/a> who studies the causes and impacts of extreme precipitation at the University of Minnesota. She recently finished her dissertation at Stanford, where she focused on the West.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1975993\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1975993\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/RS50378_013_SanJose_Drought_07212021-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/RS50378_013_SanJose_Drought_07212021-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/RS50378_013_SanJose_Drought_07212021-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/RS50378_013_SanJose_Drought_07212021-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/RS50378_013_SanJose_Drought_07212021-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/RS50378_013_SanJose_Drought_07212021-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/RS50378_013_SanJose_Drought_07212021-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Tall, dry grass grows across from a green yard in the Cambrian neighborhood located in West San Jose on July 21, 2021. (Beth LaBerge/KQED).\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>She says warming has condensed the rainy season and is decreasing the annual snowpack. Both are challenging California’s aging water system, which was designed to gradually collect runoff from snowmelt. Not to capture a winter’s worth of rainfall during a couple big, wet storms, known as atmospheric rivers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Changes in atmospheric rivers affect almost every part of our infrastructure that deals with our relationship to water,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If storms come too early in the rain season, reservoirs fill up, creating a flooding risk. If water managers release water too soon in a drought year, it could mean dry reservoirs down the line.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We can’t rely on this assurance of drought busting atmospheric rivers because of the way that the ingredients in the atmosphere have changed,” Gonzales said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If California’s water system doesn’t evolve to mitigate impacts from climate change, Gonzales says places like San Jose will continue to have water issues.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>State water officials seem to agree that the system has to change. \u003ca href=\"https://water.ca.gov/Executive-Bios-Director\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Karla Nemeth\u003c/a>, director of the California Department of Water Resources, says the state’s water system needs a major overhaul and Californians will need to save more water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re still working off past hydrology that was feeding a state that had fewer people,” she said. “All that needs to change, and it can change, if we get focused on how we adapt all of our modeling and operations to accommodate more climate extremes.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1975995\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1975995\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/RS50394_IMG_5815_Science_EzraRomero_SanJose-qut-800x600.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/RS50394_IMG_5815_Science_EzraRomero_SanJose-qut-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/RS50394_IMG_5815_Science_EzraRomero_SanJose-qut-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/RS50394_IMG_5815_Science_EzraRomero_SanJose-qut-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/RS50394_IMG_5815_Science_EzraRomero_SanJose-qut-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/RS50394_IMG_5815_Science_EzraRomero_SanJose-qut-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/RS50394_IMG_5815_Science_EzraRomero_SanJose-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Adam Whyte, 18, spreads mulch around his front yard. The family lawn died in the last drought. \u003ccite>(Ezra David Romero/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>What Drought Means For Residents\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For residents in the San Jose region, these water woes translate to mandatory 15% water restrictions. People are cutting back mostly on irrigation, like watering lawns, gardens and parks. Even though people are letting their lawns go, water leaders say that can be avoided.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Your lawn is still going to be nice, it just takes a little bit more time to be judicious about it, reprogramming your irrigation control to the right duration,” said John Tang, vice president of regulatory affairs for \u003ca href=\"https://www.sjwater.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">San Jose Water. \u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tang says people have learned to save water since the last drought in San Jose. Statewide, Californians use 16% less water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s certain homes around here that have really heeded the call for conservation,” he said. “People are ripping out lawns and putting in drought tolerant landscaping.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He says the 15% water reduction is mandatory, but the city is focusing on education and not enforcement. During the last drought, reduction grew to 30%.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We don’t have any water cops driving around giving people tickets,” he said. “We see it as more of a cooperative partnership.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In San Jose, brown lawns and drought-tolerant yards are becoming commonplace.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Eighteen-year-old Adam Whyte’s family allowed their lawn to die during the last drought. “It was an eyesore compared to everybody else in the neighborhood who had all this perfectly nice grass,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This year, his family is mulching the yard with bark from a neighbor. The high school senior is spending part of his summer break with a shovel in hand.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re just gonna spread it out, put up some bricks, maybe a little border,” he said. “Clearly, if we want grass that’s just gonna up the water bill. We’re not doing that.”\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"headTitle": "Climate Scientists Meet as Dangerous Fires, Floods, and Droughts Test the World | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>More than 200 of the world’s leading climate scientists will begin meeting today to finalize a \u003ca href=\"https://www.ipcc.ch/report/sixth-assessment-report-working-group-i/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">landmark report\u003c/a> summarizing how Earth’s climate has already changed, and what humans can expect for the rest of the century.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The report is the sixth edition of an assessment of the latest climate science from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a United Nations body that coordinates research about global warming. The last edition of this report \u003ca href=\"https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg1/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">came out in 2013\u003c/a> — an eternity in the world of climate science, where the pace of both warming and research are steadily accelerating.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The urgency of addressing global warming has never been more clear. The two-week virtual meeting of IPCC scientists coincides with a raft of deadly climate-driven disasters unfolding around the world, from flash floods in Europe, North America and Asia, to intense wildfires in Siberia, to widespread persistent heat waves and droughts that threaten to upend food supplies in the U.S., Middle East and much of Africa.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new report will be a crucial document for world leaders. It represents the international scientific consensus about human-caused climate change. Governments rely on its predictions as they develop policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, manage forests and fisheries and decide how to protect their citizens from extreme weather. In November, world leaders will meet for the first time since 2019 to discuss promises to cut greenhouse gas emissions — promises that are still insufficient to prevent catastrophic warming this century.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It takes years to put together the IPCC report. It has 12 chapters, covering everything from the heat-trapping properties of individual greenhouse gases to extreme weather events to the regional impacts of global warming. Over the next two weeks, the authors of the report will hash out the final draft.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here are three things to watch for.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Climate Science Has Come a Long Way in the Last Decade\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new report will be the most comprehensive, detailed and accurate picture of the global climate ever released. The computer models that scientists use to predict how the climate will change in the future are a lot more advanced than they were a decade ago, when the last edition was published. And the data that feeds those models is also more robust, thanks to satellites, buoys and information about the historical climate gathered from \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2021/03/17/974774461/drawing-a-line-in-the-mud-scientists-debate-when-age-of-humans-began\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">rock, ice and mud\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Together, those advances allow scientists to say with more certainty how quickly the Earth is heating up, and how the extra heat being trapped by greenhouse gases will affect everything from sea levels and hurricanes to droughts and heat waves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For this report, scientists considered all the climate research published \u003ca href=\"https://www.ipcc.ch/2020/05/29/ipcc-extends-working-group-i-literature-cut-off-date-postpones-final-lead-author-meeting/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">before February 2021\u003c/a>. That’s thousands of studies about the Earth’s atmosphere, oceans, forests and weather patterns. The meeting that kicks off today will focus on how to phrase key takeaways, such as how quickly the Earth is barreling toward the 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) warming threshold set by the Paris climate agreement in order to avoid the most catastrophic effects of global warming.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>There Are Five Future Scenarios that Scientists Imagine\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A critical goal of the forthcoming report is to help governments make decisions about how to address climate change. The report won’t tell governments what to do, but it is meant to help leaders understand the effects of different policies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For example, if humans stop burning coal immediately, it will dramatically reduce the rate of global warming. But what if humans stop burning coal in the next five years? Or ten years? Or what if solar panels get really cheap and population growth slows down? How does that affect climate change? The new IPCC report is meant to help answer such questions using a set of 5 hypothetical policy scenarios.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is the first time the IPCC has used these scenarios, which are essentially a collection of imaginary worlds in which countries pursue different sets of climate policies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For example, in one world countries work together to develop low-cost, low-carbon technologies and put them into use quickly for everyone. In another, some countries or groups of people transition very quickly to wind, solar and other clean energy sources while others move much more slowly. In a third imaginary world, nationalism surges around the world and governments focus on local energy and food security rather than global economic changes to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://tntcat.iiasa.ac.at/SspDb/dsd?Action=htmlpage&page=about\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Each of the five scenarios\u003c/a> takes into account population growth, GDP and a host of other demographic, economic and technological possibilities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Under most of the scenarios, it’s still possible to keep global warming below the 2 degree Celsius threshold set by the Paris agreement, says Zeke Hausfather, a climate scientist at the University of California, Berkeley. In other words, there are many ways to address climate change, and the new report will help describe those options.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Biden administration has promised to \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2021/04/16/987667828/how-the-u-s-could-halve-climate-emissions-by-2030\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">cut U.S. emissions in half by 2030\u003c/a>, but has not released a specific plan for how to achieve that goal. A major infrastructure package that would invest in cleaner transportation and electricity is facing an uncertain future in Congress.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>The Report Will Include Regional Information for the First Time\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is the first time the IPCC will break down its global climate science findings by region. That’s a big deal because the climate is changing in different ways depending on where you live. For example, the Arctic is warming about \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2020/12/18/943219856/2020-may-be-the-hottest-year-on-record-heres-the-damage-it-did\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">twice as fast\u003c/a> as the rest of the Earth, and \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2021/02/16/968461863/encore-why-sea-level-rise-varies-across-the-world\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">sea levels\u003c/a> are rising much more quickly in some areas than in others.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But many \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2019/12/11/782918005/meteorologists-cant-keep-up-with-climate-change-in-mozambique\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">countries don’t have the resources\u003c/a> to systematically study how the climate is changing in their region, or what to expect in the future. That leaves governments in the dark about the rate of local sea level rise, for example, or the likelihood of regional drought or extreme rain. Without localized information, it’s impossible to prioritize infrastructure and housing that’s built for the climate of the future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The forthcoming IPCC report includes a chapter on regional climate change. The IPCC is also releasing an interactive, online regional dashboard that allows policymakers to choose their region and see current and future climate conditions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The U.S. government will not rely on the new regional data from the IPCC. The U.S. already has access to localized data through the \u003ca href=\"https://nca2018.globalchange.gov/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">National Climate Assessment\u003c/a>, which is produced by the federal government every few years. The next edition is scheduled to be published in 2023.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Climate+Scientists+Meet+As+Floods%2C+Fires%2C+Droughts+And+Heat+Waves+Batter+Countries&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>More than 200 of the world’s leading climate scientists will begin meeting today to finalize a \u003ca href=\"https://www.ipcc.ch/report/sixth-assessment-report-working-group-i/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">landmark report\u003c/a> summarizing how Earth’s climate has already changed, and what humans can expect for the rest of the century.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The report is the sixth edition of an assessment of the latest climate science from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a United Nations body that coordinates research about global warming. The last edition of this report \u003ca href=\"https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg1/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">came out in 2013\u003c/a> — an eternity in the world of climate science, where the pace of both warming and research are steadily accelerating.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The urgency of addressing global warming has never been more clear. The two-week virtual meeting of IPCC scientists coincides with a raft of deadly climate-driven disasters unfolding around the world, from flash floods in Europe, North America and Asia, to intense wildfires in Siberia, to widespread persistent heat waves and droughts that threaten to upend food supplies in the U.S., Middle East and much of Africa.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new report will be a crucial document for world leaders. It represents the international scientific consensus about human-caused climate change. Governments rely on its predictions as they develop policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, manage forests and fisheries and decide how to protect their citizens from extreme weather. In November, world leaders will meet for the first time since 2019 to discuss promises to cut greenhouse gas emissions — promises that are still insufficient to prevent catastrophic warming this century.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It takes years to put together the IPCC report. It has 12 chapters, covering everything from the heat-trapping properties of individual greenhouse gases to extreme weather events to the regional impacts of global warming. Over the next two weeks, the authors of the report will hash out the final draft.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here are three things to watch for.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Climate Science Has Come a Long Way in the Last Decade\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new report will be the most comprehensive, detailed and accurate picture of the global climate ever released. The computer models that scientists use to predict how the climate will change in the future are a lot more advanced than they were a decade ago, when the last edition was published. And the data that feeds those models is also more robust, thanks to satellites, buoys and information about the historical climate gathered from \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2021/03/17/974774461/drawing-a-line-in-the-mud-scientists-debate-when-age-of-humans-began\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">rock, ice and mud\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Together, those advances allow scientists to say with more certainty how quickly the Earth is heating up, and how the extra heat being trapped by greenhouse gases will affect everything from sea levels and hurricanes to droughts and heat waves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For this report, scientists considered all the climate research published \u003ca href=\"https://www.ipcc.ch/2020/05/29/ipcc-extends-working-group-i-literature-cut-off-date-postpones-final-lead-author-meeting/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">before February 2021\u003c/a>. That’s thousands of studies about the Earth’s atmosphere, oceans, forests and weather patterns. The meeting that kicks off today will focus on how to phrase key takeaways, such as how quickly the Earth is barreling toward the 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) warming threshold set by the Paris climate agreement in order to avoid the most catastrophic effects of global warming.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>There Are Five Future Scenarios that Scientists Imagine\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A critical goal of the forthcoming report is to help governments make decisions about how to address climate change. The report won’t tell governments what to do, but it is meant to help leaders understand the effects of different policies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For example, if humans stop burning coal immediately, it will dramatically reduce the rate of global warming. But what if humans stop burning coal in the next five years? Or ten years? Or what if solar panels get really cheap and population growth slows down? How does that affect climate change? The new IPCC report is meant to help answer such questions using a set of 5 hypothetical policy scenarios.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is the first time the IPCC has used these scenarios, which are essentially a collection of imaginary worlds in which countries pursue different sets of climate policies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For example, in one world countries work together to develop low-cost, low-carbon technologies and put them into use quickly for everyone. In another, some countries or groups of people transition very quickly to wind, solar and other clean energy sources while others move much more slowly. In a third imaginary world, nationalism surges around the world and governments focus on local energy and food security rather than global economic changes to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://tntcat.iiasa.ac.at/SspDb/dsd?Action=htmlpage&page=about\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Each of the five scenarios\u003c/a> takes into account population growth, GDP and a host of other demographic, economic and technological possibilities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Under most of the scenarios, it’s still possible to keep global warming below the 2 degree Celsius threshold set by the Paris agreement, says Zeke Hausfather, a climate scientist at the University of California, Berkeley. In other words, there are many ways to address climate change, and the new report will help describe those options.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Biden administration has promised to \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2021/04/16/987667828/how-the-u-s-could-halve-climate-emissions-by-2030\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">cut U.S. emissions in half by 2030\u003c/a>, but has not released a specific plan for how to achieve that goal. A major infrastructure package that would invest in cleaner transportation and electricity is facing an uncertain future in Congress.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>The Report Will Include Regional Information for the First Time\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is the first time the IPCC will break down its global climate science findings by region. That’s a big deal because the climate is changing in different ways depending on where you live. For example, the Arctic is warming about \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2020/12/18/943219856/2020-may-be-the-hottest-year-on-record-heres-the-damage-it-did\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">twice as fast\u003c/a> as the rest of the Earth, and \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2021/02/16/968461863/encore-why-sea-level-rise-varies-across-the-world\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">sea levels\u003c/a> are rising much more quickly in some areas than in others.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But many \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2019/12/11/782918005/meteorologists-cant-keep-up-with-climate-change-in-mozambique\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">countries don’t have the resources\u003c/a> to systematically study how the climate is changing in their region, or what to expect in the future. That leaves governments in the dark about the rate of local sea level rise, for example, or the likelihood of regional drought or extreme rain. Without localized information, it’s impossible to prioritize infrastructure and housing that’s built for the climate of the future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The forthcoming IPCC report includes a chapter on regional climate change. The IPCC is also releasing an interactive, online regional dashboard that allows policymakers to choose their region and see current and future climate conditions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The U.S. government will not rely on the new regional data from the IPCC. The U.S. already has access to localized data through the \u003ca href=\"https://nca2018.globalchange.gov/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">National Climate Assessment\u003c/a>, which is produced by the federal government every few years. The next edition is scheduled to be published in 2023.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Climate+Scientists+Meet+As+Floods%2C+Fires%2C+Droughts+And+Heat+Waves+Batter+Countries&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "The Moon 'Wobble' Isn’t New. What's New is the Impact of Climate Change",
"headTitle": "The Moon ‘Wobble’ Isn’t New. What’s New is the Impact of Climate Change | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>So, about that moon wobble …\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last week, NASA published a \u003ca href=\"https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-021-01077-8\"> new study\u003c/a> in the journal Nature Climate Change that found rising sea levels plus higher tides caused by an oscillation in the moon’s orbit will dramatically increase the number of sunny day floods experienced in U.S. coastal communities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Bay Area is one of the most populous and flood-threatened shorelines of the entire West Coast. Places like San Francisco’s Embarcadero and the exit off Northbound Highway 101 toward Mill Valley already regularly flood during King Tides, along with communities like \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11871855/sea-levels-are-rising-in-the-bay-and-east-palo-alto-is-on-the-front-lines\">East Palo Alto\u003c/a> in the South Bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>NASA researchers say it could get a lot worse — and sooner than expected.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The assessment we made for the tide gauge in San Francisco is that we’d see about a five time increase in the number of high-tide flood days,” said \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/bhamlington?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor\">Ben Hamlington\u003c/a>, who co-authored the study.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With that in mind, he says the region’s current sea level rise adaptation plans may not go far enough, and might be moving too slowly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A regular oscillation in the lunar orbit — what researchers have dubbed a “moon wobble” — will temporarily suppress flooding from rising sea levels this decade, only to worsen across the Bay Area in the mid-2030s as the moon sways back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Carbon pollution is trapping heat and warming the planet, even as companies and governments continue to emit planet warming gases with little abatement. The wobble will do nothing to limit the melting of ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica, which is accelerating and being driven by these rising temperatures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The fact that the moon wobbles is not a new discovery. Scientists have known about the lunar sways, which take 18.6 years to complete, for centuries. The first half of the pattern is marked in the U.S. by lower tides and the second — which the moon is currently in — by high tides.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://twitter.com/PeterGleick/status/1417663167409229827?s=20\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s nothing new or dangerous about the wobble; it was first reported in 1728,” NASA’s release \u003ca href=\"https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/study-projects-a-surge-in-coastal-flooding-starting-in-2030s\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">said\u003c/a>. “What’s new is how one of the wobble’s effects on the moon’s gravitational pull — the main cause of Earth’s tides — will combine with rising sea levels resulting from the planet’s warming.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scientists worry that as the tides amplify in the next decade, cities around the Bay will see more flooding. The San Francisco Bay has risen by about eight inches since 1990, the Mercury News \u003ca href=\"https://www.mercurynews.com/2021/04/13/san-francisco-bay-protection-from-future-disasters-is-being-thrown-away-scientists-say/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">reported\u003c/a>. But by the midcentury that could increase by up to \u003ca href=\"http://www.opc.ca.gov/webmaster/ftp/pdf/docs/rising-seas-in-california-an-update-on-sea-level-rise-science.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">1.9 feet, before accelerating even more towards the end of the century. \u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Phil Thompson, lead author of the study, said cities will likely experience accumulating impacts from what academics call nuisance flooding — water from high tides spilling on streets, into parking lots, parks, and neighborhoods, regularly disrupting life and business. “If it floods 10 or 15 times a month, a business can’t keep operating with its parking lot under water,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The real doozy, Hamlington says, is that a certain level of sea rise is already baked in, and will surge as the temperatures rise and oceans warm. San Francisco could see 31 additional flooding days per year on average during the 2030s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The team examined the impacts under low-medium and medium climate warming emissions scenarios. They forecast that flooding will be experienced at different moments across the Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hamlington says natural drivers of flooding like El Niño could also make flooding worse, and the impact of sea level rise will be clearly evident in the next decade.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A lot of those flooding days that you see now are going to be that much more severe,” he said. “We are going to see some abrupt transitions. I think it’s important for coastal planners to understand that, in a lot of cases, you need to start preparing now. Some of the adaptation strategies that are being discussed need to be put in place sooner rather than later.”\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "What researchers have dubbed a “moon wobble” will temporarily suppress Bay Area flooding from rising sea levels this decade, only to worsen in the mid-2030s. ",
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"description": "What researchers have dubbed a “moon wobble” will temporarily suppress Bay Area flooding from rising sea levels this decade, only to worsen in the mid-2030s. ",
"title": "The Moon 'Wobble' Isn’t New. What's New is the Impact of Climate Change | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>So, about that moon wobble …\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last week, NASA published a \u003ca href=\"https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-021-01077-8\"> new study\u003c/a> in the journal Nature Climate Change that found rising sea levels plus higher tides caused by an oscillation in the moon’s orbit will dramatically increase the number of sunny day floods experienced in U.S. coastal communities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Bay Area is one of the most populous and flood-threatened shorelines of the entire West Coast. Places like San Francisco’s Embarcadero and the exit off Northbound Highway 101 toward Mill Valley already regularly flood during King Tides, along with communities like \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11871855/sea-levels-are-rising-in-the-bay-and-east-palo-alto-is-on-the-front-lines\">East Palo Alto\u003c/a> in the South Bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>NASA researchers say it could get a lot worse — and sooner than expected.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The assessment we made for the tide gauge in San Francisco is that we’d see about a five time increase in the number of high-tide flood days,” said \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/bhamlington?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor\">Ben Hamlington\u003c/a>, who co-authored the study.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With that in mind, he says the region’s current sea level rise adaptation plans may not go far enough, and might be moving too slowly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A regular oscillation in the lunar orbit — what researchers have dubbed a “moon wobble” — will temporarily suppress flooding from rising sea levels this decade, only to worsen across the Bay Area in the mid-2030s as the moon sways back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Carbon pollution is trapping heat and warming the planet, even as companies and governments continue to emit planet warming gases with little abatement. The wobble will do nothing to limit the melting of ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica, which is accelerating and being driven by these rising temperatures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The fact that the moon wobbles is not a new discovery. Scientists have known about the lunar sways, which take 18.6 years to complete, for centuries. The first half of the pattern is marked in the U.S. by lower tides and the second — which the moon is currently in — by high tides.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\n\u003cp>“There’s nothing new or dangerous about the wobble; it was first reported in 1728,” NASA’s release \u003ca href=\"https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/study-projects-a-surge-in-coastal-flooding-starting-in-2030s\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">said\u003c/a>. “What’s new is how one of the wobble’s effects on the moon’s gravitational pull — the main cause of Earth’s tides — will combine with rising sea levels resulting from the planet’s warming.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scientists worry that as the tides amplify in the next decade, cities around the Bay will see more flooding. The San Francisco Bay has risen by about eight inches since 1990, the Mercury News \u003ca href=\"https://www.mercurynews.com/2021/04/13/san-francisco-bay-protection-from-future-disasters-is-being-thrown-away-scientists-say/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">reported\u003c/a>. But by the midcentury that could increase by up to \u003ca href=\"http://www.opc.ca.gov/webmaster/ftp/pdf/docs/rising-seas-in-california-an-update-on-sea-level-rise-science.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">1.9 feet, before accelerating even more towards the end of the century. \u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Phil Thompson, lead author of the study, said cities will likely experience accumulating impacts from what academics call nuisance flooding — water from high tides spilling on streets, into parking lots, parks, and neighborhoods, regularly disrupting life and business. “If it floods 10 or 15 times a month, a business can’t keep operating with its parking lot under water,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The real doozy, Hamlington says, is that a certain level of sea rise is already baked in, and will surge as the temperatures rise and oceans warm. San Francisco could see 31 additional flooding days per year on average during the 2030s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The team examined the impacts under low-medium and medium climate warming emissions scenarios. They forecast that flooding will be experienced at different moments across the Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hamlington says natural drivers of flooding like El Niño could also make flooding worse, and the impact of sea level rise will be clearly evident in the next decade.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A lot of those flooding days that you see now are going to be that much more severe,” he said. “We are going to see some abrupt transitions. I think it’s important for coastal planners to understand that, in a lot of cases, you need to start preparing now. Some of the adaptation strategies that are being discussed need to be put in place sooner rather than later.”\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Unpaid Utility Bills? California Will Pay Off $2 Billion to Avoid Shutoffs",
"headTitle": "Unpaid Utility Bills? California Will Pay Off $2 Billion to Avoid Shutoffs | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>Two years ago the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power shut off electricity at Will Hollman’s home in the San Fernando Valley, forcing the family to rely on a gasoline generator. In late June of this year, the department disconnected the water, too — despite a \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/4.2.20-EO-N-42-20.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">statewide moratorium on water shutoffs\u003c/a> that Gov. Gavin Newsom \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/6.11.21-EO-N-08-21-signed.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">recently extended through Sept. 30\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hollman, his 10-year-old son and his 16-year-old stepdaughter endured 11 days of temperatures in the high 90s to low 100s without water or power. For 11 days, they camped out in air-conditioned grocery stores, Starbucks or his truck. They couchsurfed and used friends’ showers. Hollman played it off with the kids as some kind of fun obstacle course.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He called the department’s customer service, and said a representative told him that he must pay off his utility debt of $9,064.13 — largely consisting of charges that Hollman disputes as erroneous — before water or power could be restored.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s been demoralizing, humiliating,” Hollman said on the eighth day. “I have a history of paying my bills, working, being a good provider. You… start having feelings of failure as a parent.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ultimately the state’s water agency convinced the LA department to turn on Hollman’s water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those 11 days without water or power are a window into what could happen to millions of Californians in the coming months and years, depending on how swiftly and effectively the state distributes relief.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Official estimates of unpaid water and energy bills accumulated during the pandemic verge on $2.7 billion, affecting a few million Californians — and \u003ca href=\"https://youtu.be/SozYyHYaDUI?t=2096\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">those figures have been growing\u003c/a> rapidly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state has so far prioritized rent relief — keeping people housed — over utilities relief. A spokesperson for the state’s COVID-19 Rent Relief program said that of the $158 million distributed as of July 16, less than $40,000 had gone to utilities relief. Utility debt makes up about 6% of all assistance requested so far.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On July 11, lawmakers revealed a plan to use one-time federal relief money to address the debt. The deal is a patchwork of new programs to forgive $2 billion of utilities debt and old programs to help households chip away at the rest, with a wide range of eligibility criteria and timelines. But it doesn’t extend current shutoff moratoria past Sept. 30.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re laser-focused on getting this assistance out the door as quickly as possible,” Newsom said in a statement about ongoing rent relief and the utilities relief plan. He has signed the \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/2021/07/16/governor-newsom-signs-state-budget-legislation-7-16-21/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">energy bills relief into law\u003c/a>, while the water bills relief still awaits his signature.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This will be an important “reboot” to protect Californians and utility companies, said Ellen Hanak, director of the Water Policy Center at the Public Policy Institute of California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You don’t want people to be shut off from basic services,” Hanak said, “But it’s also a hit to the entire community if utilities aren’t able to balance their books, because that can have all sorts of ripple effects on the abilities of water and electrical systems to run well.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When it comes to forgiving California’s utility debt, key questions remain:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Will $2 billion be nearly enough?\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Can the money be distributed quickly enough to prevent shutoffs?\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>“For public health and safety, it’s important for people to have roofs over their heads, clean water and power. Those are all pieces of the puzzle,” Hanak said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp id=\"h-a-catch-22-at-la-s-utilities-department\">\u003cstrong>A Catch-22 at \u003c/strong>\u003cstrong>LA’s Utilities Department?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hollman’s utilities troubles began well before the pandemic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After opening an account in 2017, he began receiving unusually high electricity charges topping $1,000 — even during months when no one was living in the house because he was staying with his parents — which Hollman attributes to billing errors by the LA utility.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Under financial stress following a messy separation, Hollman said he let the bills pile up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By early 2019, his unpaid balance had mounted to nearly $9,000. He applied for $2,000 of assistance from the Los Angeles County Department of Public Social Services to keep service on. But the water agency insisted on full payment of his bill, according to correspondence from his social worker reviewed by CalMatters. In March of 2019, the department shut off his power due to non-payment. He bought a generator.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Following the power shutoff, the electricity charges continued, labeled as “unmetered estimated consumption” in bills reviewed by CalMatters, meaning the utility generated them without checking Hollman’s meter. In December 2019, a customer service representative credited his account with several thousand dollars, but, according to Hollman, told him that the department couldn’t stop the continuing energy charges or issue more credits until a technician read his meter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Which required that the power be turned back on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Which couldn’t happen until he paid off the debt.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As Hollman tells it, he was caught in a Catch-22.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In April 2020, amid the first pandemic surge, the LA utilities department closed Hollman’s account with an unpaid balance of $9,064.13, meaning that he couldn’t open a new account until he paid off the debt, which could affect his credit score or be taken to small claims court. But, Hollman said, a representative promised that water would stay on while the pandemic lasted. For over a year, it did — until a technician arrived unannounced in late June.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The LA utilities department tells a somewhat different story. In a statement, a department spokesperson said that it had disconnected Hollman’s water in October 2017 and power in March 2019 because Hollman had made no payments since opening his account in March 2017. The spokesperson said the department turned off his water twice more after detecting unauthorized use, in April 2019 and again this past June, when it “came to light to LADWP… that water service had illegally been turned back on.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While declining to comment on the high “unmetered estimated consumption” charges or Hollman’s apparent Catch-22, the spokesperson said the department restored water service in early July “in an attempt to work out a payment plan… for the water and power that was consumed since 2017.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hollman disputes that he illegally reconnected the water, saying it never stopped flowing and that he never received notices it would be shut off. He said that a water department representative told him last week that he had to pay a third of his outstanding bill — money that he said he doesn’t have — before he can qualify for a payment plan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp id=\"h-mounting-debt-and-shutoffs-despite-protections\">\u003cstrong>Mounting Debt, and Shutoffs Despite Protections\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hollman is not alone. Despite shutoff protections, the California State Water Resources Control Board has received 308 \u003ca href=\"https://watershut-off.covid19.ca.gov/#:~:text=State%20of%20California%20COVID%2D19%20Water%20Shutoff%20Report&text=If%20you%20require%20translation%20assistance,submitting%20a%20water%20shutoff%20report.\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">reports of water disconnections during the pandemic\u003c/a>. No agency tracks power shutoffs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A spokesperson said the state water board got water restored in each case, including for Hollman.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In February, the state water board estimated that \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/california-divide/2021/01/water-debt-california-households-face-water-shutoffs/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">1.6 million households were late on water bills that totaled over $1 billion across California\u003c/a>, and were growing quickly. The California Municipal Utilities Association estimated \u003ca href=\"https://higherlogicdownload.s3.amazonaws.com/CSDA/b24702e8-8a42-4614-8c45-bc3cba37ea2c/UploadedImages/Advocate/Take_Action/covid19_utility_debt_assistance_coalition_letter.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">unpaid energy bills at publicly owned utilities topped $300 million\u003c/a>, while close to 4 million customers of investor-owned utilities were behind on energy bills, totaling $1.4 billion, as of late June, according to a California Public Utilities Commission spokesperson.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many people don’t know that they are still protected from shutoffs. Some no longer are.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When the state reopened in mid-June, Newsom \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/6.11.21-EO-N-08-21-signed.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">quietly extended the moratorium on water shutoffs to Sept. 30.\u003c/a> One water system has already said \u003ca href=\"https://www.padredam.org/CivicAlerts.aspx?AID=231\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">that it will resume shutoffs the next day.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The California Public Utilities Commission \u003ca href=\"https://docs.cpuc.ca.gov/PublishedDocs/Published/G000/M389/K401/389401945.PDF\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">also extended the power shutoff moratorium to Sept. 30\u003c/a>, days before it was set to expire on June 30. But that only applies to customers of investor-owned utilities, leaving the quarter of Californians served by publicly owned utilities vulnerable, said Mad Stano, an energy equity attorney at the Greenlining Institute, a racial justice nonprofit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>LA’s water department is the largest publicly owned utility in \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11747148/map-public-power-providers-in-california\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">the United States\u003c/a>. During the pandemic, customers’ unpaid bills there increased more than 10-fold, from $37 million accrued during 2019 to $400 million accrued during the first eight months of the pandemic, according to a state Water Board report. \u003ca href=\"https://clkrep.lacity.org/onlinedocs/2021/21-0540_misc_05-19-21.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">More than one in five customers behind on bills had debt over $1,000\u003c/a>. The department has voluntarily chosen to extend its own moratorium on shutoffs for nonpayment, according to a spokesperson, but has not yet announced an end date. It has also not publicized that decision.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/california-divide/2021/01/water-debt-california-households-face-water-shutoffs/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Deborah Bell-Holt\u003c/a> didn’t know.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1975857\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 683px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1975857\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/01212021_WaterDebt_SH_03-scaled-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"683\" height=\"1024\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/01212021_WaterDebt_SH_03-scaled-1.jpg 683w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/01212021_WaterDebt_SH_03-scaled-1-160x240.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 683px) 100vw, 683px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Deborah Bell-Holt sits in front of her house in Jefferson Park near Downtown Los Angeles on Jan. 21, 2021, holding her water and power bill. \u003ccite>(Shae Hammond/CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Her utilities bill ballooned to $19,308.45 during the pandemic as her South Los Angeles household grew to include 12 children, grandchildren and friends.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bell-Holt assumed that disconnections would start June 30, when evictions were set to begin had lawmakers not made \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/housing/2021/06/california-eviction-moratorium-deal/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">a last-minute deal.\u003c/a> She scrambled to send the department $500 in late May and $200 on June 25th, hoping a few payments would stave off shutoffs. To afford that, she said she took out a $500 loan with 347% interest, which she’s still paying back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bell-Holt said that if she’d known she wasn’t at risk on June 30, “I wouldn’t put us in a hole like that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state and utilities haven’t done enough to inform Californians about protections, Stano contends. “The state needs to require… communications to people so they don’t make financial decisions that they don’t have to make,” they said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp id=\"h-living-without-water-or-power\">\u003cstrong>Living Without Water or Power\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Hollman’s third day this summer without water or power, it hit 100 degrees outside. Inside the house was even hotter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hollman and his kids are used to life without air conditioning in one of California’s hottest regions. Their generator — which requires $10 of fuel per day, on average — only powers the lights, electronics and refrigerator. Normally, Hollman might cool the house by hosing down the roof and outdoor plants.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Instead, the family lingered at McDonald’s. “It becomes very difficult to keep your spirit up, but you have to for your kids,” Hollman said. “You can’t crack.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the fifth day, his son thanked Hollman for the best day ever, after the two spent the afternoon cutting through the heat on skateboards.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the ninth morning, Hollman ran out of generator fuel. He reminded his kids not to open the refrigerator, so the food wouldn’t spoil. He knew his car’s radiator was low, but he was out of coolant and bottled water. He crossed his fingers that the old truck wouldn’t overheat on the way to the gas station. It did.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s a dance that people shouldn’t have to f—ing do,” Hollman said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1975859\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1975859\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/07172021_Hollman_PU_Sized_03-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/07172021_Hollman_PU_Sized_03-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/07172021_Hollman_PU_Sized_03-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/07172021_Hollman_PU_Sized_03-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/07172021_Hollman_PU_Sized_03-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/07172021_Hollman_PU_Sized_03.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Will Hollman’s day typically begins by filling this container with gas for the generator he’s relied on since electricity was shut off to his San Fernando Valley home. \u003ccite>(Pablo Unzueta/CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp id=\"h-relief-on-the-way-for-california-utility-bills\">\u003cstrong>Relief On the Way\u003c/strong> \u003cstrong>for California Utility Bills\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Theoretically, lawmakers’ new deal could prevent more people from that dance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In May, \u003ca href=\"http://www.ebudget.ca.gov/FullBudgetSummary.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Newsom proposed $2 billion to relieve utilities debt\u003c/a>. Legislators agreed to the price tag in June, but continued negotiating the distribution plan in private.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/newsletters/whatmatters/2021/07/california-budget-legislature/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">The result is two budget bills\u003c/a> that would create new programs that pay utilities directly to forgive customer debt accrued during the pandemic, prioritizing those at greatest risk of shutoffs. The \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220SB135\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">California Arrearage Payment Program\u003c/a> would forgive $994 million in energy debt, while the \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220SB148\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">California Water and Wastewater Arrearage Payment Program\u003c/a> would forgive \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220SB129\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">$985 million\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In both cases, utilities must opt in. They must also offer all customers with pandemic debt a payment plan that would protect them from shutoffs as long as they enroll and stay current on the plan. Plus, the first forbids energy utilities from disconnecting power to a customer for 90 days after applying forgiveness to their account. Neither bill extends the shutoff moratoria, though the \u003ca href=\"https://docs.cpuc.ca.gov/PublishedDocs/Published/G000/M393/K048/393048062.PDF\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Public Utilities Commission has extended a moratorium\u003c/a> on shutoffs for a segment of water utilities, which cover about 16% of customers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The pending legislation also funnels an unspecified amount of federal relief money into two \u003ca href=\"https://www.csd.ca.gov/Pages/LIHEAPProgram.aspx\">existing\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.acf.hhs.gov/ocs/programs/lihwap\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">programs\u003c/a> for which households must be income-eligible and apply for the assistance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s unclear whether Hollman will be eligible for the programs, given that he accrued his debt before the COVID-19 pandemic. He may be at risk of another water shutoff soon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp id=\"h-a-repeat-of-rent-relief-troubles\">\u003cstrong>A Repeat of Rent Relief Troubles?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state has created countless new assistance programs during the pandemic — many mired by \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/california-divide/2020/12/why-few-farmworkers-isolate-in-californias-free-covid-19-hotel-rooms/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">delays\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/california-divide/2020/05/undocumented-immigrants-state-disaster-aid-unreachable/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">bureaucracy\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/2021/01/bank-of-america-lost-hundreds-of-millions-on-california-unemployment-fiasco/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">scandals\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state’s \u003ca href=\"https://housing.ca.gov/covid_rr/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">COVID rent relief program\u003c/a> is one example. As \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/housing/2021/04/california-rent-relief-tenants/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">CalMatters reported\u003c/a>, lengthy online applications available in too few languages initially blocked access to vulnerable renters, while distribution has been painfully slow.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The California utility bill debt forgiveness programs proposed last week sidestep some of these problems by requiring utilities, instead of customers, to apply, and by not requiring customers to prove eligibility. Advocates cheered that choice, but worried lawmakers didn’t go far enough to prevent shutoffs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The water program legislation requires the water board to start distributing funds by Nov. 1. But that’s a month after the shutoff moratorium ends, said Jennifer Clary, California state director of nonprofit Clean Water Action. “I’m a little concerned about that gap,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Stano of the Greenlining Institute said that the bill language doesn’t prevent publicly owned utilities from shutting off power right now. They said it also doesn’t provide enough guidance to ensure that payment plans are sufficiently accessible and reasonable to keep people safe from shutoffs — especially given that only about two-thirds of the debt is expected to be forgiven.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We will not be celebrating anything until the risk of disconnection is removed,” said Stano, who is pushing for the energy shutoff moratorium to be extended past Sept. 30.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A life-long Democrat, Hollman finds his faith in government assistance tested. He says he’s never relied much on it until his work as a telecommunications salesman for brick-and-mortar businesses came to a sudden halt last March. He applied for unemployment benefits so that he could focus on overseeing his children’s virtual schooling without any electricity coming to the house, but the checks don’t cover rent, food and generator fuel. He borrowed money, sold assets and made partial rent payments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Like millions of Californians, Hollman has run into \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/explainers/california-edd-unemployment-crisis-explained/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">unemployment benefits snafus.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The last one happened several nights after the water department turned the water back on. Hollman received his unemployment payment to his Bank of America unemployment benefits account, but said when he tried paying bills the next morning, the money had already been withdrawn. He said he filed reports of identity theft with police and the Employment Development Department.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hollman also said he called his landlord to tell him he wouldn’t be able to make July’s rent — and that he hasn’t heard back about the $5,000 in rent relief he’s applied for from the city of Los Angeles. He said he planned to find work this summer, but has been in crisis mode since the water shutoff.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It can’t be understated,” Hollman texted, “how delicate the balance of survival is.”\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Lawmakers have agreed to pay off $2 billion of Californians’ utilities debt, but haven’t extended the shutoff moratoria past Sept. 30. One family’s experience of surviving a heat wave without water or power reveals what’s at stake.",
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"description": "Lawmakers have agreed to pay off $2 billion of Californians’ utilities debt, but haven’t extended the shutoff moratoria past Sept. 30. One family’s experience of surviving a heat wave without water or power reveals what’s at stake.",
"title": "Unpaid Utility Bills? California Will Pay Off $2 Billion to Avoid Shutoffs | KQED",
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"headline": "Unpaid Utility Bills? California Will Pay Off $2 Billion to Avoid Shutoffs",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Two years ago the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power shut off electricity at Will Hollman’s home in the San Fernando Valley, forcing the family to rely on a gasoline generator. In late June of this year, the department disconnected the water, too — despite a \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/4.2.20-EO-N-42-20.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">statewide moratorium on water shutoffs\u003c/a> that Gov. Gavin Newsom \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/6.11.21-EO-N-08-21-signed.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">recently extended through Sept. 30\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hollman, his 10-year-old son and his 16-year-old stepdaughter endured 11 days of temperatures in the high 90s to low 100s without water or power. For 11 days, they camped out in air-conditioned grocery stores, Starbucks or his truck. They couchsurfed and used friends’ showers. Hollman played it off with the kids as some kind of fun obstacle course.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He called the department’s customer service, and said a representative told him that he must pay off his utility debt of $9,064.13 — largely consisting of charges that Hollman disputes as erroneous — before water or power could be restored.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s been demoralizing, humiliating,” Hollman said on the eighth day. “I have a history of paying my bills, working, being a good provider. You… start having feelings of failure as a parent.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ultimately the state’s water agency convinced the LA department to turn on Hollman’s water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those 11 days without water or power are a window into what could happen to millions of Californians in the coming months and years, depending on how swiftly and effectively the state distributes relief.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Official estimates of unpaid water and energy bills accumulated during the pandemic verge on $2.7 billion, affecting a few million Californians — and \u003ca href=\"https://youtu.be/SozYyHYaDUI?t=2096\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">those figures have been growing\u003c/a> rapidly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state has so far prioritized rent relief — keeping people housed — over utilities relief. A spokesperson for the state’s COVID-19 Rent Relief program said that of the $158 million distributed as of July 16, less than $40,000 had gone to utilities relief. Utility debt makes up about 6% of all assistance requested so far.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On July 11, lawmakers revealed a plan to use one-time federal relief money to address the debt. The deal is a patchwork of new programs to forgive $2 billion of utilities debt and old programs to help households chip away at the rest, with a wide range of eligibility criteria and timelines. But it doesn’t extend current shutoff moratoria past Sept. 30.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re laser-focused on getting this assistance out the door as quickly as possible,” Newsom said in a statement about ongoing rent relief and the utilities relief plan. He has signed the \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/2021/07/16/governor-newsom-signs-state-budget-legislation-7-16-21/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">energy bills relief into law\u003c/a>, while the water bills relief still awaits his signature.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This will be an important “reboot” to protect Californians and utility companies, said Ellen Hanak, director of the Water Policy Center at the Public Policy Institute of California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You don’t want people to be shut off from basic services,” Hanak said, “But it’s also a hit to the entire community if utilities aren’t able to balance their books, because that can have all sorts of ripple effects on the abilities of water and electrical systems to run well.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When it comes to forgiving California’s utility debt, key questions remain:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Will $2 billion be nearly enough?\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Can the money be distributed quickly enough to prevent shutoffs?\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>“For public health and safety, it’s important for people to have roofs over their heads, clean water and power. Those are all pieces of the puzzle,” Hanak said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp id=\"h-a-catch-22-at-la-s-utilities-department\">\u003cstrong>A Catch-22 at \u003c/strong>\u003cstrong>LA’s Utilities Department?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hollman’s utilities troubles began well before the pandemic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After opening an account in 2017, he began receiving unusually high electricity charges topping $1,000 — even during months when no one was living in the house because he was staying with his parents — which Hollman attributes to billing errors by the LA utility.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Under financial stress following a messy separation, Hollman said he let the bills pile up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By early 2019, his unpaid balance had mounted to nearly $9,000. He applied for $2,000 of assistance from the Los Angeles County Department of Public Social Services to keep service on. But the water agency insisted on full payment of his bill, according to correspondence from his social worker reviewed by CalMatters. In March of 2019, the department shut off his power due to non-payment. He bought a generator.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Following the power shutoff, the electricity charges continued, labeled as “unmetered estimated consumption” in bills reviewed by CalMatters, meaning the utility generated them without checking Hollman’s meter. In December 2019, a customer service representative credited his account with several thousand dollars, but, according to Hollman, told him that the department couldn’t stop the continuing energy charges or issue more credits until a technician read his meter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Which required that the power be turned back on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Which couldn’t happen until he paid off the debt.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As Hollman tells it, he was caught in a Catch-22.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In April 2020, amid the first pandemic surge, the LA utilities department closed Hollman’s account with an unpaid balance of $9,064.13, meaning that he couldn’t open a new account until he paid off the debt, which could affect his credit score or be taken to small claims court. But, Hollman said, a representative promised that water would stay on while the pandemic lasted. For over a year, it did — until a technician arrived unannounced in late June.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The LA utilities department tells a somewhat different story. In a statement, a department spokesperson said that it had disconnected Hollman’s water in October 2017 and power in March 2019 because Hollman had made no payments since opening his account in March 2017. The spokesperson said the department turned off his water twice more after detecting unauthorized use, in April 2019 and again this past June, when it “came to light to LADWP… that water service had illegally been turned back on.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While declining to comment on the high “unmetered estimated consumption” charges or Hollman’s apparent Catch-22, the spokesperson said the department restored water service in early July “in an attempt to work out a payment plan… for the water and power that was consumed since 2017.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hollman disputes that he illegally reconnected the water, saying it never stopped flowing and that he never received notices it would be shut off. He said that a water department representative told him last week that he had to pay a third of his outstanding bill — money that he said he doesn’t have — before he can qualify for a payment plan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp id=\"h-mounting-debt-and-shutoffs-despite-protections\">\u003cstrong>Mounting Debt, and Shutoffs Despite Protections\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hollman is not alone. Despite shutoff protections, the California State Water Resources Control Board has received 308 \u003ca href=\"https://watershut-off.covid19.ca.gov/#:~:text=State%20of%20California%20COVID%2D19%20Water%20Shutoff%20Report&text=If%20you%20require%20translation%20assistance,submitting%20a%20water%20shutoff%20report.\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">reports of water disconnections during the pandemic\u003c/a>. No agency tracks power shutoffs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A spokesperson said the state water board got water restored in each case, including for Hollman.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In February, the state water board estimated that \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/california-divide/2021/01/water-debt-california-households-face-water-shutoffs/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">1.6 million households were late on water bills that totaled over $1 billion across California\u003c/a>, and were growing quickly. The California Municipal Utilities Association estimated \u003ca href=\"https://higherlogicdownload.s3.amazonaws.com/CSDA/b24702e8-8a42-4614-8c45-bc3cba37ea2c/UploadedImages/Advocate/Take_Action/covid19_utility_debt_assistance_coalition_letter.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">unpaid energy bills at publicly owned utilities topped $300 million\u003c/a>, while close to 4 million customers of investor-owned utilities were behind on energy bills, totaling $1.4 billion, as of late June, according to a California Public Utilities Commission spokesperson.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many people don’t know that they are still protected from shutoffs. Some no longer are.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When the state reopened in mid-June, Newsom \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/6.11.21-EO-N-08-21-signed.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">quietly extended the moratorium on water shutoffs to Sept. 30.\u003c/a> One water system has already said \u003ca href=\"https://www.padredam.org/CivicAlerts.aspx?AID=231\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">that it will resume shutoffs the next day.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The California Public Utilities Commission \u003ca href=\"https://docs.cpuc.ca.gov/PublishedDocs/Published/G000/M389/K401/389401945.PDF\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">also extended the power shutoff moratorium to Sept. 30\u003c/a>, days before it was set to expire on June 30. But that only applies to customers of investor-owned utilities, leaving the quarter of Californians served by publicly owned utilities vulnerable, said Mad Stano, an energy equity attorney at the Greenlining Institute, a racial justice nonprofit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>LA’s water department is the largest publicly owned utility in \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11747148/map-public-power-providers-in-california\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">the United States\u003c/a>. During the pandemic, customers’ unpaid bills there increased more than 10-fold, from $37 million accrued during 2019 to $400 million accrued during the first eight months of the pandemic, according to a state Water Board report. \u003ca href=\"https://clkrep.lacity.org/onlinedocs/2021/21-0540_misc_05-19-21.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">More than one in five customers behind on bills had debt over $1,000\u003c/a>. The department has voluntarily chosen to extend its own moratorium on shutoffs for nonpayment, according to a spokesperson, but has not yet announced an end date. It has also not publicized that decision.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/california-divide/2021/01/water-debt-california-households-face-water-shutoffs/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Deborah Bell-Holt\u003c/a> didn’t know.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1975857\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 683px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1975857\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/01212021_WaterDebt_SH_03-scaled-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"683\" height=\"1024\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/01212021_WaterDebt_SH_03-scaled-1.jpg 683w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/01212021_WaterDebt_SH_03-scaled-1-160x240.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 683px) 100vw, 683px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Deborah Bell-Holt sits in front of her house in Jefferson Park near Downtown Los Angeles on Jan. 21, 2021, holding her water and power bill. \u003ccite>(Shae Hammond/CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Her utilities bill ballooned to $19,308.45 during the pandemic as her South Los Angeles household grew to include 12 children, grandchildren and friends.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bell-Holt assumed that disconnections would start June 30, when evictions were set to begin had lawmakers not made \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/housing/2021/06/california-eviction-moratorium-deal/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">a last-minute deal.\u003c/a> She scrambled to send the department $500 in late May and $200 on June 25th, hoping a few payments would stave off shutoffs. To afford that, she said she took out a $500 loan with 347% interest, which she’s still paying back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bell-Holt said that if she’d known she wasn’t at risk on June 30, “I wouldn’t put us in a hole like that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state and utilities haven’t done enough to inform Californians about protections, Stano contends. “The state needs to require… communications to people so they don’t make financial decisions that they don’t have to make,” they said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp id=\"h-living-without-water-or-power\">\u003cstrong>Living Without Water or Power\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Hollman’s third day this summer without water or power, it hit 100 degrees outside. Inside the house was even hotter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hollman and his kids are used to life without air conditioning in one of California’s hottest regions. Their generator — which requires $10 of fuel per day, on average — only powers the lights, electronics and refrigerator. Normally, Hollman might cool the house by hosing down the roof and outdoor plants.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Instead, the family lingered at McDonald’s. “It becomes very difficult to keep your spirit up, but you have to for your kids,” Hollman said. “You can’t crack.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the fifth day, his son thanked Hollman for the best day ever, after the two spent the afternoon cutting through the heat on skateboards.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the ninth morning, Hollman ran out of generator fuel. He reminded his kids not to open the refrigerator, so the food wouldn’t spoil. He knew his car’s radiator was low, but he was out of coolant and bottled water. He crossed his fingers that the old truck wouldn’t overheat on the way to the gas station. It did.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s a dance that people shouldn’t have to f—ing do,” Hollman said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1975859\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1975859\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/07172021_Hollman_PU_Sized_03-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/07172021_Hollman_PU_Sized_03-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/07172021_Hollman_PU_Sized_03-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/07172021_Hollman_PU_Sized_03-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/07172021_Hollman_PU_Sized_03-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/07172021_Hollman_PU_Sized_03.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Will Hollman’s day typically begins by filling this container with gas for the generator he’s relied on since electricity was shut off to his San Fernando Valley home. \u003ccite>(Pablo Unzueta/CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp id=\"h-relief-on-the-way-for-california-utility-bills\">\u003cstrong>Relief On the Way\u003c/strong> \u003cstrong>for California Utility Bills\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Theoretically, lawmakers’ new deal could prevent more people from that dance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In May, \u003ca href=\"http://www.ebudget.ca.gov/FullBudgetSummary.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Newsom proposed $2 billion to relieve utilities debt\u003c/a>. Legislators agreed to the price tag in June, but continued negotiating the distribution plan in private.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/newsletters/whatmatters/2021/07/california-budget-legislature/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">The result is two budget bills\u003c/a> that would create new programs that pay utilities directly to forgive customer debt accrued during the pandemic, prioritizing those at greatest risk of shutoffs. The \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220SB135\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">California Arrearage Payment Program\u003c/a> would forgive $994 million in energy debt, while the \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220SB148\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">California Water and Wastewater Arrearage Payment Program\u003c/a> would forgive \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220SB129\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">$985 million\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In both cases, utilities must opt in. They must also offer all customers with pandemic debt a payment plan that would protect them from shutoffs as long as they enroll and stay current on the plan. Plus, the first forbids energy utilities from disconnecting power to a customer for 90 days after applying forgiveness to their account. Neither bill extends the shutoff moratoria, though the \u003ca href=\"https://docs.cpuc.ca.gov/PublishedDocs/Published/G000/M393/K048/393048062.PDF\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Public Utilities Commission has extended a moratorium\u003c/a> on shutoffs for a segment of water utilities, which cover about 16% of customers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The pending legislation also funnels an unspecified amount of federal relief money into two \u003ca href=\"https://www.csd.ca.gov/Pages/LIHEAPProgram.aspx\">existing\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.acf.hhs.gov/ocs/programs/lihwap\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">programs\u003c/a> for which households must be income-eligible and apply for the assistance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s unclear whether Hollman will be eligible for the programs, given that he accrued his debt before the COVID-19 pandemic. He may be at risk of another water shutoff soon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp id=\"h-a-repeat-of-rent-relief-troubles\">\u003cstrong>A Repeat of Rent Relief Troubles?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state has created countless new assistance programs during the pandemic — many mired by \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/california-divide/2020/12/why-few-farmworkers-isolate-in-californias-free-covid-19-hotel-rooms/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">delays\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/california-divide/2020/05/undocumented-immigrants-state-disaster-aid-unreachable/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">bureaucracy\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/2021/01/bank-of-america-lost-hundreds-of-millions-on-california-unemployment-fiasco/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">scandals\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state’s \u003ca href=\"https://housing.ca.gov/covid_rr/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">COVID rent relief program\u003c/a> is one example. As \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/housing/2021/04/california-rent-relief-tenants/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">CalMatters reported\u003c/a>, lengthy online applications available in too few languages initially blocked access to vulnerable renters, while distribution has been painfully slow.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The California utility bill debt forgiveness programs proposed last week sidestep some of these problems by requiring utilities, instead of customers, to apply, and by not requiring customers to prove eligibility. Advocates cheered that choice, but worried lawmakers didn’t go far enough to prevent shutoffs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The water program legislation requires the water board to start distributing funds by Nov. 1. But that’s a month after the shutoff moratorium ends, said Jennifer Clary, California state director of nonprofit Clean Water Action. “I’m a little concerned about that gap,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Stano of the Greenlining Institute said that the bill language doesn’t prevent publicly owned utilities from shutting off power right now. They said it also doesn’t provide enough guidance to ensure that payment plans are sufficiently accessible and reasonable to keep people safe from shutoffs — especially given that only about two-thirds of the debt is expected to be forgiven.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We will not be celebrating anything until the risk of disconnection is removed,” said Stano, who is pushing for the energy shutoff moratorium to be extended past Sept. 30.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A life-long Democrat, Hollman finds his faith in government assistance tested. He says he’s never relied much on it until his work as a telecommunications salesman for brick-and-mortar businesses came to a sudden halt last March. He applied for unemployment benefits so that he could focus on overseeing his children’s virtual schooling without any electricity coming to the house, but the checks don’t cover rent, food and generator fuel. He borrowed money, sold assets and made partial rent payments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Like millions of Californians, Hollman has run into \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/explainers/california-edd-unemployment-crisis-explained/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">unemployment benefits snafus.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The last one happened several nights after the water department turned the water back on. Hollman received his unemployment payment to his Bank of America unemployment benefits account, but said when he tried paying bills the next morning, the money had already been withdrawn. He said he filed reports of identity theft with police and the Employment Development Department.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hollman also said he called his landlord to tell him he wouldn’t be able to make July’s rent — and that he hasn’t heard back about the $5,000 in rent relief he’s applied for from the city of Los Angeles. He said he planned to find work this summer, but has been in crisis mode since the water shutoff.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It can’t be understated,” Hollman texted, “how delicate the balance of survival is.”\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "More Heat Waves Coming, Scientists Say. But The Health Impacts Are Largely Preventable",
"headTitle": "More Heat Waves Coming, Scientists Say. But The Health Impacts Are Largely Preventable | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>The heat goes on, the heat goes on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California has baked under blistering heat this summer, as temperatures in Death Valley climbed to 130 degrees earlier this month, one of the hottest recorded temperatures on Earth. And there’s still more summer to go.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state’s July heat wave followed one in the Pacific Northwest that was so hot it buckled streets and melted power cables around Portland, Oregon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://twitter.com/PDXStreetcar/status/1409287314870837253?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1409287314870837253%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.npr.org%2F2021%2F06%2F29%2F1011269025%2Fphotos-the-pacific-northwest-heatwave-is-melting-power-cables-and-buckling-roads\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Climate scientists have long warned that severe heat waves will be one result of humans belching tons of planet warming gases into the atmosphere. And they say the heat is here to stay, and with time, these events will only increase due to a changing climate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Of all the extreme weather events that are tied to climate change, heat waves are the ones that are most telling,” says Sean Sublette, meteorologist at the science and news organization Climate Central. “That’s the kind of event that ties most directly to a warming climate. Just statistically, if the overall temperature of the planet is going up, you’re going to have hotter spells than you had in the past.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>What Does Science Tell Us About the Long-term Trends for Heat Waves? \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They’ll increase: in how hot they get, in how long they last, and in how frequently they happen. We do have some control here, however. One way is through mitigation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Mitigation is actually reducing how much greenhouse gases we are putting out into the atmosphere,” says Jane Baldwin, assistant professor of Earth Systems Science at the UC Irvine. “And hopefully at some point reducing the actual levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, which would reduce global warming and in turn curtail these trends.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Climate Central’s Sublette says society would need to make rapid and dramatic changes to perhaps experience a leveling off of warming before the century’s end. “Look, there’s room for some optimism,” he says. “We’ve made big changes in society before. So this can be done. We just have to decide that it’s important.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Secondly, we have control over how we adapt to heat waves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The good news here is that there is a fair amount of evidence that heat wave related health impacts, at least, are largely preventable,” Baldwin adds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11878134/bay-area-heat-wave-how-to-stay-safe-during-dangerously-hot-weather\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Here are some tips\u003c/a> on how to protect yourself during a heatwave.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>How are Heat Waves Dangerous?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Humans can acclimatize to very hot temperatures — if they are well adjusted, generally healthy and hydrated, then their bodies can manage heat up to a point. It takes about two weeks to acclimatize to new climates or sudden temperature changes. For people with certain pre-existing conditions, or those in more vulnerable groups, dealing with heat can be harder.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here’s what’s happening inside a person’s body when confronting high temperatures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When their blood warms, the brain signals the body to shift blood flow, moving heat away from vital organs, like the brain, heart, and lungs, to the surface of the body. This triggers sweating, and resulting evaporation, the final step of moving heat from the body into the outside environment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We run into problems when these physiological systems fail. Certain groups of people are more vulnerable to heat than others, including:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli style=\"list-style-type: none\">\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Older adults. We become less able to adjust to heat the more we age. Older adults are also at risk due to social isolation, therefore it is essential that family, neighbors, and friends check on elderly people who live alone during a heat wave, making sure they can access a cooling center if needed.“Even if you don’t know them well, try to make that connection, even if it’s just getting a phone number ahead of time and then just calling and checking,” says Helene Margolis, associate adjunct professor of medicine at UC Davis School of Medicine.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Children. Check in on what your kid’s schools or extracurricular groups are doing to make sure they’re safe from heat. Children don’t perceive thirst as well as adults, so remind them to drink water.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Teenage and young adult athletes. This group has higher instances of death from heat illnesses due to exertion.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>People with some pre-existing conditions. These include heart disease, high blood pressure, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, asthma, obesity and diabetes. Taking certain\u003ca href=\"https://mha.ohio.gov/Portals/0/assets/ResearchersAndMedia/News%20and%20Events/NewsNowBlog/2020%20heat-related%20illness%20brochure.pdf?ver=2020-07-15-141754-190\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> common medications\u003c/a> also puts some people at greater risk for heat illness.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Beyond these categories, environmental factors also increase someone’s risk for heat illness, such as living in what are known in the public health world as “heat islands.” These neighborhoods typically have lots of heat-trapping asphalt and concrete, fewer trees and green spaces, and can be \u003ca href=\"https://www.epa.gov/heatislands/learn-about-heat-islands#:~:text=A%20review%20of%20research%20studies,2%E2%80%935%C2%B0F%20higher.\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">five or more degrees hotter than surrounding areas\u003c/a>. Heat islands are often in urban centers, but can be outside of them too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even without a major heat spike, people living in these areas can suffer due to persistent heat, especially if buildings don’t cool down well at night, giving their bodies time to recover.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People are getting sick from the heat. It’s causing them to go to emergency rooms,” says Jen Brady, senior data analyst at Climate Central.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If our body temperature reaches 103-104 degrees Fahrenheit, we are at risk of heat illness and heat stroke, which can be deadly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you or someone you know exhibits symptoms of heat stroke, call 911 immediately. Symptoms are: a temperature over 103 degrees; red, hot, dry or damp skin; fast pulse; nausea; headache; dizziness; confusion; or passing out. While waiting for help, move the person to a cooler area and help them reduce their temperature with a shower or wet towels. Do not give them anything to drink as they could pass out, and the liquid could obstruct their airway. More symptoms of other kinds of heat-related illnesses, and what to do if you see them, are listed on the \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/disasters/extremeheat/warning.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">website\u003c/a> of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Heat fatalities are underreported, say meteorologist Sublette, because they are not as visually gripping as tornadoes or hurricanes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But, Sublette says, “When we look at the multi-year average, heat kills more than any other extreme weather event.”\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The heat goes on, the heat goes on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California has baked under blistering heat this summer, as temperatures in Death Valley climbed to 130 degrees earlier this month, one of the hottest recorded temperatures on Earth. And there’s still more summer to go.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state’s July heat wave followed one in the Pacific Northwest that was so hot it buckled streets and melted power cables around Portland, Oregon.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\n\u003cp>Climate scientists have long warned that severe heat waves will be one result of humans belching tons of planet warming gases into the atmosphere. And they say the heat is here to stay, and with time, these events will only increase due to a changing climate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Of all the extreme weather events that are tied to climate change, heat waves are the ones that are most telling,” says Sean Sublette, meteorologist at the science and news organization Climate Central. “That’s the kind of event that ties most directly to a warming climate. Just statistically, if the overall temperature of the planet is going up, you’re going to have hotter spells than you had in the past.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>What Does Science Tell Us About the Long-term Trends for Heat Waves? \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They’ll increase: in how hot they get, in how long they last, and in how frequently they happen. We do have some control here, however. One way is through mitigation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Mitigation is actually reducing how much greenhouse gases we are putting out into the atmosphere,” says Jane Baldwin, assistant professor of Earth Systems Science at the UC Irvine. “And hopefully at some point reducing the actual levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, which would reduce global warming and in turn curtail these trends.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Climate Central’s Sublette says society would need to make rapid and dramatic changes to perhaps experience a leveling off of warming before the century’s end. “Look, there’s room for some optimism,” he says. “We’ve made big changes in society before. So this can be done. We just have to decide that it’s important.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Secondly, we have control over how we adapt to heat waves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The good news here is that there is a fair amount of evidence that heat wave related health impacts, at least, are largely preventable,” Baldwin adds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11878134/bay-area-heat-wave-how-to-stay-safe-during-dangerously-hot-weather\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Here are some tips\u003c/a> on how to protect yourself during a heatwave.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>How are Heat Waves Dangerous?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Humans can acclimatize to very hot temperatures — if they are well adjusted, generally healthy and hydrated, then their bodies can manage heat up to a point. It takes about two weeks to acclimatize to new climates or sudden temperature changes. For people with certain pre-existing conditions, or those in more vulnerable groups, dealing with heat can be harder.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here’s what’s happening inside a person’s body when confronting high temperatures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When their blood warms, the brain signals the body to shift blood flow, moving heat away from vital organs, like the brain, heart, and lungs, to the surface of the body. This triggers sweating, and resulting evaporation, the final step of moving heat from the body into the outside environment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We run into problems when these physiological systems fail. Certain groups of people are more vulnerable to heat than others, including:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli style=\"list-style-type: none\">\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Older adults. We become less able to adjust to heat the more we age. Older adults are also at risk due to social isolation, therefore it is essential that family, neighbors, and friends check on elderly people who live alone during a heat wave, making sure they can access a cooling center if needed.“Even if you don’t know them well, try to make that connection, even if it’s just getting a phone number ahead of time and then just calling and checking,” says Helene Margolis, associate adjunct professor of medicine at UC Davis School of Medicine.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Children. Check in on what your kid’s schools or extracurricular groups are doing to make sure they’re safe from heat. Children don’t perceive thirst as well as adults, so remind them to drink water.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Teenage and young adult athletes. This group has higher instances of death from heat illnesses due to exertion.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>People with some pre-existing conditions. These include heart disease, high blood pressure, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, asthma, obesity and diabetes. Taking certain\u003ca href=\"https://mha.ohio.gov/Portals/0/assets/ResearchersAndMedia/News%20and%20Events/NewsNowBlog/2020%20heat-related%20illness%20brochure.pdf?ver=2020-07-15-141754-190\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> common medications\u003c/a> also puts some people at greater risk for heat illness.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Beyond these categories, environmental factors also increase someone’s risk for heat illness, such as living in what are known in the public health world as “heat islands.” These neighborhoods typically have lots of heat-trapping asphalt and concrete, fewer trees and green spaces, and can be \u003ca href=\"https://www.epa.gov/heatislands/learn-about-heat-islands#:~:text=A%20review%20of%20research%20studies,2%E2%80%935%C2%B0F%20higher.\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">five or more degrees hotter than surrounding areas\u003c/a>. Heat islands are often in urban centers, but can be outside of them too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even without a major heat spike, people living in these areas can suffer due to persistent heat, especially if buildings don’t cool down well at night, giving their bodies time to recover.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People are getting sick from the heat. It’s causing them to go to emergency rooms,” says Jen Brady, senior data analyst at Climate Central.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If our body temperature reaches 103-104 degrees Fahrenheit, we are at risk of heat illness and heat stroke, which can be deadly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you or someone you know exhibits symptoms of heat stroke, call 911 immediately. Symptoms are: a temperature over 103 degrees; red, hot, dry or damp skin; fast pulse; nausea; headache; dizziness; confusion; or passing out. While waiting for help, move the person to a cooler area and help them reduce their temperature with a shower or wet towels. Do not give them anything to drink as they could pass out, and the liquid could obstruct their airway. More symptoms of other kinds of heat-related illnesses, and what to do if you see them, are listed on the \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/disasters/extremeheat/warning.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">website\u003c/a> of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Heat fatalities are underreported, say meteorologist Sublette, because they are not as visually gripping as tornadoes or hurricanes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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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": "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.",
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"soldout": {
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"title": "SOLD OUT: Rethinking Housing in America",
"tagline": "A new future for housing",
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"tagline": "True-life supernatural stories",
"info": "",
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