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"content": "\u003cp>In an interview with KQED, Mike Stoker, the recently fired regional administrator for the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s San Francisco office, defended his expensive travels and remote management of the office from Southern California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Stoker added that the time he spent surrounded by agency scientists did nothing to dispel his doubts about the scientific consensus about the human role in climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He said he took a call from EPA brass Doug Benevento, associate deputy administrator, and Ryan Jackson, the agency’s chief of staff, at 8 a.m. Wednesday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They said: ‘Mike, effective end of today, we either need your resignation or we’ll terminate you,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Within five minutes, his EPA-issued phone and laptop were disconnected. Stoker said no one gave a reason for his firing, but he suggested that it had to do with praise he had received from Democrats for work in their communities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You don’t protect public health and environment in Democratic neighborhoods when you are Democratic president or in Republican neighborhoods when you are a Republican president, you do it everywhere,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a letter Stoker sent to his former staff on Thursday, he said U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had praised him for his work cleaning up contamination at Hunters Point and Rep. Scott Peters for sewage mitigation on the border between San Diego and Tijuana, Mexico, among others.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>EPA spokeswoman Corry Schiermeyer in Washington disputed that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a statement sent to the \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/1683e19392b950d3c91ee589924968c8\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Associated Press\u003c/a> Friday, Schiermeyer said it was normal for EPA regional bosses to “work in a bipartisan way.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Instead, the EPA spokeswoman pointed to what she said was excessive travel and poor decision-making.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We … had to relieve him for severe neglect and incompetent administration of his duties. His excuses and stories are simply all made up and we cannot allow them to go without response,” Schiermeyer said in the statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When asked for a comment on Stoker’s dismissal, Pelosi’s office sent KQED a copy of a June 28, 2018 letter addressed from the Speaker to Stoker.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The letter read: “It was a pleasure to meet with you during your visit to the United States Capitol on June 27th. Many thanks for your commitment to the cleanup and transfer of the former Hunters Point Naval Shipyard. Your work to ensure public health, hold a transparent process that engages the public, and holding Tetra Tech accountable is critical and greatly appreciated.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>EPA is overseeing the cleanup of chemicals and radiological material at the decommissioned Hunters Point Naval Shipyard in San Francisco. Two supervisors of Tetra Tech EC, a company involved in the cleanup, were sentenced to prison in 2018 after pleading guilty to falsifying records related to those tests. The U.S. Department of Justice last year sued the company, alleging that it falsified billing claims to the Navy. The company has denied wrongdoing and says two “rogue employees” were responsible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Stoker also suggested that disagreements with Benevento lay behind his dismissal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have personalities that clash,” he said. “But to take somebody out the way they took me out — turn off my cell phone and my laptop five minutes after hanging up with me — that only would make sense if there was just some compelling reason. Like, I would have been arrested the night before for spousal abuse or something just radical, bordering on criminal or inspector general. But none of that exists.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The EPA’s inspector general had registered some reasons for concern. In 2018, the agency watchdog investigated a complaint that Stoker was traveling excessively and not spending much time at the San Francisco headquarters where the vast majority of his staff worked.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The inspector general found that Stoker spent more than $43,000 of taxpayer money on 35 separate trips between May 2018 and February 2019. In March 2019, the inspector general issued a “management alert.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Stoker defended his travels as part of the job. “I can tell you right now a regional administrator is most effective if they are going out to where the issues are,” he said. “You don’t need a regional administrator who stays in the office.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>About his decision to work from Los Angeles, Stoker said “it doesn’t matter.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He oversaw EPA Region 9, which includes California, Nevada, Arizona, Hawaii, the Pacific Islands and 148 tribes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Region 9 has eight time zones, 50 million people,” he said. “22 million of those people are in Southern California being served by the Los Angele’s office.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the issue of climate change, Stoker told KQED Science’s Danielle Venton in June 2018 when he took the job that he personally believed that there were “questions on how much of it is man-made and how much of it is caused by Mother Nature.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When a reporter asked if his time working with EPA scientists changed his view on the issue, Stoker said it did not. “You have Mother Nature, from volcanoes to fires to — you know, you name it — that has an angle on global warming and you have man that has an angle on global warming.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Multiple studies published in peer-reviewed scientific journals \u003ca href=\"https://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">show\u003c/a> that 97% or more of actively publishing climate scientists agree that global warming is a result of human activity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>The Associated Press contributed to this report. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Correction Feb. 13, 2020: This story originally said Tetra Tech had conducted fradulent environmental testing at Hunters Point Naval Shipyard. In fact, the company has not been convicted of any crime. A subsidiary company, Tetra Tech EC, was sued by the U.S. Department of Justice last year for alleged false billing claims to the Navy. The company has denied wrongdoing and blamed two “rogue employees” who were sentenced to prison in 2018 after pleading guilty to falsifying records related to the tests.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You don’t protect public health and environment in Democratic neighborhoods when you are Democratic president or in Republican neighborhoods when you are a Republican president, you do it everywhere,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a letter Stoker sent to his former staff on Thursday, he said U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had praised him for his work cleaning up contamination at Hunters Point and Rep. Scott Peters for sewage mitigation on the border between San Diego and Tijuana, Mexico, among others.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>EPA spokeswoman Corry Schiermeyer in Washington disputed that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a statement sent to the \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/1683e19392b950d3c91ee589924968c8\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Associated Press\u003c/a> Friday, Schiermeyer said it was normal for EPA regional bosses to “work in a bipartisan way.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Instead, the EPA spokeswoman pointed to what she said was excessive travel and poor decision-making.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We … had to relieve him for severe neglect and incompetent administration of his duties. His excuses and stories are simply all made up and we cannot allow them to go without response,” Schiermeyer said in the statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When asked for a comment on Stoker’s dismissal, Pelosi’s office sent KQED a copy of a June 28, 2018 letter addressed from the Speaker to Stoker.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The letter read: “It was a pleasure to meet with you during your visit to the United States Capitol on June 27th. Many thanks for your commitment to the cleanup and transfer of the former Hunters Point Naval Shipyard. Your work to ensure public health, hold a transparent process that engages the public, and holding Tetra Tech accountable is critical and greatly appreciated.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>EPA is overseeing the cleanup of chemicals and radiological material at the decommissioned Hunters Point Naval Shipyard in San Francisco. Two supervisors of Tetra Tech EC, a company involved in the cleanup, were sentenced to prison in 2018 after pleading guilty to falsifying records related to those tests. The U.S. Department of Justice last year sued the company, alleging that it falsified billing claims to the Navy. The company has denied wrongdoing and says two “rogue employees” were responsible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Stoker also suggested that disagreements with Benevento lay behind his dismissal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have personalities that clash,” he said. “But to take somebody out the way they took me out — turn off my cell phone and my laptop five minutes after hanging up with me — that only would make sense if there was just some compelling reason. Like, I would have been arrested the night before for spousal abuse or something just radical, bordering on criminal or inspector general. But none of that exists.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The EPA’s inspector general had registered some reasons for concern. In 2018, the agency watchdog investigated a complaint that Stoker was traveling excessively and not spending much time at the San Francisco headquarters where the vast majority of his staff worked.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The inspector general found that Stoker spent more than $43,000 of taxpayer money on 35 separate trips between May 2018 and February 2019. 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"content": "\u003cp>After a snow-packed winter of 2019, there are signs that this year’s Sierra Nevada snow season could wind up below average. At the start of 2020, the statewide snowpack was 90% of normal for the time of year. That level dropped to 72% at the end of January and is now at 64% . State water officials say our reservoirs have plenty of water now — but we’ll need more winter storms to replenish the snowpack in time for the spring runoff. The forecast for the Lake Tahoe area, at least for the next 10 days, calls for mostly sunny skies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here’s a look at how this snow season is stacking up. Move the sliders below to compare the terrain between February 2019 and February 2020.\u003c/p>\n\u003ctable border=\"0\" width=\"100%\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\">\n\u003ctbody>\n\u003ctr>\n\u003ctd>\u003c/td>\n\u003c/tr>\n\u003ctr>\n\u003ctd width=\"100%\">\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: center\">\u003cstrong>Southern Sierra\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nBefore: Feb. 6, 2019\u003cbr>\nAfter: Feb. 1, 2020\u003c/p>\n\u003c/td>\n\u003c/tr>\n\u003ctr>\n\u003ctd width=\"100%\" height=\"750\">\n\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"100%\" height=\"750\" scrolling=\"no\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\" src=\"https://cdn.knightlab.com/libs/juxtapose/latest/embed/index.html?uid=e928a318-4f97-11ea-b9b8-0edaf8f81e27\" class=\"iframe-class\" frameborder=\"0\">\u003c/iframe>\n\u003c/td>\n\u003c/tr>\n\u003ctr>\n\u003ctd width=\"100%\" height=\"1\">\u003c/td>\n\u003c/tr>\n\u003ctr>\n\u003ctd width=\"100%\">\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: center\">\u003cstrong>Mono Lake\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nBefore: Jan. 27, 2019\u003cbr>\nAfter: Feb. 1, 2020\u003c/p>\n\u003c/td>\n\u003c/tr>\n\u003ctr>\n\u003ctd width=\"100%\" height=\"750\">\n\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"100%\" height=\"750\" scrolling=\"no\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\" src=\"https://cdn.knightlab.com/libs/juxtapose/latest/embed/index.html?uid=7bc08df2-490e-11ea-b9b8-0edaf8f81e27\" class=\"iframe-class\" frameborder=\"0\">\u003c/iframe>\n\u003c/td>\n\u003c/tr>\n\u003ctr>\n\u003ctd width=\"100%\" height=\"1\">\u003c/td>\n\u003c/tr>\n\u003ctr>\n\u003ctd width=\"100%\">\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: center\">\u003cstrong>Sierra Nevada\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nBefore: Jan. 24, 2019\u003cbr>\nAfter: Feb. 4, 2020\u003c/p>\n\u003c/td>\n\u003c/tr>\n\u003ctr>\n\u003ctd width=\"100%\" height=\"750\">\n\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"100%\" height=\"750\" scrolling=\"no\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\" src=\"https://cdn.knightlab.com/libs/juxtapose/latest/embed/index.html?uid=df63a754-490e-11ea-b9b8-0edaf8f81e27\" class=\"iframe-class\" frameborder=\"0\">\u003c/iframe>\n\u003c/td>\n\u003c/tr>\n\u003c/tbody>\n\u003c/table>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>After a snow-packed winter of 2019, there are signs that this year’s Sierra Nevada snow season could wind up below average. At the start of 2020, the statewide snowpack was 90% of normal for the time of year. That level dropped to 72% at the end of January and is now at 64% . State water officials say our reservoirs have plenty of water now — but we’ll need more winter storms to replenish the snowpack in time for the spring runoff. The forecast for the Lake Tahoe area, at least for the next 10 days, calls for mostly sunny skies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here’s a look at how this snow season is stacking up. Move the sliders below to compare the terrain between February 2019 and February 2020.\u003c/p>\n\u003ctable border=\"0\" width=\"100%\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\">\n\u003ctbody>\n\u003ctr>\n\u003ctd>\u003c/td>\n\u003c/tr>\n\u003ctr>\n\u003ctd width=\"100%\">\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: center\">\u003cstrong>Southern Sierra\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nBefore: Feb. 6, 2019\u003cbr>\nAfter: Feb. 1, 2020\u003c/p>\n\u003c/td>\n\u003c/tr>\n\u003ctr>\n\u003ctd width=\"100%\" height=\"750\">\n\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"100%\" height=\"750\" scrolling=\"no\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\" src=\"https://cdn.knightlab.com/libs/juxtapose/latest/embed/index.html?uid=e928a318-4f97-11ea-b9b8-0edaf8f81e27\" class=\"iframe-class\" frameborder=\"0\">\u003c/iframe>\n\u003c/td>\n\u003c/tr>\n\u003ctr>\n\u003ctd width=\"100%\" height=\"1\">\u003c/td>\n\u003c/tr>\n\u003ctr>\n\u003ctd width=\"100%\">\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: center\">\u003cstrong>Mono Lake\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nBefore: Jan. 27, 2019\u003cbr>\nAfter: Feb. 1, 2020\u003c/p>\n\u003c/td>\n\u003c/tr>\n\u003ctr>\n\u003ctd width=\"100%\" height=\"750\">\n\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"100%\" height=\"750\" scrolling=\"no\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\" src=\"https://cdn.knightlab.com/libs/juxtapose/latest/embed/index.html?uid=7bc08df2-490e-11ea-b9b8-0edaf8f81e27\" class=\"iframe-class\" frameborder=\"0\">\u003c/iframe>\n\u003c/td>\n\u003c/tr>\n\u003ctr>\n\u003ctd width=\"100%\" height=\"1\">\u003c/td>\n\u003c/tr>\n\u003ctr>\n\u003ctd width=\"100%\">\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: center\">\u003cstrong>Sierra Nevada\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nBefore: Jan. 24, 2019\u003cbr>\nAfter: Feb. 4, 2020\u003c/p>\n\u003c/td>\n\u003c/tr>\n\u003ctr>\n\u003ctd width=\"100%\" height=\"750\">\n\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"100%\" height=\"750\" scrolling=\"no\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\" src=\"https://cdn.knightlab.com/libs/juxtapose/latest/embed/index.html?uid=df63a754-490e-11ea-b9b8-0edaf8f81e27\" class=\"iframe-class\" frameborder=\"0\">\u003c/iframe>\n\u003c/td>\n\u003c/tr>\n\u003c/tbody>\n\u003c/table>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>The top regulator for the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s regional office in San Francisco left that job Wednesday without an explanation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As EPA’s Region 9 administrator, Mike Stoker supervised environmental enforcement in California, Nevada, Arizona, Hawaii, the Pacific Islands and 148 tribes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Molly Block, a spokeswoman for the EPA, confirmed in an email that Stoker is “no longer with the Agency.” She did not elaborate on the reason for his departure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Deb Jordan is the acting regional administrator, Block added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jordan is a 30-year EPA employee. She’s worked as an assistant regional administrator in San Francisco since 2016, the San Francisco Chronicle \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Controversial-head-of-EPA-s-San-Francisco-15034001.php\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">reported\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>From the get-go, elected officials and environmentalists criticized Stoker as the Trump administration’s choice to run the regulatory office. He publicly doubted the scientific consensus around man-made climate change and had previous ties to the oil and gas industry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Californians will not miss Mike Stoker, a climate skeptic and former oil lobbyist who spent tens of thousands of dollars on taxpayer-funded travel,” Rep. Anna Eshoo, of Palo Alto, said in an emailed statement. “My constituents and all Californians need an EPA administrator who day in and day out is dedicated to promoting clean air, clean water and addressing climate change.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Environmentalists protested his appointment when he took the job in 2018, and celebrated his abrupt dismissal less than two years later.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Stoker’s departure is good news, but this oil industry ally should never have been in charge of protecting our environment,” said Kassie Siegel of the Center for Biological Diversity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the job, he received fierce \u003ca href=\"https://www.eenews.net/stories/1061653561\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">criticism\u003c/a> from EPA lawyers, watchdog groups and Sen. Dianne Feinstein for managing a San Francisco-based staff of hundreds from his home city of Los Angeles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last March, the EPA’s inspector general documented what it called a pattern of Stoker’s taxpayer-funded travel.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>From the San Francisco Chronicle story:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In March 2019, the EPA’s Office of the Inspector General investigated a ‘hotline complaint’ about how much time Stoker was spending away from San Francisco and ‘his excessive number of trips.’\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The office issued a ‘Management Alert’ that documented how he spent $43,875 in taxpayer funds on 35 separate trips between May 2018 and February 2019, including two trips to Hawaii, one to Japan and another to Saipan, in the Mariana Islands. The report, which did not reach any conclusions about the propriety of his travel, said he spent only 30 out of 145 workdays in San Francisco.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Shortly after he became the region’s top EPA regulator, Stoker \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1926287/new-epa-region-chief-questions-climate-science-but-favors-co2-cuts\">told\u003c/a> KQED’s Danielle Venton that his priority was to clean up sewage at the border between the U.S. and Mexico.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote] About climate change, the former EPA regional administrator told KQED: “I personally believe there’s questions on how much of it is man-made and how much of it is caused by Mother Nature and I have my personal feelings on global warming.”[/pullquote]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the time, he told KQED’s Venton that he doubted the scientific consensus on anthropogenic climate change. He did add that he \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1926287/new-epa-region-chief-questions-climate-science-but-favors-co2-cuts\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">supported\u003c/a> “anything that reduces carbon emissions because that’s good for everyone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I personally believe there’s questions on how much of it is man-made and how much of it is caused by Mother Nature and I have my personal feelings on global warming,” he said. “The whole global warming debate is a debate for Washington DC, and whatever they tell me is what I implement.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In response to Stoker’s departure, the Center for Biological Diversity’s Siegel said, “He accomplished virtually nothing at the EPA besides helping oil companies get permission to pollute California aquifers and alienating agency staff who actually care about our planet.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She added, “the fact that Stoker lasted this long highlights the Trump administration’s utter contempt for the air we breathe and the water we drink.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>From Washington, the environmental agency’s administrator Andrew Wheeler thanked Stoker “for his service to the EPA” and wished “him and his family the best in their future endeavors,” the Chronicle reported.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Stoker’s Background\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Stoker is a Republican from Central California who served as a Santa Barbara County supervisor from 1986 to 1994.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He also was chairman of the California Agricultural Labor Relations Board and he spent two years as California deputy secretary of state, from 2000 to 2002. Afterward, he worked as a lawyer for the agricultural industry and as a spokesman for an oil and gas company.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Stoker has run unsuccessfully for Congress and the California Legislature. He was a Trump delegate to the 2016 Republican National Convention and has \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1924459/new-chief-of-epa-region-9-has-deep-ties-to-industry\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">reportedly\u003c/a> been \u003ca href=\"https://www.independent.com/news/2017/jan/19/santa-barbarans-stoked-trump/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">credited\u003c/a> with starting the “lock her up” chant about Hillary Clinton.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Stoker has taken reliably pro-industry stances in the past, Nick Welsh, managing editor of the Santa Barbara Independent, told Venton. He has known Stoker for about 30 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As a county supervisor, Stoker argued against a ballot measure that would have placed limits on offshore oil drilling.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The top regulator for the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s regional office in San Francisco left that job Wednesday without an explanation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As EPA’s Region 9 administrator, Mike Stoker supervised environmental enforcement in California, Nevada, Arizona, Hawaii, the Pacific Islands and 148 tribes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Molly Block, a spokeswoman for the EPA, confirmed in an email that Stoker is “no longer with the Agency.” She did not elaborate on the reason for his departure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Deb Jordan is the acting regional administrator, Block added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jordan is a 30-year EPA employee. She’s worked as an assistant regional administrator in San Francisco since 2016, the San Francisco Chronicle \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Controversial-head-of-EPA-s-San-Francisco-15034001.php\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">reported\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>From the get-go, elected officials and environmentalists criticized Stoker as the Trump administration’s choice to run the regulatory office. He publicly doubted the scientific consensus around man-made climate change and had previous ties to the oil and gas industry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Californians will not miss Mike Stoker, a climate skeptic and former oil lobbyist who spent tens of thousands of dollars on taxpayer-funded travel,” Rep. Anna Eshoo, of Palo Alto, said in an emailed statement. “My constituents and all Californians need an EPA administrator who day in and day out is dedicated to promoting clean air, clean water and addressing climate change.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Environmentalists protested his appointment when he took the job in 2018, and celebrated his abrupt dismissal less than two years later.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Stoker’s departure is good news, but this oil industry ally should never have been in charge of protecting our environment,” said Kassie Siegel of the Center for Biological Diversity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the job, he received fierce \u003ca href=\"https://www.eenews.net/stories/1061653561\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">criticism\u003c/a> from EPA lawyers, watchdog groups and Sen. Dianne Feinstein for managing a San Francisco-based staff of hundreds from his home city of Los Angeles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last March, the EPA’s inspector general documented what it called a pattern of Stoker’s taxpayer-funded travel.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>From the San Francisco Chronicle story:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In March 2019, the EPA’s Office of the Inspector General investigated a ‘hotline complaint’ about how much time Stoker was spending away from San Francisco and ‘his excessive number of trips.’\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The office issued a ‘Management Alert’ that documented how he spent $43,875 in taxpayer funds on 35 separate trips between May 2018 and February 2019, including two trips to Hawaii, one to Japan and another to Saipan, in the Mariana Islands. The report, which did not reach any conclusions about the propriety of his travel, said he spent only 30 out of 145 workdays in San Francisco.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Shortly after he became the region’s top EPA regulator, Stoker \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1926287/new-epa-region-chief-questions-climate-science-but-favors-co2-cuts\">told\u003c/a> KQED’s Danielle Venton that his priority was to clean up sewage at the border between the U.S. and Mexico.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": " About climate change, the former EPA regional administrator told KQED: “I personally believe there’s questions on how much of it is man-made and how much of it is caused by Mother Nature and I have my personal feelings on global warming.”",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the time, he told KQED’s Venton that he doubted the scientific consensus on anthropogenic climate change. He did add that he \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1926287/new-epa-region-chief-questions-climate-science-but-favors-co2-cuts\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">supported\u003c/a> “anything that reduces carbon emissions because that’s good for everyone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I personally believe there’s questions on how much of it is man-made and how much of it is caused by Mother Nature and I have my personal feelings on global warming,” he said. “The whole global warming debate is a debate for Washington DC, and whatever they tell me is what I implement.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In response to Stoker’s departure, the Center for Biological Diversity’s Siegel said, “He accomplished virtually nothing at the EPA besides helping oil companies get permission to pollute California aquifers and alienating agency staff who actually care about our planet.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She added, “the fact that Stoker lasted this long highlights the Trump administration’s utter contempt for the air we breathe and the water we drink.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>From Washington, the environmental agency’s administrator Andrew Wheeler thanked Stoker “for his service to the EPA” and wished “him and his family the best in their future endeavors,” the Chronicle reported.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Stoker’s Background\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Stoker is a Republican from Central California who served as a Santa Barbara County supervisor from 1986 to 1994.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He also was chairman of the California Agricultural Labor Relations Board and he spent two years as California deputy secretary of state, from 2000 to 2002. Afterward, he worked as a lawyer for the agricultural industry and as a spokesman for an oil and gas company.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Stoker has run unsuccessfully for Congress and the California Legislature. He was a Trump delegate to the 2016 Republican National Convention and has \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1924459/new-chief-of-epa-region-9-has-deep-ties-to-industry\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">reportedly\u003c/a> been \u003ca href=\"https://www.independent.com/news/2017/jan/19/santa-barbarans-stoked-trump/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">credited\u003c/a> with starting the “lock her up” chant about Hillary Clinton.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Stoker has taken reliably pro-industry stances in the past, Nick Welsh, managing editor of the Santa Barbara Independent, told Venton. He has known Stoker for about 30 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As a county supervisor, Stoker argued against a ballot measure that would have placed limits on offshore oil drilling.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "SF Public Health Officials, Chinese-Language Media Try to Ease Coronavirus Fears",
"headTitle": "SF Public Health Officials, Chinese-Language Media Try to Ease Coronavirus Fears | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>Public health officials say people in the Bay Area run a low risk of falling ill from the novel coronavirus. Fewer than five people in the nine-county region are being treated for the flu-like disease.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfdph.org/dph/default.asp\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">San Francisco Department of Public Health\u003c/a> is working to spread that message to Cantonese and Mandarin speakers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dr. Sunny Pak, acting medical director of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfdph.org/dph/comupg/oservices/medSvs/hlthCtrs/ChinatownHlthCtr.asp\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Chinatown Public Health Center\u003c/a>, said many of his patients rely on social media apps for news about the outbreaks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Unlike what happened with SARS 17 years ago, right now the spreading of information, whether true or false, is even faster,” Pak said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That, Pak said, can lead to panic, especially among people with family and friends in China and other countries more directly affected by the virus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Because they’re getting a lot of information via WeChat and/or WhatsApp, they’re literally instantaneously getting information that hasn’t been vetted and it’s unfortunate,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The federal \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/summary.html#situation-in-us\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Centers for Disease Control and Prevention\u003c/a> reports that China has confirmed tens of thousands of cases, compared with a dozen in the United States.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last week, Pak and other San Francisco public health officials met with reporters from local ethnic-language media outlets — including \u003ca href=\"https://www.ktsf.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">KTSF\u003c/a> Channel 26 television, the Sing Tao \u003ca href=\"https://www.singtaousa.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">newspaper \u003c/a>and \u003ca href=\"http://www.chineseradio.com/main/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">radio station\u003c/a> and the \u003ca href=\"https://www.worldjournal.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">World Journal\u003c/a> — to help convey the most accurate information from the CDC. That effort includes informational packets translated into Chinese.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chinese-language radio and television stations in the Bay Area are broadcasting reports in Cantonese and Mandarin, depending on the program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Flora Xu, a senior reporter with Sing Tao Daily, said the Chinatown-based paper is committed to sharing trustworthy news about the outbreak.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She said the paper urges readers “to believe the city’s information, the accurate information, and don’t believe the rumors.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I also just encourage the Chinese community, believe the government [about] how to protect yourself,” Xu said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She added that many Chinese Americans are less panicked about getting the disease than they are concerned about loved ones in China dealing with the virus and its economic fallout there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://twitter.com/SF_emergency/status/1225123524857094145\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pak said he hopes accurate, up-to-date information can help Chinese Americans stay calm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“At this point in the United States and definitely in San Francisco since there are no confirmed cases of any novel coronavirus, the risk of transmission or contracting the virus is still low,” Pak said. “But at the same time we still should be vigilant.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The level of concern, he noted, should be similar to the flu — a much more present virus in this area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>San Francisco’s public health agency offers this message on its website:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>“There are zero confirmed cases of novel coronavirus in San Francisco, and the risk to the general public is low. If a case is confirmed in San Francisco we will announce it right here. … Proper handwashing is the most effective way to prevent illness. This means washing your hands often with soap and water for at least 20 seconds.”\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition to handwashing, Pak said that covering your mouth when coughing and staying isolated if you’re feeling sick (you can call your health provider from home), are two important ways to protect against the potential spread of coronavirus or other illness.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>San Francisco public health and emergency management officials met with neighborhood leaders at City College’s Chinatown/North Beach Center campus to address concerns and provide information on how to protect against the potential spread of novel coronavirus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pak said that outreach to other San Francisco neighborhoods with large Chinese American populations, like the Richmond, Sunset and the Excelsior District, is also a priority for public health officials.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Public health officials say people in the Bay Area run a low risk of falling ill from the novel coronavirus. Fewer than five people in the nine-county region are being treated for the flu-like disease.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfdph.org/dph/default.asp\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">San Francisco Department of Public Health\u003c/a> is working to spread that message to Cantonese and Mandarin speakers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dr. Sunny Pak, acting medical director of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfdph.org/dph/comupg/oservices/medSvs/hlthCtrs/ChinatownHlthCtr.asp\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Chinatown Public Health Center\u003c/a>, said many of his patients rely on social media apps for news about the outbreaks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Unlike what happened with SARS 17 years ago, right now the spreading of information, whether true or false, is even faster,” Pak said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That, Pak said, can lead to panic, especially among people with family and friends in China and other countries more directly affected by the virus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Because they’re getting a lot of information via WeChat and/or WhatsApp, they’re literally instantaneously getting information that hasn’t been vetted and it’s unfortunate,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The federal \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/summary.html#situation-in-us\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Centers for Disease Control and Prevention\u003c/a> reports that China has confirmed tens of thousands of cases, compared with a dozen in the United States.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last week, Pak and other San Francisco public health officials met with reporters from local ethnic-language media outlets — including \u003ca href=\"https://www.ktsf.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">KTSF\u003c/a> Channel 26 television, the Sing Tao \u003ca href=\"https://www.singtaousa.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">newspaper \u003c/a>and \u003ca href=\"http://www.chineseradio.com/main/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">radio station\u003c/a> and the \u003ca href=\"https://www.worldjournal.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">World Journal\u003c/a> — to help convey the most accurate information from the CDC. That effort includes informational packets translated into Chinese.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chinese-language radio and television stations in the Bay Area are broadcasting reports in Cantonese and Mandarin, depending on the program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Flora Xu, a senior reporter with Sing Tao Daily, said the Chinatown-based paper is committed to sharing trustworthy news about the outbreak.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She said the paper urges readers “to believe the city’s information, the accurate information, and don’t believe the rumors.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I also just encourage the Chinese community, believe the government [about] how to protect yourself,” Xu said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She added that many Chinese Americans are less panicked about getting the disease than they are concerned about loved ones in China dealing with the virus and its economic fallout there.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\n\u003cp>Pak said he hopes accurate, up-to-date information can help Chinese Americans stay calm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“At this point in the United States and definitely in San Francisco since there are no confirmed cases of any novel coronavirus, the risk of transmission or contracting the virus is still low,” Pak said. “But at the same time we still should be vigilant.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The level of concern, he noted, should be similar to the flu — a much more present virus in this area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>San Francisco’s public health agency offers this message on its website:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>“There are zero confirmed cases of novel coronavirus in San Francisco, and the risk to the general public is low. If a case is confirmed in San Francisco we will announce it right here. … Proper handwashing is the most effective way to prevent illness. This means washing your hands often with soap and water for at least 20 seconds.”\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition to handwashing, Pak said that covering your mouth when coughing and staying isolated if you’re feeling sick (you can call your health provider from home), are two important ways to protect against the potential spread of coronavirus or other illness.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>San Francisco public health and emergency management officials met with neighborhood leaders at City College’s Chinatown/North Beach Center campus to address concerns and provide information on how to protect against the potential spread of novel coronavirus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pak said that outreach to other San Francisco neighborhoods with large Chinese American populations, like the Richmond, Sunset and the Excelsior District, is also a priority for public health officials.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Three federal judges heard arguments in Pasadena Wednesday about whether major oil and gas companies are financially responsible for the damages caused by climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In lively back-to-back hearings, the judges, from the 9th District Circuit Court, pushed with skepticism at both sides’ arguments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>San Francisco, Oakland, and a coalition of about a dozen other cities and counties want to hold the fossil fuel industry responsible for the remediation costs and property damage from increasingly severe wildfires, rising sea levels and intense storms that batter coastal communities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The cities seek damages related to climate change from Chevron, ExxonMobil, Phillips 66 and major other oil and gas companies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The lawsuits are reaching a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1956277/cities-lawsuits-seeking-damages-for-climate-change-reach-critical-juncture\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">critical juncture\u003c/a>. After a string of losses in federal courts, the cities asked the federal panel Wednesday to allow them to argue their lawsuit in the California state courts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If the panel agrees that the cases belong in state court, it would be the state judge, applying state laws, who decides whether we can proceed with this case to protect our residents, workers, and businesses from the costs and damage these fossil fuel companies knowingly imposed on our communities,” San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera and Oakland City Attorney Barbara Parker said in a written statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The fossil fuel companies are trying to move the cases into the federal courts with the aim of obtaining the ear of the conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“State tort law is not an appropriate vehicle—and state courts are not an appropriate forum—for regulating worldwide energy policy or punishing lawful, global commercial activity that is vital to every sector of the global economy,” lawyers for Chevron wrote in a legal brief. \u003cstrong>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nThe 9th Circuit panel heard arguments in two separate lawsuits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lawyers representing San Francisco and Oakland are trying to revive their lawsuit in state court after William Alsup, a judge for the Federal District Court in San Francisco, tossed it out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The law and precedent supporting our position is strong, and such a ruling would be consistent with orders issued by four other federal judges,” Herrera and Parker said in their statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As part of his deliberation, Alsup asked the cities to offer him a primer in climate change science. The tutorial included a seminal 1992 \u003ca href=\"http://blogs2.law.columbia.edu/climate-change-litigation/wp-content/uploads/sites/16/case-documents/2018/20180323_docket-317-cv-06011_exhibit.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">paper\u003c/a> published in the journal \u003cem>Nature\u003c/em> that detailed rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a June \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/06/26/climate/document-Judge-Dismisses-Climate-Suit-Against-Oil-Companies.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">opinion\u003c/a>, the judge wrote that the “problem deserves a solution on a more vast scale than can be supplied by a district judge or jury in a public nuisance case.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The federal court has already remanded to state court the other case, brought by San Mateo, Santa Cruz and Marin counties, along with Richmond, Santa Cruz and other cities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It has been two years or more since our communities first filed these cases to hold fossil fuel companies accountable for the climate change-related damages they knowingly caused and the high costs our taxpayers are already incurring as a result,” the governments said in a written statement. “It is time for the defendants to be held accountable for their decades-long campaign of public deception about climate change and its consequences.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Alex Katz, a spokesman for the Oakland city attorney’s office, said that the city does not know when the judges will decide on the case. He suggested it could take several months.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Three federal judges heard arguments in Pasadena Wednesday about whether major oil and gas companies are financially responsible for the damages caused by climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In lively back-to-back hearings, the judges, from the 9th District Circuit Court, pushed with skepticism at both sides’ arguments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>San Francisco, Oakland, and a coalition of about a dozen other cities and counties want to hold the fossil fuel industry responsible for the remediation costs and property damage from increasingly severe wildfires, rising sea levels and intense storms that batter coastal communities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The cities seek damages related to climate change from Chevron, ExxonMobil, Phillips 66 and major other oil and gas companies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The lawsuits are reaching a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1956277/cities-lawsuits-seeking-damages-for-climate-change-reach-critical-juncture\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">critical juncture\u003c/a>. After a string of losses in federal courts, the cities asked the federal panel Wednesday to allow them to argue their lawsuit in the California state courts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If the panel agrees that the cases belong in state court, it would be the state judge, applying state laws, who decides whether we can proceed with this case to protect our residents, workers, and businesses from the costs and damage these fossil fuel companies knowingly imposed on our communities,” San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera and Oakland City Attorney Barbara Parker said in a written statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The fossil fuel companies are trying to move the cases into the federal courts with the aim of obtaining the ear of the conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“State tort law is not an appropriate vehicle—and state courts are not an appropriate forum—for regulating worldwide energy policy or punishing lawful, global commercial activity that is vital to every sector of the global economy,” lawyers for Chevron wrote in a legal brief. \u003cstrong>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nThe 9th Circuit panel heard arguments in two separate lawsuits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lawyers representing San Francisco and Oakland are trying to revive their lawsuit in state court after William Alsup, a judge for the Federal District Court in San Francisco, tossed it out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The law and precedent supporting our position is strong, and such a ruling would be consistent with orders issued by four other federal judges,” Herrera and Parker said in their statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As part of his deliberation, Alsup asked the cities to offer him a primer in climate change science. The tutorial included a seminal 1992 \u003ca href=\"http://blogs2.law.columbia.edu/climate-change-litigation/wp-content/uploads/sites/16/case-documents/2018/20180323_docket-317-cv-06011_exhibit.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">paper\u003c/a> published in the journal \u003cem>Nature\u003c/em> that detailed rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a June \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/06/26/climate/document-Judge-Dismisses-Climate-Suit-Against-Oil-Companies.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">opinion\u003c/a>, the judge wrote that the “problem deserves a solution on a more vast scale than can be supplied by a district judge or jury in a public nuisance case.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The federal court has already remanded to state court the other case, brought by San Mateo, Santa Cruz and Marin counties, along with Richmond, Santa Cruz and other cities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It has been two years or more since our communities first filed these cases to hold fossil fuel companies accountable for the climate change-related damages they knowingly caused and the high costs our taxpayers are already incurring as a result,” the governments said in a written statement. “It is time for the defendants to be held accountable for their decades-long campaign of public deception about climate change and its consequences.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Alex Katz, a spokesman for the Oakland city attorney’s office, said that the city does not know when the judges will decide on the case. He suggested it could take several months.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Environmentalists are backing state wildlife officials in a legal dispute over critically threatened bumblebees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In June 2018, the California Fish and Game Commission \u003ca href=\"https://nrm.dfg.ca.gov/FileHandler.ashx?DocumentID=170351&inline\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">listed\u003c/a> four species — crotch, Franklin’s, suckley cuckoo and western bumblebee — as candidate species for protections under the state Endangered Species Act.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A few months later, the California Farm Bureau Federation and six other agricultural associations sued the state over that decision. They argue that the the law cannot protect the bees because it defines candidate species as “bird, mammal, fish, amphibian, reptile or plant” and does not directly mention “insects.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If California listed the bees as endangered species it would set a harmful precedent for farmers and ranchers, they say.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation, Defenders of Wildlife and the Center for Food Safety filed a \u003ca href=\"https://defenders.org/sites/default/files/2020-01/2020-01-28%20Native%20Bees%20MTI.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">motion\u003c/a> to intervene last month. Those groups seek to defend the state’s decision.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the environmentalists’ move is not surprising — their petition led to the bumblebees being proposed for protected status — it does add legal muscle to fight the case.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>“\u003c/em>The four bees are critically endangered and by the legal standards within the California Endangered Species Act should be listed,” said Kim Delfino, Defenders of Wildlife’s California program director. “We believe that insects should be protected under the state endangered species act.\u003cem>”\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The agency \u003ca href=\"https://nrm.dfg.ca.gov/FileHandler.ashx?DocumentID=166804&inline\">report\u003c/a> found that the bee populations are in “steep decline,” in part because of pesticides and farmer-managed honeybee colonies. Bumblebees depend on abundant flowers and undisturbed habitat to nest and spend the winter, but officials say ranching and climate change threaten their habitat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Franklin’s bumblebee, for example, is so threatened that California bee surveys have not detected the species since 1998. While state officials don’t yet believe the bee is extinct, the survey results suggest its distribution — already the smallest of any North American bumblebee species — is exhausted, the state’s listing report says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote] The California Department of Fish and Wildlife found that bumblebee populations are in steep decline, in part because of pesticides and farmer-managed honeybee colonies.[/pullquote]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The California Farm Bureau Federation \u003ca href=\"https://www.cottonfarming.com/special-report/seven-ag-groups-file-lawsuit-regarding-bumblebee-species/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">argues\u003c/a> that the remedies the environmentalists proposed to protect the bumblebees — restricting grazing, pesticides and the use of commercial honeybees — would harm farmers and ranchers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The coalition of agricultural groups opposing the bee listing include the Almond Alliance of California, California Association of Pest Control Advisers, California Citrus Mutual, California Cotton Growers and Ginners Association and Western Agricultural Processors Association and Western Growers.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the environmentalists’ move is not surprising — their petition led to the bumblebees being proposed for protected status — it does add legal muscle to fight the case.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>“\u003c/em>The four bees are critically endangered and by the legal standards within the California Endangered Species Act should be listed,” said Kim Delfino, Defenders of Wildlife’s California program director. “We believe that insects should be protected under the state endangered species act.\u003cem>”\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The agency \u003ca href=\"https://nrm.dfg.ca.gov/FileHandler.ashx?DocumentID=166804&inline\">report\u003c/a> found that the bee populations are in “steep decline,” in part because of pesticides and farmer-managed honeybee colonies. Bumblebees depend on abundant flowers and undisturbed habitat to nest and spend the winter, but officials say ranching and climate change threaten their habitat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Franklin’s bumblebee, for example, is so threatened that California bee surveys have not detected the species since 1998. While state officials don’t yet believe the bee is extinct, the survey results suggest its distribution — already the smallest of any North American bumblebee species — is exhausted, the state’s listing report says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "State Park Plan Is Conservationist's Dream. But Reformers Want Focus on Neglected Neighborhoods",
"headTitle": "State Park Plan Is Conservationist’s Dream. But Reformers Want Focus on Neglected Neighborhoods | KQED",
"content": "\u003ch4>California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s budget proposal includes millions to buy land for a new state park, as well as an equal amount to increase park access for “underserved populations.” Together, the funds address both traditional conservation priorities and those of a new generation of reformers.\u003c/h4>\n\u003cp>[dropcap]W[/dropcap]hen Gov. Gavin Newsom outlined his budget proposal last month, he included a tease for conservationists: a $20 million line item, stemming from a one-time budget surplus, to help pay for a new state park, a tantalizing prospect in an era when just one new park has been added to the system over the last 20 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Newsom hasn’t indicated where the park would be; he said the cost of the land might go up if he shared specific information. But the $20 million figure is exactly what a group of Bay Area lawmakers \u003ca href=\"https://sd07.senate.ca.gov/news/2020-01-08-17-bay-area-caucus-members-urge-governor-legislative-leaders-provide-funding-acquire\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">asked\u003c/a> the governor to allocate toward the purchase of a sprawling 50,000-acre \u003ca href=\"https://www.californiaoutdoorproperties.com/listing/n3-cattle-company\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">ranch\u003c/a> for sale, spanning Santa Clara, Alameda, San Joaquin and Stanislaus counties.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote align='right' citation='Mike Lynch, California State Park Rangers Association.']‘If this thing goes, then the state is getting back in the park business again. We’ve had a huge, tremendous drought in new parks since the Great Recession.’[/pullquote]The Nature Conservancy and the Trust for Public Lands, two of the largest conservation organizations in the U.S., have secured $30 million to pay for the property in addition to the state’s proposed earmark.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The undeveloped land, owned by the N3 Cattle Company of Livermore, is a backpacker’s dream, but given that those 80 square miles abut \u003ca href=\"https://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=537\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Lake Del Valle State Recreation Area\u003c/a>, a park with meandering hiking trails and bucolic swimming holes, the location will do little to expand access for the “park poor,” those without a convenient and quick way to get to a major public green area, which is a priority for reformers in the conservation movement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote align='right' citation='Ramya Sivasubramanian, NRDC']‘We need some of those closer-to-home opportunities … Otherwise we’re not redressing the inequities that exist in the current distribution of our system.’[/pullquote]However, Newsom’s proposal also includes a separate $20 million for a grant program \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201920200AB209\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">established\u003c/a> last year to “improve park access for underserved populations.” That would include investing in transportation and other programs to allow for more diverse groups of people to “participate in outdoor environmental educational experiences at state parks.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The governor’s plan also includes $11.8 million to expand technological and physical access, as well as “culturally inclusive” programs and exhibits, at existing parks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With these different line items, the governor is gingerly balancing the interests of two groups of environmentalists who hold competing visions for the state’s park system and are separated by geography, age and race.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the one hand, the state’s older and whiter backpack-toting conservation groups value parks, in part, for their natural beauty, and they dearly want California to expand wilderness protections.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They say the Livermore ranch is an incredible opportunity that the state should seize.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But there’s a new generation of conservation advocates who value the public health benefits of easily accessible nature over big-ticket parks like the acquisition of the ranch would represent. These younger and more racially diverse proponents assess the desirability of areas targeted for public access in part by their impact on community life. They favor cleaning up polluted areas and restoring smaller neighborhood parks and other local open spaces, and they generally do not advocate for the headline-grabbing establishment of large public parcels of land.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many of these reform-minded advocates are Los Angeles-based veterans of a successful $4 billion ballot \u003ca href=\"https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_68,_Parks,_Environment,_and_Water_Bond_(June_2018)\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">proposition\u003c/a> in 2018 to improve smaller parks and green spaces, among other environmental projects, in mostly urban and suburban areas, with a portion of the funds earmarked for lower-income communities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That measure, Proposition 68, appeared on the ballot two years after a Los Angeles County “parks and recreation needs” \u003ca href=\"https://lacountyparkneeds.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/ParksNeedsAssessmentSummary_English.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">assessment\u003c/a> found that 51% of residents lived more than a half-mile away from a local or regional park, too far to make an impact, according to some research. More than 80% of these residents were located in neighborhoods of color, and advocates \u003ca href=\"https://www.advancementprojectca.org/blog/la-county-park-equity-groups-fight-to-turn-park-poor-communities-red-to-green\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">argue\u003c/a> the disparity resulted from decades of unequal land-use decisions that led to public neglect and disinvestment in nonwhite neighborhoods.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Competing Visions\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California last created a state park in Monterey County in 2009, when the state transformed a 4-mile sandy curve of the coastline donated by the U.S. Army into \u003ca href=\"https://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=580\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Fort Ord Dunes State Park\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The 10 years leading up to the park’s opening marked the longest time without an addition to the state system since California created its parks department in 1927, according to \u003ca href=\"https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/05/12/state-parks-standstill-why-california-hasnt-opened-a-new-state-park-in-10-years/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">data\u003c/a> reviewed by the Mercury News. The current drought of new parkland has surpassed that period.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So Newsom’s proposal is enough to stir the dormant passion of Mike Lynch, president of the California State Park Rangers Association.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If this thing goes, then the state is getting back in the park business again,” said Lynch. “We’ve had a huge, tremendous drought in new parks since the Great Recession.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lynch doesn’t disagree with efforts to increase access for park-poor communities. But even though the ranch doesn’t fit that bill, he sees it as an opportunity that the state needs to jump on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Opportunities are of the moment, right?” he said. “You can either take it or leave it. But it’s up for sale now.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sen. Bob Wieckowski, D-Fremont, called the available land a “once-in-a-generation” opportunity, providing accessible backcountry wilderness and protecting a watershed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Newsom’s budget \u003ca href=\"http://www.ebudget.ca.gov/2020-21/pdf/BudgetSummary/FullBudgetSummary.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">summary\u003c/a> acknowledges the gap in park access by framing the proposed millions of dollars of investment in the Department of Parks and Recreation as a “Parks for All” initiative. “Many Californians lack access to parks, open spaces, and natural and cultural amenities,” the section begins.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The initiative has been \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/JenSiebelNewsom/status/1215804374921838592?s=20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">championed\u003c/a> by Jennifer Siebel Newsom, California’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/first-partner/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">first partner\u003c/a> and the governor’s wife.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But José González, founder of \u003ca href=\"https://latinooutdoors.org/about-us/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Latino Outdoors\u003c/a>, a group that advocates for diversifying parks, argues that California should prioritize creating parks around low-income communities of color whom the state has neglected in the past. He says public funding should “ensure that the parks do not perpetuate historical inequities.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>González says he values the “conservation opportunity” of the ranch and appreciates that the proposed budget includes equitable funding for park access. But he says the state should bring “diverse communities into the decision-making process.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The fact is that those who have held the land will continue to benefit through these deals,” he said. “These are not black and brown families that are getting millions of dollars” in state money, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Urban Initiatives\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ramya Sivasubramanian, deputy director of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.nrdc.org/about/healthy-people-thriving-communities\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Environmental Justice, Healthy People & Thriving Communities Program\u003c/a> for the Natural Resources Defense Council, says that initiatives like the ones included in the governor’s budget to increase park access do provide good opportunities to “connect people in park poor communities to state parks.” But she said these alone are “insufficient.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We need some of those closer-to-home opportunities as well. Otherwise we’re not redressing the inequities that exist in the current distribution of our system\u003cem>.\u003c/em>”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sivasubramanian pointed to several locations around Los Angeles that advocates would like California to purchase and run as a state park. The proposed areas include neglected 28-acre \u003ca href=\"https://www.cityprojectca.org/blog/archives/722\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Griffith Park \u003c/a>along the Los Angeles River, a concrete-slab that’s partially cordoned off with a chain-link fence and is covered in construction debris.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Redondo Beach, a city of 68,000 in the L.A. area, Mayor Bill Brand’s two\u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2019-12-12/california-clean-energy-gas-plants\">–\u003c/a>decade \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2019-12-12/california-clean-energy-gas-plants\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">crusade\u003c/a> to transform a waterfront power plant into a public park has hit a snag. The plant, surrounded by one of the most densely populated neighborhoods along the entire coast, was set to close at the end of this year. But in November the California Public Utilities Commission \u003ca href=\"https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/business/energy-green/story/2019-11-07/concerned-about-future-power-shortages-utilities-commission-bumps-up-resource-requirements\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">voted\u003c/a> to keep the plant running through 2022 amid concerns over the reliability of the state’s power supply.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sivasubramanian says advocates want the state to intervene in order to get the park built.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s an even broader opportunity, too, which is not just looking at these places in a vacuum, but at where we can leverage park funds, affordable housing funds and other funds to meet multiple needs in a community,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Accessibility to Quality Parks\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Advocates like Sivasubramanian argue that California should evaluate park projects in terms of public health.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Researchers have found strong evidence for quality-of-life benefits from spending time in nature. This is especially true for children, who score better on tests, exhibit improved emotional well-being and self-discipline, and are more attentive and physically active when they live within a half-mile of a park and spend a couple of hours a week there, one \u003ca href=\"https://www.niehs.nih.gov/research/supported/translational/peph/webinars/green_spaces/urban_green_space_disparities_and_health_508.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">study\u003c/a> out of the University of Southern California found.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other research in recent years has \u003ca href=\"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169204616300846\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">illuminated\u003c/a> a disparity in the quality of parks in different neighborhoods.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While low-income people of color may have access to nearby parks, those green spaces tend to be smaller, dirtier, more crowded and in worse condition. They are also subject to more criminal activity than parks in affluent white neighborhoods.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One \u003ca href=\"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169204618304316\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">study\u003c/a> that looked at urban parks across the U.S. found that “inequities also emerged for park coverage, park spending per person, and park facilities, with majority-Latino cities being particularly disadvantaged.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the Wilderness Society’s Urban to Wild director, Yvette Lopez-Ledesma says her job is partly to build a bridge between “nontraditional conservationists” concerned with these type of inequities and “traditional conservation groups.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The experience of the nontraditional conservationists hasn’t been valued,” she said. “But people are starting to listen. We are getting closer to — not a middle ground yet — but an awareness that we have to do something. We can’t just be the same conservation movement.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>The Ranch Land\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Though the N3 ranch isn’t in the center of an urban area, it is within driving distance from most major cities in the Bay Area, which a slickly produced video presentation of the property highlights.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_Y1RHS0jN0\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California Outdoor Properties \u003ca href=\"https://www.californiaoutdoorproperties.com/listing/n3-cattle-company\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">lists\u003c/a> the property for sale at a cost of $72 million.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Broker Todd Renfrew said he’s been inundated with calls from reporters asking about the ranch, a property larger than the city of San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A piece of land for sale that’s more than 50,000 acres so close to the Bay Area is unheard of,” said Renfrew. “It is really unique.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The largely untouched land is habitat for tule elk, deer, quail and other animals, as well as, evergreen and native oak trees, bay laurel, California buckeye, and gray and coulter pine, according to the listing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The property also includes 200 miles of private roads that could be used for hiking and mountain biking, and 14 hunting camps with cabins that could be transformed into backpacking huts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Having partners like the Trust for Public Lands is the kind of thing that makes projects like this work,” Lynch said. “Most new parks must have this kind of collaborative approach.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Latino Outdoor’s González said the ranch is “an opportunity to protect and preserve as much of the ecological diversity of the landscape… and that’s fantastic.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have an opportunity for a transition period,” he said. “As we continue to do traditional — quote unquote — land acquisition deals. It can’t be the same process of 50 years ago. What’s different now is what does this mean in the lens of equity.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "A new generation of conservation advocates values the health and community benefits of nature that is near 'park-poor' neighborhoods over traditional big-ticket park expansion. ",
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"description": "A new generation of conservation advocates values the health and community benefits of nature that is near 'park-poor' neighborhoods over traditional big-ticket park expansion. ",
"title": "State Park Plan Is Conservationist's Dream. But Reformers Want Focus on Neglected Neighborhoods | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003ch4>California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s budget proposal includes millions to buy land for a new state park, as well as an equal amount to increase park access for “underserved populations.” Together, the funds address both traditional conservation priorities and those of a new generation of reformers.\u003c/h4>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__dropcapShortcode__dropcap\">W\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>hen Gov. Gavin Newsom outlined his budget proposal last month, he included a tease for conservationists: a $20 million line item, stemming from a one-time budget surplus, to help pay for a new state park, a tantalizing prospect in an era when just one new park has been added to the system over the last 20 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Newsom hasn’t indicated where the park would be; he said the cost of the land might go up if he shared specific information. But the $20 million figure is exactly what a group of Bay Area lawmakers \u003ca href=\"https://sd07.senate.ca.gov/news/2020-01-08-17-bay-area-caucus-members-urge-governor-legislative-leaders-provide-funding-acquire\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">asked\u003c/a> the governor to allocate toward the purchase of a sprawling 50,000-acre \u003ca href=\"https://www.californiaoutdoorproperties.com/listing/n3-cattle-company\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">ranch\u003c/a> for sale, spanning Santa Clara, Alameda, San Joaquin and Stanislaus counties.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "‘If this thing goes, then the state is getting back in the park business again. We’ve had a huge, tremendous drought in new parks since the Great Recession.’",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The Nature Conservancy and the Trust for Public Lands, two of the largest conservation organizations in the U.S., have secured $30 million to pay for the property in addition to the state’s proposed earmark.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The undeveloped land, owned by the N3 Cattle Company of Livermore, is a backpacker’s dream, but given that those 80 square miles abut \u003ca href=\"https://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=537\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Lake Del Valle State Recreation Area\u003c/a>, a park with meandering hiking trails and bucolic swimming holes, the location will do little to expand access for the “park poor,” those without a convenient and quick way to get to a major public green area, which is a priority for reformers in the conservation movement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "‘We need some of those closer-to-home opportunities … Otherwise we’re not redressing the inequities that exist in the current distribution of our system.’",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>However, Newsom’s proposal also includes a separate $20 million for a grant program \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201920200AB209\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">established\u003c/a> last year to “improve park access for underserved populations.” That would include investing in transportation and other programs to allow for more diverse groups of people to “participate in outdoor environmental educational experiences at state parks.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The governor’s plan also includes $11.8 million to expand technological and physical access, as well as “culturally inclusive” programs and exhibits, at existing parks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With these different line items, the governor is gingerly balancing the interests of two groups of environmentalists who hold competing visions for the state’s park system and are separated by geography, age and race.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the one hand, the state’s older and whiter backpack-toting conservation groups value parks, in part, for their natural beauty, and they dearly want California to expand wilderness protections.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They say the Livermore ranch is an incredible opportunity that the state should seize.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But there’s a new generation of conservation advocates who value the public health benefits of easily accessible nature over big-ticket parks like the acquisition of the ranch would represent. These younger and more racially diverse proponents assess the desirability of areas targeted for public access in part by their impact on community life. They favor cleaning up polluted areas and restoring smaller neighborhood parks and other local open spaces, and they generally do not advocate for the headline-grabbing establishment of large public parcels of land.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many of these reform-minded advocates are Los Angeles-based veterans of a successful $4 billion ballot \u003ca href=\"https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_68,_Parks,_Environment,_and_Water_Bond_(June_2018)\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">proposition\u003c/a> in 2018 to improve smaller parks and green spaces, among other environmental projects, in mostly urban and suburban areas, with a portion of the funds earmarked for lower-income communities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That measure, Proposition 68, appeared on the ballot two years after a Los Angeles County “parks and recreation needs” \u003ca href=\"https://lacountyparkneeds.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/ParksNeedsAssessmentSummary_English.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">assessment\u003c/a> found that 51% of residents lived more than a half-mile away from a local or regional park, too far to make an impact, according to some research. More than 80% of these residents were located in neighborhoods of color, and advocates \u003ca href=\"https://www.advancementprojectca.org/blog/la-county-park-equity-groups-fight-to-turn-park-poor-communities-red-to-green\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">argue\u003c/a> the disparity resulted from decades of unequal land-use decisions that led to public neglect and disinvestment in nonwhite neighborhoods.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Competing Visions\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California last created a state park in Monterey County in 2009, when the state transformed a 4-mile sandy curve of the coastline donated by the U.S. Army into \u003ca href=\"https://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=580\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Fort Ord Dunes State Park\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The 10 years leading up to the park’s opening marked the longest time without an addition to the state system since California created its parks department in 1927, according to \u003ca href=\"https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/05/12/state-parks-standstill-why-california-hasnt-opened-a-new-state-park-in-10-years/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">data\u003c/a> reviewed by the Mercury News. The current drought of new parkland has surpassed that period.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So Newsom’s proposal is enough to stir the dormant passion of Mike Lynch, president of the California State Park Rangers Association.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If this thing goes, then the state is getting back in the park business again,” said Lynch. “We’ve had a huge, tremendous drought in new parks since the Great Recession.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lynch doesn’t disagree with efforts to increase access for park-poor communities. But even though the ranch doesn’t fit that bill, he sees it as an opportunity that the state needs to jump on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Opportunities are of the moment, right?” he said. “You can either take it or leave it. But it’s up for sale now.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sen. Bob Wieckowski, D-Fremont, called the available land a “once-in-a-generation” opportunity, providing accessible backcountry wilderness and protecting a watershed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Newsom’s budget \u003ca href=\"http://www.ebudget.ca.gov/2020-21/pdf/BudgetSummary/FullBudgetSummary.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">summary\u003c/a> acknowledges the gap in park access by framing the proposed millions of dollars of investment in the Department of Parks and Recreation as a “Parks for All” initiative. “Many Californians lack access to parks, open spaces, and natural and cultural amenities,” the section begins.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The initiative has been \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/JenSiebelNewsom/status/1215804374921838592?s=20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">championed\u003c/a> by Jennifer Siebel Newsom, California’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/first-partner/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">first partner\u003c/a> and the governor’s wife.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But José González, founder of \u003ca href=\"https://latinooutdoors.org/about-us/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Latino Outdoors\u003c/a>, a group that advocates for diversifying parks, argues that California should prioritize creating parks around low-income communities of color whom the state has neglected in the past. He says public funding should “ensure that the parks do not perpetuate historical inequities.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>González says he values the “conservation opportunity” of the ranch and appreciates that the proposed budget includes equitable funding for park access. But he says the state should bring “diverse communities into the decision-making process.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The fact is that those who have held the land will continue to benefit through these deals,” he said. “These are not black and brown families that are getting millions of dollars” in state money, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Urban Initiatives\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ramya Sivasubramanian, deputy director of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.nrdc.org/about/healthy-people-thriving-communities\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Environmental Justice, Healthy People & Thriving Communities Program\u003c/a> for the Natural Resources Defense Council, says that initiatives like the ones included in the governor’s budget to increase park access do provide good opportunities to “connect people in park poor communities to state parks.” But she said these alone are “insufficient.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We need some of those closer-to-home opportunities as well. Otherwise we’re not redressing the inequities that exist in the current distribution of our system\u003cem>.\u003c/em>”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sivasubramanian pointed to several locations around Los Angeles that advocates would like California to purchase and run as a state park. The proposed areas include neglected 28-acre \u003ca href=\"https://www.cityprojectca.org/blog/archives/722\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Griffith Park \u003c/a>along the Los Angeles River, a concrete-slab that’s partially cordoned off with a chain-link fence and is covered in construction debris.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Redondo Beach, a city of 68,000 in the L.A. area, Mayor Bill Brand’s two\u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2019-12-12/california-clean-energy-gas-plants\">–\u003c/a>decade \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2019-12-12/california-clean-energy-gas-plants\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">crusade\u003c/a> to transform a waterfront power plant into a public park has hit a snag. The plant, surrounded by one of the most densely populated neighborhoods along the entire coast, was set to close at the end of this year. But in November the California Public Utilities Commission \u003ca href=\"https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/business/energy-green/story/2019-11-07/concerned-about-future-power-shortages-utilities-commission-bumps-up-resource-requirements\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">voted\u003c/a> to keep the plant running through 2022 amid concerns over the reliability of the state’s power supply.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sivasubramanian says advocates want the state to intervene in order to get the park built.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s an even broader opportunity, too, which is not just looking at these places in a vacuum, but at where we can leverage park funds, affordable housing funds and other funds to meet multiple needs in a community,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Accessibility to Quality Parks\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Advocates like Sivasubramanian argue that California should evaluate park projects in terms of public health.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Researchers have found strong evidence for quality-of-life benefits from spending time in nature. This is especially true for children, who score better on tests, exhibit improved emotional well-being and self-discipline, and are more attentive and physically active when they live within a half-mile of a park and spend a couple of hours a week there, one \u003ca href=\"https://www.niehs.nih.gov/research/supported/translational/peph/webinars/green_spaces/urban_green_space_disparities_and_health_508.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">study\u003c/a> out of the University of Southern California found.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other research in recent years has \u003ca href=\"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169204616300846\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">illuminated\u003c/a> a disparity in the quality of parks in different neighborhoods.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While low-income people of color may have access to nearby parks, those green spaces tend to be smaller, dirtier, more crowded and in worse condition. They are also subject to more criminal activity than parks in affluent white neighborhoods.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One \u003ca href=\"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169204618304316\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">study\u003c/a> that looked at urban parks across the U.S. found that “inequities also emerged for park coverage, park spending per person, and park facilities, with majority-Latino cities being particularly disadvantaged.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the Wilderness Society’s Urban to Wild director, Yvette Lopez-Ledesma says her job is partly to build a bridge between “nontraditional conservationists” concerned with these type of inequities and “traditional conservation groups.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The experience of the nontraditional conservationists hasn’t been valued,” she said. “But people are starting to listen. We are getting closer to — not a middle ground yet — but an awareness that we have to do something. We can’t just be the same conservation movement.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>The Ranch Land\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Though the N3 ranch isn’t in the center of an urban area, it is within driving distance from most major cities in the Bay Area, which a slickly produced video presentation of the property highlights.\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/l_Y1RHS0jN0'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/l_Y1RHS0jN0'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>California Outdoor Properties \u003ca href=\"https://www.californiaoutdoorproperties.com/listing/n3-cattle-company\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">lists\u003c/a> the property for sale at a cost of $72 million.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Broker Todd Renfrew said he’s been inundated with calls from reporters asking about the ranch, a property larger than the city of San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A piece of land for sale that’s more than 50,000 acres so close to the Bay Area is unheard of,” said Renfrew. “It is really unique.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The largely untouched land is habitat for tule elk, deer, quail and other animals, as well as, evergreen and native oak trees, bay laurel, California buckeye, and gray and coulter pine, according to the listing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The property also includes 200 miles of private roads that could be used for hiking and mountain biking, and 14 hunting camps with cabins that could be transformed into backpacking huts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Having partners like the Trust for Public Lands is the kind of thing that makes projects like this work,” Lynch said. “Most new parks must have this kind of collaborative approach.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Latino Outdoor’s González said the ranch is “an opportunity to protect and preserve as much of the ecological diversity of the landscape… and that’s fantastic.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have an opportunity for a transition period,” he said. “As we continue to do traditional — quote unquote — land acquisition deals. It can’t be the same process of 50 years ago. What’s different now is what does this mean in the lens of equity.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nieF-e0OOs&feature=youtu.be\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The world’s largest and most powerful solar telescope has captured the highest-resolution images of the sun’s surface ever taken, say scientists at the National Solar Observatory.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">The images show roiling plasma transporting heat from inside the sun to its surface.\u003cspan class=\"Apple-converted-space\"> \u003c/span>They’re the first to be released from the National Science Foundation’s \u003cspan class=\"s1\">Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope in Hawaii. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Researchers say the new telescope will generate a revolution in the scientific\u003cspan class=\"Apple-converted-space\"> \u003c/span>understanding of the sun.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">The new technology will improve researchers’ understanding of what drives space weather, says Matt Mountain, president of the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, which manages the telescope. It also will help forecasters predict solar storms that can cause power blackouts and other disruptions on Earth, \u003cspan class=\"s2\">93 million miles away\u003c/span>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">“On Earth, we can predict if it is going to rain pretty much anywhere in the world very accurately, and space weather just isn’t there yet,” he said in a statement. “Our predictions lag behind terrestrial weather by 50 years, if not more. What we need is to grasp the underlying physics behind space weather, and this starts at the sun, which is what the Inouye Solar Telescope will study over the next decades.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">In another statement, France Córdova, director of the National Science Foundation, said,“NSF’s Inouye Solar Telescope will be able to map the magnetic fields within the sun’s corona, where solar eruptions occur that can impact life on Earth.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p4\">“The world’s most powerful solar telescope has opened its eyes,” Alexandra Witze \u003ca href=\"https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00224-z\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s3\">wrote\u003c/span>\u003c/a> in Nature.com.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p4\">The telescope captured the images in December. Read more about it in the \u003cspan class=\"s4\">National Solar Observatory’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.nso.edu/press-release/inouye-solar-telescope-first-light/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s3\">release\u003c/span>\u003c/a>. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\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/4nieF-e0OOs'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/4nieF-e0OOs'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>The world’s largest and most powerful solar telescope has captured the highest-resolution images of the sun’s surface ever taken, say scientists at the National Solar Observatory.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">The images show roiling plasma transporting heat from inside the sun to its surface.\u003cspan class=\"Apple-converted-space\"> \u003c/span>They’re the first to be released from the National Science Foundation’s \u003cspan class=\"s1\">Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope in Hawaii. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Researchers say the new telescope will generate a revolution in the scientific\u003cspan class=\"Apple-converted-space\"> \u003c/span>understanding of the sun.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">The new technology will improve researchers’ understanding of what drives space weather, says Matt Mountain, president of the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, which manages the telescope. It also will help forecasters predict solar storms that can cause power blackouts and other disruptions on Earth, \u003cspan class=\"s2\">93 million miles away\u003c/span>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">“On Earth, we can predict if it is going to rain pretty much anywhere in the world very accurately, and space weather just isn’t there yet,” he said in a statement. “Our predictions lag behind terrestrial weather by 50 years, if not more. What we need is to grasp the underlying physics behind space weather, and this starts at the sun, which is what the Inouye Solar Telescope will study over the next decades.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">In another statement, France Córdova, director of the National Science Foundation, said,“NSF’s Inouye Solar Telescope will be able to map the magnetic fields within the sun’s corona, where solar eruptions occur that can impact life on Earth.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p4\">“The world’s most powerful solar telescope has opened its eyes,” Alexandra Witze \u003ca href=\"https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00224-z\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s3\">wrote\u003c/span>\u003c/a> in Nature.com.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p4\">The telescope captured the images in December. Read more about it in the \u003cspan class=\"s4\">National Solar Observatory’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.nso.edu/press-release/inouye-solar-telescope-first-light/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s3\">release\u003c/span>\u003c/a>. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>It’s one of the great migrations on the planet. Each winter, gray whales swim south from the Arctic to Mexico to rear their calves before turning around in spring and heading north again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since the late 1800s, when commercial whaling declined, the giants have made a remarkable comeback, thanks to the Marine Mammal Protection Act and other regulations. Amid the rebound, however, scientists spotted a troubling spate of gray whale deaths last year, the most since 2000. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced it \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11751555/feds-plan-to-investigate-spike-in-gray-whale-deaths-on-west-coast-as-unusual-mortality-event\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">would investigate\u003c/a> the cause.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>KQED spoke with Dave Weller, a NOAA researcher. He’s leading a survey off the coast of Central California to count the southbound whales. This is the first survey since his agency declared the unusual mortality event.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>What’s important about the data you’ll collect this year?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We get a snapshot of the abundance or the total number of gray whales that occur in the Eastern North Pacific. We want to understand how the population is doing for a number of reasons, but one of them is due to the unusual mortality event of last year, 2019, so we want to know whether the population is continuing to increase as it has. Is it stable or is there a decline?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Are you seeing whales now?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The migration off the central portion of California begins around early December. It ramps up in the early part of January and all the way until the end of January. We expect the southbound part of that migration to start to wind down in the next two weeks (by mid-February). Following that, then whales will be turning around in Mexico and starting to make their way back north.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>How do you count them?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Actually, it’s not rocket science by any means. We have a clifftop vantage point in which we have a team of visual observers with binoculars and they’ve got a predefined study area or a field of view in which they’re looking. They begin to track whales in the north. As they’re headed into the field of view, they count them and record them using a software tracking program and once they cross a line that is immediately offshore of where they sit, then those whales have been counted, they’ve crossed the line and they’re on their way to Mexico and those observers then begin the search and the count for whales coming from the north all over again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote] “If people can get out and see gray whales in nature, they get connected to them and they become supporters of conservation measures.” NOAA researcher Dave Weller [/pullquote]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>NOAA has been investigating the unusual mortality event. Do we have a better idea why so many whales died last spring?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>No, we don’t have a feel for that yet. What we have been able to do during this unusual mortality event is actually get teams of stranding responders onto animals that have washed up on the beach and they’re collecting a variety of biological samples, including measurements, assessment of body condition, all kinds of tissues to run bioassays. And so we really don’t know the results of those analyses yet. Sometimes those can take many months or even several years to compile the data and put them together. So we don’t have a good feel for what is happening at this very moment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>How is the overall population doing?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gray whales in the Northern Pacific is one of the great conservation success stories of the Marine Mammal Protection Act and other protections that have been put into place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They were nearly exterminated by commercial whaling, \u003ca href=\"https://www.whalingmuseum.org/learn/whaling-heights\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Yankee whalers\u003c/a> in particular, in the 1800s to the point where, by the late 1800s, they were considered to be commercially extinct. It was no longer viable for whalers to go out looking for them and to try and hunt them. But in that time, protections went into place and the population has rebounded substantially.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We’ve been conducting this survey off of central California since 1967 so we’ve got more than 50 years of data to show the growth of the population from near extinction to 2016 was the last estimate that we have, and the population has grown to 27,000 whales. So in essence, it’s doing better than we have known it to be, in better condition than in terms of higher numbers since at least 1967.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>If people are interested in seeing the migration, do you have any tips for them?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’m all for that. I think if people can get out and see gray whales in nature, they get connected to them and they become supporters of conservation measures. And so a couple of ways to go about that is to identify a local whale watch company that does their operation in a responsible manner and get on board and go out to sea and hopefully they’ll find gray whales passing by. If you’re inclined to be seasick or reluctant to get out on the ocean, another great way to see whales is to get onto a coastal clifftop somewhere. The higher you are, the better. With a pair of binoculars just start to scan the area from the coastline to about midway to the horizon, and this time of year you’re sure to see some whales going by.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>It’s one of the great migrations on the planet. Each winter, gray whales swim south from the Arctic to Mexico to rear their calves before turning around in spring and heading north again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since the late 1800s, when commercial whaling declined, the giants have made a remarkable comeback, thanks to the Marine Mammal Protection Act and other regulations. Amid the rebound, however, scientists spotted a troubling spate of gray whale deaths last year, the most since 2000. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced it \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11751555/feds-plan-to-investigate-spike-in-gray-whale-deaths-on-west-coast-as-unusual-mortality-event\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">would investigate\u003c/a> the cause.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>KQED spoke with Dave Weller, a NOAA researcher. He’s leading a survey off the coast of Central California to count the southbound whales. This is the first survey since his agency declared the unusual mortality event.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>What’s important about the data you’ll collect this year?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We get a snapshot of the abundance or the total number of gray whales that occur in the Eastern North Pacific. We want to understand how the population is doing for a number of reasons, but one of them is due to the unusual mortality event of last year, 2019, so we want to know whether the population is continuing to increase as it has. Is it stable or is there a decline?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Are you seeing whales now?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The migration off the central portion of California begins around early December. It ramps up in the early part of January and all the way until the end of January. We expect the southbound part of that migration to start to wind down in the next two weeks (by mid-February). Following that, then whales will be turning around in Mexico and starting to make their way back north.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>How do you count them?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Actually, it’s not rocket science by any means. We have a clifftop vantage point in which we have a team of visual observers with binoculars and they’ve got a predefined study area or a field of view in which they’re looking. They begin to track whales in the north. As they’re headed into the field of view, they count them and record them using a software tracking program and once they cross a line that is immediately offshore of where they sit, then those whales have been counted, they’ve crossed the line and they’re on their way to Mexico and those observers then begin the search and the count for whales coming from the north all over again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": " “If people can get out and see gray whales in nature, they get connected to them and they become supporters of conservation measures.” NOAA researcher Dave Weller ",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>NOAA has been investigating the unusual mortality event. Do we have a better idea why so many whales died last spring?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>No, we don’t have a feel for that yet. What we have been able to do during this unusual mortality event is actually get teams of stranding responders onto animals that have washed up on the beach and they’re collecting a variety of biological samples, including measurements, assessment of body condition, all kinds of tissues to run bioassays. And so we really don’t know the results of those analyses yet. Sometimes those can take many months or even several years to compile the data and put them together. So we don’t have a good feel for what is happening at this very moment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>How is the overall population doing?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gray whales in the Northern Pacific is one of the great conservation success stories of the Marine Mammal Protection Act and other protections that have been put into place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They were nearly exterminated by commercial whaling, \u003ca href=\"https://www.whalingmuseum.org/learn/whaling-heights\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Yankee whalers\u003c/a> in particular, in the 1800s to the point where, by the late 1800s, they were considered to be commercially extinct. It was no longer viable for whalers to go out looking for them and to try and hunt them. But in that time, protections went into place and the population has rebounded substantially.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We’ve been conducting this survey off of central California since 1967 so we’ve got more than 50 years of data to show the growth of the population from near extinction to 2016 was the last estimate that we have, and the population has grown to 27,000 whales. So in essence, it’s doing better than we have known it to be, in better condition than in terms of higher numbers since at least 1967.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>If people are interested in seeing the migration, do you have any tips for them?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’m all for that. I think if people can get out and see gray whales in nature, they get connected to them and they become supporters of conservation measures. And so a couple of ways to go about that is to identify a local whale watch company that does their operation in a responsible manner and get on board and go out to sea and hopefully they’ll find gray whales passing by. If you’re inclined to be seasick or reluctant to get out on the ocean, another great way to see whales is to get onto a coastal clifftop somewhere. The higher you are, the better. With a pair of binoculars just start to scan the area from the coastline to about midway to the horizon, and this time of year you’re sure to see some whales going by.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "On the Environment, Trump Is Getting Trounced in the Courts. At Least, So Far ...",
"headTitle": "On the Environment, Trump Is Getting Trounced in the Courts. At Least, So Far … | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp class=\"p1\">California has been involved in 54 major legal cases with the Trump administration on a variety of issues, a \u003ca href=\"https://attorneysgeneral.org/multistate-lawsuits-vs-the-federal-government/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">tracker\u003c/span>\u003c/a> developed by a Marquette University political scientist reveals. Of these, the state has sparred with President Trump over climate change and the environment more than on any other issue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California has won injunctions, policy reversals or other favorable rulings in 15 of the 16 major environmental cases that the courts have ruled on, with 15 cases pending.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state initiated many of the lawsuits, and other states have joined onto them. For example, Illinois, Maryland, New Mexico and four other states joined California when it successfully \u003ca href=\"https://oag.ca.gov/system/files/attachments/press-docs/court-ruling-msj.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">challenged\u003c/span>\u003c/a> the EPA for undermining regulations that control greenhouse gas emissions from landfills.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When we take action, it’s not just to file a case or delay an action, it’s to win,” California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said. “We’re fighting and winning.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Among the lawsuits, California sued the administration over the science that the Environmental Protection Agency used to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1923269/california-sues-over-plan-to-scrap-car-emission-standards\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">roll back emission standards\u003c/span>\u003c/a>, its \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1956060/epa-rolls-back-obama-era-rules-protecting-rivers-and-wetlands\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">justification for new water rules\u003c/span>\u003c/a>, and its plan to ease methane regulations. Becerra \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1946927/feds-propose-rolling-back-rules-on-climate-changing-methane-emissions\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">called\u003c/span>\u003c/a> that last proposal “monumentally stupid.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">California has also brought 23 solo challenges against the administration, which Marquette hasn’t included in its tally yet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">In total, the state has been involved in at least 77 legal fights with the Trump administration in just three years. \u003cspan class=\"s2\">That’s plenty more than \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/politics/2019/04/california-sues-trump-more-becerra-lawsuit-tracker-update/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">Texas had with the Obama administration over eight years\u003c/span>\u003c/a>, when rising \u003c/span>partisanship gripped the nation \u003cspan class=\"s2\">and \u003c/span>conservative state attorneys general challenged the federal government in record numbers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Republicans’ win rate against Obama hovered around 60%. \u003cspan class=\"s2\">Democratic attorneys generals’ rate is close to 80% against Trump.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">\u003cb>But … the Conservative Supreme Court …\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">California’s win rate shows that lawyers in its attorney general’s office are bringing strong cases, says legal scholar Buzz Thompson, founding director of the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">“It is also true that the Trump administration has been pushing the boundaries of legitimate environmental deregulation more than any prior administration,” he said. “He has been doing it quickly and in some cases sloppily. As a result, there are a lot more opportunities to revise environmental actions.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">\u003cspan class=\"s3\">Paul Nolette, chair of the political science department at Marquette University, \u003c/span>says losses are more likely if the challenges from California rise to the Supreme Court, which has a majority of strongly conservative judges. At the same time, he added, not all of the cases will reach that level.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Becerra maintains that he’s “optimistic and confident” that California’s environmental challenges will be successful in the Supreme Court because of what he calls his “three allies” — facts, science and the law.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">\u003cspan class=\"s3\">“It should be no different when we get to the Supreme Court with most of these cases,” he said. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Mary Nichols, the top air quality regulator with the California Air Resources Board, said in an \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-01-10/california-clean-air-case-supreme-court-mary-nichols\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">interview\u003c/span>\u003c/a> with the L.A. Times that the environmental case she’s most concerned about is the state’s dispute with the federal government over vehicle emissions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California challenged the Trump administration after it moved to revoke a waiver that granted authority to the state to set its own tailpipe emissions standards for cars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">“Our strategy is to win, but to win in a way that does not precipitate a Supreme Court taking of this case until Mr. Trump is out of office,” Nichols said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pushing Federal Policy From California\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p4\">Nolette said Becerra and other state attorneys general are more involved in national policy now because new federal statutes allow them to enforce environmental policy, consumer protections, Medicaid regulations and other federal law. “Also,” he added, “lawsuits work.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p4\">“Twenty years ago, if you said that somebody like Becerra, who was pretty high up in House leadership, is going to resign his seat and go back to California for a state position that is not governor, people would have said: ‘Why would he do that? That’s a terrible career move,’” Nolette said. “Becerra realized he’s able to get more done and get more attention for his policy agenda as the attorney general of California than he was even in House leadership.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p4\">Becerra worked as a California deputy attorney general in the late 1980s, before voters elected him to statewide office in 1990 and eventually to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1992. He sat on the powerful Ways and Means Committee and chaired the House Democractic Caucus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p5\">\u003cspan class=\"s3\">Becerra replaced Kamala Harris as California attorney general after she was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2016.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A fight over the Trump administration’s travel ban — an executive action that blocked people from six majority-Muslim countries from entering the U.S. — shows that even if a court throws out a legal challenge, the state can first extract policy concessions from the federal government.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The administration’s first travel order sparked \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11291018/protesters-rush-to-airports-as-trump-order-targeting-refugees-take-effect\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">chaos\u003c/span>\u003c/a> at San Francisco International Airport before the courts knocked it down. The Justice Department responded by altering the measure, and the Supreme Court reinstated it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p5\">The Supreme Court decision was one of California’s few legal losses against this administration, but President Trump didn’t celebrate the victory.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p5\">Instead, he \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/871675245043888128?s=20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">complained\u003c/span>\u003c/a> on twitter that his Justice Department “should have stayed with the original Travel Ban, not the watered down, politically correct version they submitted to S.C.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When asked if he’s been more effective in shaping federal policy as California’s top lawyer than he was as a congressman, Becerra said he doesn’t want to “disparage my time in Congress … but it’s true, in a way.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p4\">\u003cspan class=\"s2\">“\u003c/span>This agency can be pretty nimble and move fast as compared to a legislative body, which requires a majority vote and approval by an executive to actually get anything done,” he said. “\u003cspan class=\"s2\">I have found that over these last two-plus years that it’s been a great opportunity to actually implement policy without having a vote.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "California has taken the lead in challenging the Trump administration on its environmental policies. Out of 16 multistate lawsuits that California has been involved in, 15 have resulted in favorable rulings, according to a case tracker out of Marquette University.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp class=\"p1\">California has been involved in 54 major legal cases with the Trump administration on a variety of issues, a \u003ca href=\"https://attorneysgeneral.org/multistate-lawsuits-vs-the-federal-government/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">tracker\u003c/span>\u003c/a> developed by a Marquette University political scientist reveals. Of these, the state has sparred with President Trump over climate change and the environment more than on any other issue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California has won injunctions, policy reversals or other favorable rulings in 15 of the 16 major environmental cases that the courts have ruled on, with 15 cases pending.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state initiated many of the lawsuits, and other states have joined onto them. For example, Illinois, Maryland, New Mexico and four other states joined California when it successfully \u003ca href=\"https://oag.ca.gov/system/files/attachments/press-docs/court-ruling-msj.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">challenged\u003c/span>\u003c/a> the EPA for undermining regulations that control greenhouse gas emissions from landfills.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When we take action, it’s not just to file a case or delay an action, it’s to win,” California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said. “We’re fighting and winning.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Among the lawsuits, California sued the administration over the science that the Environmental Protection Agency used to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1923269/california-sues-over-plan-to-scrap-car-emission-standards\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">roll back emission standards\u003c/span>\u003c/a>, its \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1956060/epa-rolls-back-obama-era-rules-protecting-rivers-and-wetlands\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">justification for new water rules\u003c/span>\u003c/a>, and its plan to ease methane regulations. Becerra \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1946927/feds-propose-rolling-back-rules-on-climate-changing-methane-emissions\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">called\u003c/span>\u003c/a> that last proposal “monumentally stupid.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">California has also brought 23 solo challenges against the administration, which Marquette hasn’t included in its tally yet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">In total, the state has been involved in at least 77 legal fights with the Trump administration in just three years. \u003cspan class=\"s2\">That’s plenty more than \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/politics/2019/04/california-sues-trump-more-becerra-lawsuit-tracker-update/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">Texas had with the Obama administration over eight years\u003c/span>\u003c/a>, when rising \u003c/span>partisanship gripped the nation \u003cspan class=\"s2\">and \u003c/span>conservative state attorneys general challenged the federal government in record numbers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Republicans’ win rate against Obama hovered around 60%. \u003cspan class=\"s2\">Democratic attorneys generals’ rate is close to 80% against Trump.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">\u003cb>But … the Conservative Supreme Court …\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">California’s win rate shows that lawyers in its attorney general’s office are bringing strong cases, says legal scholar Buzz Thompson, founding director of the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">“It is also true that the Trump administration has been pushing the boundaries of legitimate environmental deregulation more than any prior administration,” he said. “He has been doing it quickly and in some cases sloppily. As a result, there are a lot more opportunities to revise environmental actions.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">\u003cspan class=\"s3\">Paul Nolette, chair of the political science department at Marquette University, \u003c/span>says losses are more likely if the challenges from California rise to the Supreme Court, which has a majority of strongly conservative judges. At the same time, he added, not all of the cases will reach that level.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Becerra maintains that he’s “optimistic and confident” that California’s environmental challenges will be successful in the Supreme Court because of what he calls his “three allies” — facts, science and the law.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">\u003cspan class=\"s3\">“It should be no different when we get to the Supreme Court with most of these cases,” he said. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Mary Nichols, the top air quality regulator with the California Air Resources Board, said in an \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-01-10/california-clean-air-case-supreme-court-mary-nichols\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">interview\u003c/span>\u003c/a> with the L.A. Times that the environmental case she’s most concerned about is the state’s dispute with the federal government over vehicle emissions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California challenged the Trump administration after it moved to revoke a waiver that granted authority to the state to set its own tailpipe emissions standards for cars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">“Our strategy is to win, but to win in a way that does not precipitate a Supreme Court taking of this case until Mr. Trump is out of office,” Nichols said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pushing Federal Policy From California\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p4\">Nolette said Becerra and other state attorneys general are more involved in national policy now because new federal statutes allow them to enforce environmental policy, consumer protections, Medicaid regulations and other federal law. “Also,” he added, “lawsuits work.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p4\">“Twenty years ago, if you said that somebody like Becerra, who was pretty high up in House leadership, is going to resign his seat and go back to California for a state position that is not governor, people would have said: ‘Why would he do that? That’s a terrible career move,’” Nolette said. “Becerra realized he’s able to get more done and get more attention for his policy agenda as the attorney general of California than he was even in House leadership.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p4\">Becerra worked as a California deputy attorney general in the late 1980s, before voters elected him to statewide office in 1990 and eventually to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1992. He sat on the powerful Ways and Means Committee and chaired the House Democractic Caucus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p5\">\u003cspan class=\"s3\">Becerra replaced Kamala Harris as California attorney general after she was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2016.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A fight over the Trump administration’s travel ban — an executive action that blocked people from six majority-Muslim countries from entering the U.S. — shows that even if a court throws out a legal challenge, the state can first extract policy concessions from the federal government.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The administration’s first travel order sparked \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11291018/protesters-rush-to-airports-as-trump-order-targeting-refugees-take-effect\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">chaos\u003c/span>\u003c/a> at San Francisco International Airport before the courts knocked it down. The Justice Department responded by altering the measure, and the Supreme Court reinstated it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p5\">The Supreme Court decision was one of California’s few legal losses against this administration, but President Trump didn’t celebrate the victory.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p5\">Instead, he \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/871675245043888128?s=20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">complained\u003c/span>\u003c/a> on twitter that his Justice Department “should have stayed with the original Travel Ban, not the watered down, politically correct version they submitted to S.C.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When asked if he’s been more effective in shaping federal policy as California’s top lawyer than he was as a congressman, Becerra said he doesn’t want to “disparage my time in Congress … but it’s true, in a way.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p4\">\u003cspan class=\"s2\">“\u003c/span>This agency can be pretty nimble and move fast as compared to a legislative body, which requires a majority vote and approval by an executive to actually get anything done,” he said. “\u003cspan class=\"s2\">I have found that over these last two-plus years that it’s been a great opportunity to actually implement policy without having a vote.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/Neq_CwpkPvsGmMG7hVOy7A?domain=insideclimatenews.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">InsideClimate News\u003c/a> is a nonprofit, independent news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. Sign up for the ICN newsletter \u003ca href=\"https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/pD-rCxklQwf1V61yTviMEq?domain=insideclimatenews.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">here\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Can natural gas be part of a climate change solution?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That’s what the American Petroleum Institute argues in a \u003ca href=\"https://energyforprogress.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">new campaign\u003c/a> it has launched ahead of this year’s elections, pushing back against some Democratic candidates who support bans on new development of oil and gas. The campaign echoes a refrain that supporters from both political parties have pushed for years: that gas is a cleaner fuel than coal and can serve as a bridge to a low-carbon future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The industry points to data showing the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions are at their \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/07012020/infographic-united-states-emissions-2019-climate-change-greenhouse-gas-coal-transportation\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">lowest level in decades\u003c/a>, as coal power generation has been replaced by gas, which produces about half the carbon dioxide emissions when burned, and by renewable energy sources like wind and solar.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But experts agree that those official figures understate emissions of methane, the primary component of natural gas and a potent greenhouse gas released in leaks throughout the oil and gas development supply chain. And while there’s uncertainty about how much methane is leaking, several studies show that the benefits of the switch from coal to gas over the last decade are smaller than government data suggests, perhaps substantially smaller.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Many oil and gas companies have pledged to reduce their methane emissions. But beyond the methane leaks, emissions from new petrochemical plants and liquid natural gas export facilities in coming years, spurred by the gas boom, are set to surge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">With costs of renewable energy sources like wind and solar now competitive with natural gas, many experts who have studied the industry’s emissions say that even though the switch from coal to gas has likely provided some climate benefits, marginal as they may be, it’s harder to argue that it can continue doing so in the future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">David Lyon, a scientist with the Environmental Defense Fund, which has collaborated with the oil and gas industry in working on methane, said asking whether gas is better than coal may be the wrong question. “Compared to coal, I think there are a lot of advantages to natural gas,” he said. “But renewables have a lot more advantages.””Compared to coal, I think there are a lot of advantages to natural gas,” he said. “But renewables have a lot more advantages.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Jessika Trancik, an associate professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Institute for Data, Systems and Society, who recently co-authored a study about the coal-to-gas switch, said continuing to rely on natural gas will grow increasingly difficult.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">“It has served as a bridge,” she said. “But we’re kind of nearing the end of the bridge.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>How Far Have Emissions Fallen?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Official EPA data says \u003ca href=\"https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2019-04/documents/us-ghg-inventory-2019-chapter-3-energy.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">methane emissions from the oil and gas industry\u003c/a> were down slightly from 2005 to 2017 and were down significantly from 1990 levels. Over the same period, oil and gas production has grown substantially, and the industry points to this as a sign of its efforts to limit emissions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">“Given the seriousness and risks of climate change, natural gas and oil operators are working harder than ever to capture as much methane as possible during production and transmission,” said Reid Porter, a spokesman for the American Petroleum Institute, in an email.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yet while EPA hasn’t published data for the past two years, other sources suggest methane emissions may be rising. The U.S. Energy Information Administration says the industry’s venting and flaring—venting is the intentional release of methane to the atmosphere, while flaring burns the methane to emit carbon dioxide instead—\u003ca href=\"https://www.eia.gov/dnav/ng/ng_prod_sum_a_EPG0_VGV_mmcf_a.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">jumped by about 66 percent\u003c/a> in 2018. That doesn’t include unintended leaks from equipment. An \u003ca href=\"https://rhg.com/research/preliminary-us-emissions-2019/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">analysis by the Rhodium Group\u003c/a> of more recent data found that the industry’s methane emissions were up last year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Whatever the official numbers say, actual emissions are almost certainly far higher. Figuring out how much methane is leaking is critical for climate accounting: while methane remains in the atmosphere for a much shorter period than carbon dioxide, it traps far more heat while it’s there. Scientists say methane is responsible for about one-quarter of the warming the world has experienced so far. And the oil and gas sector appears to be a growing source of these emissions globally.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1956353 alignright\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/01/gas-oil-methane-problem-529.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"529\" height=\"766\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/01/gas-oil-methane-problem-529.png 529w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/01/gas-oil-methane-problem-529-160x232.png 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 529px) 100vw, 529px\">\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In 2018, \u003ca href=\"https://science.sciencemag.org/content/361/6398/186\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">a study by scientists\u003c/a> with the Environmental Defense Fund and more than a dozen research institutions pulled together measurements taken around the country and estimated that the industry leaked about 2.3 percent of all the gas it produced in 2015. That’s about 60 percent more than EPA reported. Others have suggested the rate could more like 3 percent. Lyon, one of the study’s authors, said the scale of the leaks suggests the benefits of gas are much less than they appear.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">“Probably the average national loss rate is low enough that there are immediate climate benefits of replacing coal with gas,” he said. “But it’s going to be close.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">One of the biggest uncertainties comes from so-called “super-emitters”—a term that refers to uncommon events that release massive volumes of methane. Last year, Dutch scientists published research drawing on satellite data suggesting that one 2018 accident at an Ohio gas well \u003cb>\u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/16/climate/methane-leak-satellite.html\">l\u003c/a>\u003c/b>\u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/16/climate/methane-leak-satellite.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">eaked more methane\u003c/a> than the entire oil and gas industry of Norway does in a year. ExxonMobil, which operated the well through a subsidiary, said internal data had shown the volume of leaked gas was smaller.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The American Petroleum Institute has also \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/03032017/scott-pruitt-environmental-protection-agency-methane-greenhouse-gas-climate-change\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">supported\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/29082019/methane-regulation-oil-gas-storage-pipelines-epa-rollback-trump-wheeler\">steps\u003c/a> by the Trump administration to weaken regulations enacted by the Obama administration to improve reporting and reduce leaks. Porter said other state and federal regulations already control methane emissions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Beyond the U.S., new evidence suggests natural gas use is \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/03122019/fossil-fuel-emissions-2019-natural-gas-bridge-oil-coal-climate-change\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">growing so fast globally\u003c/a> that the rise in carbon dioxide emissions from gas has eclipsed the decline in emissions from coal. And that’s not even counting methane leaks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Looking Ahead\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Even if gas has provided a benefit so far, there’s growing evidence it’s becoming an increasingly bad bet for the future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Precisely how bad depends in part on how methane is compared with carbon dioxide, the primary greenhouse gas. Since methane traps more heat but breaks down much more quickly, scientists use a sliding scale to convert methane emissions into “carbon dioxide equivalents.” If you compare the two gases over the course of a century, methane is roughly 30 times more potent than carbon dioxide. If you look over a 20-year timeframe, methane is more than 80 times stronger. The EPA uses the 100-year conversion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">“What that does is it greatly discounts what methane can do for the decade or three that it’s in the atmosphere,” said Robert Howarth, a professor of ecology at Cornell University, speaking about the EPA’s approach. “I and others have been arguing we should use a shorter time frame, because we’re concerned about reaching tipping points in the climate system over the next one to two to three decades, and methane can drive us over those tipping points.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In December, Trancik and Magdalena Klemun, a postdoctoral researcher at MIT, \u003ca href=\"https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab2577\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">published a study\u003c/a> about whether gas can continue to help drive down greenhouse gas emissions by replacing coal in the electricity mix, given the methane leaks from the supply chain. They found that if you focus on methane’s short-term warming impact, the industry would need to eliminate up to 90 percent of its methane emissions in order to help meet a goal of cutting total greenhouse gas emissions from the power sector by 32 percent below 2005 levels by 2030.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But methane leaks are just part of the story. While a natural gas-fired power plant emits only about half the carbon dioxide as a coal plant, that’s still far from zero. And record-high gas production has sent prices plummeting, driving a boom in industrial activity to use all that cheap gas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A pair of recent studies used data from permits for planned and recently completed projects such as chemical plants and liquid natural gas export facilities to estimate what this boom in industrial development could mean for emissions. One, \u003ca href=\"https://www.environmentalintegrity.org/news/oil-and-gas-industry-expansions-could-add-as-much-greenhouse-gas-pollution-as-50-coal-plants-by-2025/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">by the Environmental Integrity Project\u003c/a>, an advocacy group, found that by 2025, the planned development could contribute a level of emissions equal to that of 50 coal plants. Another, \u003ca href=\"https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab5e6f/pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">published this month\u003c/a> by researchers at the University of Texas at Austin, projected out to 2030 but limited its scope to development in Texas and Louisiana. It found even higher figures. If every proposed project were to move forward, they determined, the industry’s expansion in the region could lead to an additional 541 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per year by 2030, equal to about 8 percent of total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions today.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And methane leaks were only a piece of that. The expansion of petrochemical plants, like those that \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/16012020/plastics-marine-oceans-climate-change-oil-gas-carbon-emissions\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">produce plastics from gas\u003c/a>, account for nearly 40 percent of the additional emissions. New liquified natural gas terminals, which allow companies to export gas overseas, make up nearly 20 percent of the emissions. The study was funded by the Cynthia and George Mitchell Foundation, which was founded by a former energy executive who pioneered using hydraulic fracturing to produce gas from shale.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The idea of natural gas as a bridge fuel to a more renewable future “is a thing that is said,” said Andrew Waxman, the paper’s lead author. “My main response is that the jury is still out.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Another Way\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You only build a bridge as long as it needs to be. And increasingly, many advocates and energy experts are saying that in the transition to low-carbon energy, we’ve already reached the other side.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Wind and solar power are now often cheaper than gas. The costs of large batteries are coming down rapidly, too, which could allow wind and solar power to provide a higher proportion of the grid’s electricity, even though they produce energy intermittently. Already, construction of new renewables \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/campaign-archive/clean-economy-weekly/1827189\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">is outpacing gas\u003c/a> in terms of capacity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If the aim is to get to zero net emissions by midcentury, Trancik said, “then you have to transition away from natural gas.” At this point, she said, any new natural gas power plant or pipeline, which may be expected to continue operating for decades, creates a new financial incentive to continue to use more gas, making it that much harder to phase out fossil fuels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">“I think we should be very hesitant of investing in new infrastructure with a long life,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cem>An earlier version of this article incorrectly characterized the Environmental Defense Fund’s relationship with the oil and gas industry. EDF collaborates with companies in working on the methane problem but does not receive money from the industry.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/Neq_CwpkPvsGmMG7hVOy7A?domain=insideclimatenews.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">InsideClimate News\u003c/a> is a nonprofit, independent news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. Sign up for the ICN newsletter \u003ca href=\"https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/pD-rCxklQwf1V61yTviMEq?domain=insideclimatenews.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">here\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Can natural gas be part of a climate change solution?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That’s what the American Petroleum Institute argues in a \u003ca href=\"https://energyforprogress.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">new campaign\u003c/a> it has launched ahead of this year’s elections, pushing back against some Democratic candidates who support bans on new development of oil and gas. The campaign echoes a refrain that supporters from both political parties have pushed for years: that gas is a cleaner fuel than coal and can serve as a bridge to a low-carbon future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The industry points to data showing the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions are at their \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/07012020/infographic-united-states-emissions-2019-climate-change-greenhouse-gas-coal-transportation\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">lowest level in decades\u003c/a>, as coal power generation has been replaced by gas, which produces about half the carbon dioxide emissions when burned, and by renewable energy sources like wind and solar.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But experts agree that those official figures understate emissions of methane, the primary component of natural gas and a potent greenhouse gas released in leaks throughout the oil and gas development supply chain. And while there’s uncertainty about how much methane is leaking, several studies show that the benefits of the switch from coal to gas over the last decade are smaller than government data suggests, perhaps substantially smaller.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Many oil and gas companies have pledged to reduce their methane emissions. But beyond the methane leaks, emissions from new petrochemical plants and liquid natural gas export facilities in coming years, spurred by the gas boom, are set to surge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">With costs of renewable energy sources like wind and solar now competitive with natural gas, many experts who have studied the industry’s emissions say that even though the switch from coal to gas has likely provided some climate benefits, marginal as they may be, it’s harder to argue that it can continue doing so in the future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">David Lyon, a scientist with the Environmental Defense Fund, which has collaborated with the oil and gas industry in working on methane, said asking whether gas is better than coal may be the wrong question. “Compared to coal, I think there are a lot of advantages to natural gas,” he said. “But renewables have a lot more advantages.””Compared to coal, I think there are a lot of advantages to natural gas,” he said. “But renewables have a lot more advantages.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Jessika Trancik, an associate professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Institute for Data, Systems and Society, who recently co-authored a study about the coal-to-gas switch, said continuing to rely on natural gas will grow increasingly difficult.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">“It has served as a bridge,” she said. “But we’re kind of nearing the end of the bridge.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>How Far Have Emissions Fallen?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Official EPA data says \u003ca href=\"https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2019-04/documents/us-ghg-inventory-2019-chapter-3-energy.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">methane emissions from the oil and gas industry\u003c/a> were down slightly from 2005 to 2017 and were down significantly from 1990 levels. Over the same period, oil and gas production has grown substantially, and the industry points to this as a sign of its efforts to limit emissions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">“Given the seriousness and risks of climate change, natural gas and oil operators are working harder than ever to capture as much methane as possible during production and transmission,” said Reid Porter, a spokesman for the American Petroleum Institute, in an email.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yet while EPA hasn’t published data for the past two years, other sources suggest methane emissions may be rising. The U.S. Energy Information Administration says the industry’s venting and flaring—venting is the intentional release of methane to the atmosphere, while flaring burns the methane to emit carbon dioxide instead—\u003ca href=\"https://www.eia.gov/dnav/ng/ng_prod_sum_a_EPG0_VGV_mmcf_a.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">jumped by about 66 percent\u003c/a> in 2018. That doesn’t include unintended leaks from equipment. An \u003ca href=\"https://rhg.com/research/preliminary-us-emissions-2019/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">analysis by the Rhodium Group\u003c/a> of more recent data found that the industry’s methane emissions were up last year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Whatever the official numbers say, actual emissions are almost certainly far higher. Figuring out how much methane is leaking is critical for climate accounting: while methane remains in the atmosphere for a much shorter period than carbon dioxide, it traps far more heat while it’s there. Scientists say methane is responsible for about one-quarter of the warming the world has experienced so far. And the oil and gas sector appears to be a growing source of these emissions globally.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1956353 alignright\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/01/gas-oil-methane-problem-529.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"529\" height=\"766\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/01/gas-oil-methane-problem-529.png 529w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/01/gas-oil-methane-problem-529-160x232.png 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 529px) 100vw, 529px\">\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In 2018, \u003ca href=\"https://science.sciencemag.org/content/361/6398/186\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">a study by scientists\u003c/a> with the Environmental Defense Fund and more than a dozen research institutions pulled together measurements taken around the country and estimated that the industry leaked about 2.3 percent of all the gas it produced in 2015. That’s about 60 percent more than EPA reported. Others have suggested the rate could more like 3 percent. Lyon, one of the study’s authors, said the scale of the leaks suggests the benefits of gas are much less than they appear.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">“Probably the average national loss rate is low enough that there are immediate climate benefits of replacing coal with gas,” he said. “But it’s going to be close.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">One of the biggest uncertainties comes from so-called “super-emitters”—a term that refers to uncommon events that release massive volumes of methane. Last year, Dutch scientists published research drawing on satellite data suggesting that one 2018 accident at an Ohio gas well \u003cb>\u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/16/climate/methane-leak-satellite.html\">l\u003c/a>\u003c/b>\u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/16/climate/methane-leak-satellite.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">eaked more methane\u003c/a> than the entire oil and gas industry of Norway does in a year. ExxonMobil, which operated the well through a subsidiary, said internal data had shown the volume of leaked gas was smaller.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The American Petroleum Institute has also \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/03032017/scott-pruitt-environmental-protection-agency-methane-greenhouse-gas-climate-change\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">supported\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/29082019/methane-regulation-oil-gas-storage-pipelines-epa-rollback-trump-wheeler\">steps\u003c/a> by the Trump administration to weaken regulations enacted by the Obama administration to improve reporting and reduce leaks. Porter said other state and federal regulations already control methane emissions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Beyond the U.S., new evidence suggests natural gas use is \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/03122019/fossil-fuel-emissions-2019-natural-gas-bridge-oil-coal-climate-change\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">growing so fast globally\u003c/a> that the rise in carbon dioxide emissions from gas has eclipsed the decline in emissions from coal. And that’s not even counting methane leaks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Looking Ahead\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Even if gas has provided a benefit so far, there’s growing evidence it’s becoming an increasingly bad bet for the future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Precisely how bad depends in part on how methane is compared with carbon dioxide, the primary greenhouse gas. Since methane traps more heat but breaks down much more quickly, scientists use a sliding scale to convert methane emissions into “carbon dioxide equivalents.” If you compare the two gases over the course of a century, methane is roughly 30 times more potent than carbon dioxide. If you look over a 20-year timeframe, methane is more than 80 times stronger. The EPA uses the 100-year conversion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">“What that does is it greatly discounts what methane can do for the decade or three that it’s in the atmosphere,” said Robert Howarth, a professor of ecology at Cornell University, speaking about the EPA’s approach. “I and others have been arguing we should use a shorter time frame, because we’re concerned about reaching tipping points in the climate system over the next one to two to three decades, and methane can drive us over those tipping points.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In December, Trancik and Magdalena Klemun, a postdoctoral researcher at MIT, \u003ca href=\"https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab2577\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">published a study\u003c/a> about whether gas can continue to help drive down greenhouse gas emissions by replacing coal in the electricity mix, given the methane leaks from the supply chain. They found that if you focus on methane’s short-term warming impact, the industry would need to eliminate up to 90 percent of its methane emissions in order to help meet a goal of cutting total greenhouse gas emissions from the power sector by 32 percent below 2005 levels by 2030.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But methane leaks are just part of the story. While a natural gas-fired power plant emits only about half the carbon dioxide as a coal plant, that’s still far from zero. And record-high gas production has sent prices plummeting, driving a boom in industrial activity to use all that cheap gas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A pair of recent studies used data from permits for planned and recently completed projects such as chemical plants and liquid natural gas export facilities to estimate what this boom in industrial development could mean for emissions. One, \u003ca href=\"https://www.environmentalintegrity.org/news/oil-and-gas-industry-expansions-could-add-as-much-greenhouse-gas-pollution-as-50-coal-plants-by-2025/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">by the Environmental Integrity Project\u003c/a>, an advocacy group, found that by 2025, the planned development could contribute a level of emissions equal to that of 50 coal plants. Another, \u003ca href=\"https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab5e6f/pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">published this month\u003c/a> by researchers at the University of Texas at Austin, projected out to 2030 but limited its scope to development in Texas and Louisiana. It found even higher figures. If every proposed project were to move forward, they determined, the industry’s expansion in the region could lead to an additional 541 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per year by 2030, equal to about 8 percent of total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions today.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And methane leaks were only a piece of that. The expansion of petrochemical plants, like those that \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/16012020/plastics-marine-oceans-climate-change-oil-gas-carbon-emissions\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">produce plastics from gas\u003c/a>, account for nearly 40 percent of the additional emissions. New liquified natural gas terminals, which allow companies to export gas overseas, make up nearly 20 percent of the emissions. The study was funded by the Cynthia and George Mitchell Foundation, which was founded by a former energy executive who pioneered using hydraulic fracturing to produce gas from shale.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The idea of natural gas as a bridge fuel to a more renewable future “is a thing that is said,” said Andrew Waxman, the paper’s lead author. “My main response is that the jury is still out.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Another Way\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You only build a bridge as long as it needs to be. And increasingly, many advocates and energy experts are saying that in the transition to low-carbon energy, we’ve already reached the other side.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Wind and solar power are now often cheaper than gas. The costs of large batteries are coming down rapidly, too, which could allow wind and solar power to provide a higher proportion of the grid’s electricity, even though they produce energy intermittently. Already, construction of new renewables \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/campaign-archive/clean-economy-weekly/1827189\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">is outpacing gas\u003c/a> in terms of capacity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If the aim is to get to zero net emissions by midcentury, Trancik said, “then you have to transition away from natural gas.” At this point, she said, any new natural gas power plant or pipeline, which may be expected to continue operating for decades, creates a new financial incentive to continue to use more gas, making it that much harder to phase out fossil fuels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">“I think we should be very hesitant of investing in new infrastructure with a long life,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "Video: See the Shape of the New Northern Lights Called 'The Dunes'",
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"content": "\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMgsOyIuebc&feature=emb_logo\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>People in northern climates have long gazed at the wonder that is the aurora borealis: the northern lights.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those celestial streaks of light and color are often seen on clear nights in Finland, where they’re so admired that a Finnish-language Facebook group dedicated to finding and photographing them has more than 11,000 members.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There aurora aficionados gather to discuss subjects like space weather forecasts and the best equipment to capture the northern lights.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Among its members is Minna Palmroth. She’s a physicist and professor at the University of Helsinki, where she leads a research group that studies the space weather that causes auroral emissions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When members of the group posted photos of the auroras they’d seen and wanting to learn more, Palmroth would often reply with the aurora’s type and the scientific explanation for its form. The discussions led Palmroth and two collaborators to publish \u003ca href=\"https://kauppa.intokustannus.fi/kirja/revontulibongarin-opas/\">a field guide to the northern lights\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But even after the book came out, some questions remained unanswered. A few of the citizens’ photos showed a form of aurora that didn’t fit into any of the known categories. It had green, horizontal waves running in parallel. Its undulations reminding some observers of sand formations, and it was christened “the dunes.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The group was discussing the phenomenon in the days after Palmroth’s book was published, when one member pointed out that the mysterious phenomenon was happening at that very moment, outside their windows.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So Palmroth suggested a way that the members might be able to help scientists investigate the phenomenon: by taking photographs of it from different locations around Finland, at the exact same time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Two of the group’s photographers managed to capture pictures of the aurora at the exact same second, from locations 120 kilometers (75 miles) apart. That gave researchers in Palmroth’s group at the University of Helsinki what they needed to measure the aurora and locate it in near-Earth space.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Maxime Grandin is one of the physicists on Palmroth’s team. He was able to analyze the photographs using free software called \u003ca href=\"https://stellarium.org/\">Stellarium\u003c/a> to pinpoint the tips of the dunes’ “fingers” and calculate their azimuth and elevation, based on the location of the star located behind it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“With a single picture, you cannot get any information,” he tells NPR. “You need two pictures to retrieve the location of a given feature in space.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The angular information from the pictures allowed Grandin to triangulate the altitude of each finger. He found that the whole structure was at an altitude of 100 kilometers (about 60 miles). He projected the structures onto a map, locating them in the atmosphere above Sweden.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It turns out the amateur sky watchers had not only identified a new type of aurora – they had helped scientists illuminate a part of the Earth’s atmosphere that isn’t well known.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Grandin says the part of the atmosphere where the dunes are found — the ionosphere — has been studied less than other areas because it’s hard to take measurements in this zone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Satellites cannot fly at such low altitude, balloons cannot reach that high altitude, even radars generally do not really resolve the measurements at those altitudes.” He says the region “is called very often ‘the ignorosphere’ because we basically ignore almost everything about it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the dunes discovery is already shedding new light on the ionosphere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Palmroth, Grandin and other authors of a study published in the journal \u003ca href=\"https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2019AV000133\">AGU Advances\u003c/a> suggest that a possible cause for the dunes could be a mesospheric bore: a rare phenomenon that to their knowledge had never been observed at the auroral zone or investigated using auroral emissions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So the finding is an important one for science — and Grandin says that the role of citizens was crucial.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Without them asking questions, without them even taking the pictures in the first place, we would probably have never heard of the dunes and never investigated them,” he says. “The dunes certainly have been existing for centuries or millennia. But it was about noticing them and bringing them to the attention of scientists and asking questions.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He says citizens are passionate about their observations — which leads to their asking lots of questions. “Sometimes we realize these are extremely good questions, actually, and we don’t know [the answers], so we need to investigate that. And then that’s how you come up with a new topic of a really great study, and it’s a really nice adventure.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He points to the website \u003ca href=\"https://www.taivaanvahti.fi/\">Taivaanvahti\u003c/a>, where amateur photographers can upload their photos, pinpointing where in Finland they observed a given phenomenon and the precise time. The result is a rich database of observed aurora and other phenomena.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He also notes the role that Canadian aurora chasers played in identifying \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2018/08/23/641276633/scientists-puzzled-by-mysterious-lights-in-the-sky-they-call-steve\">the atmospheric phenomenon called STEVE\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Citizens’ getting involved in such scientific efforts can have a larger impact on society, he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are at a time where some people doubt the validity of science,” he says. “And if people feel that they are part of this great adventure that is science, I think they’re more inclined to trust it. And that’s really great.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2020 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=A+New+Form+Of+Northern+Lights+Discovered+In+Finland+%E2%80%93+By+Amateur+Sky+Watchers&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When members of the group posted photos of the auroras they’d seen and wanting to learn more, Palmroth would often reply with the aurora’s type and the scientific explanation for its form. The discussions led Palmroth and two collaborators to publish \u003ca href=\"https://kauppa.intokustannus.fi/kirja/revontulibongarin-opas/\">a field guide to the northern lights\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But even after the book came out, some questions remained unanswered. A few of the citizens’ photos showed a form of aurora that didn’t fit into any of the known categories. It had green, horizontal waves running in parallel. Its undulations reminding some observers of sand formations, and it was christened “the dunes.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The group was discussing the phenomenon in the days after Palmroth’s book was published, when one member pointed out that the mysterious phenomenon was happening at that very moment, outside their windows.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So Palmroth suggested a way that the members might be able to help scientists investigate the phenomenon: by taking photographs of it from different locations around Finland, at the exact same time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Two of the group’s photographers managed to capture pictures of the aurora at the exact same second, from locations 120 kilometers (75 miles) apart. That gave researchers in Palmroth’s group at the University of Helsinki what they needed to measure the aurora and locate it in near-Earth space.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Maxime Grandin is one of the physicists on Palmroth’s team. He was able to analyze the photographs using free software called \u003ca href=\"https://stellarium.org/\">Stellarium\u003c/a> to pinpoint the tips of the dunes’ “fingers” and calculate their azimuth and elevation, based on the location of the star located behind it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“With a single picture, you cannot get any information,” he tells NPR. “You need two pictures to retrieve the location of a given feature in space.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The angular information from the pictures allowed Grandin to triangulate the altitude of each finger. He found that the whole structure was at an altitude of 100 kilometers (about 60 miles). He projected the structures onto a map, locating them in the atmosphere above Sweden.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It turns out the amateur sky watchers had not only identified a new type of aurora – they had helped scientists illuminate a part of the Earth’s atmosphere that isn’t well known.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Grandin says the part of the atmosphere where the dunes are found — the ionosphere — has been studied less than other areas because it’s hard to take measurements in this zone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Satellites cannot fly at such low altitude, balloons cannot reach that high altitude, even radars generally do not really resolve the measurements at those altitudes.” He says the region “is called very often ‘the ignorosphere’ because we basically ignore almost everything about it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the dunes discovery is already shedding new light on the ionosphere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Palmroth, Grandin and other authors of a study published in the journal \u003ca href=\"https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2019AV000133\">AGU Advances\u003c/a> suggest that a possible cause for the dunes could be a mesospheric bore: a rare phenomenon that to their knowledge had never been observed at the auroral zone or investigated using auroral emissions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So the finding is an important one for science — and Grandin says that the role of citizens was crucial.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Without them asking questions, without them even taking the pictures in the first place, we would probably have never heard of the dunes and never investigated them,” he says. “The dunes certainly have been existing for centuries or millennia. But it was about noticing them and bringing them to the attention of scientists and asking questions.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He says citizens are passionate about their observations — which leads to their asking lots of questions. “Sometimes we realize these are extremely good questions, actually, and we don’t know [the answers], so we need to investigate that. And then that’s how you come up with a new topic of a really great study, and it’s a really nice adventure.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He points to the website \u003ca href=\"https://www.taivaanvahti.fi/\">Taivaanvahti\u003c/a>, where amateur photographers can upload their photos, pinpointing where in Finland they observed a given phenomenon and the precise time. The result is a rich database of observed aurora and other phenomena.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He also notes the role that Canadian aurora chasers played in identifying \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2018/08/23/641276633/scientists-puzzled-by-mysterious-lights-in-the-sky-they-call-steve\">the atmospheric phenomenon called STEVE\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Citizens’ getting involved in such scientific efforts can have a larger impact on society, he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are at a time where some people doubt the validity of science,” he says. “And if people feel that they are part of this great adventure that is science, I think they’re more inclined to trust it. And that’s really great.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2020 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=A+New+Form+Of+Northern+Lights+Discovered+In+Finland+%E2%80%93+By+Amateur+Sky+Watchers&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Bay-Curious-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/news/series/baycurious",
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 3
},
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"npr": "https://www.npr.org/podcasts/500557090/bay-curious",
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}
},
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"id": "bbc-world-service",
"title": "BBC World Service",
"info": "The day's top stories from BBC News compiled twice daily in the week, once at weekends.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 9pm-10pm, TUE-FRI 1am-2am",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/BBC-World-Service-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
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"meta": {
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"source": "BBC World Service"
},
"link": "/radio/program/bbc-world-service",
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"rss": "https://podcasts.files.bbci.co.uk/p02nq0gn.rss"
}
},
"californiareport": {
"id": "californiareport",
"title": "The California Report",
"tagline": "California, day by day",
"info": "KQED’s statewide radio news program providing daily coverage of issues, trends and public policy decisions.",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-California-Report-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/californiareport",
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 8
},
"link": "/californiareport",
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}
},
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"id": "californiareportmagazine",
"title": "The California Report Magazine",
"tagline": "Your state, your stories",
"info": "Every week, The California Report Magazine takes you on a road trip for the ears: to visit the places and meet the people who make California unique. The in-depth storytelling podcast from the California Report.",
"airtime": "FRI 4:30pm-5pm, 6:30pm-7pm, 11pm-11:30pm",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/californiareportmagazine",
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"order": 10
},
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM3NjkwNjk1OTAz",
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},
"city-arts": {
"id": "city-arts",
"title": "City Arts & Lectures",
"info": "A one-hour radio program to hear celebrated writers, artists and thinkers address contemporary ideas and values, often discussing the creative process. Please note: tapes or transcripts are not available",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/05/cityartsandlecture-300x300.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.cityarts.net/",
"airtime": "SUN 1pm-2pm, TUE 10pm, WED 1am",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "City Arts & Lectures"
},
"link": "https://www.cityarts.net",
"subscribe": {
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/City-Arts-and-Lectures-p692/",
"rss": "https://www.cityarts.net/feed/"
}
},
"closealltabs": {
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"info": "Close All Tabs breaks down how digital culture shapes our world through thoughtful insights and irreverent humor.",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/closealltabs",
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 1
},
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"id": "code-switch-life-kit",
"title": "Code Switch / Life Kit",
"info": "\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em>, which listeners will hear in the first part of the hour, has fearless and much-needed conversations about race. Hosted by journalists of color, the show tackles the subject of race head-on, exploring how it impacts every part of society — from politics and pop culture to history, sports and more.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em>, which will be in the second part of the hour, guides you through spaces and feelings no one prepares you for — from finances to mental health, from workplace microaggressions to imposter syndrome, from relationships to parenting. The show features experts with real world experience and shares their knowledge. Because everyone needs a little help being human.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510312/codeswitch\">\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/lifekit\">\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />",
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"meta": {
"site": "radio",
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},
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"id": "commonwealth-club",
"title": "Commonwealth Club of California Podcast",
"info": "The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum. As a non-partisan forum, The Club brings to the public airwaves diverse viewpoints on important topics. The Club's weekly radio broadcast - the oldest in the U.S., dating back to 1924 - is carried across the nation on public radio stations and is now podcasting. Our website archive features audio of our recent programs, as well as selected speeches from our long and distinguished history. This podcast feed is usually updated twice a week and is always un-edited.",
"airtime": "THU 10pm, FRI 1am",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Commonwealth-Club-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
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"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "Commonwealth Club of California"
},
"link": "/radio/program/commonwealth-club",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/commonwealth-club-of-california-podcast/id976334034?mt=2",
"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cDovL3d3dy5jb21tb253ZWFsdGhjbHViLm9yZy9hdWRpby9wb2RjYXN0L3dlZWtseS54bWw",
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"id": "forum",
"title": "Forum",
"tagline": "The conversation starts here",
"info": "KQED’s live call-in program discussing local, state, national and international issues, as well as in-depth interviews.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 9am-11am, 10pm-11pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Forum-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED Forum with Mina Kim and Alexis Madrigal",
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"meta": {
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 9
},
"link": "/forum",
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM5NTU3MzgxNjMz",
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"freakonomics-radio": {
"id": "freakonomics-radio",
"title": "Freakonomics Radio",
"info": "Freakonomics Radio is a one-hour award-winning podcast and public-radio project hosted by Stephen Dubner, with co-author Steve Levitt as a regular guest. It is produced in partnership with WNYC.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/05/freakonomicsRadio.png",
"officialWebsiteLink": "http://freakonomics.com/",
"airtime": "SUN 1am-2am, SAT 3pm-4pm",
"meta": {
"site": "radio",
"source": "WNYC"
},
"link": "/radio/program/freakonomics-radio",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/freakonomics-radio/id354668519",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/podcasts/WNYC-Podcasts/Freakonomics-Radio-p272293/",
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},
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"id": "fresh-air",
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"info": "Hosted by Terry Gross, \u003cem>Fresh Air from WHYY\u003c/em> is the Peabody Award-winning weekday magazine of contemporary arts and issues. One of public radio's most popular programs, Fresh Air features intimate conversations with today's biggest luminaries.",
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"link": "/radio/program/fresh-air",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=214089682&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
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"info": "A live production of NPR and WBUR Boston, in collaboration with stations across the country, Here & Now reflects the fluid world of news as it's happening in the middle of the day, with timely, in-depth news, interviews and conversation. Hosted by Robin Young, Jeremy Hobson and Tonya Mosley.",
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"hidden-brain": {
"id": "hidden-brain",
"title": "Hidden Brain",
"info": "Shankar Vedantam uses science and storytelling to reveal the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, shape our choices and direct our relationships.",
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"airtime": "SUN 7pm-8pm",
"meta": {
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"source": "NPR"
},
"link": "/radio/program/hidden-brain",
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},
"how-i-built-this": {
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"title": "How I Built This with Guy Raz",
"info": "Guy Raz dives into the stories behind some of the world's best known companies. How I Built This weaves a narrative journey about innovators, entrepreneurs and idealists—and the movements they built.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/05/howIBuiltThis.png",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510313/how-i-built-this",
"airtime": "SUN 7:30pm-8pm",
"meta": {
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"source": "npr"
},
"link": "/radio/program/how-i-built-this",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/how-i-built-this-with-guy-raz/id1150510297?mt=2",
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},
"hyphenacion": {
"id": "hyphenacion",
"title": "Hyphenación",
"tagline": "Where conversation and cultura meet",
"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Hyphenacion_FinalAssets_PodcastTile.png",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/hyphenacion",
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"order": 15
},
"link": "/podcasts/hyphenacion",
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},
"jerrybrown": {
"id": "jerrybrown",
"title": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown",
"tagline": "Lessons from a lifetime in politics",
"info": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown brings listeners the wisdom of the former Governor, Mayor, and presidential candidate. Scott Shafer interviewed Brown for more than 40 hours, covering the former governor's life and half-century in the political game – and Brown has some lessons he'd like to share. ",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-Political-Mind-of-Jerry-Brown-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/jerrybrown",
"meta": {
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"order": 18
},
"link": "/podcasts/jerrybrown",
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}
},
"latino-usa": {
"id": "latino-usa",
"title": "Latino USA",
"airtime": "MON 1am-2am, SUN 6pm-7pm",
"info": "Latino USA, the radio journal of news and culture, is the only national, English-language radio program produced from a Latino perspective.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/latinoUsa.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "http://latinousa.org/",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "npr"
},
"link": "/radio/program/latino-usa",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=79681317&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510016/podcast.xml"
}
},
"marketplace": {
"id": "marketplace",
"title": "Marketplace",
"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 4pm-4:30pm, MON-WED 6:30pm-7pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Marketplace-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.marketplace.org/",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "American Public Media"
},
"link": "/radio/program/marketplace",
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"rss": "https://feeds.publicradio.org/public_feeds/marketplace-pm/rss/rss"
}
},
"masters-of-scale": {
"id": "masters-of-scale",
"title": "Masters of Scale",
"info": "Masters of Scale is an original podcast in which LinkedIn co-founder and Greylock Partner Reid Hoffman sets out to describe and prove theories that explain how great entrepreneurs take their companies from zero to a gazillion in ingenious fashion.",
"airtime": "Every other Wednesday June 12 through October 16 at 8pm (repeats Thursdays at 2am)",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Masters-of-Scale-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://mastersofscale.com/",
"meta": {
"site": "radio",
"source": "WaitWhat"
},
"link": "/radio/program/masters-of-scale",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "http://mastersofscale.app.link/",
"rss": "https://rss.art19.com/masters-of-scale"
}
},
"mindshift": {
"id": "mindshift",
"title": "MindShift",
"tagline": "A podcast about the future of learning and how we raise our kids",
"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Mindshift-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED MindShift: How We Will Learn",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/mindshift/",
"meta": {
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 12
},
"link": "/podcasts/mindshift",
"subscribe": {
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM1NzY0NjAwNDI5",
"npr": "https://www.npr.org/podcasts/464615685/mind-shift-podcast",
"stitcher": "https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/kqed/stories-teachers-share",
"spotify": "https://open.spotify.com/show/0MxSpNYZKNprFLCl7eEtyx"
}
},
"morning-edition": {
"id": "morning-edition",
"title": "Morning Edition",
"info": "\u003cem>Morning Edition\u003c/em> takes listeners around the country and the world with multi-faceted stories and commentaries every weekday. Hosts Steve Inskeep, David Greene and Rachel Martin bring you the latest breaking news and features to prepare you for the day.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 3am-9am",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Morning-Edition-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/programs/morning-edition/",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "npr"
},
"link": "/radio/program/morning-edition"
},
"onourwatch": {
"id": "onourwatch",
"title": "On Our Watch",
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