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"content": "\u003cp>It’s been a brutal forest fire season in California. But there’s actually a greater threat to California’s trees — the state’s record-setting drought. The lack of water has killed at least 60 million trees in the past four years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scientists are struggling to understand which trees are most vulnerable to drought and how to keep the survivors alive. To that end, they’re sending human climbers and flying drones into the treetops, in a novel biological experiment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>From a distance, the forests of the Sierra Nevada look blotchy, with patches of dead trees standing right next to healthy green ones.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.werc.usgs.gov/person.aspx?personid=138\">Nate Stephenson\u003c/a>, an ecologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, says the drought and high heat combine to do things he hasn’t seen before. “We don’t really understand a lot of things,” he says, “like exactly how a drought kills a tree, or what’s going on underground. Where is the water flowing in areas we can’t see?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Stephenson and his team of ecologists pull into a designated spot in the mountains, near Sequoia National Park, with truckloads of equipment they’ll have to carry in. Their mission: to find out what separates the surviving trees from the dead. Their ultimate destination is down a steep slope — through a blanket of pine needles, rotting tree limbs and a few yellow-jacket nests they are careful not to walk on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The walk is worth it. Looming above is Odin, a green and thriving \u003ca href=\"https://www.nps.gov/seki/learn/nature/bigtrees.htm\">giant sequoia\u003c/a> that’s more than 1,600 years old. The top is 250 feet up. Its base is as wide as a city street. Odin was a sapling when Rome was still an empire and, for some reason, it and many other sequoias are resisting this drought.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In hopes of finding clues to Odin’s survival, \u003ca href=\"https://ib.berkeley.edu/people/directory/detail/5622/\">Cameron Williams\u003c/a>, a researcher with the University of California, Berkeley, is heading up to the top.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I consider myself a forest canopy biologist,” Williams says as he buckles on a climbing harness festooned with clips, carabiners, and an ascender — a kind of a clamp attached to the rope he will use to climb up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He practices his emergency communication system: “Aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh,” he yells, then laughs. Williams can joke because he’s done this so many times. He and his climbing partner, \u003ca href=\"https://nature.berkeley.edu/dawsonlab/people/rikke-reese-naesborg/\">Rikke Naesborg\u003c/a>, also a research scientist at UC Berkeley, have spent hundreds of hours up in this tree. They take meticulous measurements, limb by limb, as though studying a patient etherized on a table. “Every single branch,” says Naesborg.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She takes notes dangling from the rope. “You get used to it,” she says. They check the tree’s growth rate, and how much moisture is in each branch and in the needles and cones.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s very, very laborious,” Williams says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://ib.berkeley.edu/people/faculty/dawsont\">Todd Dawson\u003c/a>, the plant ecologist from UC Berkeley who is in charge of the expedition, says what’s happening to these forests is shocking and abnormal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There are a lot more dead trees in this forest than I’ve ever seen since we’ve been working here — since 2008,” Dawson says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1112768\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1112768\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/trees-duo2.jpg\" alt=\"Left: Dawson's team is experimenting with drones, which capture images of light reflected off the canopy. This light helps scientists get a sense of how stressed the tree is. Right: Rikke Naesborg (left) and Cameron Williams have spent hundred of hours in Odin's branches, taking measurements. \" width=\"800\" height=\"449\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/trees-duo2.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/trees-duo2-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/trees-duo2-768x431.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/trees-duo2-240x135.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/trees-duo2-375x210.jpg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/trees-duo2-520x292.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Left: Dawson’s team is experimenting with drones, which capture images of light reflected off the canopy. This light helps scientists get a sense of how stressed the tree is. Right: Rikke Naesborg (left) and Cameron Williams have spent hundred of hours in Odin’s branches, taking measurements. \u003ccite>(Chris Joyce/NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Dawson is like an epidemiologist — studying disease in a large population. In this case, the patients are trees. There are far too many to be able to climb each one, so while some members of the team take Odin’s measurements, Dawson is going to experiment with another approach. He’ll fly a drone around the giant sequoia — carefully avoiding branches on every side — and take detailed images.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is the first time for all of us,” says drone jockey Tom Jennings, who works for a company called \u003ca href=\"http://www.cloudd8ta.com/author/tomcloudd8ta-com/\">CloudD8TA\u003c/a>. “So we’re taking our time and trying to be very cautious. We’re dealing with the canopy, and that’s a new hazard that I’m not used to.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The drones will fly to the top of the tree and then down around it in a spiral, taking many different sorts of images.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What the team hopes to do is compare what the climbers see with what the drones reveal. If drones can diagnose a tree as well as a climber can, they could cover a whole forest much faster.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The black drone rises from the ground, equipped with sophisticated cameras. It’s about 3-feet square and looks like something Darth Vader would have on his desk.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It records, basically, the reflected light off the canopy,” Dawson explains. “And that reflected light give us the health of the crown itself — water content and other chemicals like chlorophyll content, which is related to photosynthesis and nitrogen content.” These readings reflect how stressed the tree is.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the drone slowly descends from the top of Odin, Williams pulls himself up the tree, on a rope the size of his pinky finger. He narrates his climb into a microphone clipped to his shirt.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So we just reached 160ish feet above the ground,” Williams says. “Looks like a long way down there, and I can hear a drone overhead. Sounds like a giant bee’s nest. Looking around the landscape you can really see a lot of dead trees. Wow. There are hundreds — potentially thousands — of dead trees I can see in this one view.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Already, from these sorts of measurements, Dawson has found that forests at low and mid-elevations — pine trees, fir, cedar — are suffering the most.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1112772\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 400px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1112772\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/trees-3_custom.jpg\" alt=\"A patch of brown, dying trees stands out against the sky and treeline of Sequoia National Park. \" width=\"400\" height=\"299\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/trees-3_custom.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/trees-3_custom-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/trees-3_custom-240x179.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/trees-3_custom-375x280.jpg 375w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A patch of brown, dying trees stands out against the sky and treeline of Sequoia National Park. \u003ccite>(Chris Joyce/NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Drought and heat can choke a tree to death, scientists have found, by causing gas bubbles to form in the trunk, and block the flow of water. The stressed trees also close their stomata — the pores they respire through in the leaves and needles. That conserves moisture, but at a high cost. They can’t take in the carbon dioxide they need to survive. In other cases, beetles detect the weak trees and single them out — like predators taking wounded prey on the Serengeti.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So how are giant sequoias like Odin different? It could be that sequoias tend grow where there’s more groundwater, Dawson says. Or maybe it’s the way they shed needles when stressed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Understanding how different species of trees respond is already helping scientists focus their rescue efforts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For starters, you might thin the forest in places, removing some small trees and underbrush, Stephenson says. Having fewer straws sucking water out of the ground, means more water, more light and more nutrients for the biggest trees in the landscape, he says. And that would help the survivors weather future environmental stresses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s current drought is disaster, but also a huge natural experiment, the forest ecologists say. Any lessons they can glean from studying Odin — going strong despite the drought — could help them save the rest of the forest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2016 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=How+Is+A+1%2C600-Year-Old+Tree+Weathering+California%27s+Drought%3F&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Four years of too little water is killing millions of trees in the Sierra, yet some giant sequoias still thrive. Tree-climbing scientists are exploring sequoias branch by branch to find their secret.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>It’s been a brutal forest fire season in California. But there’s actually a greater threat to California’s trees — the state’s record-setting drought. The lack of water has killed at least 60 million trees in the past four years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scientists are struggling to understand which trees are most vulnerable to drought and how to keep the survivors alive. To that end, they’re sending human climbers and flying drones into the treetops, in a novel biological experiment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>From a distance, the forests of the Sierra Nevada look blotchy, with patches of dead trees standing right next to healthy green ones.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.werc.usgs.gov/person.aspx?personid=138\">Nate Stephenson\u003c/a>, an ecologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, says the drought and high heat combine to do things he hasn’t seen before. “We don’t really understand a lot of things,” he says, “like exactly how a drought kills a tree, or what’s going on underground. Where is the water flowing in areas we can’t see?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Stephenson and his team of ecologists pull into a designated spot in the mountains, near Sequoia National Park, with truckloads of equipment they’ll have to carry in. Their mission: to find out what separates the surviving trees from the dead. Their ultimate destination is down a steep slope — through a blanket of pine needles, rotting tree limbs and a few yellow-jacket nests they are careful not to walk on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The walk is worth it. Looming above is Odin, a green and thriving \u003ca href=\"https://www.nps.gov/seki/learn/nature/bigtrees.htm\">giant sequoia\u003c/a> that’s more than 1,600 years old. The top is 250 feet up. Its base is as wide as a city street. Odin was a sapling when Rome was still an empire and, for some reason, it and many other sequoias are resisting this drought.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In hopes of finding clues to Odin’s survival, \u003ca href=\"https://ib.berkeley.edu/people/directory/detail/5622/\">Cameron Williams\u003c/a>, a researcher with the University of California, Berkeley, is heading up to the top.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I consider myself a forest canopy biologist,” Williams says as he buckles on a climbing harness festooned with clips, carabiners, and an ascender — a kind of a clamp attached to the rope he will use to climb up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He practices his emergency communication system: “Aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh,” he yells, then laughs. Williams can joke because he’s done this so many times. He and his climbing partner, \u003ca href=\"https://nature.berkeley.edu/dawsonlab/people/rikke-reese-naesborg/\">Rikke Naesborg\u003c/a>, also a research scientist at UC Berkeley, have spent hundreds of hours up in this tree. They take meticulous measurements, limb by limb, as though studying a patient etherized on a table. “Every single branch,” says Naesborg.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She takes notes dangling from the rope. “You get used to it,” she says. They check the tree’s growth rate, and how much moisture is in each branch and in the needles and cones.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s very, very laborious,” Williams says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://ib.berkeley.edu/people/faculty/dawsont\">Todd Dawson\u003c/a>, the plant ecologist from UC Berkeley who is in charge of the expedition, says what’s happening to these forests is shocking and abnormal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There are a lot more dead trees in this forest than I’ve ever seen since we’ve been working here — since 2008,” Dawson says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1112768\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1112768\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/trees-duo2.jpg\" alt=\"Left: Dawson's team is experimenting with drones, which capture images of light reflected off the canopy. This light helps scientists get a sense of how stressed the tree is. Right: Rikke Naesborg (left) and Cameron Williams have spent hundred of hours in Odin's branches, taking measurements. \" width=\"800\" height=\"449\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/trees-duo2.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/trees-duo2-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/trees-duo2-768x431.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/trees-duo2-240x135.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/trees-duo2-375x210.jpg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/trees-duo2-520x292.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Left: Dawson’s team is experimenting with drones, which capture images of light reflected off the canopy. This light helps scientists get a sense of how stressed the tree is. Right: Rikke Naesborg (left) and Cameron Williams have spent hundred of hours in Odin’s branches, taking measurements. \u003ccite>(Chris Joyce/NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Dawson is like an epidemiologist — studying disease in a large population. In this case, the patients are trees. There are far too many to be able to climb each one, so while some members of the team take Odin’s measurements, Dawson is going to experiment with another approach. He’ll fly a drone around the giant sequoia — carefully avoiding branches on every side — and take detailed images.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is the first time for all of us,” says drone jockey Tom Jennings, who works for a company called \u003ca href=\"http://www.cloudd8ta.com/author/tomcloudd8ta-com/\">CloudD8TA\u003c/a>. “So we’re taking our time and trying to be very cautious. We’re dealing with the canopy, and that’s a new hazard that I’m not used to.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The drones will fly to the top of the tree and then down around it in a spiral, taking many different sorts of images.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What the team hopes to do is compare what the climbers see with what the drones reveal. If drones can diagnose a tree as well as a climber can, they could cover a whole forest much faster.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The black drone rises from the ground, equipped with sophisticated cameras. It’s about 3-feet square and looks like something Darth Vader would have on his desk.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It records, basically, the reflected light off the canopy,” Dawson explains. “And that reflected light give us the health of the crown itself — water content and other chemicals like chlorophyll content, which is related to photosynthesis and nitrogen content.” These readings reflect how stressed the tree is.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the drone slowly descends from the top of Odin, Williams pulls himself up the tree, on a rope the size of his pinky finger. He narrates his climb into a microphone clipped to his shirt.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So we just reached 160ish feet above the ground,” Williams says. “Looks like a long way down there, and I can hear a drone overhead. Sounds like a giant bee’s nest. Looking around the landscape you can really see a lot of dead trees. Wow. There are hundreds — potentially thousands — of dead trees I can see in this one view.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Already, from these sorts of measurements, Dawson has found that forests at low and mid-elevations — pine trees, fir, cedar — are suffering the most.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1112772\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 400px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1112772\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/trees-3_custom.jpg\" alt=\"A patch of brown, dying trees stands out against the sky and treeline of Sequoia National Park. \" width=\"400\" height=\"299\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/trees-3_custom.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/trees-3_custom-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/trees-3_custom-240x179.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/trees-3_custom-375x280.jpg 375w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A patch of brown, dying trees stands out against the sky and treeline of Sequoia National Park. \u003ccite>(Chris Joyce/NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Drought and heat can choke a tree to death, scientists have found, by causing gas bubbles to form in the trunk, and block the flow of water. The stressed trees also close their stomata — the pores they respire through in the leaves and needles. That conserves moisture, but at a high cost. They can’t take in the carbon dioxide they need to survive. In other cases, beetles detect the weak trees and single them out — like predators taking wounded prey on the Serengeti.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So how are giant sequoias like Odin different? It could be that sequoias tend grow where there’s more groundwater, Dawson says. Or maybe it’s the way they shed needles when stressed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Understanding how different species of trees respond is already helping scientists focus their rescue efforts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For starters, you might thin the forest in places, removing some small trees and underbrush, Stephenson says. Having fewer straws sucking water out of the ground, means more water, more light and more nutrients for the biggest trees in the landscape, he says. And that would help the survivors weather future environmental stresses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s current drought is disaster, but also a huge natural experiment, the forest ecologists say. Any lessons they can glean from studying Odin — going strong despite the drought — could help them save the rest of the forest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2016 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=How+Is+A+1%2C600-Year-Old+Tree+Weathering+California%27s+Drought%3F&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>For the past year many of the world’s most advanced telescopes have been pointed at \u003ca href=\"http://www.space.com/34303-alien-megastructure-star-strange-dimming-mystery.html\">Tabby’s Star\u003c/a> in hopes of finding extraterrestrial life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s been looked at with Hubble, it’s been looked at with Keck, it’s been looked at in the infrared and radio and high energy, and every possible thing you can imagine, including a whole range of SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) experiments,” says Andrew Siemion, director of the Berkeley SETI Research Center. “Nothing has been found.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But a team of scientists aren’t giving up. Siemion is headed to \u003ca href=\"http://greenbankobservatory.org/\">Green Bank Observatory\u003c/a> in rural West Virginia, along with Jason Wright, a UC Berkeley visiting astronomer, and \u003ca href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabetha_S._Boyajian\">Tabetha Boyajian\u003c/a>, the assistant professor of physics and astronomy at Louisiana State University for whom the star is named. There they will aim yet another powerful instrument at the star for eight hours tonight.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The Green Bank Telescope is the largest fully steerable radio telescope on the planet, and it’s the largest, most sensitive telescope that’s capable of looking at Tabby’s Star given its position in the sky,” says Siemion. “The implications of detecting an advanced technology on another world is — in my opinion — the most amazing discovery that could be made in all of human inquiry.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"How does a radio telescope work?\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https://www.youtube.com/embed/3i3pMn4NnKE?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen>\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Intriguing, Aliens or Not\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although the team says detecting alien life is a long shot, they can’t resist the urge to study the star’s unique behavior.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Usually when a planet passes in front of a star it blocks only 1 or 2 percent of a star’s light. Tabby’s Star dims irregularly for days at a time, by as much as 22 percent. Some speculate that a Dyson structure, a massive orbiting array of solar collectors, could be blocking the light. The physicist Freeman Dyson once proposed that an alien civilization would naturally erect such a structure to power itself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>What Are the Chances?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I don’t think it’s very likely – a one-in-a-billion chance or something like that – but nevertheless, we’re going to check it out,” says Dan Werthimer, chief scientist at Berkeley SETI. “But I think that ET, if it’s ever discovered, it might be something like that. It’ll be some bizarre thing that somebody finds by accident — that nobody expected — and then we look more carefully and we say, ‘Hey, that’s a civilization.'”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The researchers will observe Tabby for a total of three nights over the next two months. The goal is to collect one petabyte of data through hundreds of millions of radio channels. The team plans to release the observations to the public after they analyze the data for patterns in the radio emissions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Video by Roxanne Makasdjian and Stephen McNally, UC Berkeley.\u003cbr>\n\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>For the past year many of the world’s most advanced telescopes have been pointed at \u003ca href=\"http://www.space.com/34303-alien-megastructure-star-strange-dimming-mystery.html\">Tabby’s Star\u003c/a> in hopes of finding extraterrestrial life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s been looked at with Hubble, it’s been looked at with Keck, it’s been looked at in the infrared and radio and high energy, and every possible thing you can imagine, including a whole range of SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) experiments,” says Andrew Siemion, director of the Berkeley SETI Research Center. “Nothing has been found.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But a team of scientists aren’t giving up. Siemion is headed to \u003ca href=\"http://greenbankobservatory.org/\">Green Bank Observatory\u003c/a> in rural West Virginia, along with Jason Wright, a UC Berkeley visiting astronomer, and \u003ca href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabetha_S._Boyajian\">Tabetha Boyajian\u003c/a>, the assistant professor of physics and astronomy at Louisiana State University for whom the star is named. There they will aim yet another powerful instrument at the star for eight hours tonight.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The Green Bank Telescope is the largest fully steerable radio telescope on the planet, and it’s the largest, most sensitive telescope that’s capable of looking at Tabby’s Star given its position in the sky,” says Siemion. “The implications of detecting an advanced technology on another world is — in my opinion — the most amazing discovery that could be made in all of human inquiry.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"How does a radio telescope work?\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https://www.youtube.com/embed/3i3pMn4NnKE?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen>\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Intriguing, Aliens or Not\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although the team says detecting alien life is a long shot, they can’t resist the urge to study the star’s unique behavior.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Usually when a planet passes in front of a star it blocks only 1 or 2 percent of a star’s light. Tabby’s Star dims irregularly for days at a time, by as much as 22 percent. Some speculate that a Dyson structure, a massive orbiting array of solar collectors, could be blocking the light. The physicist Freeman Dyson once proposed that an alien civilization would naturally erect such a structure to power itself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>What Are the Chances?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I don’t think it’s very likely – a one-in-a-billion chance or something like that – but nevertheless, we’re going to check it out,” says Dan Werthimer, chief scientist at Berkeley SETI. “But I think that ET, if it’s ever discovered, it might be something like that. It’ll be some bizarre thing that somebody finds by accident — that nobody expected — and then we look more carefully and we say, ‘Hey, that’s a civilization.'”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The researchers will observe Tabby for a total of three nights over the next two months. The goal is to collect one petabyte of data through hundreds of millions of radio channels. The team plans to release the observations to the public after they analyze the data for patterns in the radio emissions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Video by Roxanne Makasdjian and Stephen McNally, UC Berkeley.\u003cbr>\n\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "The Bay Area Science Festival Starts Thursday, Here's What to Attend",
"headTitle": "The Bay Area Science Festival Starts Thursday, Here’s What to Attend | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>Get ready science geeks. For ten days (starting this Thursday) you can participate in more than 50 events during the 6th annual \u003ca href=\"http://www.bayareascience.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Bay Area Science Festival\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=”MMZBDQWFzonDlocylxFJBUvPSE5KnKlu”]The UCSF-sponsored fete brings together Bay Area science institutions that provide activities — from hands-on workshops to concerts — at multiple locations throughout San Francisco, the East Bay, the North Bay and on the Peninsula.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For this year’s festival, we’re bringing science to baseball stadiums and movie theaters — places people naturally go — to showcase that science is an important part of Bay Area culture,” says Bay Area Science Festival director Kishore Hari.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The activities all take place at different times and some sell out quickly so check the \u003ca href=\"http://www.bayareascience.org/schedule/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">full schedule online.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The festival’s free finale event, \u003ca href=\"http://www.bayareascience.org/festival/discovery-days-at-att-park/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Discovery Days\u003c/a>, takes place at AT&T Park on Saturday November 5. From 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. the stadium becomes an outdoor science museum with hands-on demonstrations like Life Science Alley, where you can extract your own DNA or the Robot Zoo where you can test out machines built by students, startups and local research organizations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you don’t live in San Francisco, Discovery Days also happen at the \u003ca href=\"http://www.northbayscience.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Sonoma County Fairgrounds\u003c/a> and the \u003ca href=\"http://www.bayareascience.org/discovery-days/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Cal State East Bay campus\u003c/a> on Saturday, October 29.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For more ideas about what to attend, check out our recommendations:\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Three Must-See Events \u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-1104617\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/Alamo_edited.jpg\" alt=\"Alamo_edited\" width=\"206\" height=\"189\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/Alamo_edited.jpg 480w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/Alamo_edited-160x147.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/Alamo_edited-240x221.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/Alamo_edited-375x345.jpg 375w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 206px) 100vw, 206px\">1. Nerd Nite at the Alamo Draft House\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Two of San Francisco’s favorite things come together when \u003ca href=\"https://sf.nerdnite.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Nerd Nite\u003c/a> — the weekly after-hours science event — comes to the \u003ca href=\"https://drafthouse.com/sf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Alamo Drafthouse\u003c/a>. The Mission movie theater serves food while you watch and during Nerd Nite, the cocktail waitresses are robots! View films about mosquitoes, grizzly bears and wild bulls that are suitable for all ages.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Details:\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nWednesday November 2 at 8 p.m. at the \u003ca href=\"https://drafthouse.com/sf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Alamo Drafthouse\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://www.google.com/maps/place/2550+Mission+St,+San+Francisco,+CA+94110/@37.7562163,-122.4213798,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x808f7e3ec5076afb:0xa4197f45ba380a57!8m2!3d37.7562163!4d-122.4191911\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">2550 Mission St, San Francisco 94110\u003c/a>.\u003cbr>\nCost: $15.\u003cbr>\nMore Information: \u003ca href=\"https://drafthouse.com/sf/show/nerd-nite-science-meets-cinema\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Buy tickets online\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-1104621\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/Mt-Diablo-Hike_edited.jpg\" alt=\"Mt Diablo Hike_edited\" width=\"214\" height=\"203\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/Mt-Diablo-Hike_edited.jpg 505w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/Mt-Diablo-Hike_edited-160x152.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/Mt-Diablo-Hike_edited-240x228.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/Mt-Diablo-Hike_edited-375x356.jpg 375w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 214px) 100vw, 214px\">2. Explore Mt. Diablo\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Did you know Mt. Diablo is home to ancient volcanoes and Mercury mines? Hear more about them during this guided two-hour hike. The 3-mile, relatively flat, excursion offers opportunities to see rare plants, unique geology and Instagram-worthy views. Be sure to wear sunscreen and sturdy shoes, bring water, a snack, and dress in layers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Details:\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nSaturday \u003cspan class=\"tribe-event-date-start\">October 29 from 9 a.m. –\u003c/span> \u003cspan class=\"tribe-event-time\">11 a.m. at \u003ca href=\"https://www.google.com/maps/place/Marsh+Creek+Rd+%26+Morgan+Territory+Rd,+Clayton,+CA+94517/@37.9060507,-121.8763478,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x808ff65c6db30f23:0xdc1494f1b041caf3!8m2!3d37.9060507!4d-121.8741591?hl=en\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cspan class=\"tribe-street-address\">Marsh Creek Rd. and Morgan Territory Rd. \u003c/span>\u003cspan class=\"tribe-locality\">Clayton \u003c/span>\u003cspan class=\"tribe-postal-code\">94517\u003c/span>\u003c/a>.\u003c/span>\u003cbr>\nCost: Free.\u003cbr>\nMore Information: Check out the \u003ca href=\"http://www.bayareascience.org/event/explorer-days-save-mount-diablo/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">online description\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-1104623\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/UC-Bekeley-museum_bones.png\" alt=\"UC Bekeley museum_bones\" width=\"216\" height=\"214\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/UC-Bekeley-museum_bones.png 720w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/UC-Bekeley-museum_bones-160x159.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/UC-Bekeley-museum_bones-240x238.png 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/UC-Bekeley-museum_bones-375x372.png 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/UC-Bekeley-museum_bones-520x516.png 520w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/UC-Bekeley-museum_bones-32x32.png 32w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/UC-Bekeley-museum_bones-50x50.png 50w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/UC-Bekeley-museum_bones-64x64.png 64w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/UC-Bekeley-museum_bones-96x96.png 96w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/UC-Bekeley-museum_bones-128x128.png 128w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/UC-Bekeley-museum_bones-150x150.png 150w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 216px) 100vw, 216px\">3. East Bay Science Cafe\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Travel back in time as curators from UC Berkeley’s six natural history museums share stories about the animal bones they care for. The event is at Albany’s \u003ca href=\"http://www.restaurantvalparaiso.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Restaurant Valparaiso\u003c/a> so you can satisfy your hunger and curiosity at the same time.\u003cbr>\n\u003cstrong>Details:\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nWednesday November 2 from 7 p.m. – 9 p.m. \u003ca href=\"http://www.restaurantvalparaiso.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Restaurant Valparaiso\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.google.com/maps/place/Restaurant+Cafe+Valparaiso/@37.890937,-122.2921788,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x80857e7f53d0eb5d:0xce1ea5d76c5374b5!8m2!3d37.890937!4d-122.2899847\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">1403 Solano Ave Albany 94706\u003c/a>.\u003cbr>\nCost: Free.\u003cbr>\nMore Information: \u003ca href=\"http://www.bayareascience.org/event/east-bay-science-cafe-collection/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Details online\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Get ready science geeks. For ten days (starting this Thursday) you can participate in more than 50 events during the 6th annual \u003ca href=\"http://www.bayareascience.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Bay Area Science Festival\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>The UCSF-sponsored fete brings together Bay Area science institutions that provide activities — from hands-on workshops to concerts — at multiple locations throughout San Francisco, the East Bay, the North Bay and on the Peninsula.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For this year’s festival, we’re bringing science to baseball stadiums and movie theaters — places people naturally go — to showcase that science is an important part of Bay Area culture,” says Bay Area Science Festival director Kishore Hari.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The activities all take place at different times and some sell out quickly so check the \u003ca href=\"http://www.bayareascience.org/schedule/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">full schedule online.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The festival’s free finale event, \u003ca href=\"http://www.bayareascience.org/festival/discovery-days-at-att-park/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Discovery Days\u003c/a>, takes place at AT&T Park on Saturday November 5. From 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. the stadium becomes an outdoor science museum with hands-on demonstrations like Life Science Alley, where you can extract your own DNA or the Robot Zoo where you can test out machines built by students, startups and local research organizations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you don’t live in San Francisco, Discovery Days also happen at the \u003ca href=\"http://www.northbayscience.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Sonoma County Fairgrounds\u003c/a> and the \u003ca href=\"http://www.bayareascience.org/discovery-days/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Cal State East Bay campus\u003c/a> on Saturday, October 29.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For more ideas about what to attend, check out our recommendations:\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Three Must-See Events \u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-1104617\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/Alamo_edited.jpg\" alt=\"Alamo_edited\" width=\"206\" height=\"189\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/Alamo_edited.jpg 480w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/Alamo_edited-160x147.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/Alamo_edited-240x221.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/Alamo_edited-375x345.jpg 375w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 206px) 100vw, 206px\">1. Nerd Nite at the Alamo Draft House\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Two of San Francisco’s favorite things come together when \u003ca href=\"https://sf.nerdnite.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Nerd Nite\u003c/a> — the weekly after-hours science event — comes to the \u003ca href=\"https://drafthouse.com/sf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Alamo Drafthouse\u003c/a>. The Mission movie theater serves food while you watch and during Nerd Nite, the cocktail waitresses are robots! View films about mosquitoes, grizzly bears and wild bulls that are suitable for all ages.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Details:\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nWednesday November 2 at 8 p.m. at the \u003ca href=\"https://drafthouse.com/sf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Alamo Drafthouse\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://www.google.com/maps/place/2550+Mission+St,+San+Francisco,+CA+94110/@37.7562163,-122.4213798,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x808f7e3ec5076afb:0xa4197f45ba380a57!8m2!3d37.7562163!4d-122.4191911\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">2550 Mission St, San Francisco 94110\u003c/a>.\u003cbr>\nCost: $15.\u003cbr>\nMore Information: \u003ca href=\"https://drafthouse.com/sf/show/nerd-nite-science-meets-cinema\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Buy tickets online\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-1104621\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/Mt-Diablo-Hike_edited.jpg\" alt=\"Mt Diablo Hike_edited\" width=\"214\" height=\"203\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/Mt-Diablo-Hike_edited.jpg 505w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/Mt-Diablo-Hike_edited-160x152.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/Mt-Diablo-Hike_edited-240x228.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/Mt-Diablo-Hike_edited-375x356.jpg 375w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 214px) 100vw, 214px\">2. Explore Mt. Diablo\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Did you know Mt. Diablo is home to ancient volcanoes and Mercury mines? Hear more about them during this guided two-hour hike. The 3-mile, relatively flat, excursion offers opportunities to see rare plants, unique geology and Instagram-worthy views. Be sure to wear sunscreen and sturdy shoes, bring water, a snack, and dress in layers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Details:\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nSaturday \u003cspan class=\"tribe-event-date-start\">October 29 from 9 a.m. –\u003c/span> \u003cspan class=\"tribe-event-time\">11 a.m. at \u003ca href=\"https://www.google.com/maps/place/Marsh+Creek+Rd+%26+Morgan+Territory+Rd,+Clayton,+CA+94517/@37.9060507,-121.8763478,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x808ff65c6db30f23:0xdc1494f1b041caf3!8m2!3d37.9060507!4d-121.8741591?hl=en\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cspan class=\"tribe-street-address\">Marsh Creek Rd. and Morgan Territory Rd. \u003c/span>\u003cspan class=\"tribe-locality\">Clayton \u003c/span>\u003cspan class=\"tribe-postal-code\">94517\u003c/span>\u003c/a>.\u003c/span>\u003cbr>\nCost: Free.\u003cbr>\nMore Information: Check out the \u003ca href=\"http://www.bayareascience.org/event/explorer-days-save-mount-diablo/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">online description\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-1104623\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/UC-Bekeley-museum_bones.png\" alt=\"UC Bekeley museum_bones\" width=\"216\" height=\"214\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/UC-Bekeley-museum_bones.png 720w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/UC-Bekeley-museum_bones-160x159.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/UC-Bekeley-museum_bones-240x238.png 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/UC-Bekeley-museum_bones-375x372.png 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/UC-Bekeley-museum_bones-520x516.png 520w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/UC-Bekeley-museum_bones-32x32.png 32w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/UC-Bekeley-museum_bones-50x50.png 50w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/UC-Bekeley-museum_bones-64x64.png 64w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/UC-Bekeley-museum_bones-96x96.png 96w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/UC-Bekeley-museum_bones-128x128.png 128w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/UC-Bekeley-museum_bones-150x150.png 150w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 216px) 100vw, 216px\">3. East Bay Science Cafe\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Travel back in time as curators from UC Berkeley’s six natural history museums share stories about the animal bones they care for. The event is at Albany’s \u003ca href=\"http://www.restaurantvalparaiso.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Restaurant Valparaiso\u003c/a> so you can satisfy your hunger and curiosity at the same time.\u003cbr>\n\u003cstrong>Details:\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nWednesday November 2 from 7 p.m. – 9 p.m. \u003ca href=\"http://www.restaurantvalparaiso.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Restaurant Valparaiso\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.google.com/maps/place/Restaurant+Cafe+Valparaiso/@37.890937,-122.2921788,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x80857e7f53d0eb5d:0xce1ea5d76c5374b5!8m2!3d37.890937!4d-122.2899847\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">1403 Solano Ave Albany 94706\u003c/a>.\u003cbr>\nCost: Free.\u003cbr>\nMore Information: \u003ca href=\"http://www.bayareascience.org/event/east-bay-science-cafe-collection/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Details online\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Reservoirs Provide Tap Water Yet Significantly Contribute to Climate Change",
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"content": "\u003cp>Hydropower dams are generally thought to be a clean source of electricity. By moving water through turbines, dams can generate large amounts of electricity almost continuously and without causing air pollution.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s partly for these reasons that more than 3,700 hydroelectric dams are currently \u003ca href=\"http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00027-014-0377-0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cspan class=\"s2\">proposed or under construction\u003c/span>\u003c/a> worldwide.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But a growing body of science reveals a dark side. It turns out the reservoirs formed by dams are a significant source of greenhouse gases – particularly methane, about 34 times more potent than carbon dioxide. In the last 10 years, dozens of studies have shed light on this problem.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One is a \u003cspan class=\"s2\">\u003ca href=\"http://bioscience.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2016/10/02/biosci.biw117\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">new study\u003c/a>,\u003c/span> published October 5 in the journal Bioscience. Led by researchers at Washington State University in Vancouver, Washington, it synthesizes the results of 100 other studies to reveal that the world’s reservoirs may be producing as much as \u003cspan class=\"caps\">1.3\u003c/span> percent of all greenhouse gases caused by humans. That’s more than all emissions produced by Canada.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">The world’s reservoirs may be producing as much as 1.3 percent of all greenhouse gases caused by humans.\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>The study considers the emissions from 267 large reservoirs around the world – the only reservoirs for which emissions have been measured. It uses these results to estimate emissions from all reservoirs – more than 1 million worldwide.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Prior research deduced that reservoirs in tropical regions are the biggest emitters. But the new study finds that isn’t necessarily true. Other factors are more important, particularly aquatic nutrient activity. This means North American and European reservoirs can also be big emitters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To understand more, Water Deeply recently spoke with lead author Bridget Deemer, a former research associate at Washington State and now a research ecologist with the \u003cspan class=\"caps\">U.S.\u003c/span> Geological Survey in Flagstaff, Ariz.; and her coauthor, John Harrison, associate professor at Washington State’s School of the Environment.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Water Deeply: How significant are these emissions, globally, compared to other sources?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>John Harrison: They compare in magnitude to biomass burning for energy production. The importance of that statement is that human sources of methane to the atmosphere, such as biomass burning to produce energy, are included in the \u003cspan class=\"caps\">U.N.\u003c/span> process for accounting for greenhouse gas emissions by each country. But reservoir emissions currently are not included in that process.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s substantial. Maybe a better comparison, from a methane perspective, is that emissions from reservoirs are comparable to rice cultivation as a source of methane, and both of those are substantial methane sources to the atmosphere.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Water Deeply: What did you learn about geographic effects? Does location matter?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Bridget Deemer: We were pretty surprised about that, because some prior work had suggested low-latitude systems were the biggest emitters, especially systems in the Amazon. But our results didn’t find that to be as important as some other factors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Harrison: It’s not that geography isn’t important. It’s that we didn’t see that latitude was necessarily a good predictor of greenhouse gas emissions. We did see a linkage between how biologically productive reservoirs are and how much methane they emit.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Water Deeply: What do you mean by biologically productive?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Harrison: There’s a lot of organic matter that is being produced and decomposed in systems that are biologically productive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You have the organic matter from the vegetation that’s decomposed once a reservoir is flooded, and those can provide nutrients to support algal growth. In addition, in low-oxygen conditions, nutrients can get liberated from sediments, which can support further algal growth and decomposition, leading to greenhouse gas production. Globally, fertilizer inputs to watersheds are a major source of nutrients.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We also found that \u003ca href=\"http://www.majordifferences.com/2013/05/difference-between-chlorophyll-and.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">chlorophyll A\u003c/a> in a reservoir correlates with emissions. The concentration of chlorophyll A in a reservoir is an indicator of how green a body of water is, and how much algal growth there is. So systems with higher chlorophyll have higher algal concentrations.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Water Deeply: Does reservoir size or depth matter in terms of emission output?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Deemer: We didn’t find size or depth to be significant in our study. Other studies have found depth to be an important predictor of methane emission from lakes and reservoirs (with shallower sites emitting more methane), but we didn’t find that here.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Water Deeply: How does water level effect emissions?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Harrison: It’s something that we’re working to understand better now. By reducing water level, you reduce the pressure on sediments, which keeps bubbles in those sediments. And when you lower water level, bubbles can expand, their buoyancy increases, and they get released directly to the atmosphere.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Water Deeply: What is the state of the science on this? What don’t we know?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Harrison: Well, every reservoir in this study was emitting methane to the atmosphere. That said, we have a lot of work to do to better understand and predict how these systems emit greenhouse gasses to the atmosphere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So we’re reasonably confident they are a substantial source of methane to the atmosphere. But just how big and what kinds of systems are the biggest emitters are both areas for further investigation.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Water Deeply: Given these findings, should we be concerned that there are 3,700 new dams at some stage of development globally?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Harrison: Another insight from this study is that the per-area emission of methane at reservoirs is actually about 25 percent higher than other studies have suggested. That suggests the impact of every additional reservoir is likely to be greater than people had previously thought.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All we’re suggesting with this study regarding those future dams is that this is a piece of the puzzle that needs to be considered when people are thinking about whether and where to construct additional reservoirs.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Water Deeply: So, given your results, can we still consider hydropower to be a “clean and green” source of energy?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Deemer: I think this study shows that dams as a source of energy aren’t without their greenhouse gas costs. Even though it’s a renewable source of energy, people should keep the greenhouse gas side of the picture in mind when making planning and policy decisions regarding dams.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Water Deeply: Are any governments – local or national – currently measuring reservoirs emissions as a routine practice?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Deemer: As of right now, I don’t think so, not that I know of. But I know the\u003cspan class=\"caps\">U.S.\u003c/span> Environmental Protection Agency is exploring the option of including some greenhouse gas measurements in their national assessment of lakes and reservoirs. But they haven’t done that yet.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Water Deeply: Is there even an established process for measuring these emissions?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Deemer: That’s a great question. These emission measurements are actually quite challenging because of how variable emissions can be, depending on time of year, time of day, and sample location within the reservoir you’re looking at. Effective measurement approaches might vary by reservoir operational type as well. There’s a lot still to be done to kind of standardize methods that will give us numbers that we’re comfortable with in terms of the amount of uncertainty.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Water Deeply: You state in the study that you believe your emission estimates can be considered a “low end.” Why is that?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Deemer: We feel our estimate is conservative. It’s for a number of reasons, one of which is that we’re only looking at reservoir surface area, whereas we know there are some emissions associated with effects downstream of the dam, and other alternative pathways, that we just don’t have enough data on to include in the synthesis.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Water Deeply: Is it possible to mitigate these emissions, say, by operating a reservoir differently, changing project design or watershed management?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Harrison: Just knowing that reservoirs emit greenhouse gases gives us an opportunity to mitigate in other areas to compensate for those emissions, which otherwise wouldn’t be counted in national inventories.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then, beyond that, there is this interesting relationship between biological productivity and methane emissions. So if you can prevent organic matter from getting into reservoirs or being produced in reservoirs in the first place, you might be able to both improve water quality and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You can reduce organic matter inputs to reservoirs by managing nutrients better on the landscape, so they don’t get into reservoirs. Or by siting reservoirs upstream of potential sources of the nutrients and organic matter that lead to greenhouse gas production. And there may be other things, too, like how you manage water level could influence greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere, and we’re actively working to better understand those.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"fin\">Deemer: I think it’s a ripe area for future research, because these systems are human managed. So if we can identify some ways to manage at the dam that mitigate emissions, that would be pretty exciting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This article originally appeared on \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://mail.kqed.org/owa/redir.aspx?C=9e4bb0e1a7d74f24ba4684ef2533053d&URL=https%3a%2f%2fwww.newsdeeply.com%2fwater\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Water Deeply\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, and you can find it \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://www.newsdeeply.com/water/community/2016/10/25/study-reservoirs-a-significant-contributor-to-climate-change\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">here\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. For important news about the California drought, you can \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"http://waterdeeply.us5.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=8b78e9a34ff7443ec1e8c62c6&id=2947becb78\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">sign up\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> to the Water Deeply email list.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Hydropower dams are generally thought to be a clean source of electricity. By moving water through turbines, dams can generate large amounts of electricity almost continuously and without causing air pollution.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s partly for these reasons that more than 3,700 hydroelectric dams are currently \u003ca href=\"http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00027-014-0377-0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cspan class=\"s2\">proposed or under construction\u003c/span>\u003c/a> worldwide.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But a growing body of science reveals a dark side. It turns out the reservoirs formed by dams are a significant source of greenhouse gases – particularly methane, about 34 times more potent than carbon dioxide. In the last 10 years, dozens of studies have shed light on this problem.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One is a \u003cspan class=\"s2\">\u003ca href=\"http://bioscience.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2016/10/02/biosci.biw117\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">new study\u003c/a>,\u003c/span> published October 5 in the journal Bioscience. Led by researchers at Washington State University in Vancouver, Washington, it synthesizes the results of 100 other studies to reveal that the world’s reservoirs may be producing as much as \u003cspan class=\"caps\">1.3\u003c/span> percent of all greenhouse gases caused by humans. That’s more than all emissions produced by Canada.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">The world’s reservoirs may be producing as much as 1.3 percent of all greenhouse gases caused by humans.\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>The study considers the emissions from 267 large reservoirs around the world – the only reservoirs for which emissions have been measured. It uses these results to estimate emissions from all reservoirs – more than 1 million worldwide.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Prior research deduced that reservoirs in tropical regions are the biggest emitters. But the new study finds that isn’t necessarily true. Other factors are more important, particularly aquatic nutrient activity. This means North American and European reservoirs can also be big emitters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To understand more, Water Deeply recently spoke with lead author Bridget Deemer, a former research associate at Washington State and now a research ecologist with the \u003cspan class=\"caps\">U.S.\u003c/span> Geological Survey in Flagstaff, Ariz.; and her coauthor, John Harrison, associate professor at Washington State’s School of the Environment.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Water Deeply: How significant are these emissions, globally, compared to other sources?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>John Harrison: They compare in magnitude to biomass burning for energy production. The importance of that statement is that human sources of methane to the atmosphere, such as biomass burning to produce energy, are included in the \u003cspan class=\"caps\">U.N.\u003c/span> process for accounting for greenhouse gas emissions by each country. But reservoir emissions currently are not included in that process.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s substantial. Maybe a better comparison, from a methane perspective, is that emissions from reservoirs are comparable to rice cultivation as a source of methane, and both of those are substantial methane sources to the atmosphere.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Water Deeply: What did you learn about geographic effects? Does location matter?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Bridget Deemer: We were pretty surprised about that, because some prior work had suggested low-latitude systems were the biggest emitters, especially systems in the Amazon. But our results didn’t find that to be as important as some other factors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Harrison: It’s not that geography isn’t important. It’s that we didn’t see that latitude was necessarily a good predictor of greenhouse gas emissions. We did see a linkage between how biologically productive reservoirs are and how much methane they emit.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Water Deeply: What do you mean by biologically productive?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Harrison: There’s a lot of organic matter that is being produced and decomposed in systems that are biologically productive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You have the organic matter from the vegetation that’s decomposed once a reservoir is flooded, and those can provide nutrients to support algal growth. In addition, in low-oxygen conditions, nutrients can get liberated from sediments, which can support further algal growth and decomposition, leading to greenhouse gas production. Globally, fertilizer inputs to watersheds are a major source of nutrients.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We also found that \u003ca href=\"http://www.majordifferences.com/2013/05/difference-between-chlorophyll-and.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">chlorophyll A\u003c/a> in a reservoir correlates with emissions. The concentration of chlorophyll A in a reservoir is an indicator of how green a body of water is, and how much algal growth there is. So systems with higher chlorophyll have higher algal concentrations.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Water Deeply: Does reservoir size or depth matter in terms of emission output?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Deemer: We didn’t find size or depth to be significant in our study. Other studies have found depth to be an important predictor of methane emission from lakes and reservoirs (with shallower sites emitting more methane), but we didn’t find that here.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Water Deeply: How does water level effect emissions?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Harrison: It’s something that we’re working to understand better now. By reducing water level, you reduce the pressure on sediments, which keeps bubbles in those sediments. And when you lower water level, bubbles can expand, their buoyancy increases, and they get released directly to the atmosphere.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Water Deeply: What is the state of the science on this? What don’t we know?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Harrison: Well, every reservoir in this study was emitting methane to the atmosphere. That said, we have a lot of work to do to better understand and predict how these systems emit greenhouse gasses to the atmosphere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So we’re reasonably confident they are a substantial source of methane to the atmosphere. But just how big and what kinds of systems are the biggest emitters are both areas for further investigation.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Water Deeply: Given these findings, should we be concerned that there are 3,700 new dams at some stage of development globally?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Harrison: Another insight from this study is that the per-area emission of methane at reservoirs is actually about 25 percent higher than other studies have suggested. That suggests the impact of every additional reservoir is likely to be greater than people had previously thought.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All we’re suggesting with this study regarding those future dams is that this is a piece of the puzzle that needs to be considered when people are thinking about whether and where to construct additional reservoirs.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Water Deeply: So, given your results, can we still consider hydropower to be a “clean and green” source of energy?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Deemer: I think this study shows that dams as a source of energy aren’t without their greenhouse gas costs. Even though it’s a renewable source of energy, people should keep the greenhouse gas side of the picture in mind when making planning and policy decisions regarding dams.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Water Deeply: Are any governments – local or national – currently measuring reservoirs emissions as a routine practice?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Deemer: As of right now, I don’t think so, not that I know of. But I know the\u003cspan class=\"caps\">U.S.\u003c/span> Environmental Protection Agency is exploring the option of including some greenhouse gas measurements in their national assessment of lakes and reservoirs. But they haven’t done that yet.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Water Deeply: Is there even an established process for measuring these emissions?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Deemer: That’s a great question. These emission measurements are actually quite challenging because of how variable emissions can be, depending on time of year, time of day, and sample location within the reservoir you’re looking at. Effective measurement approaches might vary by reservoir operational type as well. There’s a lot still to be done to kind of standardize methods that will give us numbers that we’re comfortable with in terms of the amount of uncertainty.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Water Deeply: You state in the study that you believe your emission estimates can be considered a “low end.” Why is that?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Deemer: We feel our estimate is conservative. It’s for a number of reasons, one of which is that we’re only looking at reservoir surface area, whereas we know there are some emissions associated with effects downstream of the dam, and other alternative pathways, that we just don’t have enough data on to include in the synthesis.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Water Deeply: Is it possible to mitigate these emissions, say, by operating a reservoir differently, changing project design or watershed management?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Harrison: Just knowing that reservoirs emit greenhouse gases gives us an opportunity to mitigate in other areas to compensate for those emissions, which otherwise wouldn’t be counted in national inventories.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then, beyond that, there is this interesting relationship between biological productivity and methane emissions. So if you can prevent organic matter from getting into reservoirs or being produced in reservoirs in the first place, you might be able to both improve water quality and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You can reduce organic matter inputs to reservoirs by managing nutrients better on the landscape, so they don’t get into reservoirs. Or by siting reservoirs upstream of potential sources of the nutrients and organic matter that lead to greenhouse gas production. And there may be other things, too, like how you manage water level could influence greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere, and we’re actively working to better understand those.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"fin\">Deemer: I think it’s a ripe area for future research, because these systems are human managed. So if we can identify some ways to manage at the dam that mitigate emissions, that would be pretty exciting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This article originally appeared on \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://mail.kqed.org/owa/redir.aspx?C=9e4bb0e1a7d74f24ba4684ef2533053d&URL=https%3a%2f%2fwww.newsdeeply.com%2fwater\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Water Deeply\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, and you can find it \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://www.newsdeeply.com/water/community/2016/10/25/study-reservoirs-a-significant-contributor-to-climate-change\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">here\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. For important news about the California drought, you can \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"http://waterdeeply.us5.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=8b78e9a34ff7443ec1e8c62c6&id=2947becb78\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">sign up\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> to the Water Deeply email list.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "A Delta Tunnels Alternative: Embracing Flooding for Our Water Supply",
"headTitle": "A Delta Tunnels Alternative: Embracing Flooding for Our Water Supply | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>When California officials got serious about building two giant tunnels to divert freshwater out of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, it didn’t take critics long to propose alternatives.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the first was a grassroots scheme that, at first, seemed radical and counterintuitive: Let winter floods retake vast parts of the San Joaquin Valley – the very farmland that needs those Delta water diversions. The floods would recharge depleted groundwater that could then be used to irrigate the farms, preventing the need for Delta water exports.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The idea came in 2007 from Tom Zuckerman, then an attorney for the Central Delta Water Agency, one of many groups still battling the tunnel project. Zuckerman drafted it in the form of a 26-page “white paper” that he presented to the Delta Vision Blue Ribbon Task Force, a panel appointed by then-Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The proposal was later incorporated by Restore the Delta, another group opposing the tunnels, into its broader “\u003ca href=\"http://ewccalifornia.org/reports/ewcwaterplan9-1-2015.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Sustainable Water Plan for California\u003c/a>.” And then it largely faded from view.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I have been kind of a voice in the wilderness on this subject,” said Zuckerman, who is now retired. “I talk about it constantly. And to this day I haven’t had any person or any entity say this is not a feasible approach.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In recent years, other developments have focused fresh attention on California’s serious groundwater problems: The state’s ongoing drought, passage of the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act in 2014 and new scientific research into floodplain restoration and groundwater recharge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As a result, Zuckerman’s idea no longer seems outlandish.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That will not solve everything. There will be no silver bullet,” said David Gutierrez, executive manager of the Sustainable Groundwater Management Program at the California Department of Water Resources. “But it’s a combination of these ideas together that will help us do better than we’ve been doing in the past.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Zuckerman’s proposal centers on reviving the \u003ca href=\"http://www.tularebasinwildlifepartners.org/history.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">historic Tulare Lake\u003c/a>, located in the Southern San Joaquin Valley between Fresno and Bakersfield. Before California was settled, it was the largest natural freshwater lake west of the Mississippi River, fed by snowmelt from numerous streams pouring out of the Southern Sierra Nevada.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1103323\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1103323\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/tulare.jpg\" alt=\"The historic Tulare Lake, as shown on a map from 1873, was once the largest natural freshwater lake west of the Mississippi River. Some advocates believe that allowing periodic floods to revive the lake could ease water shortages in the San Joaquin Valley. D\" width=\"640\" height=\"346\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/tulare.jpg 640w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/tulare-160x87.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/tulare-240x130.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/tulare-375x203.jpg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/tulare-520x281.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The historic Tulare Lake, as shown on a map from 1873, was once the largest natural freshwater lake west of the Mississippi River. Some advocates believe that allowing periodic floods to revive the lake could ease water shortages in the San Joaquin Valley. \u003ccite>(avid Rumsey/Historical Map Collection)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>He proposes to bring the lake back by strategically breaching levees and directing winter snowmelt back into the Tulare Basin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The same process could be used further north in the San Joaquin Valley to recharge other aquifers, Zuckerman said. In this way, over time, the region could become self-reliant for its water needs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You start adding up these opportunities throughout the state, and you could drive the diversions from the Delta down, probably, to a quarter of what they are now,” he says. “Historically, diversions at that level have not proven injurious to the Delta environment.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gutierrez agrees the idea has merit. But he said it will never displace a significant amount of Delta water diversions. That’s because groundwater depletion in the San Joaquin Valley is \u003ca href=\"http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-groundwater-20150318-story.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">so severe\u003c/a> that it will take a very long time to bring back. And flood-producing storms are actually somewhat rare in the San Joaquin Valley – on the order of once every 20 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In other words, he says, the region needs Delta water exports for a long time to come. Which is where the $15 billion tunnel project comes in. Known as \u003ca href=\"https://www.californiawaterfix.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">California WaterFix\u003c/a>, it proposes improved infrastructure to divert Delta water to the San Joaquin Valley and the Los Angeles region.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re not going to recharge the groundwater without some support from northern water,” Gutierrez said. “Both WaterFix and groundwater recharge are two tools that are going to have to be instituted.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In many areas, the flooding Zuckerman proposes would not require any changes in land use, and would not harm existing crops.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2015, a University of California team published a \u003ca href=\"http://ucce.ucdavis.edu/files/repositoryfiles/cav6902p75-157800.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">study\u003c/a> on groundwater recharge potential throughout the state. It was based on an analysis of soil conditions capable of absorbing large amounts of floodwaters, and crop types that could withstand flooding.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The study found there are \u003cspan class=\"caps\">3.6\u003c/span> million acres (\u003cspan class=\"caps\">1.5\u003c/span> million hectares) of suitable soils with “excellent” or “good” potential for groundwater recharge. Crops identified as being tolerant of flooding include wine grapes, pears, prunes, walnuts and some types of almonds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In total, the study concluded these lands could absorb as much as \u003cspan class=\"caps\">1.2\u003c/span>million acre-feet (\u003cspan class=\"caps\">1.4\u003c/span> billion cubic meters) of water per day. Five days of recharge at that rate would exceed a year’s worth of Delta water diversions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The research team subsequently made their findings available in a web-based \u003ca href=\"http://casoilresource.lawr.ucdavis.edu/sagbi/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">mapping tool\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I really think it’s doable – politically and economically – to do this as soon as people catch on that water on the floodplain is not a bad thing for agriculture,” said John Cain, director of conservation for California flood management at the environmental group American Rivers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This stuff is not theoretical,” he said. “People are jumping on board, and there are multiple projects to breach levees and create floodplains.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One such project will reroute levees on Paradise Cut in the south Delta to create a new floodplain for the San Joaquin River near Lathrop. It was recently \u003ca href=\"http://deltaconservancy.ca.gov/active-prop-1-grants/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">awarded\u003c/a> $\u003cspan class=\"caps\">2.1\u003c/span> million in grants by the Delta Conservancy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state Wildlife Conservation Board also recently funded two other floodplain restoration projects along the San Joaquin River near Firebaugh and at Great Valley Grasslands State Park.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another motivation for these projects, Cain says, is flood protection. As old levees age, they become increasingly expensive to maintain, and the demand for state and federal funds to help with these projects increases. So local governments and levee agencies are looking for alternatives – including restoring floodplains to absorb the water instead.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The obligation to restore endangered fish species is another motivation. By refilling aquifers, rivers can remain wet longer through the year because their surface flow is naturally connected to groundwater.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Instead, many California rivers today are considered “losing” streams: Groundwater is so depleted that rivers flowing on the surface are constantly losing huge volumes of water to the aquifer. Yet it’s not enough to refill those aquifers, because groundwater is still getting pumped out too fast.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gutierrez says the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act is poised to change this game. As the law takes effect over the next two decades, many water agencies will be required to find ways to recharge groundwater, especially in the San Joaquin Valley, where most aquifers are known to be in critical condition. He’s certain the solution in many cases will be floodplain restoration.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But it won’t work for all aquifers, because a century of land development has cut off their connection to floodwaters. For aquifers near levees, the solution is simple: Open the levee where water can spill onto the most porous soil. In other cases, new water diversion channels may have to be built. These costs will be passed on to water users, which could make the recharged groundwater very expensive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although Cain is a leading advocate for such projects, he said there probably aren’t enough groundwater recharge opportunities to offset a significant share of Delta water exports.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"fin\">“It’s hard to believe you’re going to meet large fractions of their demand,” he said. “I think it could be really quite good for some basins.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"fin\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This article originally appeared on \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://mail.kqed.org/owa/redir.aspx?C=9e4bb0e1a7d74f24ba4684ef2533053d&URL=https%3a%2f%2fwww.newsdeeply.com%2fwater\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Water Deeply\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, and you can find it \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://www.newsdeeply.com/water/articles/2016/10/24/delta-tunnel-alternative-embracing-flooding-for-water-supply\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">here\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. For important news about the California drought, you can \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"http://waterdeeply.us5.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=8b78e9a34ff7443ec1e8c62c6&id=2947becb78\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">sign up\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> to the Water Deeply email list.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Some critics of California’s Delta water tunnel project say allowing flooding to occur again in the San Joaquin Valley is a better alternative to the costly and controversial water infrastructure plan.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>When California officials got serious about building two giant tunnels to divert freshwater out of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, it didn’t take critics long to propose alternatives.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the first was a grassroots scheme that, at first, seemed radical and counterintuitive: Let winter floods retake vast parts of the San Joaquin Valley – the very farmland that needs those Delta water diversions. The floods would recharge depleted groundwater that could then be used to irrigate the farms, preventing the need for Delta water exports.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The idea came in 2007 from Tom Zuckerman, then an attorney for the Central Delta Water Agency, one of many groups still battling the tunnel project. Zuckerman drafted it in the form of a 26-page “white paper” that he presented to the Delta Vision Blue Ribbon Task Force, a panel appointed by then-Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The proposal was later incorporated by Restore the Delta, another group opposing the tunnels, into its broader “\u003ca href=\"http://ewccalifornia.org/reports/ewcwaterplan9-1-2015.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Sustainable Water Plan for California\u003c/a>.” And then it largely faded from view.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I have been kind of a voice in the wilderness on this subject,” said Zuckerman, who is now retired. “I talk about it constantly. And to this day I haven’t had any person or any entity say this is not a feasible approach.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In recent years, other developments have focused fresh attention on California’s serious groundwater problems: The state’s ongoing drought, passage of the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act in 2014 and new scientific research into floodplain restoration and groundwater recharge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As a result, Zuckerman’s idea no longer seems outlandish.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That will not solve everything. There will be no silver bullet,” said David Gutierrez, executive manager of the Sustainable Groundwater Management Program at the California Department of Water Resources. “But it’s a combination of these ideas together that will help us do better than we’ve been doing in the past.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Zuckerman’s proposal centers on reviving the \u003ca href=\"http://www.tularebasinwildlifepartners.org/history.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">historic Tulare Lake\u003c/a>, located in the Southern San Joaquin Valley between Fresno and Bakersfield. Before California was settled, it was the largest natural freshwater lake west of the Mississippi River, fed by snowmelt from numerous streams pouring out of the Southern Sierra Nevada.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1103323\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1103323\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/tulare.jpg\" alt=\"The historic Tulare Lake, as shown on a map from 1873, was once the largest natural freshwater lake west of the Mississippi River. Some advocates believe that allowing periodic floods to revive the lake could ease water shortages in the San Joaquin Valley. D\" width=\"640\" height=\"346\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/tulare.jpg 640w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/tulare-160x87.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/tulare-240x130.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/tulare-375x203.jpg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/tulare-520x281.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The historic Tulare Lake, as shown on a map from 1873, was once the largest natural freshwater lake west of the Mississippi River. Some advocates believe that allowing periodic floods to revive the lake could ease water shortages in the San Joaquin Valley. \u003ccite>(avid Rumsey/Historical Map Collection)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>He proposes to bring the lake back by strategically breaching levees and directing winter snowmelt back into the Tulare Basin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The same process could be used further north in the San Joaquin Valley to recharge other aquifers, Zuckerman said. In this way, over time, the region could become self-reliant for its water needs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You start adding up these opportunities throughout the state, and you could drive the diversions from the Delta down, probably, to a quarter of what they are now,” he says. “Historically, diversions at that level have not proven injurious to the Delta environment.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gutierrez agrees the idea has merit. But he said it will never displace a significant amount of Delta water diversions. That’s because groundwater depletion in the San Joaquin Valley is \u003ca href=\"http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-groundwater-20150318-story.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">so severe\u003c/a> that it will take a very long time to bring back. And flood-producing storms are actually somewhat rare in the San Joaquin Valley – on the order of once every 20 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In other words, he says, the region needs Delta water exports for a long time to come. Which is where the $15 billion tunnel project comes in. Known as \u003ca href=\"https://www.californiawaterfix.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">California WaterFix\u003c/a>, it proposes improved infrastructure to divert Delta water to the San Joaquin Valley and the Los Angeles region.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re not going to recharge the groundwater without some support from northern water,” Gutierrez said. “Both WaterFix and groundwater recharge are two tools that are going to have to be instituted.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In many areas, the flooding Zuckerman proposes would not require any changes in land use, and would not harm existing crops.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2015, a University of California team published a \u003ca href=\"http://ucce.ucdavis.edu/files/repositoryfiles/cav6902p75-157800.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">study\u003c/a> on groundwater recharge potential throughout the state. It was based on an analysis of soil conditions capable of absorbing large amounts of floodwaters, and crop types that could withstand flooding.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The study found there are \u003cspan class=\"caps\">3.6\u003c/span> million acres (\u003cspan class=\"caps\">1.5\u003c/span> million hectares) of suitable soils with “excellent” or “good” potential for groundwater recharge. Crops identified as being tolerant of flooding include wine grapes, pears, prunes, walnuts and some types of almonds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In total, the study concluded these lands could absorb as much as \u003cspan class=\"caps\">1.2\u003c/span>million acre-feet (\u003cspan class=\"caps\">1.4\u003c/span> billion cubic meters) of water per day. Five days of recharge at that rate would exceed a year’s worth of Delta water diversions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The research team subsequently made their findings available in a web-based \u003ca href=\"http://casoilresource.lawr.ucdavis.edu/sagbi/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">mapping tool\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I really think it’s doable – politically and economically – to do this as soon as people catch on that water on the floodplain is not a bad thing for agriculture,” said John Cain, director of conservation for California flood management at the environmental group American Rivers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This stuff is not theoretical,” he said. “People are jumping on board, and there are multiple projects to breach levees and create floodplains.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One such project will reroute levees on Paradise Cut in the south Delta to create a new floodplain for the San Joaquin River near Lathrop. It was recently \u003ca href=\"http://deltaconservancy.ca.gov/active-prop-1-grants/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">awarded\u003c/a> $\u003cspan class=\"caps\">2.1\u003c/span> million in grants by the Delta Conservancy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state Wildlife Conservation Board also recently funded two other floodplain restoration projects along the San Joaquin River near Firebaugh and at Great Valley Grasslands State Park.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another motivation for these projects, Cain says, is flood protection. As old levees age, they become increasingly expensive to maintain, and the demand for state and federal funds to help with these projects increases. So local governments and levee agencies are looking for alternatives – including restoring floodplains to absorb the water instead.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The obligation to restore endangered fish species is another motivation. By refilling aquifers, rivers can remain wet longer through the year because their surface flow is naturally connected to groundwater.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Instead, many California rivers today are considered “losing” streams: Groundwater is so depleted that rivers flowing on the surface are constantly losing huge volumes of water to the aquifer. Yet it’s not enough to refill those aquifers, because groundwater is still getting pumped out too fast.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gutierrez says the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act is poised to change this game. As the law takes effect over the next two decades, many water agencies will be required to find ways to recharge groundwater, especially in the San Joaquin Valley, where most aquifers are known to be in critical condition. He’s certain the solution in many cases will be floodplain restoration.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But it won’t work for all aquifers, because a century of land development has cut off their connection to floodwaters. For aquifers near levees, the solution is simple: Open the levee where water can spill onto the most porous soil. In other cases, new water diversion channels may have to be built. These costs will be passed on to water users, which could make the recharged groundwater very expensive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although Cain is a leading advocate for such projects, he said there probably aren’t enough groundwater recharge opportunities to offset a significant share of Delta water exports.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"fin\">“It’s hard to believe you’re going to meet large fractions of their demand,” he said. “I think it could be really quite good for some basins.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"fin\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This article originally appeared on \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://mail.kqed.org/owa/redir.aspx?C=9e4bb0e1a7d74f24ba4684ef2533053d&URL=https%3a%2f%2fwww.newsdeeply.com%2fwater\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Water Deeply\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, and you can find it \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://www.newsdeeply.com/water/articles/2016/10/24/delta-tunnel-alternative-embracing-flooding-for-water-supply\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">here\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. For important news about the California drought, you can \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"http://waterdeeply.us5.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=8b78e9a34ff7443ec1e8c62c6&id=2947becb78\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">sign up\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> to the Water Deeply email list.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>This year is proving to be a momentous one for the climate. There have been both wildly depressing and wildly hopeful milestones.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=”qFy5NF7SNPef5Xq9AORU7qwZfEVeEASZ”]On the downside, carbon dioxide passed the symbolic \u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/news/world-passes-400-ppm-threshold-permanently-20738\">400 parts per million threshold permanently\u003c/a> (in our lifetimes anyways), the planet is going to have its \u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/news/september-hottest-month-climate-change-20791\">hottest year on record\u003c/a> for the third year in a row and a rash of extreme weather events shook the world this summer. More positively, the \u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/news/eu-fast-tracks-paris-climate-deal-20750\">Paris Agreement was ratified\u003c/a>, a new treaty was put in place to \u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/news/senate-could-block-landmark-hfc-climate-treaty-20795\">ban a potent greenhouse gas\u003c/a> and renewable energy \u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/news/if-a-power-plant-is-built-in-us-chances-are-its-renewable-20175\">continues to surge\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s an interesting time to be alive, but perhaps an even more interesting time to join the climate science field. We’re at a crucial turning point for both the field and humanity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scientists entering the field now are standing on the shoulders of more than 150 years of climate change research. Our scientific knowledge of climate change has expanded tremendously since John Tyndall’s work on greenhouse gases starting in the 1850s (and even since James Hansen’s 1988 testimony before Congress for that matter).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yet there are still questions to be answered about climate change, in particular pinning down what comes next for the world and the people, plants and animals that call it home. To get a sense of what comes next for field and how it feels to start a career at a time when so much is clearly at stake, Climate Central talked with a handful of early career researchers on how they view the field. Below are some of their answers, lightly edited for clarity and brevity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>How does it feel to start your career working on climate at a time when the impacts of climate change are becoming clearer and clearer?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003ca href=\"http://earth.usc.edu/~sdee/Contact.html\">Sylvia Dee\u003c/a>, postdoctoral researcher at Brown studying climate over the past millennium:\u003c/strong> It’s an exciting time to be in this field for many reasons, not least of which is a relatively new interest from the community for public lectures and teaching. We have more and more students taking classes in atmospheric and ocean science, and many of us are increasingly being asked to give outreach lectures to organizations (in my case) like the Girl Scouts of America or the United Methodist Women. Public interest is an incredibly valuable tool for improving climate education.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>From a research perspective, I think many of us early career climate scientists feel the same: there are so many questions to answer, and so little time! Whether we like it or not, humans are performing an active experiment on the earth through the continued emission of greenhouse gases. I think (and hope) we are poised to make some major breakthroughs in our understanding of complex climate system feedbacks that could shape our high-greenhouse-gas future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003ca href=\"http://sites.uci.edu/zlabe/\">Zack Labe\u003c/a>, PhD student at University of California, Irvine studying Arctic climate change:\u003c/strong> There is a mixture of emotions. On one hand, OK, we are doing something right. The climate models are not clueless. On the other hand, human carbon emissions are amplifying societal and environmental impacts signaling the call to act. Nevertheless, it is an exciting time to enter this field as technological advancements are rapidly changing our understanding of both natural and anthropogenic climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003ca href=\"http://www.giss.nasa.gov/staff/kmarvel.html\">Kate Marvel\u003c/a>, associate research scientist at NASA studying climate modeling:\u003c/strong> On a scientific level, there’s a certain satisfaction in seeing physical theory reflected in the real world. It’s amazing that we understand and can make predictions about the way the world works. And as a scientist working to understand the specifics of what climate change actually looks like, it’s gratifying to see wide interest in the field. But on a personal level, I find it deeply unsettling. I worry about the mess we’re leaving our kids, and it upsets me that the people most affected by climate change are the ones least responsible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003ca href=\"http://sarahmyhre.com/\">Sarah Myhre\u003c/a>, postdoc at the University of Washington studying abrupt ocean changes:\u003c/strong> Kind of hard. Weird. Complex. Lots of cognitive dissonance. Some existential crisis. I’m not going to lie, it’s a gritty place when you are staring down at data and probabilities for how your favorite places in the world will change during your kid’s life span. Honestly, being a parent has also really changed my approach to my career. Having a kid and seeing how much my parents love my kid has made me feel so connected to people in the future. It’s a hard question because I love my career. I am supremely privileged to get to do the work that I do. But there is a big part of shouldering the knowledge of this global crisis that has been challenging for me. It’s caused me some grief and it’s really forced me to grow up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Why did you get into climate research in the first place?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Zack Labe:\u003c/strong> I was your pretty stereotypical weather nerd growing up, staying up way too late to watch a Northeast snowstorm, running outside in a thunderstorm (do not do this) and so on. I expected to take an operational weather forecasting career path. About midway through undergrad, I contacted a new professor in the department to try something different: research. During the rest of my time in undergrad, I spent a lot of time looking at climate models and reading the literature on this very dynamic field. The problems and impacts of climate change seemed outlined right there, yet, the term ”climate change” is almost taboo in some social settings. This missing link really seemed to strike an interest with me in continuing research while still having an interest in weather and the atmosphere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kate Marvel:\u003c/strong> I studied theoretical physics because I wanted to know how the universe worked. But during my PhD I realized that my favorite place in the cosmos is Earth, and that there was still lots to learn about it. I don’t regret my physics training — it taught me great problem-solving skills — but I prefer working on more applied problems.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sarah Myhre:\u003c/strong> To go scuba diving. Actually, no. That’s not true. I got into research because I wanted to work underwater. I spent about 1,000 hours working as a seafloor ecologist with NOAA out of Hawaii, diving in some of the most remote marine ecosystems in the world. Then I went on a marine geology research cruise when I was just starting graduate school. That cruise changed my life, because I got to work with some of the most brilliant paleoceanographers. That cruise showed me that I could use all of my experiences in the modern ocean to understand ocean environments in the past.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003ca href=\"http://www.weatherwest.com/about\">Daniel Swain\u003c/a>, postdoc at UCLA studying extreme weather events:\u003c/strong> I’ve always been fascinated by the atmosphere. I grew up watching clouds and reading weather maps. As an undergraduate studying atmospheric science, it became apparent to me that despite our solid understanding regarding the “big picture” surrounding global warming, there was still quite a bit of uncertainty surrounding the details. How is regional climate changing, and how does global warming affect extreme weather? It seemed to me that the answers to these kinds of questions are critical in making practical adaptations in a warming world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>How do you hope your research can help the field (or world for that matter) understand the challenges climate change poses and how to address them?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Zack Labe:\u003c/strong> We know that changes in the Arctic are one of the key indicators of climate change, but the effects on the rest of the Earth system remain very uncertain. For instance, it is not only the fact that sea ice is melting, but the rate of change at which it is occurring. What does this mean for the balance of the rest of the climate system? I hope my research can better evaluate these questions and further communicate the issues to a broader audience.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sarah Myhre:\u003c/strong> I hope that the work I do is useful and meaningful, both for my scientific peers and for society. I am working to make a contribution to the field of abrupt climate change, by looking at marine sediment records of past events of climate warming. As they say, “the past is the key to the future,” so if we can come to a more direct understanding of how oceans changed during past events of warming, we are equipping ourselves with the tools to interpret the changes we see in the modern world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Daniel Swain:\u003c/strong> Given my longstanding interest weather and short-timescale atmospheric phenomena, I approach climate research from a slightly different perspective than some scientists. I think it’s helpful to view climate as “weather in aggregate,” and since it’s ultimately extreme events like storms, floods, and droughts that cause the most harm in a societal context, it makes sense to focus on how global warming is affecting the character and causes of these sorts of high-impact conditions. Ideally, this work will yield scientific insights into underlying atmospheric processes while simultaneously informing real world decision-making.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Where do you see the field of climate science going in the next 10 years?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sylvia Dee:\u003c/strong> The earth is, for lack of a better term, very large. We have a ton of data and we have massive super computers constantly running coupled model simulations that can take months and yield terabytes of output. In the next 10 years, we’re going to have to learn how to effectively use this massive body of data we have access to and filter out the robust signals from the noise.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kate Marvel:\u003c/strong> I’m actually really excited for the future of the field. My peers are amazing — there is so much talent among early-career scientists. I think we’ll have a better understanding of the climate feedbacks that can speed up or slow down warming, particularly what clouds will do. We’re getting better at quantifying and communicating uncertainty. I also think we’ll get better at understanding and projecting regional climate and talking to more people — not just policymakers, but ordinary people who are going to be affected by climate change. I do think we need to get even more serious about diversity. If scientists don’t reflect society, how can we be sure we’re not missing important questions? We waste an awful lot of potential brilliance right now, and I’m optimistic that we’ll take steps to stop that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Daniel Swain: \u003c/strong>There are two avenues that seem especially promising to me at the moment. The first is the ever-increasing capacity and sophistication of global climate models. I’m particularly intrigued by the prospect of large “ensembles” of high-resolution climate simulations, which may help us constrain the still relatively large uncertainties regarding regional climate change and will hopefully also yield better information regarding changes in extreme events in the climate system.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The second is the rapidly spreading recognition that climate science communication is a critically important endeavor. Increasingly many institutions are recognizing that the obligations of the modern scientist extend beyond the generation of novel research, and that there is a real need for practicing scientists to engage with the wider world. Actively connecting with decision makers, journalists, and the public will be key in building a resilient society in the face of rapid environmental change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Are you hopeful or does climate change get you down?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sylvia Dee:\u003c/strong> I would say that I’m cautiously hopeful. I find the rate at which policy accepts and moves on scientific consensus to be frustrating, but I think I’m not unique in my attempts to be proactive instead of throw in the towel, so to speak. I certainly never feel defeated or upset about it the way I do about a few other political issues.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kate Marvel: \u003c/strong>Whisky. (\u003cem>Editor’s note:\u003c/em> Marvel received a different version of this question framed as how to stay positive in the face of seemingly continual bad climate news. Her response was too good not to include.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sarah Myhre:\u003c/strong> The answer to that question is yes. It is such a huge problem and I feel the gnawing pain of it in my day-to-day life. I definitely carry my work around with me wherever I go. But I also have to feed my heart with other things. I am living my life while doing this hard work, and I think every moment that I despair at these data must be compensated by a moment where I experience joy and connection. The world is still beautiful and I’m lucky to be here, that’s what I tell myself. I also remember that I signed up for this and that everyone needs to serve someone, and this is what my service looks like.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>How concerned are you about the political polarization of climate change and possible solutions?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sylvia Dee: \u003c/strong>I’m mostly concerned about the problem from an education perspective. Earth science puts educators in a unique position: we have suddenly been tasked with teaching a politically charged topic, in a field highly underrepresented in K-12 education. Students often enter our courses with erroneous preconceived notions about earth science. I have a strong desire to address the widespread confusion about climate change, and the best way I know how is to teach and to do more outreach. The recent media circus surrounding global warming has highlighted an urgent need for policymakers and the public to understand very basic principles of geoscience, and my teaching experience has alerted me to profound knowledge gaps at the undergraduate level. High school science curricula focus on biology, physics, and chemistry, but a basic understanding of geoscience is also crucial for a society accelerating into a future with a human-altered atmosphere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Zack Labe:\u003c/strong> Science requires discussion. It requires skepticism. And it requires revisions. But we are in an era where political drivers are leading to poor discourse and public communication concerning the state of our understanding of climate change. We need a common voice and one that emphasizes our certainties and uncertainties. How do we go about doing this? I think this is a critical question looking ahead in removing the political and agenda-driven divide. Most importantly, let’s keep science . . . science.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sarah Myhre:\u003c/strong> I am honestly sickened by it. We need basic science in our public lives and in our leadership. This is the 21st century. I have a computer in my back pocket. We have an instrument driving around Mars. We landed another instrument on a damn comet. Science works and it shouldn’t be on the table to debate any longer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Daniel Swain:\u003c/strong> It is very frustrating to see just how decoupled the national political conversation surrounding climate change has become from the physical reality of the world we live in. Recognition of basic factual information shouldn’t be a partisan issue and yet one of the two major political parties in the U.S. currently rejects the overwhelming factual evidence demonstrating that humans are largely responsible for global warming. But it doesn’t have to be this way. It’s possible to envision a future where scientific consensus forms the basis of a political common ground, in which there there are legitimate ideological disagreements regarding what should be done about climate change but a shared reality regarding its existence and causes. I’m hopeful we can get there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Climate Central\u003c/span>\u003c/a> \u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">is an independent organization that researches and reports on climate change.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>This year is proving to be a momentous one for the climate. There have been both wildly depressing and wildly hopeful milestones.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>On the downside, carbon dioxide passed the symbolic \u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/news/world-passes-400-ppm-threshold-permanently-20738\">400 parts per million threshold permanently\u003c/a> (in our lifetimes anyways), the planet is going to have its \u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/news/september-hottest-month-climate-change-20791\">hottest year on record\u003c/a> for the third year in a row and a rash of extreme weather events shook the world this summer. More positively, the \u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/news/eu-fast-tracks-paris-climate-deal-20750\">Paris Agreement was ratified\u003c/a>, a new treaty was put in place to \u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/news/senate-could-block-landmark-hfc-climate-treaty-20795\">ban a potent greenhouse gas\u003c/a> and renewable energy \u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/news/if-a-power-plant-is-built-in-us-chances-are-its-renewable-20175\">continues to surge\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s an interesting time to be alive, but perhaps an even more interesting time to join the climate science field. We’re at a crucial turning point for both the field and humanity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scientists entering the field now are standing on the shoulders of more than 150 years of climate change research. Our scientific knowledge of climate change has expanded tremendously since John Tyndall’s work on greenhouse gases starting in the 1850s (and even since James Hansen’s 1988 testimony before Congress for that matter).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yet there are still questions to be answered about climate change, in particular pinning down what comes next for the world and the people, plants and animals that call it home. To get a sense of what comes next for field and how it feels to start a career at a time when so much is clearly at stake, Climate Central talked with a handful of early career researchers on how they view the field. Below are some of their answers, lightly edited for clarity and brevity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>How does it feel to start your career working on climate at a time when the impacts of climate change are becoming clearer and clearer?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003ca href=\"http://earth.usc.edu/~sdee/Contact.html\">Sylvia Dee\u003c/a>, postdoctoral researcher at Brown studying climate over the past millennium:\u003c/strong> It’s an exciting time to be in this field for many reasons, not least of which is a relatively new interest from the community for public lectures and teaching. We have more and more students taking classes in atmospheric and ocean science, and many of us are increasingly being asked to give outreach lectures to organizations (in my case) like the Girl Scouts of America or the United Methodist Women. Public interest is an incredibly valuable tool for improving climate education.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>From a research perspective, I think many of us early career climate scientists feel the same: there are so many questions to answer, and so little time! Whether we like it or not, humans are performing an active experiment on the earth through the continued emission of greenhouse gases. I think (and hope) we are poised to make some major breakthroughs in our understanding of complex climate system feedbacks that could shape our high-greenhouse-gas future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003ca href=\"http://sites.uci.edu/zlabe/\">Zack Labe\u003c/a>, PhD student at University of California, Irvine studying Arctic climate change:\u003c/strong> There is a mixture of emotions. On one hand, OK, we are doing something right. The climate models are not clueless. On the other hand, human carbon emissions are amplifying societal and environmental impacts signaling the call to act. Nevertheless, it is an exciting time to enter this field as technological advancements are rapidly changing our understanding of both natural and anthropogenic climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003ca href=\"http://www.giss.nasa.gov/staff/kmarvel.html\">Kate Marvel\u003c/a>, associate research scientist at NASA studying climate modeling:\u003c/strong> On a scientific level, there’s a certain satisfaction in seeing physical theory reflected in the real world. It’s amazing that we understand and can make predictions about the way the world works. And as a scientist working to understand the specifics of what climate change actually looks like, it’s gratifying to see wide interest in the field. But on a personal level, I find it deeply unsettling. I worry about the mess we’re leaving our kids, and it upsets me that the people most affected by climate change are the ones least responsible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003ca href=\"http://sarahmyhre.com/\">Sarah Myhre\u003c/a>, postdoc at the University of Washington studying abrupt ocean changes:\u003c/strong> Kind of hard. Weird. Complex. Lots of cognitive dissonance. Some existential crisis. I’m not going to lie, it’s a gritty place when you are staring down at data and probabilities for how your favorite places in the world will change during your kid’s life span. Honestly, being a parent has also really changed my approach to my career. Having a kid and seeing how much my parents love my kid has made me feel so connected to people in the future. It’s a hard question because I love my career. I am supremely privileged to get to do the work that I do. But there is a big part of shouldering the knowledge of this global crisis that has been challenging for me. It’s caused me some grief and it’s really forced me to grow up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Why did you get into climate research in the first place?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Zack Labe:\u003c/strong> I was your pretty stereotypical weather nerd growing up, staying up way too late to watch a Northeast snowstorm, running outside in a thunderstorm (do not do this) and so on. I expected to take an operational weather forecasting career path. About midway through undergrad, I contacted a new professor in the department to try something different: research. During the rest of my time in undergrad, I spent a lot of time looking at climate models and reading the literature on this very dynamic field. The problems and impacts of climate change seemed outlined right there, yet, the term ”climate change” is almost taboo in some social settings. This missing link really seemed to strike an interest with me in continuing research while still having an interest in weather and the atmosphere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kate Marvel:\u003c/strong> I studied theoretical physics because I wanted to know how the universe worked. But during my PhD I realized that my favorite place in the cosmos is Earth, and that there was still lots to learn about it. I don’t regret my physics training — it taught me great problem-solving skills — but I prefer working on more applied problems.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sarah Myhre:\u003c/strong> To go scuba diving. Actually, no. That’s not true. I got into research because I wanted to work underwater. I spent about 1,000 hours working as a seafloor ecologist with NOAA out of Hawaii, diving in some of the most remote marine ecosystems in the world. Then I went on a marine geology research cruise when I was just starting graduate school. That cruise changed my life, because I got to work with some of the most brilliant paleoceanographers. That cruise showed me that I could use all of my experiences in the modern ocean to understand ocean environments in the past.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003ca href=\"http://www.weatherwest.com/about\">Daniel Swain\u003c/a>, postdoc at UCLA studying extreme weather events:\u003c/strong> I’ve always been fascinated by the atmosphere. I grew up watching clouds and reading weather maps. As an undergraduate studying atmospheric science, it became apparent to me that despite our solid understanding regarding the “big picture” surrounding global warming, there was still quite a bit of uncertainty surrounding the details. How is regional climate changing, and how does global warming affect extreme weather? It seemed to me that the answers to these kinds of questions are critical in making practical adaptations in a warming world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>How do you hope your research can help the field (or world for that matter) understand the challenges climate change poses and how to address them?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Zack Labe:\u003c/strong> We know that changes in the Arctic are one of the key indicators of climate change, but the effects on the rest of the Earth system remain very uncertain. For instance, it is not only the fact that sea ice is melting, but the rate of change at which it is occurring. What does this mean for the balance of the rest of the climate system? I hope my research can better evaluate these questions and further communicate the issues to a broader audience.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sarah Myhre:\u003c/strong> I hope that the work I do is useful and meaningful, both for my scientific peers and for society. I am working to make a contribution to the field of abrupt climate change, by looking at marine sediment records of past events of climate warming. As they say, “the past is the key to the future,” so if we can come to a more direct understanding of how oceans changed during past events of warming, we are equipping ourselves with the tools to interpret the changes we see in the modern world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Daniel Swain:\u003c/strong> Given my longstanding interest weather and short-timescale atmospheric phenomena, I approach climate research from a slightly different perspective than some scientists. I think it’s helpful to view climate as “weather in aggregate,” and since it’s ultimately extreme events like storms, floods, and droughts that cause the most harm in a societal context, it makes sense to focus on how global warming is affecting the character and causes of these sorts of high-impact conditions. Ideally, this work will yield scientific insights into underlying atmospheric processes while simultaneously informing real world decision-making.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Where do you see the field of climate science going in the next 10 years?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sylvia Dee:\u003c/strong> The earth is, for lack of a better term, very large. We have a ton of data and we have massive super computers constantly running coupled model simulations that can take months and yield terabytes of output. In the next 10 years, we’re going to have to learn how to effectively use this massive body of data we have access to and filter out the robust signals from the noise.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kate Marvel:\u003c/strong> I’m actually really excited for the future of the field. My peers are amazing — there is so much talent among early-career scientists. I think we’ll have a better understanding of the climate feedbacks that can speed up or slow down warming, particularly what clouds will do. We’re getting better at quantifying and communicating uncertainty. I also think we’ll get better at understanding and projecting regional climate and talking to more people — not just policymakers, but ordinary people who are going to be affected by climate change. I do think we need to get even more serious about diversity. If scientists don’t reflect society, how can we be sure we’re not missing important questions? We waste an awful lot of potential brilliance right now, and I’m optimistic that we’ll take steps to stop that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Daniel Swain: \u003c/strong>There are two avenues that seem especially promising to me at the moment. The first is the ever-increasing capacity and sophistication of global climate models. I’m particularly intrigued by the prospect of large “ensembles” of high-resolution climate simulations, which may help us constrain the still relatively large uncertainties regarding regional climate change and will hopefully also yield better information regarding changes in extreme events in the climate system.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The second is the rapidly spreading recognition that climate science communication is a critically important endeavor. Increasingly many institutions are recognizing that the obligations of the modern scientist extend beyond the generation of novel research, and that there is a real need for practicing scientists to engage with the wider world. Actively connecting with decision makers, journalists, and the public will be key in building a resilient society in the face of rapid environmental change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Are you hopeful or does climate change get you down?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sylvia Dee:\u003c/strong> I would say that I’m cautiously hopeful. I find the rate at which policy accepts and moves on scientific consensus to be frustrating, but I think I’m not unique in my attempts to be proactive instead of throw in the towel, so to speak. I certainly never feel defeated or upset about it the way I do about a few other political issues.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kate Marvel: \u003c/strong>Whisky. (\u003cem>Editor’s note:\u003c/em> Marvel received a different version of this question framed as how to stay positive in the face of seemingly continual bad climate news. Her response was too good not to include.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sarah Myhre:\u003c/strong> The answer to that question is yes. It is such a huge problem and I feel the gnawing pain of it in my day-to-day life. I definitely carry my work around with me wherever I go. But I also have to feed my heart with other things. I am living my life while doing this hard work, and I think every moment that I despair at these data must be compensated by a moment where I experience joy and connection. The world is still beautiful and I’m lucky to be here, that’s what I tell myself. I also remember that I signed up for this and that everyone needs to serve someone, and this is what my service looks like.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>How concerned are you about the political polarization of climate change and possible solutions?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sylvia Dee: \u003c/strong>I’m mostly concerned about the problem from an education perspective. Earth science puts educators in a unique position: we have suddenly been tasked with teaching a politically charged topic, in a field highly underrepresented in K-12 education. Students often enter our courses with erroneous preconceived notions about earth science. I have a strong desire to address the widespread confusion about climate change, and the best way I know how is to teach and to do more outreach. The recent media circus surrounding global warming has highlighted an urgent need for policymakers and the public to understand very basic principles of geoscience, and my teaching experience has alerted me to profound knowledge gaps at the undergraduate level. High school science curricula focus on biology, physics, and chemistry, but a basic understanding of geoscience is also crucial for a society accelerating into a future with a human-altered atmosphere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Zack Labe:\u003c/strong> Science requires discussion. It requires skepticism. And it requires revisions. But we are in an era where political drivers are leading to poor discourse and public communication concerning the state of our understanding of climate change. We need a common voice and one that emphasizes our certainties and uncertainties. How do we go about doing this? I think this is a critical question looking ahead in removing the political and agenda-driven divide. Most importantly, let’s keep science . . . science.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sarah Myhre:\u003c/strong> I am honestly sickened by it. We need basic science in our public lives and in our leadership. This is the 21st century. I have a computer in my back pocket. We have an instrument driving around Mars. We landed another instrument on a damn comet. Science works and it shouldn’t be on the table to debate any longer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Daniel Swain:\u003c/strong> It is very frustrating to see just how decoupled the national political conversation surrounding climate change has become from the physical reality of the world we live in. Recognition of basic factual information shouldn’t be a partisan issue and yet one of the two major political parties in the U.S. currently rejects the overwhelming factual evidence demonstrating that humans are largely responsible for global warming. But it doesn’t have to be this way. It’s possible to envision a future where scientific consensus forms the basis of a political common ground, in which there there are legitimate ideological disagreements regarding what should be done about climate change but a shared reality regarding its existence and causes. I’m hopeful we can get there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>If you think California can secure its water future on its own, think again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If there’s one key takeaway from the new documentary \u003ca href=\"http://beyondthemirage.org/\">Beyond the Mirage\u003c/a>, it’s that the western states are bound together by water, and they’ll all have to play nice together to secure future supplies for any of them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For producer-director Cody Sheehy, that hit home when he found a new home of his own in Arizona.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Looking around, I realized that it’s very tenuous,” says Sheehy, who grew up in the greener climes of Oregon. “Tucson almost feels like we’re a moon base out there in the desert.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Arizona’s second-largest metro area is served by a 336-mile canal that hauls in water from the Colorado River, the future of which as a dependable water source might also be described as “tenuous,” after more than a decade of drought in that vital watershed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We don’t know if this is the fifteenth year of a 15-year drought, or the fifteenth year of a 50-year drought,” notes author and University of Arizona professor Robert Glennon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1093462\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 1104px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1093462\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/LkMeadGraphic.png\" alt=\"Graphic shows the plunging level of Lake Mead, the nation's largest man-made reservoir and key to the Colorado system.\" width=\"1104\" height=\"748\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/LkMeadGraphic.png 1104w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/LkMeadGraphic-160x108.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/LkMeadGraphic-800x542.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/LkMeadGraphic-768x520.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/LkMeadGraphic-1020x691.png 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/LkMeadGraphic-960x650.png 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/LkMeadGraphic-240x163.png 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/LkMeadGraphic-375x254.png 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/LkMeadGraphic-520x352.png 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1104px) 100vw, 1104px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Graphic shows the plunging level of Lake Mead, the nation’s largest man-made reservoir and key to the Colorado system. \u003ccite>(Beyond the Mirage)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“I started the journey really as a lay person,” recalls Sheehy, “and as I learned more and more about the inter-connectedness between the states and between surface water and groundwater — the long-term projections for climate change — the situation in my mind just kept getting worse and worse.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So shortly after Sheehy started as multimedia producer for the University of Arizona’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, he resolved to dive into the murk of western water policy. The project started small, but when Sheehy’s idea won the New Arizona Prize, the $100,000 boost from Arizona Community Foundation provided pockets deep enough for a feature-length documentary and some global perspectives. Some of those perspectives were eye-opening.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Traveling around Israel and seeing a place that had issues every bit as complicated and every bit as challenging, recalls Sheehy, “they’ve overcome that and they really have a surplus of water now; they’ve turned their water issue into a global economic business opportunity, that they can export their solution.”\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">‘It is one huge plumbing system. What happens in the Bay Delta, matters in Cheyenne.’\u003ccite>Pat Mulroy, Brookings Inst.\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>It’s become apparent that for the western U.S., solutions will only come if individual states give up long entrenched defensive positions and even give back some ground on long-held water rights. Otherwise, as former Nevada water-power broker Pat Mulroy asserts early in the film, “There won’t be any winners and losers. There will only be losers.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the narrative would benefit from more personal encounters with people already feeling the pinch of water scarcity, the work is information-packed and beautifully shot, with engaging graphics that “connect the dots” in the western water system.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It is one huge plumbing system,” says Mulroy. “What happens in the [San Francisco] Bay Delta, matters in Cheyenne.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sheehy has parlayed his university projects into two spinoff companies, Rhumbline Media and \u003ca href=\"http://www.wildcat.arizona.edu/article/2016/09/n-ua-creates-filmstacker-new-educational-resource-video-and-social-media-platform\">Filmstacker\u003c/a>, both based in Tucson. The latter’s mission is to further develop the technology on the Mirage website that \u003ca href=\"http://beyondthemirage.org/experience/#player\">allows viewers to mix and match clips\u003c/a> to make their own mini-docs for distribution on social media. Sheehy says he believes this approach could help counter the “echo chamber” effect that the Internet tends to promote, wherein consumers of information are more and more immersed in the views of those who agree with them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mirage stands as both witness to the enormous challenges for water in the West, and testament to the resolve of those seeking a way forward. Sheehy’s main takeaway:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s not something that we can’t solve.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Beyond the Mirage airs twice on Friday and once Sunday night on \u003ca href=\"http://www.kqed.org/tv/schedules/daily/world.jsp?format=long&ymd=2016-10-21\">KQED World\u003c/a>, one of KQED’s digital TV channels. It’s airing on various public \u003ca href=\"http://beyondthemirage.org/\">stations around the country\u003c/a> in October and November, and producers say it will become available for streaming in April.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>If you think California can secure its water future on its own, think again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If there’s one key takeaway from the new documentary \u003ca href=\"http://beyondthemirage.org/\">Beyond the Mirage\u003c/a>, it’s that the western states are bound together by water, and they’ll all have to play nice together to secure future supplies for any of them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For producer-director Cody Sheehy, that hit home when he found a new home of his own in Arizona.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Looking around, I realized that it’s very tenuous,” says Sheehy, who grew up in the greener climes of Oregon. “Tucson almost feels like we’re a moon base out there in the desert.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Arizona’s second-largest metro area is served by a 336-mile canal that hauls in water from the Colorado River, the future of which as a dependable water source might also be described as “tenuous,” after more than a decade of drought in that vital watershed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We don’t know if this is the fifteenth year of a 15-year drought, or the fifteenth year of a 50-year drought,” notes author and University of Arizona professor Robert Glennon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1093462\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 1104px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1093462\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/LkMeadGraphic.png\" alt=\"Graphic shows the plunging level of Lake Mead, the nation's largest man-made reservoir and key to the Colorado system.\" width=\"1104\" height=\"748\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/LkMeadGraphic.png 1104w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/LkMeadGraphic-160x108.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/LkMeadGraphic-800x542.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/LkMeadGraphic-768x520.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/LkMeadGraphic-1020x691.png 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/LkMeadGraphic-960x650.png 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/LkMeadGraphic-240x163.png 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/LkMeadGraphic-375x254.png 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/LkMeadGraphic-520x352.png 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1104px) 100vw, 1104px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Graphic shows the plunging level of Lake Mead, the nation’s largest man-made reservoir and key to the Colorado system. \u003ccite>(Beyond the Mirage)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“I started the journey really as a lay person,” recalls Sheehy, “and as I learned more and more about the inter-connectedness between the states and between surface water and groundwater — the long-term projections for climate change — the situation in my mind just kept getting worse and worse.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So shortly after Sheehy started as multimedia producer for the University of Arizona’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, he resolved to dive into the murk of western water policy. The project started small, but when Sheehy’s idea won the New Arizona Prize, the $100,000 boost from Arizona Community Foundation provided pockets deep enough for a feature-length documentary and some global perspectives. Some of those perspectives were eye-opening.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Traveling around Israel and seeing a place that had issues every bit as complicated and every bit as challenging, recalls Sheehy, “they’ve overcome that and they really have a surplus of water now; they’ve turned their water issue into a global economic business opportunity, that they can export their solution.”\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">‘It is one huge plumbing system. What happens in the Bay Delta, matters in Cheyenne.’\u003ccite>Pat Mulroy, Brookings Inst.\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>It’s become apparent that for the western U.S., solutions will only come if individual states give up long entrenched defensive positions and even give back some ground on long-held water rights. Otherwise, as former Nevada water-power broker Pat Mulroy asserts early in the film, “There won’t be any winners and losers. There will only be losers.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the narrative would benefit from more personal encounters with people already feeling the pinch of water scarcity, the work is information-packed and beautifully shot, with engaging graphics that “connect the dots” in the western water system.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It is one huge plumbing system,” says Mulroy. “What happens in the [San Francisco] Bay Delta, matters in Cheyenne.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sheehy has parlayed his university projects into two spinoff companies, Rhumbline Media and \u003ca href=\"http://www.wildcat.arizona.edu/article/2016/09/n-ua-creates-filmstacker-new-educational-resource-video-and-social-media-platform\">Filmstacker\u003c/a>, both based in Tucson. The latter’s mission is to further develop the technology on the Mirage website that \u003ca href=\"http://beyondthemirage.org/experience/#player\">allows viewers to mix and match clips\u003c/a> to make their own mini-docs for distribution on social media. Sheehy says he believes this approach could help counter the “echo chamber” effect that the Internet tends to promote, wherein consumers of information are more and more immersed in the views of those who agree with them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mirage stands as both witness to the enormous challenges for water in the West, and testament to the resolve of those seeking a way forward. Sheehy’s main takeaway:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s not something that we can’t solve.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Beyond the Mirage airs twice on Friday and once Sunday night on \u003ca href=\"http://www.kqed.org/tv/schedules/daily/world.jsp?format=long&ymd=2016-10-21\">KQED World\u003c/a>, one of KQED’s digital TV channels. It’s airing on various public \u003ca href=\"http://beyondthemirage.org/\">stations around the country\u003c/a> in October and November, and producers say it will become available for streaming in April.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>For those with a financial stake in water, drought can mean boom or bust, depending on the investment. And even without a specific market to trade water, there are numerous ways to invest in it – from buying land with water rights to stocks in water-dependent companies to municipal bonds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Take Michael Burry, for instance, the hedge fund manager featured in the book and movie “The Big Short” who outsmarted the subprime housing market crash. The end of the movie includes the line: “Michael Burry is focusing all of his trading on one commodity: Water.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>How exactly?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=”QQEvhYxWPaQJExQOYmxnMpvONRpPx1L9″]“I believe that agricultural land, productive agricultural land with water on site, will be very valuable in the future,” he told \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sWhvOaavTQ\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Bloomberg\u003c/a> in 2010. “And I’ve put a good amount of money into that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Burry further elaborated in a 2015 interview with \u003ca href=\"http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/12/big-short-genius-says-another-crisis-is-coming.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">New York magazine\u003c/a> when he said, “What became clear to me is that food is the way to invest in water. That is, grow food in water-rich areas and transport it for sale in water-poor areas.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This idea has driven a lot of investments in California over the years, but is coming under greater scrutiny as drought lingers into a sixth year and climate change is expected to make the state’s water budget even tighter in coming decades.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the hottest investments in California in recent years is the almond business. In the late 1990s, the industry was shipping less than 600 million pounds (270m kg) a year. Since 2012 (and despite California’s drought), it’s shipping more than \u003cspan class=\"caps\">1.8\u003c/span> million pounds a year – most of that to overseas buyers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While California has many family farmers growing almonds, it’s caught the eye of big investors, too. One of them is the retirement and investment firm\u003cspan class=\"caps\">TIAA\u003c/span> (formerly \u003cspan class=\"caps\">TIAA\u003c/span>–\u003cspan class=\"caps\">CREF\u003c/span>), which owns 37,000 acres (150 sq km) of farmland in the state, and claims to be one of the top five biggest almond producers in the world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We see agriculture, and farmland in particular, as more than a diversification opportunity and a hedge against rising prices,” the firm\u003ca href=\"https://www.tiaa.org/public/assetmanagement/insights/commentary-perspectives/perspectives/almonds-harvesting-value\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">reported\u003c/a> on its website in 2013. “In 2011, we produced more than 18 million pounds of almonds, enough to circle the world more than nine times.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you have water rights, almonds aren’t the only cash crop. At the beginning of 2016, the Saudi company Almarai \u003ca href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2016/mar/08/saudi-arabia-alfalfa-california-drought-almarai\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">bought\u003c/a> nearly 2,000 acres near Blythe, California, in Riverside County to grow alfalfa that will be shipped back to Saudi Arabia to feed dairy cows.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And of course, in California there are always grapes. Harvard Management Group, which invests Harvard University’s $36 billion endowment, made land purchases made in 2012 to 2014 on California’s Central Coast. Some\u003ca href=\"http://www.winespectator.com/webfeature/show/id/51442\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">speculated\u003c/a> it was after the wine market, but others believed it was only investing in the water rights themselves, which could be worth more in the future if water continues to become scarcer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>From a business perspective it may seem like a win to grab agricultural land with water rights in California with a current shortage and more predicted in the future. But companies cashing in on water scarcity aren’t always viewed favorably among the public – and that extends beyond the water rights issue to other business investments in water. Remember when Nestle was slammed for \u003ca href=\"https://www.newsdeeply.com/water/articles/2016/05/09/behind-the-lawsuit-to-turn-off-spigot-to-nestle\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">bottling water\u003c/a> piped from public land (with an expired permit) during California’s drought?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Water is not just an economic resources; it’s also a natural resource and a necessity for life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A lot of water risk is really related to the social license to operate and the reputational risk,” said Monika Freyman, director of the water program at\u003ca href=\"http://www.ceres.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Ceres\u003c/a>, which advocates for sustainability leadership. “Investment in water isn’t necessarily a good thing – you may be either investing in a poor water solution or you may be actually investing in a region where there is high competition for water. If that water is not necessarily stewarded well, you’re walking into a hornet’s nest of taking water away from other users.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s why \u003cspan class=\"caps\">E.J.\u003c/span> Reinoso, \u003cspan class=\"caps\">CEO\u003c/span> of the investment firm Castleton Partners, advocates for investing in municipal bonds, which are sold to finance myriad public projects, such as highways, libraries, schools, power and water projects.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You are investing in a security that, by definition, is already achieving funding the public good,” said Reinoso. A growing interest in the investment world is “impact investing” where money is invested with the hope of increasing environmental or social good, and Reinoso said that municipal bonds for water projects should be considered in this category, although there is not yet an official way to verify them as such.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Municipal bonds, however, may not be wholly without controversy either. “A critical piece of any bond deal we look at is the essentiality of the project,” said Kevin Lehman of Breckinridge Capital Advisors. “If it is a contentious thing that maybe half the community is opposed to, all else being equal, that’s not something we like to see in a bond deal. We look at local news stories and voting results, and layer that qualitative on top of quantitative metrics.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lehman said he has seen a number of utilities with really good bond deals to fund large infrastructure projects that have helped diversify their water supply or make them more drought resilient. “We view that as a positive,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Municipal bonds are popular with high net worth individuals because the bonds are exempt from federal and state taxes. And they tend to be safe investments, according to Reinoso. But Lehman cautioned that things like California’s drought can change the landscape.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He has seen water utilities taking on significantly greater debt burdens because of the drought to fund needed infrastructure at the same time that revenue is decreasing because of conservation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The number one metric that we look at for a water utility is debt service coverage – how much revenue after they pay all their operating expenses are left over to pay for debt service,” he said. In the past, most California water utilities had good debt service coverage, but it is “deteriorating because of the drought and so they are becoming less self supportive of operations and have to issue more and more debt,” he explained.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s drought could be taking its toll on stocks in water companies as well. The investment site the \u003ca href=\"http://www.fool.com/investing/2016/10/10/water-stocks-how-do-the-12-water-utility-stocks-st.aspx\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Motley Fool\u003c/a> explained, “Water utility stocks are particularly attractive because their core businesses are monopolies and they pay modest dividends.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But California’s drought has impacted water companies who operate in the state, and the Motley Fool warned readers in October against American States Water and California Water Service, blaming mandatory water conservation requirements for reducing revenue and “drought challenges and the uncertainties surrounding rates.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While drought may be on the radar of investors, the impact of climate change on water resources is still something most don’t think enough about. Concern from investors on that front “is still not there yet,” said Freyman.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"fin\">And as water gets more expensive, which is the current trend, Lehman said that people profiting from it will become more controversial, and we will see more of a debate over the merits of privatization of water resources.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"fin\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This article originally appeared on \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://mail.kqed.org/owa/redir.aspx?C=9e4bb0e1a7d74f24ba4684ef2533053d&URL=https%3a%2f%2fwww.newsdeeply.com%2fwater\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Water Deeply\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, and you can find it \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://www.newsdeeply.com/water/articles/2016/10/20/the-big-shortage-how-drought-is-impacting-water-investment-markets\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">here\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. For important news about the California drought, you can \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"http://waterdeeply.us5.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=8b78e9a34ff7443ec1e8c62c6&id=2947becb78\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">sign up\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> to the Water Deeply email list.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Publicly traded water utilities may have investors wary, while agricultural land with water rights is looking hot. But smart water investors also have to grapple with the risk to their reputations if they’re seen profiting from the scarcity of a vital resource.",
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"description": "Publicly traded water utilities may have investors wary, while agricultural land with water rights is looking hot. But smart water investors also have to grapple with the risk to their reputations if they’re seen profiting from the scarcity of a vital resource.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>For those with a financial stake in water, drought can mean boom or bust, depending on the investment. And even without a specific market to trade water, there are numerous ways to invest in it – from buying land with water rights to stocks in water-dependent companies to municipal bonds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Take Michael Burry, for instance, the hedge fund manager featured in the book and movie “The Big Short” who outsmarted the subprime housing market crash. The end of the movie includes the line: “Michael Burry is focusing all of his trading on one commodity: Water.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>How exactly?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>“I believe that agricultural land, productive agricultural land with water on site, will be very valuable in the future,” he told \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sWhvOaavTQ\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Bloomberg\u003c/a> in 2010. “And I’ve put a good amount of money into that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Burry further elaborated in a 2015 interview with \u003ca href=\"http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/12/big-short-genius-says-another-crisis-is-coming.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">New York magazine\u003c/a> when he said, “What became clear to me is that food is the way to invest in water. That is, grow food in water-rich areas and transport it for sale in water-poor areas.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This idea has driven a lot of investments in California over the years, but is coming under greater scrutiny as drought lingers into a sixth year and climate change is expected to make the state’s water budget even tighter in coming decades.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the hottest investments in California in recent years is the almond business. In the late 1990s, the industry was shipping less than 600 million pounds (270m kg) a year. Since 2012 (and despite California’s drought), it’s shipping more than \u003cspan class=\"caps\">1.8\u003c/span> million pounds a year – most of that to overseas buyers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While California has many family farmers growing almonds, it’s caught the eye of big investors, too. One of them is the retirement and investment firm\u003cspan class=\"caps\">TIAA\u003c/span> (formerly \u003cspan class=\"caps\">TIAA\u003c/span>–\u003cspan class=\"caps\">CREF\u003c/span>), which owns 37,000 acres (150 sq km) of farmland in the state, and claims to be one of the top five biggest almond producers in the world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We see agriculture, and farmland in particular, as more than a diversification opportunity and a hedge against rising prices,” the firm\u003ca href=\"https://www.tiaa.org/public/assetmanagement/insights/commentary-perspectives/perspectives/almonds-harvesting-value\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">reported\u003c/a> on its website in 2013. “In 2011, we produced more than 18 million pounds of almonds, enough to circle the world more than nine times.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you have water rights, almonds aren’t the only cash crop. At the beginning of 2016, the Saudi company Almarai \u003ca href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2016/mar/08/saudi-arabia-alfalfa-california-drought-almarai\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">bought\u003c/a> nearly 2,000 acres near Blythe, California, in Riverside County to grow alfalfa that will be shipped back to Saudi Arabia to feed dairy cows.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And of course, in California there are always grapes. Harvard Management Group, which invests Harvard University’s $36 billion endowment, made land purchases made in 2012 to 2014 on California’s Central Coast. Some\u003ca href=\"http://www.winespectator.com/webfeature/show/id/51442\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">speculated\u003c/a> it was after the wine market, but others believed it was only investing in the water rights themselves, which could be worth more in the future if water continues to become scarcer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>From a business perspective it may seem like a win to grab agricultural land with water rights in California with a current shortage and more predicted in the future. But companies cashing in on water scarcity aren’t always viewed favorably among the public – and that extends beyond the water rights issue to other business investments in water. Remember when Nestle was slammed for \u003ca href=\"https://www.newsdeeply.com/water/articles/2016/05/09/behind-the-lawsuit-to-turn-off-spigot-to-nestle\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">bottling water\u003c/a> piped from public land (with an expired permit) during California’s drought?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Water is not just an economic resources; it’s also a natural resource and a necessity for life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A lot of water risk is really related to the social license to operate and the reputational risk,” said Monika Freyman, director of the water program at\u003ca href=\"http://www.ceres.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Ceres\u003c/a>, which advocates for sustainability leadership. “Investment in water isn’t necessarily a good thing – you may be either investing in a poor water solution or you may be actually investing in a region where there is high competition for water. If that water is not necessarily stewarded well, you’re walking into a hornet’s nest of taking water away from other users.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s why \u003cspan class=\"caps\">E.J.\u003c/span> Reinoso, \u003cspan class=\"caps\">CEO\u003c/span> of the investment firm Castleton Partners, advocates for investing in municipal bonds, which are sold to finance myriad public projects, such as highways, libraries, schools, power and water projects.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You are investing in a security that, by definition, is already achieving funding the public good,” said Reinoso. A growing interest in the investment world is “impact investing” where money is invested with the hope of increasing environmental or social good, and Reinoso said that municipal bonds for water projects should be considered in this category, although there is not yet an official way to verify them as such.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Municipal bonds, however, may not be wholly without controversy either. “A critical piece of any bond deal we look at is the essentiality of the project,” said Kevin Lehman of Breckinridge Capital Advisors. “If it is a contentious thing that maybe half the community is opposed to, all else being equal, that’s not something we like to see in a bond deal. We look at local news stories and voting results, and layer that qualitative on top of quantitative metrics.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lehman said he has seen a number of utilities with really good bond deals to fund large infrastructure projects that have helped diversify their water supply or make them more drought resilient. “We view that as a positive,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Municipal bonds are popular with high net worth individuals because the bonds are exempt from federal and state taxes. And they tend to be safe investments, according to Reinoso. But Lehman cautioned that things like California’s drought can change the landscape.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He has seen water utilities taking on significantly greater debt burdens because of the drought to fund needed infrastructure at the same time that revenue is decreasing because of conservation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The number one metric that we look at for a water utility is debt service coverage – how much revenue after they pay all their operating expenses are left over to pay for debt service,” he said. In the past, most California water utilities had good debt service coverage, but it is “deteriorating because of the drought and so they are becoming less self supportive of operations and have to issue more and more debt,” he explained.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s drought could be taking its toll on stocks in water companies as well. The investment site the \u003ca href=\"http://www.fool.com/investing/2016/10/10/water-stocks-how-do-the-12-water-utility-stocks-st.aspx\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Motley Fool\u003c/a> explained, “Water utility stocks are particularly attractive because their core businesses are monopolies and they pay modest dividends.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But California’s drought has impacted water companies who operate in the state, and the Motley Fool warned readers in October against American States Water and California Water Service, blaming mandatory water conservation requirements for reducing revenue and “drought challenges and the uncertainties surrounding rates.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While drought may be on the radar of investors, the impact of climate change on water resources is still something most don’t think enough about. Concern from investors on that front “is still not there yet,” said Freyman.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"fin\">And as water gets more expensive, which is the current trend, Lehman said that people profiting from it will become more controversial, and we will see more of a debate over the merits of privatization of water resources.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"fin\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This article originally appeared on \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://mail.kqed.org/owa/redir.aspx?C=9e4bb0e1a7d74f24ba4684ef2533053d&URL=https%3a%2f%2fwww.newsdeeply.com%2fwater\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Water Deeply\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, and you can find it \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://www.newsdeeply.com/water/articles/2016/10/20/the-big-shortage-how-drought-is-impacting-water-investment-markets\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">here\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. For important news about the California drought, you can \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"http://waterdeeply.us5.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=8b78e9a34ff7443ec1e8c62c6&id=2947becb78\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">sign up\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> to the Water Deeply email list.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Pity the Plastic Bag: Will Californians Seal Its Fate With a Ban?",
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"content": "\u003cp>Oh, to be a plastic bag. Helpful, ubiquitous and ever useful. Carefree, wafting on the wind, and alive for a thousand years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the other hand, you are cheap and trashy. Discarded, your presence mars beautiful landscapes. You and your trillions of clones clog sewers, accumulate in the worlds’ oceans, and entangle and choke wildlife and sea creatures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California banned your flimsy presence in the Golden State, consigning you to an environmentally-sensitive death by recycling.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But, as shoppers know all too well, getting rid of plastic bags isn’t that easy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The “paper-or-plastic?” checkout query was supposed to be a relic of our unenlightened past. After reviewing the scientific evidence of persistent environmental harm, California legislators in 2014 banned thin plastic carryout bags, authorizing stores to charge customers 10 cents for heavier-duty plastic sacks or paper bags.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the ban inflamed the nation’s bag makers, who intervened before the law could take effect. They wielded two ballot measures to poke a stick in the eye of the Legislature and the grocery industry, whom they haven’t forgiven for switching sides to support the ban after the Legislature allowed the grocers to keep the 10 cent fee.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So, in the confounding manner of direct democracy, California voters in November will ponder two opposing initiatives, each sponsored by the plastic bag industry—which has spent more than $6 million to put them on the ballot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One, \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/proposition/propositions-65-and-67-plastic-bags/\">Prop. 67\u003c/a>, is a referendum—an attempt to block the bag ban by asking voters whether they agree with the new law. The plastic bag industry is hoping to convince enough Californians to vote no, thereby preempting the ban.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another, \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/proposition/propositions-65-and-67-plastic-bags/\">Prop. 65\u003c/a>, would redirect the 10 cent bag fee consumers pay, so that rather than stores reaping the benefit, it would instead go to an environmental fund administered by the state Wildlife Conservation Board. The plastics industry is backing this one, a smack-down to the grocery industry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1092839\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1092839\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/PlasticBag2Checkout.jpg\" alt=\"Plastic bags at checkout.\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/PlasticBag2Checkout.jpg 640w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/PlasticBag2Checkout-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/PlasticBag2Checkout-240x180.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/PlasticBag2Checkout-375x281.jpg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/PlasticBag2Checkout-520x390.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Plastic bags at checkout. \u003ccite>(Day Donaldson/flickr)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>If the bag ban survives at the polls, Californians would say goodbye to one of the world’s most utilitarian products. Thus would the plastic bag, a humble object engineered to be of long and useful service, become undone by its very design.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It already has been exiled from \u003ca href=\"http://www.lao.ca.gov/BallotAnalysis/Proposition?number=67&year=2016\">150 cities and counties\u003c/a>, primarily along the Pacific coast.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We believe the environmental facts have been misconstrued,” said Phil Rozenski, policy chair of the American Progressive Bag Alliance, and a senior director at Novolex. Its subsidiary, Hilex Poly Co., has contributed to the ballot propositions. “This is all about politics and emotional debate. Science left the building years ago.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Because of plastic’s durability, even when exposed to constant wave action and degraded by a relentless sun, it doesn’t disappear, but breaks down into tiny particles called microplastics.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Two years ago, a survey of existing research estimated that as many as 51 trillion particles of microplastics are floating around the planet’s oceans, weighing as much as 236,000 metric tons. Closer to home, a \u003ca href=\"http://www.sfei.org/documents/microplastic-contamination-san-francisco-bay\">2015 study\u003c/a> found that eight wastewater treatment plants discharge nearly half a million microplastic particles into the San Francisco Bay each day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even taking into consideration that bags represent only a portion of all plastics found in marine debris, researchers say 80 percent of trash floating in the ocean is plastic. “The problems with plastics are well-documented,” said Eben Schwartz, who oversees the California Coastal Commission’s Marine Debris Program. “Sea animals ingest plastic and it not only gives the sense of being full, so they starve, but it can also get caught in the esophagus, and keep food from getting down.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1092840\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 1963px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1092840 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/PlasticBag3FloatinginOcean.png\" alt=\"PlasticBag3FloatinginOcean\" width=\"1963\" height=\"1098\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/PlasticBag3FloatinginOcean.png 1963w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/PlasticBag3FloatinginOcean-160x89.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/PlasticBag3FloatinginOcean-800x447.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/PlasticBag3FloatinginOcean-768x430.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/PlasticBag3FloatinginOcean-1020x571.png 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/PlasticBag3FloatinginOcean-1920x1074.png 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/PlasticBag3FloatinginOcean-1180x660.png 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/PlasticBag3FloatinginOcean-960x537.png 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/PlasticBag3FloatinginOcean-240x134.png 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/PlasticBag3FloatinginOcean-375x210.png 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/PlasticBag3FloatinginOcean-520x291.png 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1963px) 100vw, 1963px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Credit: \u003ccite>(NOAA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Plastic accumulated in the stomach of a marine mammal, renders the animals more buoyant and makes it more difficult to dive for food. Sea turtles can mistake floating plastic bags for their favorite meal, jellyfish. Offshore and onshore, animals become entangled with plastic bags.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, Californians use about 15 million single-use plastic bags a year—as the Legislative Analyst \u003ca href=\"http://www.lao.ca.gov/BallotAnalysis/Proposition?number=67&year=2016\">notes\u003c/a>, that’s more than 400 bags per Californian.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Because plastic is marvelous. Few modern inventions have so quickly shoved aside the competition and staked a spot smack in the middle of American culture, industrial design and manufacturing. Plastics emerged in the late 1940s full of promise and vigor. Then, as now, plastic begins life as a petrochemical. Manufacturing processes convert chains of hydrogen and carbon molecules into a polymer resin that is then heated, shaped and cooled.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cheap and versatile, it can become just about anything.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But plastic formulation prevents it from bio-degrading along with other garbage. Scientists sifting through landfills of the future will dredge up diapers—and Safeway bags. Even the industry’s “biodegradable” bags don’t completely break down, and these green plastic bags account for less than 1 per cent of the market.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This description of a plastic bag’s afterlife, from an \u003ca href=\"http://plasticbaglaws.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/MEA_green-cities-CA.pdf\">environmental assessment\u003c/a> prepared for California local governments: “The majority of bags end up as litter or in the landfill, and even those in the landfill may be blown away as litter due to their light weight. Although some recycling facilities will handle plastic bags, most reject them because they can get caught in the machinery and cause malfunctioning, or are contaminated after use.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1092843\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 1653px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1092843\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/PlasticBag4Landfill_for-web.jpg\" alt=\"Credit:\" width=\"1653\" height=\"1045\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/PlasticBag4Landfill_for-web.jpg 1653w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/PlasticBag4Landfill_for-web-160x101.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/PlasticBag4Landfill_for-web-800x506.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/PlasticBag4Landfill_for-web-768x486.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/PlasticBag4Landfill_for-web-1020x645.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/PlasticBag4Landfill_for-web-1180x746.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/PlasticBag4Landfill_for-web-960x607.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/PlasticBag4Landfill_for-web-240x152.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/PlasticBag4Landfill_for-web-375x237.jpg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/PlasticBag4Landfill_for-web-520x329.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1653px) 100vw, 1653px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Credit: \u003ccite>(NOAA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Bags snag on tree limbs, blow around on vacant lots and loiter in gutters. But don’t blame the bag, says the industry, blame a populace ridden with litterbugs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Whether it’s marine debris or litter—it shouldn’t be there,” said Rozenski. “We have to work on it as a society. Approaching it on a product-by-product basis is not the way to do it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Others oppose the ban on philosophical grounds. “The government shouldn’t be telling stores what kind of bags to offer. That’s between the store and the customer,” said Ted Brown, chairman of the state Libertarian Party, which opposes both propositions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Do bag bans really make a difference?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since San Francisco’s ban has been in place, plastic bag refuse found on the Bay Area’s inland and coastal beaches has fallen 34 per cent, according to Schwartz of the coastal commission. He cited data gathered at annual Bay Area cleanups showing that in 2008, plastic bags accounted for about 9 percent of all debris removed from beaches. By 2012, they were only 6 percent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We never see drops like that,” he said. “The bans are effective.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://calmatters.org/\">\u003cem>CALmatters\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> is a non-profit journalism venture dedicated to exploring state policies and politics. For more stories by Julie Cart, go to calmatters.org/about/staff/julie-cart/\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "California voters will find two opposing plastic bag initiatives on the November ballot -- Proposition 67 and Proposition 65 -- both sponsored by the plastic bag industry.",
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"title": "Pity the Plastic Bag: Will Californians Seal Its Fate With a Ban? | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the ban inflamed the nation’s bag makers, who intervened before the law could take effect. They wielded two ballot measures to poke a stick in the eye of the Legislature and the grocery industry, whom they haven’t forgiven for switching sides to support the ban after the Legislature allowed the grocers to keep the 10 cent fee.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So, in the confounding manner of direct democracy, California voters in November will ponder two opposing initiatives, each sponsored by the plastic bag industry—which has spent more than $6 million to put them on the ballot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One, \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/proposition/propositions-65-and-67-plastic-bags/\">Prop. 67\u003c/a>, is a referendum—an attempt to block the bag ban by asking voters whether they agree with the new law. The plastic bag industry is hoping to convince enough Californians to vote no, thereby preempting the ban.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another, \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/proposition/propositions-65-and-67-plastic-bags/\">Prop. 65\u003c/a>, would redirect the 10 cent bag fee consumers pay, so that rather than stores reaping the benefit, it would instead go to an environmental fund administered by the state Wildlife Conservation Board. The plastics industry is backing this one, a smack-down to the grocery industry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1092839\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1092839\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/PlasticBag2Checkout.jpg\" alt=\"Plastic bags at checkout.\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/PlasticBag2Checkout.jpg 640w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/PlasticBag2Checkout-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/PlasticBag2Checkout-240x180.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/PlasticBag2Checkout-375x281.jpg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/PlasticBag2Checkout-520x390.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Plastic bags at checkout. \u003ccite>(Day Donaldson/flickr)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>If the bag ban survives at the polls, Californians would say goodbye to one of the world’s most utilitarian products. Thus would the plastic bag, a humble object engineered to be of long and useful service, become undone by its very design.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It already has been exiled from \u003ca href=\"http://www.lao.ca.gov/BallotAnalysis/Proposition?number=67&year=2016\">150 cities and counties\u003c/a>, primarily along the Pacific coast.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We believe the environmental facts have been misconstrued,” said Phil Rozenski, policy chair of the American Progressive Bag Alliance, and a senior director at Novolex. Its subsidiary, Hilex Poly Co., has contributed to the ballot propositions. “This is all about politics and emotional debate. Science left the building years ago.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Because of plastic’s durability, even when exposed to constant wave action and degraded by a relentless sun, it doesn’t disappear, but breaks down into tiny particles called microplastics.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Two years ago, a survey of existing research estimated that as many as 51 trillion particles of microplastics are floating around the planet’s oceans, weighing as much as 236,000 metric tons. Closer to home, a \u003ca href=\"http://www.sfei.org/documents/microplastic-contamination-san-francisco-bay\">2015 study\u003c/a> found that eight wastewater treatment plants discharge nearly half a million microplastic particles into the San Francisco Bay each day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even taking into consideration that bags represent only a portion of all plastics found in marine debris, researchers say 80 percent of trash floating in the ocean is plastic. “The problems with plastics are well-documented,” said Eben Schwartz, who oversees the California Coastal Commission’s Marine Debris Program. “Sea animals ingest plastic and it not only gives the sense of being full, so they starve, but it can also get caught in the esophagus, and keep food from getting down.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1092840\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 1963px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1092840 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/PlasticBag3FloatinginOcean.png\" alt=\"PlasticBag3FloatinginOcean\" width=\"1963\" height=\"1098\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/PlasticBag3FloatinginOcean.png 1963w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/PlasticBag3FloatinginOcean-160x89.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/PlasticBag3FloatinginOcean-800x447.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/PlasticBag3FloatinginOcean-768x430.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/PlasticBag3FloatinginOcean-1020x571.png 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/PlasticBag3FloatinginOcean-1920x1074.png 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/PlasticBag3FloatinginOcean-1180x660.png 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/PlasticBag3FloatinginOcean-960x537.png 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/PlasticBag3FloatinginOcean-240x134.png 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/PlasticBag3FloatinginOcean-375x210.png 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/PlasticBag3FloatinginOcean-520x291.png 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1963px) 100vw, 1963px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Credit: \u003ccite>(NOAA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Plastic accumulated in the stomach of a marine mammal, renders the animals more buoyant and makes it more difficult to dive for food. Sea turtles can mistake floating plastic bags for their favorite meal, jellyfish. Offshore and onshore, animals become entangled with plastic bags.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, Californians use about 15 million single-use plastic bags a year—as the Legislative Analyst \u003ca href=\"http://www.lao.ca.gov/BallotAnalysis/Proposition?number=67&year=2016\">notes\u003c/a>, that’s more than 400 bags per Californian.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Because plastic is marvelous. Few modern inventions have so quickly shoved aside the competition and staked a spot smack in the middle of American culture, industrial design and manufacturing. Plastics emerged in the late 1940s full of promise and vigor. Then, as now, plastic begins life as a petrochemical. Manufacturing processes convert chains of hydrogen and carbon molecules into a polymer resin that is then heated, shaped and cooled.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cheap and versatile, it can become just about anything.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But plastic formulation prevents it from bio-degrading along with other garbage. Scientists sifting through landfills of the future will dredge up diapers—and Safeway bags. Even the industry’s “biodegradable” bags don’t completely break down, and these green plastic bags account for less than 1 per cent of the market.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This description of a plastic bag’s afterlife, from an \u003ca href=\"http://plasticbaglaws.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/MEA_green-cities-CA.pdf\">environmental assessment\u003c/a> prepared for California local governments: “The majority of bags end up as litter or in the landfill, and even those in the landfill may be blown away as litter due to their light weight. Although some recycling facilities will handle plastic bags, most reject them because they can get caught in the machinery and cause malfunctioning, or are contaminated after use.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1092843\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 1653px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1092843\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/PlasticBag4Landfill_for-web.jpg\" alt=\"Credit:\" width=\"1653\" height=\"1045\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/PlasticBag4Landfill_for-web.jpg 1653w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/PlasticBag4Landfill_for-web-160x101.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/PlasticBag4Landfill_for-web-800x506.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/PlasticBag4Landfill_for-web-768x486.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/PlasticBag4Landfill_for-web-1020x645.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/PlasticBag4Landfill_for-web-1180x746.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/PlasticBag4Landfill_for-web-960x607.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/PlasticBag4Landfill_for-web-240x152.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/PlasticBag4Landfill_for-web-375x237.jpg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/PlasticBag4Landfill_for-web-520x329.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1653px) 100vw, 1653px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Credit: \u003ccite>(NOAA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Bags snag on tree limbs, blow around on vacant lots and loiter in gutters. But don’t blame the bag, says the industry, blame a populace ridden with litterbugs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Whether it’s marine debris or litter—it shouldn’t be there,” said Rozenski. “We have to work on it as a society. Approaching it on a product-by-product basis is not the way to do it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Others oppose the ban on philosophical grounds. “The government shouldn’t be telling stores what kind of bags to offer. That’s between the store and the customer,” said Ted Brown, chairman of the state Libertarian Party, which opposes both propositions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Do bag bans really make a difference?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since San Francisco’s ban has been in place, plastic bag refuse found on the Bay Area’s inland and coastal beaches has fallen 34 per cent, according to Schwartz of the coastal commission. He cited data gathered at annual Bay Area cleanups showing that in 2008, plastic bags accounted for about 9 percent of all debris removed from beaches. By 2012, they were only 6 percent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We never see drops like that,” he said. “The bans are effective.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Remember the California drought? It was all over the news a year ago, when the state took the unprecedented step of mandating statewide water cutbacks. The Sierra Nevada snowpack was at its lowest recorded level. Rivers and reservoirs were getting shallower and shallower. Wells in rural towns were literally running dry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That drought is still very much a thing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=”vVCIzFDGCbodGGT2QlAPs2Fq6ma0JQep”]More than 62 percent of California remains in severe to exceptional drought conditions, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. And without a wet winter the state could be facing a sixth-consecutive year of severe drought.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Absolutely we’re still in a drought,” says Peter Gleick, a co-founder of the Pacific Institute, a water think tank. “We are way below normal. Our reservoirs are low. Our groundwater is still being grossly over-pumped.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Problem is: People aren’t acting like it — at least not quite like they did. And that’s raising questions about how the drought is being messaged.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A year ago, when Governor Jerry Brown mandated a 25 percent water cutback, the message was dire and it was clear. Californians rose to the occasion. In August 2015, urban water consumption was cut by 27 percent statewide, compared to the same month in 2013.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Earlier this year, the state did away with those mandatory water cutbacks, citing an improvement in the state’s water conditions. “Since the circumstances changed, we felt like we needed to change our approach,” says Felicia Marcus, chairwoman of the state water board.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Water conservation numbers fell after that announcement and they continue to fall. This past August, Californians cut their water use 17.7 percent — a nearly 10 percentage point slide from the year previous.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think people have kind of gone into denial mode because they’re not getting as dire a message anymore,” says Los Angeles homeowner Kelly Krull.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Krull is one of the people who got the message last year. She tore out her water-thirsty lawn and landscaping to put in dirt paths and drought-tolerant gardens. Some of her neighbors did the same. This year, Krull says, “I’m not hearing much of a message at all.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>The difficulty of messaging drought \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Messaging for something like drought is difficult for a lot of reasons. And it becomes more difficult the longer the drought persists.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To explain, NPR reached out to two people who do messaging for a living: Tony Foleno, the senior vice president and head of strategic development at the Ad Council, and Nick Barham, the chief strategy officer at TBWAChiatDay Los Angeles, an advertising agency that works with companies such as Apple and Gatorade.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Below are some excerpts from both interviews, edited for clarity.\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003ch3>\u003cstrong>Interview Highlights\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>How do you keep people interested in something that’s been going on for longer than five years? How do you keep something like drought sexy? \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Tony Foleno, Ad Council:\u003c/strong> I don’t know if drought will ever be sexy, but I think that it’s one of the tougher issues. It’s sort of intangible [for urban users]. If you can’t water your lawn or there’s some inconvenience, it becomes a little more tangible, but it’s not something that you might think of that might immediately affect you and your family. The other part of it is, the sense of self-efficacy: are my actions — my day-to-day actions — really making a difference? There could be some doubt around that. There could be doubt that while I’m doing my part, other people aren’t doing their part.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nick Barham, TBWAChiatDay LA:\u003c/strong> With any messaging — whether it’s about drought, whether it’s about war or whether it’s about the next pair of sneakers — there’s an inevitable wear-out if people feel like they’ve heard the same thing before, especially if they feel like [earlier] danger has been averted. That’s a shared characteristic between [public service announcements] and advertising in general; a lot of time you’re trying to make things that feel over-familiar, mundane, invisible, boring or repetitious interesting and fresh. And trying to get people to reconsider something that has become a familiar part of daily life. I do think that’s a challenge. But talking about water conservation in California, I think we need to get out of a campaign mindset and a temporary action and think more about long-term change of behavior.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://player.vimeo.com/video/130249787?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://vimeo.com/130249787\">Save the Drop\u003c/a> from \u003ca href=\"https://vimeo.com/weareroyale\">We Are Royale\u003c/a> on \u003ca href=\"https://vimeo.com\">Vimeo\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>What do you think of California’s current efforts to message the drought? \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Barham:\u003c/strong> Overall, I think they’ve been pretty successful. They did a lot of things right, certainly at the height of the drought, before El Nino did or didn’t happen. They were getting lots of supporting messages from different areas. It was in the news, so you saw headlines and pictures of lakes that were less full than they used to be, so it didn’t feel like a distant issue. There were tough targets that people saw and penalties for people who overused, some incentives for people who tore out their lawns and stuff like that. And there were things like ‘Save the Drop,’ which had a very cute cartoony version of a water drop and a clear call to action. But I think [now], it certainly feels like it’s less of an urgent issue. My observation here [in Los Angeles] is that the city doesn’t behave like a city that’s in a drought. You can still drive through the city and see perfect green lawns and the kind of plants and greenery that you wouldn’t have naturally in a drought area. I think there are a lot of behaviors here that are in denial of the kind of climate we’re in.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://youtu.be/hdUQrGht7NE\u003cbr>\n\u003cstrong>It’s got to be hard to try and get people to change their behavior. What makes an effective PSA or messaging campaign?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Foleno:\u003c/strong> Behavior change is the ultimate objective of every campaign we do at the Ad Council. It’s harder by an order of magnitude — I don’t know what it would be — than to just raise awareness of something, to get people to re-Tweet something or think about it for a minute and then move on. Every campaign has a different set of tools, but we start at the end point – sitting down a year from now, what do we want to see? What does success look like? Then we work backwards from there. You need to be relevant. You need to be emotional. You need to be understandable and single-minded. You also need to know the media landscape. How are you going to reach the people you want to reach? And then you need to be consistent. A lot of things require long-term commitment. The reason we’ve been working on Smokey Bear for decades is you need to maintain and educate a new generation of the public all the time about wildfire prevention.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Barham:\u003c/strong> One of the key difficulties of PSAs is you’re trying to stop people from doing something they really like doing or you’re trying to get them to do something that’s going to be more of a hassle than not doing. There are two favorite tactics to get attention, neither of which has been used to strongly in California. The first obvious one is through shock: exaggerating or at least shining a light on how bad things could be if you don’t change behavior. The best recent example of this was an Australian campaign for rail safety which was called ‘Dumb Ways to Die.’\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://youtu.be/IJNR2EpS0jw\u003cbr>\nThe other way is through humor. The best recent example of that is called the ‘World’s Biggest Asshole.’ It got lots and lots of attention and talked to people in a way that didn’t feel preachy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://youtu.be/TeVLxcekEsw\u003cbr>\n\u003cstrong>OK, I’m emperor for the day and I put you in charge of messaging California’s drought. What would you do? \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Foleno:\u003c/strong> I’m a research guy, so the first thing I would do is go out and talk to the folks of California to see what their awareness of the current messaging is — what their perception is, how do they talk about it with their friends and loved ones and neighbors — to get a real sense of where their head is at, from the consumer perspective. From there you’d generate a set of message framings, depending on what you hear back. Those are all testable. You can go out and see which are the most motivating. There are a variety of approaches off the top of my head. There’s a social-norming approach, where you let people know that their neighbor is actually using a lot less water than they are. You could talk about the future of California and inject a sense of state pride into it. You could talk about dire consequences down the road if we don’t make this a top issue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Barham:\u003c/strong> I think there’s room to use those two models I talked about [shock and humor], but I think you need to balance that by giving people very practical guidelines for what they should be doing. I would try to think about water conservation in the way that we think about our health, as something that we try to maintain on a day-to-day basis, rather than as a diet, which tends to be a short-term fix to some kind of issue. I think we’re in danger of the equivalent of yo-yo dieting, where we take some extreme measures for a short period of time, think that will fix everything and then go back to bad behavior. What we should be trying to do is instill behavior and attitudes that are ongoing and permanent and can be measured and monitored. I think a good model to look at is how a lot of fitness apps work, which is this daily check at how you’re doing and the ability to share it with other people, either in your immediate social circle or the broader public.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2016 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=California%27s+Dire+Drought+Message+Wanes%2C+Conservation+Levels+Drop+&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Remember the California drought? It was all over the news a year ago, when the state took the unprecedented step of mandating statewide water cutbacks. The Sierra Nevada snowpack was at its lowest recorded level. Rivers and reservoirs were getting shallower and shallower. Wells in rural towns were literally running dry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That drought is still very much a thing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>More than 62 percent of California remains in severe to exceptional drought conditions, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. And without a wet winter the state could be facing a sixth-consecutive year of severe drought.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Absolutely we’re still in a drought,” says Peter Gleick, a co-founder of the Pacific Institute, a water think tank. “We are way below normal. Our reservoirs are low. Our groundwater is still being grossly over-pumped.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Problem is: People aren’t acting like it — at least not quite like they did. And that’s raising questions about how the drought is being messaged.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A year ago, when Governor Jerry Brown mandated a 25 percent water cutback, the message was dire and it was clear. Californians rose to the occasion. In August 2015, urban water consumption was cut by 27 percent statewide, compared to the same month in 2013.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Earlier this year, the state did away with those mandatory water cutbacks, citing an improvement in the state’s water conditions. “Since the circumstances changed, we felt like we needed to change our approach,” says Felicia Marcus, chairwoman of the state water board.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Water conservation numbers fell after that announcement and they continue to fall. This past August, Californians cut their water use 17.7 percent — a nearly 10 percentage point slide from the year previous.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think people have kind of gone into denial mode because they’re not getting as dire a message anymore,” says Los Angeles homeowner Kelly Krull.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Krull is one of the people who got the message last year. She tore out her water-thirsty lawn and landscaping to put in dirt paths and drought-tolerant gardens. Some of her neighbors did the same. This year, Krull says, “I’m not hearing much of a message at all.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>The difficulty of messaging drought \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Messaging for something like drought is difficult for a lot of reasons. And it becomes more difficult the longer the drought persists.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To explain, NPR reached out to two people who do messaging for a living: Tony Foleno, the senior vice president and head of strategic development at the Ad Council, and Nick Barham, the chief strategy officer at TBWAChiatDay Los Angeles, an advertising agency that works with companies such as Apple and Gatorade.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Below are some excerpts from both interviews, edited for clarity.\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003ch3>\u003cstrong>Interview Highlights\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>How do you keep people interested in something that’s been going on for longer than five years? How do you keep something like drought sexy? \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Tony Foleno, Ad Council:\u003c/strong> I don’t know if drought will ever be sexy, but I think that it’s one of the tougher issues. It’s sort of intangible [for urban users]. If you can’t water your lawn or there’s some inconvenience, it becomes a little more tangible, but it’s not something that you might think of that might immediately affect you and your family. The other part of it is, the sense of self-efficacy: are my actions — my day-to-day actions — really making a difference? There could be some doubt around that. There could be doubt that while I’m doing my part, other people aren’t doing their part.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nick Barham, TBWAChiatDay LA:\u003c/strong> With any messaging — whether it’s about drought, whether it’s about war or whether it’s about the next pair of sneakers — there’s an inevitable wear-out if people feel like they’ve heard the same thing before, especially if they feel like [earlier] danger has been averted. That’s a shared characteristic between [public service announcements] and advertising in general; a lot of time you’re trying to make things that feel over-familiar, mundane, invisible, boring or repetitious interesting and fresh. And trying to get people to reconsider something that has become a familiar part of daily life. I do think that’s a challenge. But talking about water conservation in California, I think we need to get out of a campaign mindset and a temporary action and think more about long-term change of behavior.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://player.vimeo.com/video/130249787?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://vimeo.com/130249787\">Save the Drop\u003c/a> from \u003ca href=\"https://vimeo.com/weareroyale\">We Are Royale\u003c/a> on \u003ca href=\"https://vimeo.com\">Vimeo\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>What do you think of California’s current efforts to message the drought? \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Barham:\u003c/strong> Overall, I think they’ve been pretty successful. They did a lot of things right, certainly at the height of the drought, before El Nino did or didn’t happen. They were getting lots of supporting messages from different areas. It was in the news, so you saw headlines and pictures of lakes that were less full than they used to be, so it didn’t feel like a distant issue. There were tough targets that people saw and penalties for people who overused, some incentives for people who tore out their lawns and stuff like that. And there were things like ‘Save the Drop,’ which had a very cute cartoony version of a water drop and a clear call to action. But I think [now], it certainly feels like it’s less of an urgent issue. My observation here [in Los Angeles] is that the city doesn’t behave like a city that’s in a drought. You can still drive through the city and see perfect green lawns and the kind of plants and greenery that you wouldn’t have naturally in a drought area. I think there are a lot of behaviors here that are in denial of the kind of climate we’re in.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://youtu.be/hdUQrGht7NE\u003cbr>\n\u003cstrong>It’s got to be hard to try and get people to change their behavior. What makes an effective PSA or messaging campaign?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Foleno:\u003c/strong> Behavior change is the ultimate objective of every campaign we do at the Ad Council. It’s harder by an order of magnitude — I don’t know what it would be — than to just raise awareness of something, to get people to re-Tweet something or think about it for a minute and then move on. Every campaign has a different set of tools, but we start at the end point – sitting down a year from now, what do we want to see? What does success look like? Then we work backwards from there. You need to be relevant. You need to be emotional. You need to be understandable and single-minded. You also need to know the media landscape. How are you going to reach the people you want to reach? And then you need to be consistent. A lot of things require long-term commitment. The reason we’ve been working on Smokey Bear for decades is you need to maintain and educate a new generation of the public all the time about wildfire prevention.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Barham:\u003c/strong> One of the key difficulties of PSAs is you’re trying to stop people from doing something they really like doing or you’re trying to get them to do something that’s going to be more of a hassle than not doing. There are two favorite tactics to get attention, neither of which has been used to strongly in California. The first obvious one is through shock: exaggerating or at least shining a light on how bad things could be if you don’t change behavior. The best recent example of this was an Australian campaign for rail safety which was called ‘Dumb Ways to Die.’\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://youtu.be/IJNR2EpS0jw\u003cbr>\nThe other way is through humor. The best recent example of that is called the ‘World’s Biggest Asshole.’ It got lots and lots of attention and talked to people in a way that didn’t feel preachy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://youtu.be/TeVLxcekEsw\u003cbr>\n\u003cstrong>OK, I’m emperor for the day and I put you in charge of messaging California’s drought. What would you do? \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Foleno:\u003c/strong> I’m a research guy, so the first thing I would do is go out and talk to the folks of California to see what their awareness of the current messaging is — what their perception is, how do they talk about it with their friends and loved ones and neighbors — to get a real sense of where their head is at, from the consumer perspective. From there you’d generate a set of message framings, depending on what you hear back. Those are all testable. You can go out and see which are the most motivating. There are a variety of approaches off the top of my head. There’s a social-norming approach, where you let people know that their neighbor is actually using a lot less water than they are. You could talk about the future of California and inject a sense of state pride into it. You could talk about dire consequences down the road if we don’t make this a top issue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Barham:\u003c/strong> I think there’s room to use those two models I talked about [shock and humor], but I think you need to balance that by giving people very practical guidelines for what they should be doing. I would try to think about water conservation in the way that we think about our health, as something that we try to maintain on a day-to-day basis, rather than as a diet, which tends to be a short-term fix to some kind of issue. I think we’re in danger of the equivalent of yo-yo dieting, where we take some extreme measures for a short period of time, think that will fix everything and then go back to bad behavior. What we should be trying to do is instill behavior and attitudes that are ongoing and permanent and can be measured and monitored. I think a good model to look at is how a lot of fitness apps work, which is this daily check at how you’re doing and the ability to share it with other people, either in your immediate social circle or the broader public.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2016 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=California%27s+Dire+Drought+Message+Wanes%2C+Conservation+Levels+Drop+&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>You’ve probably run through multiple fire drills, but do you know how to prepare for an earthquake?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Thursday at 10:20 a.m. local time, millions of people around the world will join the annual \u003ca href=\"http://www.shakeout.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Great ShakeOut\u003c/a>, where participants practice taking cover during an earthquake.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey say nearly half of Americans are \u003ca href=\"https://www2.usgs.gov/blogs/features/usgs_top_story/nearly-half-of-americans-exposed-to-potentially-damaging-earthquakes/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">exposed to potentially damaging earthquakes\u003c/a> based on where they work and live.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the San Francisco Bay Area, there’s a two-in-three chance of a major, magnitude 6.7 quake striking during the next 30 years, according to USGS.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To participate in \u003ca href=\"http://www.shakeout.org/california/index.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">California’s ShakeOut\u003c/a>, ask your employer if the company is planning to practice during the drill. If it’s not, you can still join and \u003ca href=\"http://www.shakeout.org/california/register/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">register online\u003c/a>. Then at 10:20 a.m., follow these three actions: drop, cover and hold on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>No matter where you are you’ll immediately want to:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-1092600\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/drop_cover_hold.jpg\" alt=\"drop_cover_hold\" width=\"108\" height=\"347\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Drop\u003c/strong> to the ground. The shaking during an earthquake can take your feet out from under you, so it’s important to stay low.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Crouch down and \u003cstrong>cover\u003c/strong> your neck and head with your arms to prevent injury from flying objects or debris.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Then, \u003cstrong>hold on\u003c/strong>. If you’re able to take shelter under a table or desk, grab onto one of the legs and stay there. Stay in this position for an at least 60 seconds when you practice.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>It may seem like an eternity but the shaking from a major event can last a minute or more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And forget the timeworn advice to stand in a doorway. That worked when people lived in older homes of unreinforced masonry. Doorways in modern homes are no stronger than any other part of the house and experts say you’re actually safer under a table.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you’re outside in an open area you’re better off than in a building, but watch out for falling debris and power lines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For information about what to do if you’re driving or are in a wheelchair, check out the guide from the \u003ca href=\"http://www.earthquakecountry.info/\">Earthquake Country Alliance\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>FEMA has an \u003ca href=\"https://www.fema.gov/media-library-data/1421937886237-e683b4975c2c324b18967ead20336b2f/FEMAB526_2014.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">earthquake safety checklist\u003c/a> and the Department of Homeland Security has \u003cspan style=\"line-height: 1.5\">a \u003ca href=\"https://www.ready.gov/kit\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">detailed list\u003c/a> of items to include in an earthquake kit.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>The Chances of a ‘Big One’ in NorCal\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This year’s ShakeOut comes (perhaps not by accident) just a day after USGS scientists published \u003ca href=\"http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/2/10/e1601441\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">a study\u003c/a> highlighting the linkage between two of the Bay Area’s more menacing faults, the Hayward, which runs along the East Bay Hills, and the Rodgers Creek Fault, which cuts a similar angle through the North Bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1090260\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1090260\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/RS14567_NapaQuake-qut.jpg\" alt=\"The 2014 earthquake in Napa injured about 200 people and damaged nearly two thousand buildings. Scientists say it should ring the alarm for owners of older buildings to retrofit before the next earthquake hits.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1440\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/RS14567_NapaQuake-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/RS14567_NapaQuake-qut-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/RS14567_NapaQuake-qut-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/RS14567_NapaQuake-qut-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/RS14567_NapaQuake-qut-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/RS14567_NapaQuake-qut-1180x885.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/RS14567_NapaQuake-qut-960x720.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/RS14567_NapaQuake-qut-240x180.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/RS14567_NapaQuake-qut-375x281.jpg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/RS14567_NapaQuake-qut-520x390.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The 2014 earthquake in Napa injured about 200 people and damaged nearly two thousand buildings. Scientists say it should ring the alarm for owners of older buildings to retrofit before the next earthquake hits. \u003ccite>(Erol Kalkan / USGS)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Geologists say a newly-confirmed connection between the two faults affirms that a joint event could result in an earthquake of magnitude 7.4 — significantly more intense the the Loma Prieta quake of 1989. That October temblor remains the most devastating to hit the Bay Area since the Great San Francisco Earthquake of 1906.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Researchers say four California faults, including the Hayward Fault and Calaveras Fault which directly underly cities, have built up enough seismic strain to \u003ca href=\"http://www.livescience.com/48274-fault-creep-california-earthquake-risk.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">cause destructive quakes\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The 6.0 magnitude South Napa quake which struck two years ago was the largest earthquake in over 25 years to hit the San Francisco Bay Area, causing significant damage in Napa, American Canyon and Vallejo.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>You’ve probably run through multiple fire drills, but do you know how to prepare for an earthquake?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Thursday at 10:20 a.m. local time, millions of people around the world will join the annual \u003ca href=\"http://www.shakeout.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Great ShakeOut\u003c/a>, where participants practice taking cover during an earthquake.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey say nearly half of Americans are \u003ca href=\"https://www2.usgs.gov/blogs/features/usgs_top_story/nearly-half-of-americans-exposed-to-potentially-damaging-earthquakes/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">exposed to potentially damaging earthquakes\u003c/a> based on where they work and live.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the San Francisco Bay Area, there’s a two-in-three chance of a major, magnitude 6.7 quake striking during the next 30 years, according to USGS.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To participate in \u003ca href=\"http://www.shakeout.org/california/index.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">California’s ShakeOut\u003c/a>, ask your employer if the company is planning to practice during the drill. If it’s not, you can still join and \u003ca href=\"http://www.shakeout.org/california/register/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">register online\u003c/a>. Then at 10:20 a.m., follow these three actions: drop, cover and hold on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>No matter where you are you’ll immediately want to:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-1092600\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/drop_cover_hold.jpg\" alt=\"drop_cover_hold\" width=\"108\" height=\"347\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Drop\u003c/strong> to the ground. The shaking during an earthquake can take your feet out from under you, so it’s important to stay low.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Crouch down and \u003cstrong>cover\u003c/strong> your neck and head with your arms to prevent injury from flying objects or debris.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Then, \u003cstrong>hold on\u003c/strong>. If you’re able to take shelter under a table or desk, grab onto one of the legs and stay there. Stay in this position for an at least 60 seconds when you practice.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>It may seem like an eternity but the shaking from a major event can last a minute or more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And forget the timeworn advice to stand in a doorway. That worked when people lived in older homes of unreinforced masonry. Doorways in modern homes are no stronger than any other part of the house and experts say you’re actually safer under a table.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you’re outside in an open area you’re better off than in a building, but watch out for falling debris and power lines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For information about what to do if you’re driving or are in a wheelchair, check out the guide from the \u003ca href=\"http://www.earthquakecountry.info/\">Earthquake Country Alliance\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>FEMA has an \u003ca href=\"https://www.fema.gov/media-library-data/1421937886237-e683b4975c2c324b18967ead20336b2f/FEMAB526_2014.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">earthquake safety checklist\u003c/a> and the Department of Homeland Security has \u003cspan style=\"line-height: 1.5\">a \u003ca href=\"https://www.ready.gov/kit\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">detailed list\u003c/a> of items to include in an earthquake kit.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>The Chances of a ‘Big One’ in NorCal\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This year’s ShakeOut comes (perhaps not by accident) just a day after USGS scientists published \u003ca href=\"http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/2/10/e1601441\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">a study\u003c/a> highlighting the linkage between two of the Bay Area’s more menacing faults, the Hayward, which runs along the East Bay Hills, and the Rodgers Creek Fault, which cuts a similar angle through the North Bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1090260\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1090260\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/RS14567_NapaQuake-qut.jpg\" alt=\"The 2014 earthquake in Napa injured about 200 people and damaged nearly two thousand buildings. Scientists say it should ring the alarm for owners of older buildings to retrofit before the next earthquake hits.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1440\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/RS14567_NapaQuake-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/RS14567_NapaQuake-qut-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/RS14567_NapaQuake-qut-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/RS14567_NapaQuake-qut-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/RS14567_NapaQuake-qut-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/RS14567_NapaQuake-qut-1180x885.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/RS14567_NapaQuake-qut-960x720.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/RS14567_NapaQuake-qut-240x180.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/RS14567_NapaQuake-qut-375x281.jpg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/RS14567_NapaQuake-qut-520x390.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The 2014 earthquake in Napa injured about 200 people and damaged nearly two thousand buildings. Scientists say it should ring the alarm for owners of older buildings to retrofit before the next earthquake hits. \u003ccite>(Erol Kalkan / USGS)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Geologists say a newly-confirmed connection between the two faults affirms that a joint event could result in an earthquake of magnitude 7.4 — significantly more intense the the Loma Prieta quake of 1989. That October temblor remains the most devastating to hit the Bay Area since the Great San Francisco Earthquake of 1906.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Researchers say four California faults, including the Hayward Fault and Calaveras Fault which directly underly cities, have built up enough seismic strain to \u003ca href=\"http://www.livescience.com/48274-fault-creep-california-earthquake-risk.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">cause destructive quakes\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The 6.0 magnitude South Napa quake which struck two years ago was the largest earthquake in over 25 years to hit the San Francisco Bay Area, causing significant damage in Napa, American Canyon and Vallejo.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Mt. Tam Health Report Yields Hope — And a Warning",
"headTitle": "Mt. Tam Health Report Yields Hope — And a Warning | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>Fitbits, heart rate monitors and digital thermometers can gauge a person’s health, but measuring a mountain’s health is a little trickier. More than 60 scientists set out to do just that for Mount Tamalpais, the revered hiking and biking mecca in Marin County.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Situated north of the Golden Gate, Mt. Tam is a biodiversity hotspot. It’s home to 770 native plants and 250 native animal species, including 95 threatened, endangered and rare species. Six plant species appear nowhere else in the world but on Mt. Tam.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1087473\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 3456px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1087473\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/Redwood-trees.jpg\" alt=\"Second-growth redwood forests on Mt. Tam.\" width=\"3456\" height=\"4608\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/Redwood-trees.jpg 3456w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/Redwood-trees-400x533.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/Redwood-trees-800x1067.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/Redwood-trees-768x1024.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/Redwood-trees-1440x1920.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/Redwood-trees-1920x2560.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/Redwood-trees-1180x1573.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/Redwood-trees-960x1280.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 3456px) 100vw, 3456px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Second-growth redwood forests on Mt. Tam. \u003ccite>(MMWD)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The first comprehensive health report of Mt. Tam’s natural resources \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">reveals most wildlife are doing well, while some fish species and plant communities are suffering from environmental and human stressors. There’s also the risk of catastrophic damage after a fire \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">since the mountain hasn’t seen a large wildfire in almost 75 years.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scientists from the \u003ca href=\"http://www.onetam.org/tamalpais-lands-collaborative\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Tamalpais Lands Collaborative\u003c/a> — a partnership between the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy and the four agencies that manage the mountain’s 41,000 acres of protected open space — \u003cspan style=\"line-height: 1.5\">looked at 18 types of flora and fauna.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>From redwood trees to foothill yellow-legged frogs, they studied how healthy the mountain is compared to the past. In some cases, no historical data exists, leaving knowledge gaps the scientists hope to fill in the future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong> An Ecosystem Under Stress\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In recent years, the biggest negative impact on plant communities has been from climate change, invasive species and plant pathogens. Oak woodlands, for example, are in fair and declining condition and are significantly stressed, according to the report.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More than 100 years of fire suppression on Mt. Tam means the shrub layer is thicker, providing fuel for a high-intensity fire with the potential to kill mature oaks and other native trees. And wild turkeys, which were introduced for sport hunting in the 80s, gobble up oak acorns so they don’t germinate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1087468\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 5312px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1087468\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/MMWD_fire_low_quality.jpg\" alt=\"On Mt. Tam, a prescribed burn decreases fuel loads in chaparral and scrub oak communities. \" width=\"5312\" height=\"2988\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/MMWD_fire_low_quality.jpg 5312w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/MMWD_fire_low_quality-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/MMWD_fire_low_quality-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/MMWD_fire_low_quality-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/MMWD_fire_low_quality-1440x810.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/MMWD_fire_low_quality-1920x1080.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/MMWD_fire_low_quality-1180x664.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/MMWD_fire_low_quality-960x540.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 5312px) 100vw, 5312px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">On Mt. Tam, a prescribed burn decreases fuel loads in chaparral and scrub oak communities. \u003ccite>(Carl Sanders/Marin Municipal Water District)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Another culprit is \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/2015/01/12/tiny-parasite-threatens-native-plants/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Sudden Oak Death,\u003c/a> a forest disease caused by the plant pathogen \u003cem>Phytophthora ramorum \u003c/em>that can lead to mortality in some hardwood trees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“Much of our vegetation has been stressed by invasive plants and Sudden Oak Death is really changing some of the structure of the forest,” says Bill Merkle, Golden Gate National Recreation Area wildlife ecologist.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A 2014 Marin Municipal Water District survey found more than 90 percent of oak woodlands were impacted by Sudden Oak Death.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since eradicating Sudden Oak Death isn’t likely, the decline and death of tanoaks, coast live oak, and black oaks in Marin County is expected to continue into the foreseeable future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Disappearing Species\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the last century, more than 60 plant species have disappeared from Mt. Tam and some animal species, like Coho salmon, could vanish from the mountain by 2100, scientists say.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1087469\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2816px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1087469\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/OLMspawnersurvey1206PhotobyCDR026.jpg\" alt=\"Adult male coho salmon on Olema Creek in Point Reyes National Seashore. \" width=\"2816\" height=\"2112\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/OLMspawnersurvey1206PhotobyCDR026.jpg 2816w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/OLMspawnersurvey1206PhotobyCDR026-400x300.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/OLMspawnersurvey1206PhotobyCDR026-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/OLMspawnersurvey1206PhotobyCDR026-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/OLMspawnersurvey1206PhotobyCDR026-1440x1080.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/OLMspawnersurvey1206PhotobyCDR026-1920x1440.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/OLMspawnersurvey1206PhotobyCDR026-1180x885.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/OLMspawnersurvey1206PhotobyCDR026-960x720.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2816px) 100vw, 2816px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Adult male coho salmon on Olema Creek in Point Reyes National Seashore. \u003ccite>(Casey del Real/NPS)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The federally endangered fish live in Lagunitas and Redwood Creeks, which run down off Mt. Tam.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“The Coho are in desperate straits,” says Eric Ettlinger, Marin Municipal Water District’s aquatic ecologist & fisheries biologist.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> “Most streams that used to have Coho have lost them.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Logging during the 20th century sent sediment into streams that smothered fish eggs. Today, Coho are blocked from half the watershed by dams that provide drinking water for Marin residents. And ocean over-fishing means fewer adult salmon survive to return and spawn in the streams where they hatched.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Warmer temperatures and less rainfall, fueled by climate change, are also impacting the Coho, which rely on a continuous flow of cold water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“As things warm up, [Coho] are particularly vulnerable because they’re already at their temperature tolerance” says Ettlinger.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Coho salmon aren’t the only species that are threatened.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1087836\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1087836\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/Marin-Manzanita.jpg\" alt=\"Marin manzanita which grow on Mt. Tam bloom from January through March.\" width=\"1024\" height=\"671\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/Marin-Manzanita.jpg 1024w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/Marin-Manzanita-400x262.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/Marin-Manzanita-800x524.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/Marin-Manzanita-768x503.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/Marin-Manzanita-960x629.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Marin manzanita which grow on Mt. Tam bloom from January through March. \u003ccite>(Miwok/flickr)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“There’s a handful of rare plant species that in the absence of active intervention soon, I think we could lose in the next 50 years” says Janet Klein, vegetation ecologist for the Marin Municipal Water District.\u003cb> \u003c/b>This includes \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"http://www.calflora.org/cgi-bin/species_query.cgi?where-taxon=Ceanothus+masonii\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Ceanothus masonii\u003c/a>,\u003c/em> a native shrub that displays a purple flower in the spring and \u003ca href=\"http://www.calflora.org/cgi-bin/species_query.cgi?where-calrecnum=627\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>Arctostaphylos virgata\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, a native shrub with bell-shaped flowers that’s known as Marin manzanita.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Mt. Tam, the flowering shrubs are now restricted to a narrow band along a service road. Their seeds require fire in order to germinate and seedlings have not been observed in the Mt. Tam survey area in the last two decades.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>The Good News: Some Species Are Thriving\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not all species are dwindling. Scientists rate the mountain’s overall condition as fair, meaning \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">some natural resources are doing exceptionally well, others are in significant distress \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">and \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">many resources are in a transitional state but\u003c/span> could greatly improve with active conservation measures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1087349\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 334px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-1087349\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/osprey.jpg\" alt=\"Ospreys are raptors that breed in the lakes and reservoirs in the Mt.Tam area.\" width=\"334\" height=\"446\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/osprey.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/osprey-400x533.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 334px) 100vw, 334px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Ospreys are raptors that breed in the lakes and reservoirs in the Mt.Tam area. \u003ccite>(Sandy and Chuck Harris)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Birds like the northern spotted owl and many raptors are doing well in the Mt. Tam region. The California red-legged frog, whose numbers plummeted as a result of human harvesting, habitat loss, and invasive species have made a comeback in recent years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The report found the single biggest long-term threat facing Mt. Tam is climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to projections from the \u003ca href=\"http://climate.calcommons.org/crnb/home\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Climate Ready North Bay Project\u003c/a>, the climate on the mountain is expected to warm by 7 to 11 degrees Fahrenheit over the next 50 to 100 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today, agencies are taking protective measures. The Marin Municipal Water District, for example, has thinned Douglas-fir saplings that encroach upon oak habitat and volunteers have been removing invasive plants like Scotch broom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The National Park Service created the Coho “headstart” program, which removes\u003cb>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> juvenile fish from the water. They are then raised in a hatchery, protected from the perilous ocean and re-released into Redwood Creek.\u003c/span>\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For those who want to help Mt. Tam, the Tamalpais Lands Collaborative recommends staying on designated trails, using native plants for home landscaping where feasible and cleaning hiking shoes when passing through areas with Sudden Oak Death.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The authors will share findings of their 350 page report on October 28 and 29 during the \u003ca href=\"http://www.onetam.org/science-summit\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Mt. Tam Science Summit\u003c/a> at the Sausalito Portuguese Cultural Center.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Scientists from the Tamalpais Lands Collaborative — a partnership between Marin Municipal Water District, California State Parks, the National Park Service, Marin County Parks and Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy — \u003c/em>\u003cem>completed the report which is available at \u003ca href=\"http://www.onetam.org/peak-health\">www.onetam.org/peak-health\u003c/a>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Fitbits, heart rate monitors and digital thermometers can gauge a person’s health, but measuring a mountain’s health is a little trickier. More than 60 scientists set out to do just that for Mount Tamalpais, the revered hiking and biking mecca in Marin County.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Situated north of the Golden Gate, Mt. Tam is a biodiversity hotspot. It’s home to 770 native plants and 250 native animal species, including 95 threatened, endangered and rare species. Six plant species appear nowhere else in the world but on Mt. Tam.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1087473\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 3456px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1087473\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/Redwood-trees.jpg\" alt=\"Second-growth redwood forests on Mt. Tam.\" width=\"3456\" height=\"4608\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/Redwood-trees.jpg 3456w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/Redwood-trees-400x533.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/Redwood-trees-800x1067.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/Redwood-trees-768x1024.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/Redwood-trees-1440x1920.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/Redwood-trees-1920x2560.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/Redwood-trees-1180x1573.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/Redwood-trees-960x1280.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 3456px) 100vw, 3456px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Second-growth redwood forests on Mt. Tam. \u003ccite>(MMWD)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The first comprehensive health report of Mt. Tam’s natural resources \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">reveals most wildlife are doing well, while some fish species and plant communities are suffering from environmental and human stressors. There’s also the risk of catastrophic damage after a fire \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">since the mountain hasn’t seen a large wildfire in almost 75 years.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scientists from the \u003ca href=\"http://www.onetam.org/tamalpais-lands-collaborative\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Tamalpais Lands Collaborative\u003c/a> — a partnership between the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy and the four agencies that manage the mountain’s 41,000 acres of protected open space — \u003cspan style=\"line-height: 1.5\">looked at 18 types of flora and fauna.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>From redwood trees to foothill yellow-legged frogs, they studied how healthy the mountain is compared to the past. In some cases, no historical data exists, leaving knowledge gaps the scientists hope to fill in the future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong> An Ecosystem Under Stress\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In recent years, the biggest negative impact on plant communities has been from climate change, invasive species and plant pathogens. Oak woodlands, for example, are in fair and declining condition and are significantly stressed, according to the report.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More than 100 years of fire suppression on Mt. Tam means the shrub layer is thicker, providing fuel for a high-intensity fire with the potential to kill mature oaks and other native trees. And wild turkeys, which were introduced for sport hunting in the 80s, gobble up oak acorns so they don’t germinate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1087468\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 5312px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1087468\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/MMWD_fire_low_quality.jpg\" alt=\"On Mt. Tam, a prescribed burn decreases fuel loads in chaparral and scrub oak communities. \" width=\"5312\" height=\"2988\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/MMWD_fire_low_quality.jpg 5312w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/MMWD_fire_low_quality-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/MMWD_fire_low_quality-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/MMWD_fire_low_quality-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/MMWD_fire_low_quality-1440x810.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/MMWD_fire_low_quality-1920x1080.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/MMWD_fire_low_quality-1180x664.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/MMWD_fire_low_quality-960x540.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 5312px) 100vw, 5312px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">On Mt. Tam, a prescribed burn decreases fuel loads in chaparral and scrub oak communities. \u003ccite>(Carl Sanders/Marin Municipal Water District)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Another culprit is \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/2015/01/12/tiny-parasite-threatens-native-plants/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Sudden Oak Death,\u003c/a> a forest disease caused by the plant pathogen \u003cem>Phytophthora ramorum \u003c/em>that can lead to mortality in some hardwood trees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“Much of our vegetation has been stressed by invasive plants and Sudden Oak Death is really changing some of the structure of the forest,” says Bill Merkle, Golden Gate National Recreation Area wildlife ecologist.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A 2014 Marin Municipal Water District survey found more than 90 percent of oak woodlands were impacted by Sudden Oak Death.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since eradicating Sudden Oak Death isn’t likely, the decline and death of tanoaks, coast live oak, and black oaks in Marin County is expected to continue into the foreseeable future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Disappearing Species\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the last century, more than 60 plant species have disappeared from Mt. Tam and some animal species, like Coho salmon, could vanish from the mountain by 2100, scientists say.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1087469\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2816px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1087469\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/OLMspawnersurvey1206PhotobyCDR026.jpg\" alt=\"Adult male coho salmon on Olema Creek in Point Reyes National Seashore. \" width=\"2816\" height=\"2112\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/OLMspawnersurvey1206PhotobyCDR026.jpg 2816w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/OLMspawnersurvey1206PhotobyCDR026-400x300.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/OLMspawnersurvey1206PhotobyCDR026-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/OLMspawnersurvey1206PhotobyCDR026-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/OLMspawnersurvey1206PhotobyCDR026-1440x1080.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/OLMspawnersurvey1206PhotobyCDR026-1920x1440.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/OLMspawnersurvey1206PhotobyCDR026-1180x885.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/OLMspawnersurvey1206PhotobyCDR026-960x720.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2816px) 100vw, 2816px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Adult male coho salmon on Olema Creek in Point Reyes National Seashore. \u003ccite>(Casey del Real/NPS)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The federally endangered fish live in Lagunitas and Redwood Creeks, which run down off Mt. Tam.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“The Coho are in desperate straits,” says Eric Ettlinger, Marin Municipal Water District’s aquatic ecologist & fisheries biologist.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> “Most streams that used to have Coho have lost them.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Logging during the 20th century sent sediment into streams that smothered fish eggs. Today, Coho are blocked from half the watershed by dams that provide drinking water for Marin residents. And ocean over-fishing means fewer adult salmon survive to return and spawn in the streams where they hatched.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Warmer temperatures and less rainfall, fueled by climate change, are also impacting the Coho, which rely on a continuous flow of cold water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“As things warm up, [Coho] are particularly vulnerable because they’re already at their temperature tolerance” says Ettlinger.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Coho salmon aren’t the only species that are threatened.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1087836\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1087836\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/Marin-Manzanita.jpg\" alt=\"Marin manzanita which grow on Mt. Tam bloom from January through March.\" width=\"1024\" height=\"671\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/Marin-Manzanita.jpg 1024w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/Marin-Manzanita-400x262.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/Marin-Manzanita-800x524.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/Marin-Manzanita-768x503.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/Marin-Manzanita-960x629.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Marin manzanita which grow on Mt. Tam bloom from January through March. \u003ccite>(Miwok/flickr)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“There’s a handful of rare plant species that in the absence of active intervention soon, I think we could lose in the next 50 years” says Janet Klein, vegetation ecologist for the Marin Municipal Water District.\u003cb> \u003c/b>This includes \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"http://www.calflora.org/cgi-bin/species_query.cgi?where-taxon=Ceanothus+masonii\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Ceanothus masonii\u003c/a>,\u003c/em> a native shrub that displays a purple flower in the spring and \u003ca href=\"http://www.calflora.org/cgi-bin/species_query.cgi?where-calrecnum=627\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>Arctostaphylos virgata\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, a native shrub with bell-shaped flowers that’s known as Marin manzanita.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Mt. Tam, the flowering shrubs are now restricted to a narrow band along a service road. Their seeds require fire in order to germinate and seedlings have not been observed in the Mt. Tam survey area in the last two decades.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>The Good News: Some Species Are Thriving\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not all species are dwindling. Scientists rate the mountain’s overall condition as fair, meaning \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">some natural resources are doing exceptionally well, others are in significant distress \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">and \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">many resources are in a transitional state but\u003c/span> could greatly improve with active conservation measures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1087349\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 334px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-1087349\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/osprey.jpg\" alt=\"Ospreys are raptors that breed in the lakes and reservoirs in the Mt.Tam area.\" width=\"334\" height=\"446\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/osprey.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/osprey-400x533.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 334px) 100vw, 334px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Ospreys are raptors that breed in the lakes and reservoirs in the Mt.Tam area. \u003ccite>(Sandy and Chuck Harris)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Birds like the northern spotted owl and many raptors are doing well in the Mt. Tam region. The California red-legged frog, whose numbers plummeted as a result of human harvesting, habitat loss, and invasive species have made a comeback in recent years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The report found the single biggest long-term threat facing Mt. Tam is climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to projections from the \u003ca href=\"http://climate.calcommons.org/crnb/home\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Climate Ready North Bay Project\u003c/a>, the climate on the mountain is expected to warm by 7 to 11 degrees Fahrenheit over the next 50 to 100 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today, agencies are taking protective measures. The Marin Municipal Water District, for example, has thinned Douglas-fir saplings that encroach upon oak habitat and volunteers have been removing invasive plants like Scotch broom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The National Park Service created the Coho “headstart” program, which removes\u003cb>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> juvenile fish from the water. They are then raised in a hatchery, protected from the perilous ocean and re-released into Redwood Creek.\u003c/span>\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For those who want to help Mt. Tam, the Tamalpais Lands Collaborative recommends staying on designated trails, using native plants for home landscaping where feasible and cleaning hiking shoes when passing through areas with Sudden Oak Death.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The authors will share findings of their 350 page report on October 28 and 29 during the \u003ca href=\"http://www.onetam.org/science-summit\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Mt. Tam Science Summit\u003c/a> at the Sausalito Portuguese Cultural Center.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Scientists from the Tamalpais Lands Collaborative — a partnership between Marin Municipal Water District, California State Parks, the National Park Service, Marin County Parks and Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy — \u003c/em>\u003cem>completed the report which is available at \u003ca href=\"http://www.onetam.org/peak-health\">www.onetam.org/peak-health\u003c/a>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
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"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
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"info": "For decades, the process for how police police themselves has been inconsistent – if not opaque. In some states, like California, these proceedings were completely hidden. After a new police transparency law unsealed scores of internal affairs files, our reporters set out to examine these cases and the shadow world of police discipline. On Our Watch brings listeners into the rooms where officers are questioned and witnesses are interrogated to find out who this system is really protecting. Is it the officers, or the public they've sworn to serve?",
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"tagline": "Politics from a personal perspective",
"info": "Political Breakdown is a new series that explores the political intersection of California and the nation. Each week hosts Scott Shafer and Marisa Lagos are joined with a new special guest to unpack politics -- with personality — and offer an insider’s glimpse at how politics happens.",
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"info": "Possible is hosted by entrepreneur Reid Hoffman and writer Aria Finger. Together in Possible, Hoffman and Finger lead enlightening discussions about building a brighter collective future. The show features interviews with visionary guests like Trevor Noah, Sam Altman and Janette Sadik-Khan. Possible paints an optimistic portrait of the world we can create through science, policy, business, art and our shared humanity. It asks: What if everything goes right for once? How can we get there? Each episode also includes a short fiction story generated by advanced AI GPT-4, serving as a thought-provoking springboard to speculate how humanity could leverage technology for good.",
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"pri-the-world": {
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"info": "Each weekday, host Marco Werman and his team of producers bring you the world's most interesting stories in an hour of radio that reminds us just how small our planet really is.",
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"radiolab": {
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"info": "A two-time Peabody Award-winner, Radiolab is an investigation told through sounds and stories, and centered around one big idea. In the Radiolab world, information sounds like music and science and culture collide. Hosted by Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich, the show is designed for listeners who demand skepticism, but appreciate wonder. WNYC Studios is the producer of other leading podcasts including Freakonomics Radio, Death, Sex & Money, On the Media and many more.",
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"reveal": {
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"title": "Reveal",
"info": "Created by The Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX, Reveal is public radios first one-hour weekly radio show and podcast dedicated to investigative reporting. Credible, fact based and without a partisan agenda, Reveal combines the power and artistry of driveway moment storytelling with data-rich reporting on critically important issues. The result is stories that inform and inspire, arming our listeners with information to right injustices, hold the powerful accountable and improve lives.Reveal is hosted by Al Letson and showcases the award-winning work of CIR and newsrooms large and small across the nation. In a radio and podcast market crowded with choices, Reveal focuses on important and often surprising stories that illuminate the world for our listeners.",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.revealnews.org/episodes/",
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},
"rightnowish": {
"id": "rightnowish",
"title": "Rightnowish",
"tagline": "Art is where you find it",
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