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"title": "California Drought: A Glimmer of Hope For Winter Rain And Snow",
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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_24120\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1280px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/RS8575_IMG_0263.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-24120\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/RS8575_IMG_0263.jpg\" alt=\"A pedestrian with an umbrella walks in the rain in front of San Francsico's Embarcadero Center. (Mark Andrew Boyer / KQED)\" width=\"1280\" height=\"853\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A pedestrian with an umbrella walks in the rain in front of San Francsico’s Embarcadero Center. (Mark Andrew Boyer / KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Federal forecasters today proffered a 73 percent chance that, overall, California will see at least average precipitation this winter. However, the auspices favor the Southland more than Northern California, where most of the state’s largest reservoirs are located.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"http://www.climate.gov/news-features/blogs/enso/whats-store-united-states-winter\">outlook issued today\u003c/a> includes the months of December, January and February, when wetter storms, \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2014/11/18/this-weeks-rain-unlikely-to-dent-drought/http://\">if they come, typically hit the state\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s the first time since 2011 that the federal \u003ca href=\"http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/\">Climate Prediction Center\u003c/a>‘s three-month outlook favored average or above-average precipitation for any portion of California. As a testament to the persistence of the current drought, the last time the CDC issued an outlook predicting average-or-better precipitation for the entire state was November of 2009.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_24117\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 605px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/DJFPrecipMap.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-24117\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/DJFPrecipMap.jpg\" alt=\"The green areas on the map indicate odds on at least average precipitation over the next three months. (NOAA)\" width=\"605\" height=\"648\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The green areas on the map indicate odds on at least average precipitation over the next three months. Note that the optimism fades from south to north in California. (NOAA)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Scientists still have low expectations for the warm-water conditions in the Pacific known as El Niño, which might wring more rain and snow out of the atmosphere. They say there’s about a 60 percent chance of a winter El Niño — but it’s likely to be a weakling, not the rainmaker that is the stuff of \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/audio/drought-myth-busting-why-el-nino-wont-save-california/\">California legend\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Given such a severe California drought, normal precipitation would likely improve (not eliminate) the drought,” CPC meteorologist Dave Unger explained in an email. “So that is the reason for the optimistic drought outlook.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s state climatologist has said that the state would have to see at least half again its normal winter precipitation to begin to turn things around.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Forecasters are always quick to concede that such long-range outlooks are best taken with at least a grain of salt. Given the state of the science, this glimmer of hope could easily be a mirage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One thing of which they’re fairly certain: California is heading for its warmest year on record. In fact, said climatologist Jake Crouch, even record cold in December would not likely prevent that.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_24120\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1280px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/RS8575_IMG_0263.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-24120\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/RS8575_IMG_0263.jpg\" alt=\"A pedestrian with an umbrella walks in the rain in front of San Francsico's Embarcadero Center. (Mark Andrew Boyer / KQED)\" width=\"1280\" height=\"853\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A pedestrian with an umbrella walks in the rain in front of San Francsico’s Embarcadero Center. (Mark Andrew Boyer / KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Federal forecasters today proffered a 73 percent chance that, overall, California will see at least average precipitation this winter. However, the auspices favor the Southland more than Northern California, where most of the state’s largest reservoirs are located.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"http://www.climate.gov/news-features/blogs/enso/whats-store-united-states-winter\">outlook issued today\u003c/a> includes the months of December, January and February, when wetter storms, \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2014/11/18/this-weeks-rain-unlikely-to-dent-drought/http://\">if they come, typically hit the state\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s the first time since 2011 that the federal \u003ca href=\"http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/\">Climate Prediction Center\u003c/a>‘s three-month outlook favored average or above-average precipitation for any portion of California. As a testament to the persistence of the current drought, the last time the CDC issued an outlook predicting average-or-better precipitation for the entire state was November of 2009.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_24117\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 605px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/DJFPrecipMap.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-24117\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/DJFPrecipMap.jpg\" alt=\"The green areas on the map indicate odds on at least average precipitation over the next three months. (NOAA)\" width=\"605\" height=\"648\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The green areas on the map indicate odds on at least average precipitation over the next three months. Note that the optimism fades from south to north in California. (NOAA)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Scientists still have low expectations for the warm-water conditions in the Pacific known as El Niño, which might wring more rain and snow out of the atmosphere. They say there’s about a 60 percent chance of a winter El Niño — but it’s likely to be a weakling, not the rainmaker that is the stuff of \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/audio/drought-myth-busting-why-el-nino-wont-save-california/\">California legend\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Given such a severe California drought, normal precipitation would likely improve (not eliminate) the drought,” CPC meteorologist Dave Unger explained in an email. “So that is the reason for the optimistic drought outlook.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s state climatologist has said that the state would have to see at least half again its normal winter precipitation to begin to turn things around.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Forecasters are always quick to concede that such long-range outlooks are best taken with at least a grain of salt. Given the state of the science, this glimmer of hope could easily be a mirage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One thing of which they’re fairly certain: California is heading for its warmest year on record. In fact, said climatologist Jake Crouch, even record cold in December would not likely prevent that.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "This Week's Rain Unlikely to Dent Drought",
"headTitle": "This Week’s Rain Unlikely to Dent Drought | KQED",
"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_24028\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/IMG_5282.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-24028\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/IMG_5282.jpg\" alt=\"Rain falls in Vallejo in October. (Craig Miller/KQED)\" width=\"640\" height=\"1080\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An October downpour in Vallejo. Despite such cloudbursts, early storms like this one failed to deliver much rain to most of the Bay Area. (Craig Miller/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Rain storms expected to blow through the Bay Area this week will likely have little impact on the statewide drought, now entering its fourth year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The National Weather Service is \u003ca href=\"http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/total_forecast/getprod.php?prod=XXXAFDMTR&wfo=MTR\">forecasting\u003c/a> only about a half-inch of precipitation to fall in most locations from three separate storm systems beginning mid-week and concluding sometime on Saturday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All three storms look to be on the weak side, said NWS forecaster Roger Gaas, with the possible exception of the last storm arriving on Friday — if it swings far enough south to douse the Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“But we can’t complain when we get three wet systems in a row, particularly within a few days,” says Gass.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some of the region’s water scarcity can be traced to a persistent \u003ca href=\"http://www.weatherwest.com/archives/1967\">high pressure ridge\u003c/a> that diverts Pacific storms to the north. Gass says the ridge has begun to shift eastward.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This has allowed the storm systems to actually have an entrance into central California and bring us rainfall.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But experts are cautioning against too much optimism following just a little rain that, taking the long view, will have such scant impact on the \u003ca href=\"http://www.mercurynews.com/drought/ci_26932356/california-drought-not-likely-end-this-winter-experts\">state’s water shortage\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Thursday it’ll rain, and people will say, ‘Oh, I’m very excited,’ and Saturday it’ll rain, and ‘Oh, drought’s over.’ Not even close,” says Jeffrey Mount, a senior fellow with Public Policy Institute of California focused on water policy and management. “This has been three consecutive years of extreme dryness, and that extreme dryness translates to much lower groundwater levels, and very dry soils. It’s going to take a lot of rain to break this drought.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>How much? Current estimates from the state Department of Water Resources say the state needs about 1.5 times the rainfall of an average year to break the drought.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, even an average year would revive \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/audio/parched-california-wildlife-suffers-in-drought/\">wetlands that support migrating wildlife\u003c/a>, boost river flows that are currently stressing aquatic life and begin to refill aquifers and reservoirs depleted over the dry years, Mount says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As Mount sees it, the difference between a wet and a dry year in California is a razor’s edge, or about a week’s worth of storms scattered over the first two months of the year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s usually in that period between Christmas and mid-February — five to seven of those days — that decide whether we have a wet year or not,” Mount says. “And if we don’t get five to seven days worth of heavy rain, we have a dry year. We cut it that fine.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s the time period that the West Coast storms can be carried by \u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/news/atmospheric-river-may-help-put-a-dent-in-california-drought-17039\">atmospheric rivers\u003c/a>, which tend to dump a lot of moisture. But those storms, the kind that can turn a drought year into an above-average one for precipitation, don’t always come.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If we don’t get any, or just get a few weak ones, we tend to be dry,” Mount explained in an email. “Indeed, 1997 and 1986 were major flood years that would have been labeled below average to dry if those prolonged atmospheric rivers (lasting days) had not occurred.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So it’s much too early to tell whether the 2014-15 water year will be the fourth in a historic drought or the wet year that begins to turn things around. Long-term forecasts, which aren’t considered reliable, have begun to indicate more precipitation this winter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That’s at least a ray of hope,” says Mount, “and when it comes to rainfall, hope is our strategy.”\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_24028\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/IMG_5282.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-24028\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/IMG_5282.jpg\" alt=\"Rain falls in Vallejo in October. (Craig Miller/KQED)\" width=\"640\" height=\"1080\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An October downpour in Vallejo. Despite such cloudbursts, early storms like this one failed to deliver much rain to most of the Bay Area. (Craig Miller/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Rain storms expected to blow through the Bay Area this week will likely have little impact on the statewide drought, now entering its fourth year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The National Weather Service is \u003ca href=\"http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/total_forecast/getprod.php?prod=XXXAFDMTR&wfo=MTR\">forecasting\u003c/a> only about a half-inch of precipitation to fall in most locations from three separate storm systems beginning mid-week and concluding sometime on Saturday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All three storms look to be on the weak side, said NWS forecaster Roger Gaas, with the possible exception of the last storm arriving on Friday — if it swings far enough south to douse the Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“But we can’t complain when we get three wet systems in a row, particularly within a few days,” says Gass.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some of the region’s water scarcity can be traced to a persistent \u003ca href=\"http://www.weatherwest.com/archives/1967\">high pressure ridge\u003c/a> that diverts Pacific storms to the north. Gass says the ridge has begun to shift eastward.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This has allowed the storm systems to actually have an entrance into central California and bring us rainfall.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But experts are cautioning against too much optimism following just a little rain that, taking the long view, will have such scant impact on the \u003ca href=\"http://www.mercurynews.com/drought/ci_26932356/california-drought-not-likely-end-this-winter-experts\">state’s water shortage\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Thursday it’ll rain, and people will say, ‘Oh, I’m very excited,’ and Saturday it’ll rain, and ‘Oh, drought’s over.’ Not even close,” says Jeffrey Mount, a senior fellow with Public Policy Institute of California focused on water policy and management. “This has been three consecutive years of extreme dryness, and that extreme dryness translates to much lower groundwater levels, and very dry soils. It’s going to take a lot of rain to break this drought.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>How much? Current estimates from the state Department of Water Resources say the state needs about 1.5 times the rainfall of an average year to break the drought.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, even an average year would revive \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/audio/parched-california-wildlife-suffers-in-drought/\">wetlands that support migrating wildlife\u003c/a>, boost river flows that are currently stressing aquatic life and begin to refill aquifers and reservoirs depleted over the dry years, Mount says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As Mount sees it, the difference between a wet and a dry year in California is a razor’s edge, or about a week’s worth of storms scattered over the first two months of the year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s usually in that period between Christmas and mid-February — five to seven of those days — that decide whether we have a wet year or not,” Mount says. “And if we don’t get five to seven days worth of heavy rain, we have a dry year. We cut it that fine.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s the time period that the West Coast storms can be carried by \u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/news/atmospheric-river-may-help-put-a-dent-in-california-drought-17039\">atmospheric rivers\u003c/a>, which tend to dump a lot of moisture. But those storms, the kind that can turn a drought year into an above-average one for precipitation, don’t always come.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If we don’t get any, or just get a few weak ones, we tend to be dry,” Mount explained in an email. “Indeed, 1997 and 1986 were major flood years that would have been labeled below average to dry if those prolonged atmospheric rivers (lasting days) had not occurred.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So it’s much too early to tell whether the 2014-15 water year will be the fourth in a historic drought or the wet year that begins to turn things around. Long-term forecasts, which aren’t considered reliable, have begun to indicate more precipitation this winter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That’s at least a ray of hope,” says Mount, “and when it comes to rainfall, hope is our strategy.”\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Designing California Cities for a Long-Term Drought",
"headTitle": "Designing California Cities for a Long-Term Drought | KQED",
"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"audio-wrap\">\n\u003ch2>Listen:\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>http://www.kqed.org/.stream/anon/radio/science/2014/11/20141118science.mp3\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_23886\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/boat3s-222.gif\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-23886 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/boat3s-222.gif\" alt=\"boat3s-222\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">KQED Science reporter Amy Standen kayaks near the end of the L.A. River, where it sheds its concrete channel. (Amy Standen/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Let’s consider the possibility that this drought we’re in could last more than than just a few dry years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Geologic history in California is marked by epic droughts — droughts lasting decades, even centuries. There’s no way of knowing whether we’re at the start of one of those, but scientists say it’s possible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, most Californians live in cities designed, to a great extent, on the promise of nearly endless water, imported from wetter parts of the state via massive engineering projects like the \u003ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_State_Water_Project\">California State Water Project\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s not hard to imagine a collision looming between how we expect water to behave — piped, channelized, pumped according to our needs — and how it may increasingly behave in coming years — sporadic, unpredictable, sometimes too much, sometimes too little.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When water doesn’t do what we want it to anymore, how does that change the way we live?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>A Case-Study in Water Hubris\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To begin this story, I wanted to visit a place that could symbolize the near-complete domination of man over nature. And while there are plenty of options for this — \u003ca href=\"http://www.usbr.gov/lc/hooverdam/\">especially \u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salton_Sea\">in \u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"http://science.kqed.org/quest/delta-map/\">California\u003c/a> — the Los Angeles River stood out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So, on a cloudless November afternoon, I found myself scrambling down a steep riprap embankment with a two-seater kayak, accompanied by a local artist and river guide named Steve Appleton.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">‘It just became one monolithic trapezoidal channel.’ \u003ccite>–Steve Appleton\u003cbr>\nL.A. Artist and River Guide\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Right away, it was clear how little of the L.A. River looks anything like a river.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While efforts are underway to \u003ca href=\"http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/07/140719-los-angeles-river-restoration-kayaking-greenway/\">restore some stretches\u003c/a> of the river to a more natural, riverlike state, many of the L.A. River’s 42-miles look like a concrete bathtub.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That includes a spot about a half mile upstream of the river’s terminus in Long Beach Harbor where getting wet requires something akin to rock-climbing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here, the industrial vibe was very much intact. On an overpass just north of us, a sign warned anyone who might be temped to do anything fun or outdoorsy:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Danger: No swimming, diving. Waterskiing, jet skiing, sailboarding or other water-contact sports prohibited.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yet, once upon a time, this river was a river. People who lived here fished in it and drank from it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the Los Angeles River, like all rivers, was unruly. After devastating floods in the 1930s, the Army Corps of Engineers paved it over and channelized it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_23935\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/1200px-Bull_creek_north_from_victory-1024x732.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-23935\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/1200px-Bull_creek_north_from_victory-1024x732.jpg\" alt=\"Bull Creek, an L.A. River tributary, flows in the city's Lake Balboa neighborhood. (<a title="User:Junkyardsparkle" href="//commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Junkyardsparkle">Junkyardsparkle</a>/<a href="//commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/">Wikimedia Commons</a>)\" width=\"640\" height=\"458\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Bull Creek, an L.A. River tributary, flows in the city’s Lake Balboa neighborhood. (Junkyardsparkle/Wikimedia Commons)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, the city had begun getting its water from elsewhere. A massive aqueduct pulled in water from the Owens Valley, some 300 miles to the northeast.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As a result of all this engineering, two things happened.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One: Water suddenly seemed endless. “There it is, take it,” city water director and self-taught engineer William Mulholland famously told the residents of Los Angeles when the aqueduct opened in 1913. Today almost 4 million people live in L.A., which is amazing when you consider that this place gets as much water as Casablanca, Morocco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Two: The river? You could almost forget it existed. It was buried and channelized, blocked off by chain link fence as the city expanded up to its concrete banks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It just became one monolithic trapezoidal channel,” says Appleton, laughing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Within Modern Plumbing, an Ancient Idea\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today, we take it for granted that water can be engineered into submission.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But it’s an idea that comes from somewhere. And that somewhere is ancient Rome, according to David Sedlak, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at UC Berkeley and author of a new history of water, \u003ca href=\"http://www.water4point0.com/\">Water 4.0\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=”9AAr94v6sIFrynk9CAwP4B25eLHWUGEN”]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The Romans gave us the idea of public baths, public toilets, fountains and the convenience of water coming directly into your neighborhood,” Sedlak says. “They were able to provide close to 100 gallons per person, per day, which is similar to what we use in some of our modern cities.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The ancient Romans did this in much the same way we do today, by importing water in giant aqueducts from distant places.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To the Romans, too, water seemed endless. They staged mock naval battles in giant stadiums, floating actual ships in artificial lakes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The pride of ancient Rome, Sedlak says, was its hundreds of public fountains, which ran without stopping and served as focal points for civic life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The Romans were the richest kids on the block in the ancient world, and as anyone who’s read Roman history knows, they were not hesitant to show the rest of the world how rich they were,” Sedlak says. “For the people who visited it, it must have been a marvel. They must have taken home with them this idea that the Romans were rich and technologically advanced.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To my ears, Sedlak is not just talking about Rome. He’s talking about California, too. California’s massive aqueducts, its vast networks of pumps and dams, allowed cities to bloom in our deserts and provided a foundation for an economy the size of Russia’s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But water doesn’t play by those rules anymore.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Designing for a New Water Order\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>2013 was the driest year in history; 2014 is not far behind. Climate change is expected to exacerbate this scarcity by making flows from the Sierra snowpack unreliable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, cities are growing. There’s more competition between cities, farms and ecosystems for precious fresh water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_23941\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 320px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/RS13030_Elmer_Ave_Before_After_4.jpg-alt_178.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-23941\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/RS13030_Elmer_Ave_Before_After_4.jpg-alt_178.jpg\" alt=\"A creek bed runs beside a sidewalk on Elmer Avenue in Los Angeles. (Courtesy of TreePeople)\" width=\"320\" height=\"427\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A “bioswale” running alongside a sidewalk on Elmer Avenue in Los Angeles soaks up rainwater and sends it to an underground storage chamber. (Courtesy of TreePeople)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>This brings us to a prototype for the future city, which exists on a single block of Elmer Avenue, in a working-class neighborhood of East Los Angeles called Sun Valley.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the day I visited, I knew I wanted to meet people who lived on this particular block. But everyone I stopped seemed to have come from somewhere else.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rick Martin, for example, was here power-walking with a friend. Neither lives on Elmer Avenue, but they come here for walks. Martin says it’s the nicest block in the neighborhood.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This wasn’t always the case.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Until a few years ago, Elmer Avenue had a problem with floods. Heavy rains turned intersections into lakes, and turned sidewalks – such as they were – into muddy swamps.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So in 2009, the city embarked on a plan to install new technologies on Elmer Avenue that would transform the way the block used water, including the rain that fell here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In many of the yards – though not all – the Kentucky bluegrass has been removed,” observed Hadley Arnold, my tour guide for the day and a co-director of the \u003ca href=\"http://aridlands.org/\">Arid Lands Institute\u003c/a> at Woodbury University in Burbank, which trains architects and designers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>About half of the residents here have replaced their lawns with drought-tolerant landscaping, such as California live oak, rosemary and sage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the bigger changes on Elmer Avenue are less obvious.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Making Cities Permeable\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The $2.7 million \u003ca href=\"https://lafoundation.org/research/landscape-performance-series/case-studies/case-study/381/\">overhaul\u003c/a> installed “bio-swales” at the foot of the curbs, to absorb rainwater into underground “galleries” that collect and store it. About half the homes added rain-collecting barrels, which provide water for irrigation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today, when it rains, rather than sending rain water into the sewer and treating it like garbage (as most streets do), or – in a real downpour – flooding the sidewalk, Elmer Avenue soaks water into the ground and stores it for later use.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In an average rain year,” says Arnold, “this block puts enough water for approximately 30 families for a year into the ground.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In other words, Elmer Avenue is permeable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[edge_animation id=”9″]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you think about it, this is the opposite of ancient Rome, the opposite of California’s giant aqueducts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Elmer Avenue uses what it gets naturally, rather than relying entirely on imported water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Arnold says it’s a good start, but that more dramatic design changes should follow.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Look at those peaked roofs,” she tells me. “It’s a useless vestige that has no authentic purpose in this place.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most of the homes in this neighborhood have triangular roofs, modeled on homes in colder climates where roofs are designed to shed ice and snow.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Roofs here in Los Angeles’ sunbaked neighborhoods should look different.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Roofs that are like a wide mouth open to the sky,” Arnold says. “Roofs that are like a cup or a bowl, or an umbrella turned upside down.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And cities should, where possible, be porous.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Arnold is part of a \u003ca href=\"http://aridlands.org/discover/events/divining-la\">collaborative effort\u003c/a> to map the parts of the city where underground aquifers could safely absorb rain water, and the parts that might be better suited for above-ground capture. She believes this tool could be useful for developers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cities, Arnold says, should be designed to \u003ca href=\"http://aridlands.org/project/where-it-lets-reuse-it\">work with\u003c/a> the water that appears there naturally, not throw it away, only to import more from distant places.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Futuristic Structures\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In San Francisco, “speculative” architects are turning their attention to how buildings might be redesigned to accommodate local water sources and a changing climate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a bright and airy studio in San Francisco’s Dogpatch neighborhood, Nataly Gattegno, a co-founder of the \u003ca href=\"http://www.future-cities-lab.net/\">Future Cities Lab\u003c/a>, introduces me to Hydramax.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.future-cities-lab.net/hydramax/\">Hydramax\u003c/a> is a model of a theoretical structure (the word “building” doesn’t quite feel adequate; Gattegno calls it a “port machine”) designed for the San Francisco waterfront.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_23877\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 750px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/Credit-Future-Cities-Lab-2.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-23877\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/Credit-Future-Cities-Lab-2.jpg\" alt='A rendering of the \"Hydramax,\" a futuristic building designed to capture water from the air, among other things. (Courtesy of Future Cities Lab) ' width=\"750\" height=\"606\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A rendering of the “Hydramax,” a futuristic building designed to capture water from the air, among other things. (Courtesy of Future Cities Lab)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“You have a shell,” explains Gattegno, “where all the occupation and habitation occurs. There are places to live in, places to shop. Then the next tier is [for] hydroponics, where food is grown.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hydramax anticipates a future where sea-level rise causes tides that regularly drench the waterfront. The structure can function submerged or dry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Covering the top of it are fabric structures, 90 feet long, that wave back and forth. They’re fog-harvesting “feathers” which can extract moisture from fog and channel it into the hydroponic farms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>It’s About Accommodating Water, Not Fighting It\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I asked Gattegno whether she thought the Hydramax would ever get built. To me, it seemed unlikely; the structure seemed expensive, almost permanently futuristic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gattegno told me sure, she’d love to see the Hydramax and other far-out projects be built one day. But that’s not really the point.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The point she wants to make (just like Hadley Arnold and David Sedlak) is that the old ways of building cities and supplying them with water — ideas we borrowed from the ancient Romans — may no longer make sense in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In the past we’ve controlled water,” says Gattegno. “We’ve told it what to do, what pipes to move through, what aqueducts to be contained in, and in this case, we’re proposing a completely alternative model, a model where water maybe is slightly controlled — it’s still controlled in a certain way, or at least it has a kind of known set of properties that we can leverage — but at the same time, it’s also left to be part of the environment.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Instead of burying plumbing underneath the street or behind walls, water infrastructure is the Hydramax’s centerpiece.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s one example, she says, of how cities might be redesigned not to just survive the current drought, but be transformed by it, perhaps for the better.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Scientists say it’s possible California’s drought may last a lot longer than a few years. No one knows for sure, but we could all simply have to adjust to a drier climate. That could mean changing the way we build cities to make them more porous. The 'Hydramax,' a futuristic design pictured above, rises with the tide and captures water from the air.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/div>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_23886\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/boat3s-222.gif\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-23886 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/boat3s-222.gif\" alt=\"boat3s-222\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">KQED Science reporter Amy Standen kayaks near the end of the L.A. River, where it sheds its concrete channel. (Amy Standen/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Let’s consider the possibility that this drought we’re in could last more than than just a few dry years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Geologic history in California is marked by epic droughts — droughts lasting decades, even centuries. There’s no way of knowing whether we’re at the start of one of those, but scientists say it’s possible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, most Californians live in cities designed, to a great extent, on the promise of nearly endless water, imported from wetter parts of the state via massive engineering projects like the \u003ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_State_Water_Project\">California State Water Project\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s not hard to imagine a collision looming between how we expect water to behave — piped, channelized, pumped according to our needs — and how it may increasingly behave in coming years — sporadic, unpredictable, sometimes too much, sometimes too little.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When water doesn’t do what we want it to anymore, how does that change the way we live?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>A Case-Study in Water Hubris\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To begin this story, I wanted to visit a place that could symbolize the near-complete domination of man over nature. And while there are plenty of options for this — \u003ca href=\"http://www.usbr.gov/lc/hooverdam/\">especially \u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salton_Sea\">in \u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"http://science.kqed.org/quest/delta-map/\">California\u003c/a> — the Los Angeles River stood out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So, on a cloudless November afternoon, I found myself scrambling down a steep riprap embankment with a two-seater kayak, accompanied by a local artist and river guide named Steve Appleton.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">‘It just became one monolithic trapezoidal channel.’ \u003ccite>–Steve Appleton\u003cbr>\nL.A. Artist and River Guide\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Right away, it was clear how little of the L.A. River looks anything like a river.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While efforts are underway to \u003ca href=\"http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/07/140719-los-angeles-river-restoration-kayaking-greenway/\">restore some stretches\u003c/a> of the river to a more natural, riverlike state, many of the L.A. River’s 42-miles look like a concrete bathtub.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That includes a spot about a half mile upstream of the river’s terminus in Long Beach Harbor where getting wet requires something akin to rock-climbing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here, the industrial vibe was very much intact. On an overpass just north of us, a sign warned anyone who might be temped to do anything fun or outdoorsy:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Danger: No swimming, diving. Waterskiing, jet skiing, sailboarding or other water-contact sports prohibited.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yet, once upon a time, this river was a river. People who lived here fished in it and drank from it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the Los Angeles River, like all rivers, was unruly. After devastating floods in the 1930s, the Army Corps of Engineers paved it over and channelized it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_23935\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/1200px-Bull_creek_north_from_victory-1024x732.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-23935\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/1200px-Bull_creek_north_from_victory-1024x732.jpg\" alt=\"Bull Creek, an L.A. River tributary, flows in the city's Lake Balboa neighborhood. (<a title="User:Junkyardsparkle" href="//commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Junkyardsparkle">Junkyardsparkle</a>/<a href="//commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/">Wikimedia Commons</a>)\" width=\"640\" height=\"458\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Bull Creek, an L.A. River tributary, flows in the city’s Lake Balboa neighborhood. (Junkyardsparkle/Wikimedia Commons)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, the city had begun getting its water from elsewhere. A massive aqueduct pulled in water from the Owens Valley, some 300 miles to the northeast.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As a result of all this engineering, two things happened.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One: Water suddenly seemed endless. “There it is, take it,” city water director and self-taught engineer William Mulholland famously told the residents of Los Angeles when the aqueduct opened in 1913. Today almost 4 million people live in L.A., which is amazing when you consider that this place gets as much water as Casablanca, Morocco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Two: The river? You could almost forget it existed. It was buried and channelized, blocked off by chain link fence as the city expanded up to its concrete banks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It just became one monolithic trapezoidal channel,” says Appleton, laughing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Within Modern Plumbing, an Ancient Idea\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today, we take it for granted that water can be engineered into submission.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But it’s an idea that comes from somewhere. And that somewhere is ancient Rome, according to David Sedlak, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at UC Berkeley and author of a new history of water, \u003ca href=\"http://www.water4point0.com/\">Water 4.0\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The Romans gave us the idea of public baths, public toilets, fountains and the convenience of water coming directly into your neighborhood,” Sedlak says. “They were able to provide close to 100 gallons per person, per day, which is similar to what we use in some of our modern cities.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The ancient Romans did this in much the same way we do today, by importing water in giant aqueducts from distant places.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To the Romans, too, water seemed endless. They staged mock naval battles in giant stadiums, floating actual ships in artificial lakes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The pride of ancient Rome, Sedlak says, was its hundreds of public fountains, which ran without stopping and served as focal points for civic life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The Romans were the richest kids on the block in the ancient world, and as anyone who’s read Roman history knows, they were not hesitant to show the rest of the world how rich they were,” Sedlak says. “For the people who visited it, it must have been a marvel. They must have taken home with them this idea that the Romans were rich and technologically advanced.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To my ears, Sedlak is not just talking about Rome. He’s talking about California, too. California’s massive aqueducts, its vast networks of pumps and dams, allowed cities to bloom in our deserts and provided a foundation for an economy the size of Russia’s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But water doesn’t play by those rules anymore.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Designing for a New Water Order\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>2013 was the driest year in history; 2014 is not far behind. Climate change is expected to exacerbate this scarcity by making flows from the Sierra snowpack unreliable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, cities are growing. There’s more competition between cities, farms and ecosystems for precious fresh water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_23941\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 320px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/RS13030_Elmer_Ave_Before_After_4.jpg-alt_178.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-23941\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/RS13030_Elmer_Ave_Before_After_4.jpg-alt_178.jpg\" alt=\"A creek bed runs beside a sidewalk on Elmer Avenue in Los Angeles. (Courtesy of TreePeople)\" width=\"320\" height=\"427\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A “bioswale” running alongside a sidewalk on Elmer Avenue in Los Angeles soaks up rainwater and sends it to an underground storage chamber. (Courtesy of TreePeople)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>This brings us to a prototype for the future city, which exists on a single block of Elmer Avenue, in a working-class neighborhood of East Los Angeles called Sun Valley.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the day I visited, I knew I wanted to meet people who lived on this particular block. But everyone I stopped seemed to have come from somewhere else.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rick Martin, for example, was here power-walking with a friend. Neither lives on Elmer Avenue, but they come here for walks. Martin says it’s the nicest block in the neighborhood.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This wasn’t always the case.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Until a few years ago, Elmer Avenue had a problem with floods. Heavy rains turned intersections into lakes, and turned sidewalks – such as they were – into muddy swamps.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So in 2009, the city embarked on a plan to install new technologies on Elmer Avenue that would transform the way the block used water, including the rain that fell here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In many of the yards – though not all – the Kentucky bluegrass has been removed,” observed Hadley Arnold, my tour guide for the day and a co-director of the \u003ca href=\"http://aridlands.org/\">Arid Lands Institute\u003c/a> at Woodbury University in Burbank, which trains architects and designers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>About half of the residents here have replaced their lawns with drought-tolerant landscaping, such as California live oak, rosemary and sage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the bigger changes on Elmer Avenue are less obvious.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Making Cities Permeable\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The $2.7 million \u003ca href=\"https://lafoundation.org/research/landscape-performance-series/case-studies/case-study/381/\">overhaul\u003c/a> installed “bio-swales” at the foot of the curbs, to absorb rainwater into underground “galleries” that collect and store it. About half the homes added rain-collecting barrels, which provide water for irrigation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today, when it rains, rather than sending rain water into the sewer and treating it like garbage (as most streets do), or – in a real downpour – flooding the sidewalk, Elmer Avenue soaks water into the ground and stores it for later use.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In an average rain year,” says Arnold, “this block puts enough water for approximately 30 families for a year into the ground.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In other words, Elmer Avenue is permeable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[edge_animation id=”9″]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you think about it, this is the opposite of ancient Rome, the opposite of California’s giant aqueducts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Elmer Avenue uses what it gets naturally, rather than relying entirely on imported water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Arnold says it’s a good start, but that more dramatic design changes should follow.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Look at those peaked roofs,” she tells me. “It’s a useless vestige that has no authentic purpose in this place.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most of the homes in this neighborhood have triangular roofs, modeled on homes in colder climates where roofs are designed to shed ice and snow.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Roofs here in Los Angeles’ sunbaked neighborhoods should look different.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Roofs that are like a wide mouth open to the sky,” Arnold says. “Roofs that are like a cup or a bowl, or an umbrella turned upside down.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And cities should, where possible, be porous.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Arnold is part of a \u003ca href=\"http://aridlands.org/discover/events/divining-la\">collaborative effort\u003c/a> to map the parts of the city where underground aquifers could safely absorb rain water, and the parts that might be better suited for above-ground capture. She believes this tool could be useful for developers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cities, Arnold says, should be designed to \u003ca href=\"http://aridlands.org/project/where-it-lets-reuse-it\">work with\u003c/a> the water that appears there naturally, not throw it away, only to import more from distant places.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Futuristic Structures\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In San Francisco, “speculative” architects are turning their attention to how buildings might be redesigned to accommodate local water sources and a changing climate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a bright and airy studio in San Francisco’s Dogpatch neighborhood, Nataly Gattegno, a co-founder of the \u003ca href=\"http://www.future-cities-lab.net/\">Future Cities Lab\u003c/a>, introduces me to Hydramax.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.future-cities-lab.net/hydramax/\">Hydramax\u003c/a> is a model of a theoretical structure (the word “building” doesn’t quite feel adequate; Gattegno calls it a “port machine”) designed for the San Francisco waterfront.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_23877\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 750px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/Credit-Future-Cities-Lab-2.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-23877\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/Credit-Future-Cities-Lab-2.jpg\" alt='A rendering of the \"Hydramax,\" a futuristic building designed to capture water from the air, among other things. (Courtesy of Future Cities Lab) ' width=\"750\" height=\"606\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A rendering of the “Hydramax,” a futuristic building designed to capture water from the air, among other things. (Courtesy of Future Cities Lab)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“You have a shell,” explains Gattegno, “where all the occupation and habitation occurs. There are places to live in, places to shop. Then the next tier is [for] hydroponics, where food is grown.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hydramax anticipates a future where sea-level rise causes tides that regularly drench the waterfront. The structure can function submerged or dry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Covering the top of it are fabric structures, 90 feet long, that wave back and forth. They’re fog-harvesting “feathers” which can extract moisture from fog and channel it into the hydroponic farms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>It’s About Accommodating Water, Not Fighting It\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I asked Gattegno whether she thought the Hydramax would ever get built. To me, it seemed unlikely; the structure seemed expensive, almost permanently futuristic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gattegno told me sure, she’d love to see the Hydramax and other far-out projects be built one day. But that’s not really the point.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The point she wants to make (just like Hadley Arnold and David Sedlak) is that the old ways of building cities and supplying them with water — ideas we borrowed from the ancient Romans — may no longer make sense in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In the past we’ve controlled water,” says Gattegno. “We’ve told it what to do, what pipes to move through, what aqueducts to be contained in, and in this case, we’re proposing a completely alternative model, a model where water maybe is slightly controlled — it’s still controlled in a certain way, or at least it has a kind of known set of properties that we can leverage — but at the same time, it’s also left to be part of the environment.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Instead of burying plumbing underneath the street or behind walls, water infrastructure is the Hydramax’s centerpiece.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s one example, she says, of how cities might be redesigned not to just survive the current drought, but be transformed by it, perhaps for the better.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Scientists Suspect a Virus is Causing Sea Star Die-Off",
"headTitle": "Scientists Suspect a Virus is Causing Sea Star Die-Off | KQED",
"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_23912\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 4000px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/diseased-davenport-big.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-23912 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/diseased-davenport-big.jpg\" alt=\"diseased-davenport big\" width=\"4000\" height=\"3000\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The wasting disease affecting sea stars causes some, like this ochre star in Santa Cruz, to lose their legs. (Nate Fletcher/ UC Santa Cruz) \u003ccite>(Nate Fletcher/ UC Santa Cruz)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp class=\"wp-image-23896 size-full\">Scientists have identified the top suspect in the mysterious die-off of millions of sea stars along the west coast.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Millions of starfish from Mexico to Alaska have lost their legs and turned to mush, confounding and alarming scientists and beachgoers. In affected areas, the mortality rate has been as high as 70 to 99 percent. The phenomenon is known as “\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2014/03/07/what-we-know-and-dont-know-about-the-sea-star-die-off/\">sea star wasting disease\u003c/a>” but the cause has remained unknown.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Researchers from UC Santa Cruz, Cornell University and other institutions now have strong evidence that links the disease to a densovirus, a type of parvovirus commonly found in invertebrates. In a \u003ca href=\"http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2014/11/12/1416625111.full.pdf+html\">paper published\u003c/a> in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the scientists report that densovirus is also present in museum specimens of sea stars as far back as the 1940s. That means that while the virus has long been present in sea star populations, something has triggered the recent outbreak.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mass sea star die-offs have occurred before, says Peter Raimondi, chair of the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at UC Santa Cruz. But they all corresponded with El Niño years that brought warmer waters to the Pacific Coast.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The key difference with other outbreaks is that in other ones it was unambiguously associated with warm water,” Raimondi says.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">‘The sea stars may have responded to the viral outbreak by reproducing even more than usual.’\u003ccite>— Dr. Peter Raimondi, UC Santa Cruz\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>This latest die-off doesn’t follow the same pattern. Previous outbreaks spread north as warm waters moved up the coast, but the current outbreak has occurred as a series of individual incidents, popping up all over the west coast, first in the north and then further south and then back in the north. Some of the affected areas saw warmer temperatures but some didn’t, Raimondi says. This outbreak has also lasted longer and affected a larger area than ever before.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Raimondi and his colleagues are still researching what’s driving the current outbreak. They haven’t ruled out warmer water entirely, but they’re investigating a variety of other environmental factors, from pollution to ocean acidification to a decrease in oxygen in the water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We don’t know if it’s an isolated example taking root and spreading, and doesn’t portend anything in future,” Raimondi says, “or if this is a portent of things that will become more common in the future.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Prospects for Recovery\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Researchers aren’t sure whether the sea star population is going to be able to rebound from this die-off.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The bad news of the study is that, besides sea stars, the virus is found in sediment and in sea urchins, although the urchins don’t show symptoms of the virus. Raimondi says the sediments and urchins are acting as a reservoir for the virus and might infect new generations of sea stars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_23909\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 4000px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/p_ochraceus_recruits_sad_2014_0325_mg-BIG.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-23909 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/p_ochraceus_recruits_sad_2014_0325_mg-BIG.jpg\" alt=\"p_ochraceus_recruits_sad_2014_0325_mg BIG\" width=\"4000\" height=\"3000\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Scientists are now seeing large numbers of juvenile sea stars in areas that were affected by the virus outbreak. (Maya George/UC Santa Cruz)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Beautiful and brightly colored, starfish are a charismatic species and a favorite of beach goers. They’re also voracious predators. Starfish are called a keystone species, meaning they’re at the top of the food chain and have a major effect on the ecosystem. A significant decline in sea star species could have profound ecological consequences, Raimondi says, changing marine ecosystems along the west coast.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The good news is that researchers are finding huge populations of baby starfish in some of their monitoring areas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When animals get stressed they tend to reproduce,” Raimondi says. The sea stars may have responded to the viral outbreak by reproducing even more than usual. The baby sea stars then drift away from their birthplace on ocean currents. “Because babies tend to go somewhere else, they can repopulate other areas, so recovery can be quicker than we thought.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Raimondi encourages beachgoers, boaters, and divers to visit \u003ca href=\"http://www.eeb.ucsc.edu/pacificrockyintertidal/data-products/sea-star-wasting/index.html\">seastarwasting.org\u003c/a> to see pictures of diseased and baby sea stars and to submit information about their own sightings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We welcome observation,” Raimondi says. “The public can help immensely in our understanding of what’s causing this and what the recovery prospects are like.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>You can see scientists at work trying to solve the mystery of sea star wasting disease, in this QUEST TV story, filmed earlier this year.\u003cbr>\n\u003c/em>\u003cbr>\nhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GcseyLU1Rs?feature=player_detailpage\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_23912\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 4000px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/diseased-davenport-big.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-23912 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/diseased-davenport-big.jpg\" alt=\"diseased-davenport big\" width=\"4000\" height=\"3000\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The wasting disease affecting sea stars causes some, like this ochre star in Santa Cruz, to lose their legs. (Nate Fletcher/ UC Santa Cruz) \u003ccite>(Nate Fletcher/ UC Santa Cruz)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp class=\"wp-image-23896 size-full\">Scientists have identified the top suspect in the mysterious die-off of millions of sea stars along the west coast.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Millions of starfish from Mexico to Alaska have lost their legs and turned to mush, confounding and alarming scientists and beachgoers. In affected areas, the mortality rate has been as high as 70 to 99 percent. The phenomenon is known as “\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2014/03/07/what-we-know-and-dont-know-about-the-sea-star-die-off/\">sea star wasting disease\u003c/a>” but the cause has remained unknown.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Researchers from UC Santa Cruz, Cornell University and other institutions now have strong evidence that links the disease to a densovirus, a type of parvovirus commonly found in invertebrates. In a \u003ca href=\"http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2014/11/12/1416625111.full.pdf+html\">paper published\u003c/a> in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the scientists report that densovirus is also present in museum specimens of sea stars as far back as the 1940s. That means that while the virus has long been present in sea star populations, something has triggered the recent outbreak.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mass sea star die-offs have occurred before, says Peter Raimondi, chair of the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at UC Santa Cruz. But they all corresponded with El Niño years that brought warmer waters to the Pacific Coast.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The key difference with other outbreaks is that in other ones it was unambiguously associated with warm water,” Raimondi says.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">‘The sea stars may have responded to the viral outbreak by reproducing even more than usual.’\u003ccite>— Dr. Peter Raimondi, UC Santa Cruz\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>This latest die-off doesn’t follow the same pattern. Previous outbreaks spread north as warm waters moved up the coast, but the current outbreak has occurred as a series of individual incidents, popping up all over the west coast, first in the north and then further south and then back in the north. Some of the affected areas saw warmer temperatures but some didn’t, Raimondi says. This outbreak has also lasted longer and affected a larger area than ever before.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Raimondi and his colleagues are still researching what’s driving the current outbreak. They haven’t ruled out warmer water entirely, but they’re investigating a variety of other environmental factors, from pollution to ocean acidification to a decrease in oxygen in the water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We don’t know if it’s an isolated example taking root and spreading, and doesn’t portend anything in future,” Raimondi says, “or if this is a portent of things that will become more common in the future.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Prospects for Recovery\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Researchers aren’t sure whether the sea star population is going to be able to rebound from this die-off.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The bad news of the study is that, besides sea stars, the virus is found in sediment and in sea urchins, although the urchins don’t show symptoms of the virus. Raimondi says the sediments and urchins are acting as a reservoir for the virus and might infect new generations of sea stars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_23909\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 4000px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/p_ochraceus_recruits_sad_2014_0325_mg-BIG.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-23909 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/p_ochraceus_recruits_sad_2014_0325_mg-BIG.jpg\" alt=\"p_ochraceus_recruits_sad_2014_0325_mg BIG\" width=\"4000\" height=\"3000\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Scientists are now seeing large numbers of juvenile sea stars in areas that were affected by the virus outbreak. (Maya George/UC Santa Cruz)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Beautiful and brightly colored, starfish are a charismatic species and a favorite of beach goers. They’re also voracious predators. Starfish are called a keystone species, meaning they’re at the top of the food chain and have a major effect on the ecosystem. A significant decline in sea star species could have profound ecological consequences, Raimondi says, changing marine ecosystems along the west coast.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The good news is that researchers are finding huge populations of baby starfish in some of their monitoring areas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When animals get stressed they tend to reproduce,” Raimondi says. The sea stars may have responded to the viral outbreak by reproducing even more than usual. The baby sea stars then drift away from their birthplace on ocean currents. “Because babies tend to go somewhere else, they can repopulate other areas, so recovery can be quicker than we thought.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Raimondi encourages beachgoers, boaters, and divers to visit \u003ca href=\"http://www.eeb.ucsc.edu/pacificrockyintertidal/data-products/sea-star-wasting/index.html\">seastarwasting.org\u003c/a> to see pictures of diseased and baby sea stars and to submit information about their own sightings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We welcome observation,” Raimondi says. “The public can help immensely in our understanding of what’s causing this and what the recovery prospects are like.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>You can see scientists at work trying to solve the mystery of sea star wasting disease, in this QUEST TV story, filmed earlier this year.\u003cbr>\n\u003c/em>\u003cbr>\nhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GcseyLU1Rs?feature=player_detailpage\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_23751\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 850px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/RS6281_SanFranciscoLightning5-scr.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/RS6281_SanFranciscoLightning5-scr.jpg\" alt=\"Lightning strikes the San Francisco Bay Area in summer 2013. (Steve Byrne/Steve Byrne Photography)\" width=\"850\" height=\"554\" class=\"size-full wp-image-23751\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Lightning strikes the San Francisco Bay Area in summer 2013. (Steve Byrne/Steve Byrne Photography)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>California’s warming climate is likely to mean a surge in lightning strikes, a development that would not bode well for fire season.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A new study suggests that the number of lightning strikes nationwide could jump 50 percent during this century, driven by rising temperatures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Warm air can hold more water vapor than cool air,” explains \u003ca title=\"UCB - Romps\" href=\"http://romps.berkeley.edu/\">David Romps\u003c/a>, an atmospheric scientist whose team at UC Berkeley came up with \u003ca title=\"UCB - post\" href=\"http://newscenter.berkeley.edu/2014/11/13/lightning-expected-to-increase-by-50-percent-with-global-warming/\">the new projections\u003c/a>, published this week in the journal \u003cem>Science\u003c/em>. “And as we warm the planet, we tend to get more water vapor in the atmosphere, and water vapor is the fuel for thunderstorms.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Romps says every rise of about 2.5 degrees Fahrenheit should produce an 11 percent increase in ground strikes. His team came up with the projections using two key ingredients for lightning: precipitation and convection, the rising air that causes storm clouds to quickly pile up to enormous heights. Assuming average temperatures rise by 7 degrees during this century, he says warmer air will increase both, setting the stage for more electrical storms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our hypothesis was that that product of precipitation and storm energy would be a good predictor for lightning, and it turns out to work very well,” says Romps.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=”UVvNEARAmnuHxV4NwdvZPfhxIVv7QylS”]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The initial projection applies to the continental U.S. as a whole. Romps says his team will attempt to fine-tune its models to be able to make regional projections.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“As we don’t yet know the distribution of this increase, it could be that regions of the country that get a lot of lightning strikes today will get even more in the future,” Romps says, “or it could be that regions that get very few today will get much more than they’re used to.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Or both, presumably. The answer will be important fodder for those who plan and budget for California’s fire season. While most wildfires are caused by human activity, lightning is the spark for many big fires in Northern California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s reasonable to speculate that with a 50 percent increase in lightning strikes, we would get an increase in wildfire frequency,” says Romps. “But we haven’t yet done the work to figure out where geographically this increase occurs and when in the season it occurs, and that would be important to know, to really nail down what the increase in wildfire frequency would be.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So far this year, lightning has been listed as the cause in 446 wildfires in Northern California that came under the primary jurisdiction of the U.S. Forest Service (which tends to handle the more remote fires). Those fires burned more than 276,000 acres combined. According to CalFire, a “lightning siege” comprising thousands of strikes in July and August were responsible for the season’s largest fire, the 130,000-acre \u003ca title=\"KPCC FireTracker - Happy Camp\" href=\"http://firetracker.scpr.org/happy-camp-complex/\">Happy Camp Complex\u003c/a> in the Klamath National Forest.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_23751\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 850px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/RS6281_SanFranciscoLightning5-scr.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/RS6281_SanFranciscoLightning5-scr.jpg\" alt=\"Lightning strikes the San Francisco Bay Area in summer 2013. (Steve Byrne/Steve Byrne Photography)\" width=\"850\" height=\"554\" class=\"size-full wp-image-23751\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Lightning strikes the San Francisco Bay Area in summer 2013. (Steve Byrne/Steve Byrne Photography)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>California’s warming climate is likely to mean a surge in lightning strikes, a development that would not bode well for fire season.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A new study suggests that the number of lightning strikes nationwide could jump 50 percent during this century, driven by rising temperatures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Warm air can hold more water vapor than cool air,” explains \u003ca title=\"UCB - Romps\" href=\"http://romps.berkeley.edu/\">David Romps\u003c/a>, an atmospheric scientist whose team at UC Berkeley came up with \u003ca title=\"UCB - post\" href=\"http://newscenter.berkeley.edu/2014/11/13/lightning-expected-to-increase-by-50-percent-with-global-warming/\">the new projections\u003c/a>, published this week in the journal \u003cem>Science\u003c/em>. “And as we warm the planet, we tend to get more water vapor in the atmosphere, and water vapor is the fuel for thunderstorms.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Romps says every rise of about 2.5 degrees Fahrenheit should produce an 11 percent increase in ground strikes. His team came up with the projections using two key ingredients for lightning: precipitation and convection, the rising air that causes storm clouds to quickly pile up to enormous heights. Assuming average temperatures rise by 7 degrees during this century, he says warmer air will increase both, setting the stage for more electrical storms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our hypothesis was that that product of precipitation and storm energy would be a good predictor for lightning, and it turns out to work very well,” says Romps.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The initial projection applies to the continental U.S. as a whole. Romps says his team will attempt to fine-tune its models to be able to make regional projections.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“As we don’t yet know the distribution of this increase, it could be that regions of the country that get a lot of lightning strikes today will get even more in the future,” Romps says, “or it could be that regions that get very few today will get much more than they’re used to.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Or both, presumably. The answer will be important fodder for those who plan and budget for California’s fire season. While most wildfires are caused by human activity, lightning is the spark for many big fires in Northern California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s reasonable to speculate that with a 50 percent increase in lightning strikes, we would get an increase in wildfire frequency,” says Romps. “But we haven’t yet done the work to figure out where geographically this increase occurs and when in the season it occurs, and that would be important to know, to really nail down what the increase in wildfire frequency would be.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So far this year, lightning has been listed as the cause in 446 wildfires in Northern California that came under the primary jurisdiction of the U.S. Forest Service (which tends to handle the more remote fires). Those fires burned more than 276,000 acres combined. According to CalFire, a “lightning siege” comprising thousands of strikes in July and August were responsible for the season’s largest fire, the 130,000-acre \u003ca title=\"KPCC FireTracker - Happy Camp\" href=\"http://firetracker.scpr.org/happy-camp-complex/\">Happy Camp Complex\u003c/a> in the Klamath National Forest.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "U.S. and China Greenhouse Gas Deal: Landmark Move or More Hot Air?",
"headTitle": "U.S. and China Greenhouse Gas Deal: Landmark Move or More Hot Air? | KQED",
"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_23674\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/Obama-Jinping.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/Obama-Jinping.jpg\" alt=\"U.S. President Barack Obama looks on as Chinese President Xi Jinping speaks during a joint press conference in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on November 12, 2014. Obama began a one-day state visit after the closing of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. (Greg Baker/AFP/Getty Images)\" width=\"640\" height=\"837\" class=\"size-full wp-image-23674\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">U.S. President Barack Obama looks on as Chinese President Xi Jinping speaks during a joint press conference in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on November 12, 2014. Obama began a one-day state visit after the closing of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. (Greg Baker/AFP/Getty Images)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The world woke up to excited buzz Wednesday announcing a tentative emission-cutting deal between the U.S. and China, the world’s worst two polluters that together account for almost half of all greenhouse gas emissions on the planet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The White House trumpteted the agreement that by 2025 would cut U.S. CO2 emissions by 26 to 28 percent from 2005 levels. For its part, China agreed to cap its growth in emissions by 2030 or earlier, and to increase the share of renewable fuels to 20 percent by 2030. The rest of the world today began wondering how, exactly, the non-binding pact would be realized.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are at cross-purposes,” said former U.S. Security Official Jamie Metzl, speaking on KQED’s \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"http://www.kqed.org/radio/programs/forum/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Forum\u003c/a>\u003c/em> today. “President Obama and Xi Jinping are today saying that this climate pre-agreement — because nothing has been put down on paper — shows what’s possible when we work together. But at the same time, both countries are very aggressively working to advance their position relative to the other.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For example, Metzl said, the U.S. is moving forward with the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade agreement that doesn’t currently include China. And China is pursuing its own free trade agreements in the region, while building up its military presence.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s scaring the bejesus, if that’s a San Francisco word, out of its neighbors — Japan, others in the South China Sea,” Metzl said. “And the U.S. is having its so-called pivot to Asia, where we’re talking about trade but also increasing our military presence in the region. So there’s a huge amount of competition and potential room for conflict, and there’s this other story of trying to find a means of cooperation. So climate change — this is certainly very positive, but it doesn’t erase the overall framework, which is one that’s quite concerning.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The brinksmanship is also playing out domestically, with Republican leaders in the House and Senate decrying the climate deal as a “continuation of the president’s job-crushing policies” and an “unrealistic plan the president would dump on his successor.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Their ire is directed at the pace of emission reductions that would be required to reach the goal. The U.S. is currently aiming for a 17 percent reduction by 2020, a goal that will have taken 15 years. The deal with China calls for an additional reduction of 10 percent in five years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“From 2020 to 2025, for the United States to achieve the goals that the President put forward, we would need to double the pace of the reductions to greenhouse gas emissions that we’re currently on track to do,” L.A. Times reporter Neela Banerjee said on \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. “There’s going to be a political backlash, and it’ll probably take the form of legislation that will be introduced, lawsuits, and — like anything else that’s put forward by this administration — it’s somewhat of a gamble. Will it survive those challenges?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Banerjee said it’s not just Republicans who may try to stall the deal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There are a lot of Democrats from fossil fuel states who may accept that climate change is happening,” she said. “They just don’t want to act on it anytime soon.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the effort to reduce greenhouse gases also has allies, and Banerjee some may be found in big business.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There are more and more companies, including major Fortune 500 multinationals, that are seeing their bottom lines affected by climate change and by threats that are expected from climate change,” she said. “So they might find support in unexpected quarters.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s also a bit a of damper buried in the announcement for anyone celebrating the news as landmark international environmental progress on a subject that’s been intractable. That is, what will replace the coal plants currently generating energy, and pollution, in the two global powers?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In this ‘agreement,’ when [China] talks about going to 20 percent renewables by 2030, the only way they’re going to do that, it’s not by composting, it’s by nuclear,” Metzl said. “We’re also moving, shifting our energy use away from coal a little bit, and towards natural gas – fracking [hydraulic fracturing]. In China, nuclear’s a big part of this story. In the United States, fracking is a part of this story.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Listen to the \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em> segment below:\u003cbr>\n[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/176622110″ params=”color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false” width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_23674\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/Obama-Jinping.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/Obama-Jinping.jpg\" alt=\"U.S. President Barack Obama looks on as Chinese President Xi Jinping speaks during a joint press conference in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on November 12, 2014. Obama began a one-day state visit after the closing of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. (Greg Baker/AFP/Getty Images)\" width=\"640\" height=\"837\" class=\"size-full wp-image-23674\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">U.S. President Barack Obama looks on as Chinese President Xi Jinping speaks during a joint press conference in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on November 12, 2014. Obama began a one-day state visit after the closing of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. (Greg Baker/AFP/Getty Images)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The world woke up to excited buzz Wednesday announcing a tentative emission-cutting deal between the U.S. and China, the world’s worst two polluters that together account for almost half of all greenhouse gas emissions on the planet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The White House trumpteted the agreement that by 2025 would cut U.S. CO2 emissions by 26 to 28 percent from 2005 levels. For its part, China agreed to cap its growth in emissions by 2030 or earlier, and to increase the share of renewable fuels to 20 percent by 2030. The rest of the world today began wondering how, exactly, the non-binding pact would be realized.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are at cross-purposes,” said former U.S. Security Official Jamie Metzl, speaking on KQED’s \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"http://www.kqed.org/radio/programs/forum/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Forum\u003c/a>\u003c/em> today. “President Obama and Xi Jinping are today saying that this climate pre-agreement — because nothing has been put down on paper — shows what’s possible when we work together. But at the same time, both countries are very aggressively working to advance their position relative to the other.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For example, Metzl said, the U.S. is moving forward with the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade agreement that doesn’t currently include China. And China is pursuing its own free trade agreements in the region, while building up its military presence.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s scaring the bejesus, if that’s a San Francisco word, out of its neighbors — Japan, others in the South China Sea,” Metzl said. “And the U.S. is having its so-called pivot to Asia, where we’re talking about trade but also increasing our military presence in the region. So there’s a huge amount of competition and potential room for conflict, and there’s this other story of trying to find a means of cooperation. So climate change — this is certainly very positive, but it doesn’t erase the overall framework, which is one that’s quite concerning.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The brinksmanship is also playing out domestically, with Republican leaders in the House and Senate decrying the climate deal as a “continuation of the president’s job-crushing policies” and an “unrealistic plan the president would dump on his successor.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Their ire is directed at the pace of emission reductions that would be required to reach the goal. The U.S. is currently aiming for a 17 percent reduction by 2020, a goal that will have taken 15 years. The deal with China calls for an additional reduction of 10 percent in five years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“From 2020 to 2025, for the United States to achieve the goals that the President put forward, we would need to double the pace of the reductions to greenhouse gas emissions that we’re currently on track to do,” L.A. Times reporter Neela Banerjee said on \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>. “There’s going to be a political backlash, and it’ll probably take the form of legislation that will be introduced, lawsuits, and — like anything else that’s put forward by this administration — it’s somewhat of a gamble. Will it survive those challenges?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Banerjee said it’s not just Republicans who may try to stall the deal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There are a lot of Democrats from fossil fuel states who may accept that climate change is happening,” she said. “They just don’t want to act on it anytime soon.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the effort to reduce greenhouse gases also has allies, and Banerjee some may be found in big business.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There are more and more companies, including major Fortune 500 multinationals, that are seeing their bottom lines affected by climate change and by threats that are expected from climate change,” she said. “So they might find support in unexpected quarters.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s also a bit a of damper buried in the announcement for anyone celebrating the news as landmark international environmental progress on a subject that’s been intractable. That is, what will replace the coal plants currently generating energy, and pollution, in the two global powers?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In this ‘agreement,’ when [China] talks about going to 20 percent renewables by 2030, the only way they’re going to do that, it’s not by composting, it’s by nuclear,” Metzl said. “We’re also moving, shifting our energy use away from coal a little bit, and towards natural gas – fracking [hydraulic fracturing]. In China, nuclear’s a big part of this story. In the United States, fracking is a part of this story.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Listen to the \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em> segment below:\u003cbr>\n\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cdiv class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__shortcodes__shortcodeWrapper'>\n \u003ciframe width='”100%”' height='”166″'\n scrolling='no' frameborder='no'\n src='https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/176622110″&visual=true&”color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false”'\n title='”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/176622110″'>\n \u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/div>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Parched: California Wildlife Suffers in Drought",
"headTitle": "Parched: California Wildlife Suffers in Drought | KQED",
"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"audio-wrap\">\n\u003ch2>Listen:\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>http://www.kqed.org/.stream/anon/radio/science/2014/11/20141110science.mp3\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>By Daniel Potter\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_23543\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2240px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/1-Giant-Garter-Snake.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-23543\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/1-Giant-Garter-Snake.jpg\" alt=\"The giant garter snake is listed as a threatened species at the state and federal levels. It depends on water both to find meals and avoid becoming one. (Eric C. Hansen/CA Department of Fish and Wildlife)\" width=\"2240\" height=\"1680\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The giant garter snake is listed as a threatened species at the state and federal levels. It depends on water both to find meals and avoid becoming one. (Eric C. Hansen/CA Department of Fish and Wildlife)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>As Californians look to the sky, fingers crossed for a wet winter, three brutally dry years are harming millions of animals that depend on rivers, streams and wetlands for survival.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They range from salmon and snakes, to birds that migrate from as far away as the Arctic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For untold millions of migrating ducks and geese, California wetlands serve as a crucial rest stop along a kind of freeway known as the \u003ca href=\"http://science.kqed.org/quest/video/the-great-migration/\">Pacific Flyway\u003c/a>. Dave Shuford, senior biologist for \u003ca href=\"http://www.pointblue.org/\">Point Blue Conservation Science\u003c/a>, says irrigated farmlands are also crucial.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’ve lost 90 percent of all the wetlands in California,” Shuford says, “and these birds used to depend on that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In places like the Sacramento Valley, rice farmers would normally \u003ca href=\"http://science.kqed.org/quest/audio/during-drought-pop-up-wetlands-give-birds-a-break/\">flood their fields\u003c/a> after the harvest to break down leftover stalks. But this year, both farmers and birds have been forced to deal with less.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">‘We expect we’ll see fewer salmon out in the ocean in a few years.’\u003ccite>— John McManus, Golden Gate Salmon Association\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>“They’re going to be concentrated in much smaller spaces, more likely to have disease transmission,” Shuford says, “and there’s also just less food resources for them for them to overwinter.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Already, an outbreak of \u003ca href=\"http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/10/1/the-battle-in-californiatosavewaterfowlfromendingupasdeadducks.html\">botulism\u003c/a> that officials say was exacerbated by drought has \u003ca href=\"http://www.oregonlive.com/environment/index.ssf/2014/08/botulism_kills_thousands_of_du.html\">killed thousands of ducks\u003c/a>, mostly mallards, near the Oregon border. A meager winter could also leave many birds frail as they head into next year’s breeding season.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And in the rivers and streams that lace the flyway, the drought could leave a dent in populations of salmon, according to John McManus, who heads the \u003ca href=\"http://goldengatesalmonassociation.com/\">Golden Gate Salmon Association\u003c/a>. That’s a coalition of fishermen, restaurants, businesses and tribes that rely on salmon for sustenance. McManus says more than 10,000 jobs in the state depend on salmon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He paints a dire picture: salmon eggs need cold water, ideally 56 degrees or less. But the lower flows coming down the streams this year have been heated by the sun to near-fatal temperatures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Many of the eggs that are laid in river gravels this year are not expected to survive,” McManus says. “We expect we’ll see fewer salmon out in the ocean in a few years, when these fish would be adults.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_23545\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 260px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/2-Dave-Shuford-e1415403844985.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-23545\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/2-Dave-Shuford-e1415403844985.jpg\" alt=\"Dave Shuford, senior biologist at Point Blue Conservation Science, surveys migratory bird habitats along the Sacramento River. He says he sees a lot fewer birds because the drought has shrunk their habitat and food supply and made them more vulnerable to disease. (Daniel Potter/KQED)\" width=\"260\" height=\"347\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Dave Shuford, senior biologist at Point Blue Conservation Science, surveys migratory bird habitats along the Sacramento River. He says he sees a lot fewer birds because the drought has shrunk their habitat and food supply and made them more vulnerable to disease. (Daniel Potter/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Trickling streams have also been unusually clear and slow-moving this year. McManus says that’s a deadly combination for baby salmon trying to dodge predators en route to the ocean.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We don’t have high flows that are moving them rapidly,” he says. “We have very slow flows that are clear as a bell and make these salmon targets of predatory fish.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Environmental scientist Eric Kleinfelter, of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.wildlife.ca.gov/\">California Department of Fish and Wildlife\u003c/a>, saw a die-off of other fish in a small pond at the Cosumnes River Preserve, south of Sacramento. Hiking through tall, bristly grass near the edge of a marsh, Kleinfelter says as water levels dropped, the pond “obviously had issues with low dissolved oxygen,” essentially suffocating the carp there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was pretty dramatic. I remember looking over at that dead tree in the distance there,” he says, pointing. “There were at least 25 vultures sitting in that tree, waiting for their morning meal of carp.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The preserve is also home to the giant garter snake, which is listed as a threatened species.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At five feet long, it’s no anaconda, but it’s plenty big as garter snakes go. And it needs water — to find fish and frogs to eat, to hide from predators like coyotes and bobcats, and to help thermoregulate its cold-blooded body.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They’re definitely dependent on water, which is what made this project so urgent,” Kleinfelter says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In late summer, to help protect the rare snake, state wildlife crews actually piped in water from a nearby well. Other animals also appreciated the $72,000 delivery service.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There were birds that were using the water there,” Kleinfelter says. “You could see animal tracks coming up to the ditch and drinking out of the ditch.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http://projects1.kqed.org/daily/droughtwildlifeslider.html\" width=\"670\" height=\"300\" frameborder=\"no\" scrolling=\"no\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Before and after shots of the snake marsh at Cosumnes River Preserve, south of Sacramento, where water was pumped in from a nearby well to help protect the giant garter snake. (Eric Kleinfelter/CA Department of Fish and Wildlife)\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The stresses of the drought also extend to Point Reyes, where ranchers say \u003ca href=\"http://www.oregonlive.com/environment/index.ssf/2014/08/botulism_kills_thousands_of_du.html\">tule elk\u003c/a> are \u003ca href=\"http://www.sfgate.com/science/article/Reintroduced-tule-elk-compete-with-cattle-on-5816969.php\">competing with their cattle\u003c/a> for the same rye grasses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And in some places, you can actually hear the drought. \u003ca href=\"http://www.wildsanctuary.com/\">Bioacoustician Bernie Krause\u003c/a> records animals in nature. For years, he’s taken audio snapshots at Sugarloaf Ridge State Park in Sonoma County.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Up until recently, Krause’s recordings featured dense layers of birdsong: white-crowned sparrows, juncos, towhees and woodpeckers, all with the steady hiss of a nearby creek underneath. But in his \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2014/10/16/listen-as-a-california-forest-grows-quiet-over-time/\">recording from this year\u003c/a>, the creek is absent, an uneasy silence punctuated by a few lonely chirps.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In 2014, not only did the stream drop off,” Krause says, “but the bird density and diversity is way, way down.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s a stark decline, but the number and variety of birds were already dwindling, so Krause is reluctant to pin that solely on the dry weather.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Researchers are still gathering data in the effort to assess the impact of the drought on wildlife — so far.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Birds, salmon and snakes depend on marshes and rivers for survival and migration, and to propagate the species. But many wildlife species are unable to find the water they need as the drought shrinks rivers and dries up wetlands.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>By Daniel Potter\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_23543\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2240px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/1-Giant-Garter-Snake.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-23543\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/1-Giant-Garter-Snake.jpg\" alt=\"The giant garter snake is listed as a threatened species at the state and federal levels. It depends on water both to find meals and avoid becoming one. (Eric C. Hansen/CA Department of Fish and Wildlife)\" width=\"2240\" height=\"1680\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The giant garter snake is listed as a threatened species at the state and federal levels. It depends on water both to find meals and avoid becoming one. (Eric C. Hansen/CA Department of Fish and Wildlife)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>As Californians look to the sky, fingers crossed for a wet winter, three brutally dry years are harming millions of animals that depend on rivers, streams and wetlands for survival.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They range from salmon and snakes, to birds that migrate from as far away as the Arctic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For untold millions of migrating ducks and geese, California wetlands serve as a crucial rest stop along a kind of freeway known as the \u003ca href=\"http://science.kqed.org/quest/video/the-great-migration/\">Pacific Flyway\u003c/a>. Dave Shuford, senior biologist for \u003ca href=\"http://www.pointblue.org/\">Point Blue Conservation Science\u003c/a>, says irrigated farmlands are also crucial.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’ve lost 90 percent of all the wetlands in California,” Shuford says, “and these birds used to depend on that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In places like the Sacramento Valley, rice farmers would normally \u003ca href=\"http://science.kqed.org/quest/audio/during-drought-pop-up-wetlands-give-birds-a-break/\">flood their fields\u003c/a> after the harvest to break down leftover stalks. But this year, both farmers and birds have been forced to deal with less.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">‘We expect we’ll see fewer salmon out in the ocean in a few years.’\u003ccite>— John McManus, Golden Gate Salmon Association\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>“They’re going to be concentrated in much smaller spaces, more likely to have disease transmission,” Shuford says, “and there’s also just less food resources for them for them to overwinter.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Already, an outbreak of \u003ca href=\"http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/10/1/the-battle-in-californiatosavewaterfowlfromendingupasdeadducks.html\">botulism\u003c/a> that officials say was exacerbated by drought has \u003ca href=\"http://www.oregonlive.com/environment/index.ssf/2014/08/botulism_kills_thousands_of_du.html\">killed thousands of ducks\u003c/a>, mostly mallards, near the Oregon border. A meager winter could also leave many birds frail as they head into next year’s breeding season.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And in the rivers and streams that lace the flyway, the drought could leave a dent in populations of salmon, according to John McManus, who heads the \u003ca href=\"http://goldengatesalmonassociation.com/\">Golden Gate Salmon Association\u003c/a>. That’s a coalition of fishermen, restaurants, businesses and tribes that rely on salmon for sustenance. McManus says more than 10,000 jobs in the state depend on salmon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He paints a dire picture: salmon eggs need cold water, ideally 56 degrees or less. But the lower flows coming down the streams this year have been heated by the sun to near-fatal temperatures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Many of the eggs that are laid in river gravels this year are not expected to survive,” McManus says. “We expect we’ll see fewer salmon out in the ocean in a few years, when these fish would be adults.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_23545\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 260px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/2-Dave-Shuford-e1415403844985.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-23545\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/2-Dave-Shuford-e1415403844985.jpg\" alt=\"Dave Shuford, senior biologist at Point Blue Conservation Science, surveys migratory bird habitats along the Sacramento River. He says he sees a lot fewer birds because the drought has shrunk their habitat and food supply and made them more vulnerable to disease. (Daniel Potter/KQED)\" width=\"260\" height=\"347\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Dave Shuford, senior biologist at Point Blue Conservation Science, surveys migratory bird habitats along the Sacramento River. He says he sees a lot fewer birds because the drought has shrunk their habitat and food supply and made them more vulnerable to disease. (Daniel Potter/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Trickling streams have also been unusually clear and slow-moving this year. McManus says that’s a deadly combination for baby salmon trying to dodge predators en route to the ocean.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We don’t have high flows that are moving them rapidly,” he says. “We have very slow flows that are clear as a bell and make these salmon targets of predatory fish.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Environmental scientist Eric Kleinfelter, of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.wildlife.ca.gov/\">California Department of Fish and Wildlife\u003c/a>, saw a die-off of other fish in a small pond at the Cosumnes River Preserve, south of Sacramento. Hiking through tall, bristly grass near the edge of a marsh, Kleinfelter says as water levels dropped, the pond “obviously had issues with low dissolved oxygen,” essentially suffocating the carp there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was pretty dramatic. I remember looking over at that dead tree in the distance there,” he says, pointing. “There were at least 25 vultures sitting in that tree, waiting for their morning meal of carp.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The preserve is also home to the giant garter snake, which is listed as a threatened species.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At five feet long, it’s no anaconda, but it’s plenty big as garter snakes go. And it needs water — to find fish and frogs to eat, to hide from predators like coyotes and bobcats, and to help thermoregulate its cold-blooded body.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They’re definitely dependent on water, which is what made this project so urgent,” Kleinfelter says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In late summer, to help protect the rare snake, state wildlife crews actually piped in water from a nearby well. Other animals also appreciated the $72,000 delivery service.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There were birds that were using the water there,” Kleinfelter says. “You could see animal tracks coming up to the ditch and drinking out of the ditch.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http://projects1.kqed.org/daily/droughtwildlifeslider.html\" width=\"670\" height=\"300\" frameborder=\"no\" scrolling=\"no\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Before and after shots of the snake marsh at Cosumnes River Preserve, south of Sacramento, where water was pumped in from a nearby well to help protect the giant garter snake. (Eric Kleinfelter/CA Department of Fish and Wildlife)\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The stresses of the drought also extend to Point Reyes, where ranchers say \u003ca href=\"http://www.oregonlive.com/environment/index.ssf/2014/08/botulism_kills_thousands_of_du.html\">tule elk\u003c/a> are \u003ca href=\"http://www.sfgate.com/science/article/Reintroduced-tule-elk-compete-with-cattle-on-5816969.php\">competing with their cattle\u003c/a> for the same rye grasses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And in some places, you can actually hear the drought. \u003ca href=\"http://www.wildsanctuary.com/\">Bioacoustician Bernie Krause\u003c/a> records animals in nature. For years, he’s taken audio snapshots at Sugarloaf Ridge State Park in Sonoma County.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Up until recently, Krause’s recordings featured dense layers of birdsong: white-crowned sparrows, juncos, towhees and woodpeckers, all with the steady hiss of a nearby creek underneath. But in his \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2014/10/16/listen-as-a-california-forest-grows-quiet-over-time/\">recording from this year\u003c/a>, the creek is absent, an uneasy silence punctuated by a few lonely chirps.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In 2014, not only did the stream drop off,” Krause says, “but the bird density and diversity is way, way down.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s a stark decline, but the number and variety of birds were already dwindling, so Krause is reluctant to pin that solely on the dry weather.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Researchers are still gathering data in the effort to assess the impact of the drought on wildlife — so far.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Life Aboard a 'Polar Roller': America's Last Heavy Icebreaker",
"headTitle": "Life Aboard a ‘Polar Roller’: America’s Last Heavy Icebreaker | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>Captain Matt Walker took command of the Coast Guard cutter Polar Star, the \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/audio/aging-u-s-icebreaker-fleet-may-imperil-polar-science/\">only remaining active icebreaker\u003c/a> in the U.S. fleet that’s capable of clearing a channel for ships that supply McMurdo Station, a major hub for Antarctic research. This is Walker’s second deployment on this icebreaker, which was commissioned in 1976 with a planned 30-year working life. I spoke with him aboard the ship as it was undergoing\u003cem> three months of extensive work in a Mare Island dry dock.\u003c/em>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_23101\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/10/CaptWalker_bridge.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-23101\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/10/CaptWalker_bridge.jpg\" alt=\"Captain Matt Walker on the bridge of the USCGC Polar Star, the only active heavy-duty icebreaker in the U.S. fleet (Adam Grossberg/KQED)\" width=\"640\" height=\"960\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Capt. Matt Walker on the bridge of the USCGC Polar Star, the only active heavy-duty icebreaker in the U.S. fleet (Adam Grossberg/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cstrong>So tell me about the Antarctica part. \u003c/strong>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Polar Star’s primary mission is to provide a channel for the logistics ships to resupply \u003ca title=\"NSF - McMurdo\" href=\"http://www.nsf.gov/geo/plr/support/mcmurdo.jsp\">McMurdo Station\u003c/a>, which really is a hub for all of the science stations in Antarctica. They take a fuel tanker down there and also a container ship. And McMurdo is kind of the port you might say – the logistics port – for all of Antarctica. It supplies the South Pole. But they do a tremendous amount of science support out of McMurdo and that’s really what we do – is support science through our own means. We also have the capability to conduct science on-board. However, now that we’re the only heavy icebreaker that can go to Antarctica for the U.S. the science is curtailed tremendously because we’re too busy breaking in the channel to get the logistics ships into McMurdo.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">‘We might just be rescuing mankind by supporting the science that’s being conducted in Antarctica…you never know.’\u003ccite>— Capt. Matt Walker, USCG\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>But as you can imagine, Antarctica is a pretty fascinating place with ice that’s a million years old. They have opportunity to collect data from a million years ago. I tell the crew, when I took command, the Coast Guard does a lot of exciting missions — law enforcement, search and rescue — and there very good domestic opportunities for them and they have an impact domestically. But what we do on Polar Star, we might just be rescuing mankind by supporting the science that’s being conducted in Antarctica that might just save the human race — you never know.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cstrong>It’s a long way and a hard way in. Give me a sense of what it’s like to be on board. \u003c/strong>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Well, to get to the ice we have to cross the Southern Ocean which is probably the most severe ocean on [sic] the world because there’s no land mass to stop [high winds] and it has a series of low-pressure systems, so you get routinely knocked around pretty good. Ten years ago when I came down there we took green water, which is heavy water, up over the bridge and knocked out three bridge windows. The bridge windows are approximately 60 feet above the water line so you can imagine how big the seas were. Once we get down across the Southern Ocean, and we enter into the ice ring, then that’s pretty light going. And it’s not until we reach the fast ice, which means the ice is connected to shore, and then we have to turn that ice into ice cubes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So we’re fairly large. When people ask, “How big is the Polar Star?” We tell them, “399 feet long,” and then they think of that Navy destroyer that’s 520 feet long. But in reality we’re twice as large as a Navy destroyer by weight. We’re close to 14,000 tons [fully loaded] and that enables us when we break ice to ride up on top of the ice and crush it. And that’s how we break ice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But it’s a very violent experience. If you can imagine the earthquake we had recently and experiencing that on every minute for a few hours as we crush through the ice, it’s pretty violent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[edge_animation id=”7″ left=”auto”]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cstrong>It sounds like it feels like an earthquake.\u003c/strong>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It is, exactly. And you can’t watch television. You can’t read or anything, once the ship impacts the ice. Then we back down and then it’s all smooth again. And then we ram back in and it gets very violent again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>…except our earthquakes last twenty seconds.\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Correct. The break-in might take a week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s nobody more dependable than us to get there and make sure that we can get through the channel and get those supply ships in there. Because if they don’t get that fuel ship and container ship, they really will have to shut down the science mission in Antarctica.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_23471\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1500px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/10/CGCPolarStar_gray_sm.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-23471\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/10/CGCPolarStar_gray_sm.jpg\" alt=\"The Polar Star in sea ice off Antarctica. (U.S. Coast Guard)\" width=\"1500\" height=\"1136\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Polar Star in sea ice off Antarctica. (Courtesy of U.S. Coast Guard)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cstrong>You talked about the mission possibly saving mankind. What did you mean by that?\u003c/strong>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Antarctica really is a giant laboratory for science in the world. And it really is — I’ll say — sterile, as far as man’s influence on it, meaning we haven’t corrupted and contaminated that data that’s available down there for them to collect. I’m not a scientist but I know that they bore down into the ice one, two miles, collect data that’s close to a million years old and we haven’t yet contaminated that, with the treaty that preserves that. So by us going down there, I like to think that we are allowing those scientists to conduct that work and that research that just might save the planet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cstrong>And you’ve got sea lanes opening up where there weren’t sea lanes before in the North Polar Seas.\u003c/strong> \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Correct, yes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=”jH4VZZJRkUCCvdnGL4A5Zl5XikHxAmg2″]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cstrong>Here again, I would assume, we need a couple of icebreakers for that\u003c/strong> \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yes, we do have the Healy up north which is a medium icebreaker. She is inadequate to go to Antarctica but she’s adequate for the north because in the Arctic, the ice is only 6 years old at the oldest because it flows in a circular pattern and exits between Greenland and Iceland and through those channels out there so we don’t need as heavy [of an] icebreaker but we do need the ability to put U.S. presence up there. From a Coast Guard standpoint, we’re looking at it from maritime preservation, security, and for search and rescue. If somebody — God forbid — needs rescuing up there, who’s going to go rescue them if we don’t have icebreakers that can do that?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I think the Healy’s done a couple of search and rescue missions up there and just recently. And they also had to break into Nome to save Nome, Alaska.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So we do need icebreakers. But people, you know, the United States — other than Alaska and maybe the Great Lakes — they don’t see it. But we do have a presence there and we do have a responsibility to our maritime community to provide a safe and secure transit through the north and also up there we need to be able to fly the flag.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cstrong>Why is it, do you think, that you can’t get the funding to give us the ships that we need in these parts of the world?\u003c/strong> \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ice is pretty but it doesn’t spend a lot of time on television and it doesn’t capture the American audience’s interest. We have a lot of things going on in the country, there’s a lot of fiscal restraint, there’s a lot of troubles in the world that are more on the forefront of the plate, of the burner than the Arctic and the Antarctic. Unfortunately those little hot spots come and go throughout history, but the Arctic and the Antarctic don’t. They’re always there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cstrong>What did you say the sticker price would be on a new state-of-the-art heavy breaker?\u003c/strong> \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>From what I have heard: a billion dollars. Now I could easily say, “Hey, the Air Force could not build one of their new fighter jets and we could have two or three of them!”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cstrong>But you wouldn’t say that.\u003c/strong>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>No, I wouldn’t, absolutely! But you know, it’s all in perspective. The Coast Guard is a very small service. Arguably, we’re smaller than the New York City Police Department. Our budget probably wouldn’t buy the toilet paper for the Department of Defense, which is unfortunate and obviously I’m biased and would like to have more money for our humane mission.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cstrong>This is hazardous duty.\u003c/strong>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yes, it is. Unfortunately, in the late 90s we had a young sailor that was standing on the port side of the bridge and we took a 35 degree roll. He slipped, fell and went sliding across the deck to the starboard side and was killed when he hit that stanchion there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cstrong> A ship that is built optimized for breaking ice can’t be the best in heavy seas.\u003c/strong> \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>No, it is not, no. Yes, she does roll. [Which is why, Walker says, they refer to icebreakers as “polar rollers.”] I’ve often slept on the deck because it’s hard to stay in my rack.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cstrong>So you keep a supply of Dramamine topped up?\u003c/strong>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Well, this is proven. I’ve read this: One earplug in one ear — you can tell this to all your listeners — is more effective than all those other drugs. I read a study by one of the universities in the U.K., tested all these seasick medications and inadvertently discovered that the most effective one was one earplug in one ear. It doesn’t matter which ear. Just one ear plug. I’ve seen it work. It worked on my wife. My wife — if she looks at water she gets seasick — went out a friend’s yacht and she didn’t get seasick at all. And on our way down here I was telling the crew members and several of them that are prone to seasickness tried it and it was effective. That’s from somebody with 20 years of sea service.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>KQED’s Marissa Ortega-Welch looked into the “earplug” strategy and found some \u003ca title=\"JTM - post\" href=\"http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1708-8305.1995.tb00649.x/pdf\">references to it\u003c/a>. Contrary to Walker’s method, some sources specify which ear (left ear if you’re right-handed and vice versa). While there appears to be no established scientific rationale for it, many say it works. We’ll be conducting “field tests” of our own.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>Captain Matt Walker took command of the Coast Guard cutter Polar Star, the \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/audio/aging-u-s-icebreaker-fleet-may-imperil-polar-science/\">only remaining active icebreaker\u003c/a> in the U.S. fleet that’s capable of clearing a channel for ships that supply McMurdo Station, a major hub for Antarctic research. This is Walker’s second deployment on this icebreaker, which was commissioned in 1976 with a planned 30-year working life. I spoke with him aboard the ship as it was undergoing\u003cem> three months of extensive work in a Mare Island dry dock.\u003c/em>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_23101\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/10/CaptWalker_bridge.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-23101\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/10/CaptWalker_bridge.jpg\" alt=\"Captain Matt Walker on the bridge of the USCGC Polar Star, the only active heavy-duty icebreaker in the U.S. fleet (Adam Grossberg/KQED)\" width=\"640\" height=\"960\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Capt. Matt Walker on the bridge of the USCGC Polar Star, the only active heavy-duty icebreaker in the U.S. fleet (Adam Grossberg/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cstrong>So tell me about the Antarctica part. \u003c/strong>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Polar Star’s primary mission is to provide a channel for the logistics ships to resupply \u003ca title=\"NSF - McMurdo\" href=\"http://www.nsf.gov/geo/plr/support/mcmurdo.jsp\">McMurdo Station\u003c/a>, which really is a hub for all of the science stations in Antarctica. They take a fuel tanker down there and also a container ship. And McMurdo is kind of the port you might say – the logistics port – for all of Antarctica. It supplies the South Pole. But they do a tremendous amount of science support out of McMurdo and that’s really what we do – is support science through our own means. We also have the capability to conduct science on-board. However, now that we’re the only heavy icebreaker that can go to Antarctica for the U.S. the science is curtailed tremendously because we’re too busy breaking in the channel to get the logistics ships into McMurdo.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">‘We might just be rescuing mankind by supporting the science that’s being conducted in Antarctica…you never know.’\u003ccite>— Capt. Matt Walker, USCG\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>But as you can imagine, Antarctica is a pretty fascinating place with ice that’s a million years old. They have opportunity to collect data from a million years ago. I tell the crew, when I took command, the Coast Guard does a lot of exciting missions — law enforcement, search and rescue — and there very good domestic opportunities for them and they have an impact domestically. But what we do on Polar Star, we might just be rescuing mankind by supporting the science that’s being conducted in Antarctica that might just save the human race — you never know.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cstrong>It’s a long way and a hard way in. Give me a sense of what it’s like to be on board. \u003c/strong>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Well, to get to the ice we have to cross the Southern Ocean which is probably the most severe ocean on [sic] the world because there’s no land mass to stop [high winds] and it has a series of low-pressure systems, so you get routinely knocked around pretty good. Ten years ago when I came down there we took green water, which is heavy water, up over the bridge and knocked out three bridge windows. The bridge windows are approximately 60 feet above the water line so you can imagine how big the seas were. Once we get down across the Southern Ocean, and we enter into the ice ring, then that’s pretty light going. And it’s not until we reach the fast ice, which means the ice is connected to shore, and then we have to turn that ice into ice cubes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So we’re fairly large. When people ask, “How big is the Polar Star?” We tell them, “399 feet long,” and then they think of that Navy destroyer that’s 520 feet long. But in reality we’re twice as large as a Navy destroyer by weight. We’re close to 14,000 tons [fully loaded] and that enables us when we break ice to ride up on top of the ice and crush it. And that’s how we break ice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But it’s a very violent experience. If you can imagine the earthquake we had recently and experiencing that on every minute for a few hours as we crush through the ice, it’s pretty violent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[edge_animation id=”7″ left=”auto”]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cstrong>It sounds like it feels like an earthquake.\u003c/strong>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It is, exactly. And you can’t watch television. You can’t read or anything, once the ship impacts the ice. Then we back down and then it’s all smooth again. And then we ram back in and it gets very violent again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>…except our earthquakes last twenty seconds.\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Correct. The break-in might take a week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s nobody more dependable than us to get there and make sure that we can get through the channel and get those supply ships in there. Because if they don’t get that fuel ship and container ship, they really will have to shut down the science mission in Antarctica.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_23471\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1500px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/10/CGCPolarStar_gray_sm.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-23471\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/10/CGCPolarStar_gray_sm.jpg\" alt=\"The Polar Star in sea ice off Antarctica. (U.S. Coast Guard)\" width=\"1500\" height=\"1136\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Polar Star in sea ice off Antarctica. (Courtesy of U.S. Coast Guard)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cstrong>You talked about the mission possibly saving mankind. What did you mean by that?\u003c/strong>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Antarctica really is a giant laboratory for science in the world. And it really is — I’ll say — sterile, as far as man’s influence on it, meaning we haven’t corrupted and contaminated that data that’s available down there for them to collect. I’m not a scientist but I know that they bore down into the ice one, two miles, collect data that’s close to a million years old and we haven’t yet contaminated that, with the treaty that preserves that. So by us going down there, I like to think that we are allowing those scientists to conduct that work and that research that just might save the planet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cstrong>And you’ve got sea lanes opening up where there weren’t sea lanes before in the North Polar Seas.\u003c/strong> \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Correct, yes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cstrong>Here again, I would assume, we need a couple of icebreakers for that\u003c/strong> \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yes, we do have the Healy up north which is a medium icebreaker. She is inadequate to go to Antarctica but she’s adequate for the north because in the Arctic, the ice is only 6 years old at the oldest because it flows in a circular pattern and exits between Greenland and Iceland and through those channels out there so we don’t need as heavy [of an] icebreaker but we do need the ability to put U.S. presence up there. From a Coast Guard standpoint, we’re looking at it from maritime preservation, security, and for search and rescue. If somebody — God forbid — needs rescuing up there, who’s going to go rescue them if we don’t have icebreakers that can do that?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I think the Healy’s done a couple of search and rescue missions up there and just recently. And they also had to break into Nome to save Nome, Alaska.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So we do need icebreakers. But people, you know, the United States — other than Alaska and maybe the Great Lakes — they don’t see it. But we do have a presence there and we do have a responsibility to our maritime community to provide a safe and secure transit through the north and also up there we need to be able to fly the flag.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cstrong>Why is it, do you think, that you can’t get the funding to give us the ships that we need in these parts of the world?\u003c/strong> \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ice is pretty but it doesn’t spend a lot of time on television and it doesn’t capture the American audience’s interest. We have a lot of things going on in the country, there’s a lot of fiscal restraint, there’s a lot of troubles in the world that are more on the forefront of the plate, of the burner than the Arctic and the Antarctic. Unfortunately those little hot spots come and go throughout history, but the Arctic and the Antarctic don’t. They’re always there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cstrong>What did you say the sticker price would be on a new state-of-the-art heavy breaker?\u003c/strong> \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>From what I have heard: a billion dollars. Now I could easily say, “Hey, the Air Force could not build one of their new fighter jets and we could have two or three of them!”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cstrong>But you wouldn’t say that.\u003c/strong>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>No, I wouldn’t, absolutely! But you know, it’s all in perspective. The Coast Guard is a very small service. Arguably, we’re smaller than the New York City Police Department. Our budget probably wouldn’t buy the toilet paper for the Department of Defense, which is unfortunate and obviously I’m biased and would like to have more money for our humane mission.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cstrong>This is hazardous duty.\u003c/strong>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yes, it is. Unfortunately, in the late 90s we had a young sailor that was standing on the port side of the bridge and we took a 35 degree roll. He slipped, fell and went sliding across the deck to the starboard side and was killed when he hit that stanchion there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cstrong> A ship that is built optimized for breaking ice can’t be the best in heavy seas.\u003c/strong> \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>No, it is not, no. Yes, she does roll. [Which is why, Walker says, they refer to icebreakers as “polar rollers.”] I’ve often slept on the deck because it’s hard to stay in my rack.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cstrong>So you keep a supply of Dramamine topped up?\u003c/strong>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Well, this is proven. I’ve read this: One earplug in one ear — you can tell this to all your listeners — is more effective than all those other drugs. I read a study by one of the universities in the U.K., tested all these seasick medications and inadvertently discovered that the most effective one was one earplug in one ear. It doesn’t matter which ear. Just one ear plug. I’ve seen it work. It worked on my wife. My wife — if she looks at water she gets seasick — went out a friend’s yacht and she didn’t get seasick at all. And on our way down here I was telling the crew members and several of them that are prone to seasickness tried it and it was effective. That’s from somebody with 20 years of sea service.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>KQED’s Marissa Ortega-Welch looked into the “earplug” strategy and found some \u003ca title=\"JTM - post\" href=\"http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1708-8305.1995.tb00649.x/pdf\">references to it\u003c/a>. Contrary to Walker’s method, some sources specify which ear (left ear if you’re right-handed and vice versa). While there appears to be no established scientific rationale for it, many say it works. We’ll be conducting “field tests” of our own.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "New California County Fracking Bans Likely to Face Challenges",
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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_23478\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/sanbenito-fracking.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-23478\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/sanbenito-fracking.jpg\" alt=\"San Benito County voters approved a fracking ban, but it's likely to face challenges. (Gabriela Quiros/KQED)\" width=\"640\" height=\"400\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">San Benito County voters approved a fracking ban, but it’s likely to face challenges. (Gabriela Quiros/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In the first major test of how California voters would react to \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/series/fracking-california/\">hydraulic fracturing\u003c/a> on the ballot, two counties in California approved fracking bans on Tuesday. Opponents of fracking are hoping the movement will spread to other counties.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But a measure to bar the controversial oil production technique in Santa Barbara County — where the oil industry is well-established — fell short. And in San Benito and Mendocino Counties, where the bans passed, they are likely to face court challenges.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was incredibly exciting,” says organizer Andy Hsia-Coron, who rallied support for the San Benito fracking ban by raising environmental concerns, like possible risks to groundwater.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think it sets a model for how you do these initiatives,” he says. “We’ve already been contacted by other counties making inquiries.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=”HS3lmwEtvxtUvFY4tQglZEHsaS46E95y”]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The bans are pre-emptive. Currently, fracking doesn’t occur in San Benito or Mendocino Counties. But both measures also ban a more common oil extraction technique where steam is injected underground to induce oil flow.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While San Benito County’s oil industry is small, the change could be significant for the producers who work there, some of whom regard the law as a confiscation of property rights, also known as a “taking” in legal parlance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s a regulatory taking because it’s the regulation which is depriving property owners of the ability to extract value from their minerals or property,” says Armen Nahabedian of Citadel Exploration, a company that’s developing an oil project in San Benito.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So it’s the duty of the county at this point to either allow people to continue to extract value from their property and not enforce the initiative or to compensate them accordingly with the fair market value of what they’ve been deprived of,” he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In July, Nahabedian\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2014/10/10/anti-fracking-activists-in-california-take-fight-to-county-ballots/\"> described the use of steam injection\u003c/a> in a KQED report:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>Nahabedian’s company doesn’t use fracking, but it does use another oil extraction technique that the initiatives would ban, called cyclic steam injection. Oil in California is heavy, so producers inject steam underground to loosen it up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Steam injection is an old technique,” he says. “We’ve been using it in the industry since the early 1960s. It’s not much different than cleaning a dirty engine block.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>About 60 percent of oil produced in California is extracted with steam injection and similar methods, making it more common than fracking. Nahabedian says banning steam injection would mean the state’s refineries would have to look at importing oil from outside the state.\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>The oil industry went all-out to head off a ban in Santa Barbara County, where oil production is a larger part of the local economy. The “No on P” campaign raised more than $7 million to defeat it, largely from the oil industry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The battles over fracking on the local level are far from over. Butte County is set to vote on a fracking ban in 2016.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_23478\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/sanbenito-fracking.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-23478\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/sanbenito-fracking.jpg\" alt=\"San Benito County voters approved a fracking ban, but it's likely to face challenges. (Gabriela Quiros/KQED)\" width=\"640\" height=\"400\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">San Benito County voters approved a fracking ban, but it’s likely to face challenges. (Gabriela Quiros/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In the first major test of how California voters would react to \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/series/fracking-california/\">hydraulic fracturing\u003c/a> on the ballot, two counties in California approved fracking bans on Tuesday. Opponents of fracking are hoping the movement will spread to other counties.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But a measure to bar the controversial oil production technique in Santa Barbara County — where the oil industry is well-established — fell short. And in San Benito and Mendocino Counties, where the bans passed, they are likely to face court challenges.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was incredibly exciting,” says organizer Andy Hsia-Coron, who rallied support for the San Benito fracking ban by raising environmental concerns, like possible risks to groundwater.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think it sets a model for how you do these initiatives,” he says. “We’ve already been contacted by other counties making inquiries.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The bans are pre-emptive. Currently, fracking doesn’t occur in San Benito or Mendocino Counties. But both measures also ban a more common oil extraction technique where steam is injected underground to induce oil flow.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While San Benito County’s oil industry is small, the change could be significant for the producers who work there, some of whom regard the law as a confiscation of property rights, also known as a “taking” in legal parlance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s a regulatory taking because it’s the regulation which is depriving property owners of the ability to extract value from their minerals or property,” says Armen Nahabedian of Citadel Exploration, a company that’s developing an oil project in San Benito.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So it’s the duty of the county at this point to either allow people to continue to extract value from their property and not enforce the initiative or to compensate them accordingly with the fair market value of what they’ve been deprived of,” he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In July, Nahabedian\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2014/10/10/anti-fracking-activists-in-california-take-fight-to-county-ballots/\"> described the use of steam injection\u003c/a> in a KQED report:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>Nahabedian’s company doesn’t use fracking, but it does use another oil extraction technique that the initiatives would ban, called cyclic steam injection. Oil in California is heavy, so producers inject steam underground to loosen it up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Steam injection is an old technique,” he says. “We’ve been using it in the industry since the early 1960s. It’s not much different than cleaning a dirty engine block.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>About 60 percent of oil produced in California is extracted with steam injection and similar methods, making it more common than fracking. Nahabedian says banning steam injection would mean the state’s refineries would have to look at importing oil from outside the state.\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>The oil industry went all-out to head off a ban in Santa Barbara County, where oil production is a larger part of the local economy. The “No on P” campaign raised more than $7 million to defeat it, largely from the oil industry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The battles over fracking on the local level are far from over. Butte County is set to vote on a fracking ban in 2016.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Bay Area Votes in Favor of Open Space and 'Smart' Growth",
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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_23462\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/Doolan-Canyon-Scott-Hein-courtesy-of-Greenbelt-Alliance-1024x680.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-23462 size-large\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/Doolan-Canyon-Scott-Hein-courtesy-of-Greenbelt-Alliance-1024x680.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"680\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Dublin voters defeated a ballot measure that would have opened up Doolan Canyon to development. (Scott Hein, courtesy of Greenbelt Alliance)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>A local environmental group is declaring victories for open space preservation and smart growth in the Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"http://www.greenbelt.org/\">Greenbelt Alliance\u003c/a> took positions on six measures on Bay Area ballots. While official results have yet to be declared on one of the measures, executive director Jeremy Madsen says signs are good that all the positions he supported came out on top.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think it really shows the voters here in the Bay Area have a very strong commitment to open space conservation and to growing the Bay Area in a smart and sustainable fashion,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Two measures protected open space from development:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>In Dublin, voters defeated \u003ca href=\"http://www.acgov.org/rov/elections/20141104/documents/MeasureT-V4.pdf\">Measure T\u003c/a> which would have permitted the development of \u003ca href=\"http://www.friendsoflivermore.org/issue_5.html\">Doolan Canyon\u003c/a> between Dublin and Livermore.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Union City residents rejected \u003ca href=\"http://www.acgov.org/rov/elections/20141104/documents/MeasureKK-V2.pdf\">Measure KK\u003c/a> which would have allowed the city council to change the zoning for agricultural land off \u003ca href=\"https://www.google.com/maps/place/Union+City,+CA+94587/@37.6061801,-122.0201176,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m2!3m1!1s0x808f956b410f5297:0xe6a2cdabca05bb6\">Mission Boulevard\u003c/a>, opening it up for homes and businesses.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>One measure approved continued funding for open space:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>In Santa Clara Valley, 67 percent of voters supported \u003ca href=\"http://www.sccgov.org/sites/rov/Info/Nov2014Info/Documents/E101%20List%20of%20Local%20Measures.pdf\">Measure Q\u003c/a>, a parcel tax that will increase funding to the \u003ca href=\"http://www.openspaceauthority.org/\">Santa Clara Valley Open Space Authority\u003c/a>. (The measure needs a two-thirds majority to pass, and the results have not yet officially been called.)\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>And three concerned sustainable development in cities:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Berkeley voters defeated \u003ca href=\"http://www.cityofberkeley.info/Clerk/Elections/Election__2014_Ballot_Measure_Page.aspx\">Measure R\u003c/a>, which would have enacted stricter development requirements in downtown Berkeley. Madsen said the changes set standards so high, they made development impossible and would have defeated the goal of urban growth in Berkeley.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Alameda County voters approved the \u003ca href=\"http://www.acgov.org/rov/elections/20141104/documents/MeasureBB-v5.pdf\">Measure BB\u003c/a> transportation tax, which includes funding for public transit, cyclists and pedestrians.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>San Bruno residents approved \u003ca href=\"http://www.sanbruno.ca.gov/comdev_election.html\">Measure N\u003c/a> which will raise the limits on building heights, making denser development possible.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Madsen says the election results show that “there’s a growing consensus that the Bay Area wants to protect the lands that are special and wants to support the kind of sustainable, smart development that will make our communities better places.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_23462\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/Doolan-Canyon-Scott-Hein-courtesy-of-Greenbelt-Alliance-1024x680.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-23462 size-large\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/Doolan-Canyon-Scott-Hein-courtesy-of-Greenbelt-Alliance-1024x680.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"680\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Dublin voters defeated a ballot measure that would have opened up Doolan Canyon to development. (Scott Hein, courtesy of Greenbelt Alliance)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>A local environmental group is declaring victories for open space preservation and smart growth in the Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"http://www.greenbelt.org/\">Greenbelt Alliance\u003c/a> took positions on six measures on Bay Area ballots. While official results have yet to be declared on one of the measures, executive director Jeremy Madsen says signs are good that all the positions he supported came out on top.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think it really shows the voters here in the Bay Area have a very strong commitment to open space conservation and to growing the Bay Area in a smart and sustainable fashion,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Two measures protected open space from development:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>In Dublin, voters defeated \u003ca href=\"http://www.acgov.org/rov/elections/20141104/documents/MeasureT-V4.pdf\">Measure T\u003c/a> which would have permitted the development of \u003ca href=\"http://www.friendsoflivermore.org/issue_5.html\">Doolan Canyon\u003c/a> between Dublin and Livermore.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Union City residents rejected \u003ca href=\"http://www.acgov.org/rov/elections/20141104/documents/MeasureKK-V2.pdf\">Measure KK\u003c/a> which would have allowed the city council to change the zoning for agricultural land off \u003ca href=\"https://www.google.com/maps/place/Union+City,+CA+94587/@37.6061801,-122.0201176,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m2!3m1!1s0x808f956b410f5297:0xe6a2cdabca05bb6\">Mission Boulevard\u003c/a>, opening it up for homes and businesses.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>One measure approved continued funding for open space:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>In Santa Clara Valley, 67 percent of voters supported \u003ca href=\"http://www.sccgov.org/sites/rov/Info/Nov2014Info/Documents/E101%20List%20of%20Local%20Measures.pdf\">Measure Q\u003c/a>, a parcel tax that will increase funding to the \u003ca href=\"http://www.openspaceauthority.org/\">Santa Clara Valley Open Space Authority\u003c/a>. (The measure needs a two-thirds majority to pass, and the results have not yet officially been called.)\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>And three concerned sustainable development in cities:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Berkeley voters defeated \u003ca href=\"http://www.cityofberkeley.info/Clerk/Elections/Election__2014_Ballot_Measure_Page.aspx\">Measure R\u003c/a>, which would have enacted stricter development requirements in downtown Berkeley. Madsen said the changes set standards so high, they made development impossible and would have defeated the goal of urban growth in Berkeley.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Alameda County voters approved the \u003ca href=\"http://www.acgov.org/rov/elections/20141104/documents/MeasureBB-v5.pdf\">Measure BB\u003c/a> transportation tax, which includes funding for public transit, cyclists and pedestrians.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>San Bruno residents approved \u003ca href=\"http://www.sanbruno.ca.gov/comdev_election.html\">Measure N\u003c/a> which will raise the limits on building heights, making denser development possible.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Madsen says the election results show that “there’s a growing consensus that the Bay Area wants to protect the lands that are special and wants to support the kind of sustainable, smart development that will make our communities better places.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_23419\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1792px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/iStock_000022187403_Medium.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-23419\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/iStock_000022187403_Medium.jpg\" alt=\"Water officials say people often forget to turn off lawn sprinklers when it starts raining. (iStock/Getty Images)\" width=\"1792\" height=\"1071\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Water officials say people often forget to turn off lawn sprinklers when it starts raining. (iStock/Getty Images)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>New statewide numbers will help reveal where California’s biggest water savings are — and where they aren’t.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The State Water Resources Control Board offered up the latest urban conservation numbers for cities around the state, which reveal water savings have plateaued after consistent gains through the summer months. According to the Board’s monthly survey of water agencies, consumers statewide averaged water savings of 10.3 percent in September, compared to a year earlier. That represents some slippage from the 11.6 percent savings logged in August.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">‘The drought’s not over just because it rained.’\u003ccite>— Felicia Marcus, State Water Board\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Regulators hope to gain more insight from new monthly reports that break down \u003ca title=\"SWB - GPCD\" href=\"http://www.waterboards.ca.gov/waterrights/water_issues/programs/drought/conservation_reporting_info.shtml\">water use on a per capita basis\u003c/a>, i.e. how much water each of us is using on a daily basis, on average, in various parts of the state. The numbers reflect residential water use, indoors and out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In September, the first month for which the gallons-per-capita-per-day, or GPCD, figures are available, the Bay Area is near the low end of the scale, averaging 85.2 for the region. Daly City, Hayward hovered in the stingy 60-GPCD range. Near the upper end were such diverse places as Bakersfield (277.5), and Beverly Hills (285.6).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Officials are clearly jittery, however, about putting these comparative numbers out there, and they caution that making direct comparisons can be misleading. Hotter and more affluent areas with large, landscaped residential properties tend to show the biggest consumption per capita. But the figures are subject to lots of other variables, all of which are \u003ca title=\"SWB - GPCD\" href=\"http://www.waterboards.ca.gov/waterrights/water_issues/programs/drought/conservation_reporting_info.shtml\">painstakingly highlighted\u003c/a> on the Water Board’s official website. What matters most is how these numbers change over time. Santa Cruz, with its aggressive conservation program, is shown as moving from the low 60s a year ago to less than 50 GPCD as this summer wound down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not all districts are in compliance with the new monthly reporting requirements. Max Gomberg, a senior scientist with the Water Board, says that four months into the program, his office is starting “compliance outreach” for laggard districts. Water regulators studiously avoid using the term “enforcement.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re trying for the carrot, not the stick,” says Gomberg.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the upside, officials called out for kudos Santa Clara County, which is in the process of pulling up 1.5 million square feet of lawn as part of its voluntary incentive program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But board chair Felicia Marcus warned that,”The drought’s not over just because it rained. I think we have to plan for the worst and hope for the best, but every drop counts.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her staff intends to set up a statewide hotline for water-waste whistleblowers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The effort is still in the planning stages but according to staffers at the State Water Board, it will be modeled on California’s 1-800-EXHAUST program, in which drivers can report vehicles spewing clouds of pollution from their tailpipes. Many local water agencies already have such hotlines. During a discussion of how to market the new statewide number, one board member offered up “1-800-WATERHOG.” It might be hard to top that, even though it’s one digit too long.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nearly 9-in-10 urban water agencies now have “mandatory” restrictions on outdoor watering, though the definition of “mandatory” varies from place-to-place.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_23419\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1792px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/iStock_000022187403_Medium.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-23419\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/iStock_000022187403_Medium.jpg\" alt=\"Water officials say people often forget to turn off lawn sprinklers when it starts raining. (iStock/Getty Images)\" width=\"1792\" height=\"1071\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Water officials say people often forget to turn off lawn sprinklers when it starts raining. (iStock/Getty Images)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>New statewide numbers will help reveal where California’s biggest water savings are — and where they aren’t.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The State Water Resources Control Board offered up the latest urban conservation numbers for cities around the state, which reveal water savings have plateaued after consistent gains through the summer months. According to the Board’s monthly survey of water agencies, consumers statewide averaged water savings of 10.3 percent in September, compared to a year earlier. That represents some slippage from the 11.6 percent savings logged in August.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">‘The drought’s not over just because it rained.’\u003ccite>— Felicia Marcus, State Water Board\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Regulators hope to gain more insight from new monthly reports that break down \u003ca title=\"SWB - GPCD\" href=\"http://www.waterboards.ca.gov/waterrights/water_issues/programs/drought/conservation_reporting_info.shtml\">water use on a per capita basis\u003c/a>, i.e. how much water each of us is using on a daily basis, on average, in various parts of the state. The numbers reflect residential water use, indoors and out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In September, the first month for which the gallons-per-capita-per-day, or GPCD, figures are available, the Bay Area is near the low end of the scale, averaging 85.2 for the region. Daly City, Hayward hovered in the stingy 60-GPCD range. Near the upper end were such diverse places as Bakersfield (277.5), and Beverly Hills (285.6).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Officials are clearly jittery, however, about putting these comparative numbers out there, and they caution that making direct comparisons can be misleading. Hotter and more affluent areas with large, landscaped residential properties tend to show the biggest consumption per capita. But the figures are subject to lots of other variables, all of which are \u003ca title=\"SWB - GPCD\" href=\"http://www.waterboards.ca.gov/waterrights/water_issues/programs/drought/conservation_reporting_info.shtml\">painstakingly highlighted\u003c/a> on the Water Board’s official website. What matters most is how these numbers change over time. Santa Cruz, with its aggressive conservation program, is shown as moving from the low 60s a year ago to less than 50 GPCD as this summer wound down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not all districts are in compliance with the new monthly reporting requirements. Max Gomberg, a senior scientist with the Water Board, says that four months into the program, his office is starting “compliance outreach” for laggard districts. Water regulators studiously avoid using the term “enforcement.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re trying for the carrot, not the stick,” says Gomberg.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the upside, officials called out for kudos Santa Clara County, which is in the process of pulling up 1.5 million square feet of lawn as part of its voluntary incentive program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But board chair Felicia Marcus warned that,”The drought’s not over just because it rained. I think we have to plan for the worst and hope for the best, but every drop counts.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her staff intends to set up a statewide hotline for water-waste whistleblowers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The effort is still in the planning stages but according to staffers at the State Water Board, it will be modeled on California’s 1-800-EXHAUST program, in which drivers can report vehicles spewing clouds of pollution from their tailpipes. Many local water agencies already have such hotlines. During a discussion of how to market the new statewide number, one board member offered up “1-800-WATERHOG.” It might be hard to top that, even though it’s one digit too long.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nearly 9-in-10 urban water agencies now have “mandatory” restrictions on outdoor watering, though the definition of “mandatory” varies from place-to-place.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Aging U.S. Icebreaker Fleet May Imperil Polar Science",
"headTitle": "Aging U.S. Icebreaker Fleet May Imperil Polar Science | KQED",
"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"audio-wrap\">\n\u003ch2>Listen:\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>http://www.kqed.org/.stream/anon/radio/science/2014/10/20141103science.mp3\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Audio of the Antarctic ice-breaking was provided by the National Science Foundation.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_23264\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1019px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/10/Polar_Star_2.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-23264\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/10/Polar_Star_2.jpg\" alt=\"Built in the 1970s, USCGC Polar Star is the Coast Guard's only remaining heavy-duty icebreaker. (USCG)\" width=\"1019\" height=\"555\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Built in the 1970s, the USCGC Polar Star is the Coast Guard’s only remaining heavy-duty icebreaker. (U.S. Coast Guard)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>This week, workers at Mare Island, near Vallejo, plan to put the nation’s most capable icebreaker back into service after months of refurbishing. That’s the good news.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The bad news is that the Coast Guard is struggling to maintain an aging — and shrinking — U.S. icebreaker fleet at a time when polar science is more important than ever. Without capable icebreakers, getting into the field to do polar science is a dicey proposition.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Currently the USCGC Polar Star is the only U.S. ship with enough brawn to lead the annual “break-in” to \u003ca title=\"NSF - McMurdo\" href=\"http://www.nsf.gov/geo/plr/support/mcmurdo.jsp\">McMurdo Station\u003c/a>, the American-operated research hub of Antarctica. It can take a week to break through the pack ice but the annual resupply mission is crucial to keeping the remote facility going.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=”uHXHQXLo8x4u0tCeEFfmmULY41SdhSJC”]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you can imagine the earthquake we had recently, and experiencing that every minute for a few hours as we crush through the ice, it’s pretty violent,” says Captain Matt Walker, who took command of the Polar Star in July.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Standing on the floor of the Mare Island dry dock, gazing up at 10,000 tons of hull, it’s easy to see why this ship gets the call for McMurdo duty. Her engines can deliver 25,000 horsepower to each of three enormous propellers, 18 feet in diameter. It’s like having a daisy chain of diesel locomotives on board. Polar Star can break through ice six feet thick without stopping and can safely “back and ram” through ice as much as 21 feet thick.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But paradoxically, those attributes have put a crimp in her science mission. The ship is designed to accommodate a team of more than 20 scientists but the onboard laboratory is essentially a storeroom these days.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">‘I like to think that we are allowing those scientists to conduct that work and that research that just might save the planet.’\u003ccite>— Captain Matt WalkerUSCGC Polar Star\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>“Now that we’re the only heavy icebreaker that can go to Antarctica for the U.S., the science has curtailed tremendously,” Walker laments, “because we are too busy breaking in the channel to let the logistics ships into McMurdo.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Coast Guard has one lighter-duty icebreaker that patrols Arctic waters, and the National Science Foundation has a \u003ca title=\"NSF - NB Palmer\" href=\"http://www.nsf.gov/geo/plr/support/nathpalm.jsp\">smaller research icebreaker\u003c/a>. That’s it. And Polar Star is showing her age. Commissioned in 1976, the ship was designed for 30 years of service. Her sister ship, Polar Sea, has been deactivated since 2010, and some of her vital parts cannibalized to keep Polar Star going. Recent refurbishing is calculated to add only about seven years to the Polar Star’s working life. Few in maritime or polar science circles think that will suffice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think the answer clearly is, ‘No,’” says Ted Scambos, lead scientist at the \u003ca title=\"NSIDC - main\" href=\"http://nsidc.org/\">National Snow and Ice Data Center\u003c/a> in Boulder, Colorado. He’s logged months aboard icebreakers, doing research. Global warming, he says, means we need icebreakers more than ever.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Both poles are areas of the world that are changing rapidly,” he says. “They’re responding a lot to global warming and that has lots of effects with ocean circulation and air circulation and weather and climate — and biology.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http://projects1.kqed.org/daily/slideshows/icebreakerslideshow.html\" width=\"640\" height=\"470\" frameborder=\"no\" scrolling=\"no\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Icebreakers are also vital for search-and-rescue missions and to support shipping and other U.S. interests at the literal ends of the Earth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We need a new heavy-duty icebreaker and we need it now,” says Congressman John Garamendi, the ranking Democrat on a House subcommittee that oversees the Coast Guard and maritime affairs. He says there’s a strategic component to this, that’s being ignored.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Right now Russia is way, way ahead of us in dealing with the Arctic,” Garamendi says. “In fact, if we need an icebreaker in the Arctic, we often have to rent a Russian icebreaker.” According to a count compiled for a congressional report, Russia has 40 icebreakers of all types, including six nuclear-powered ships operational as of July, with nearly a dozen more planned or under construction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last January, Polar Star was \u003ca title=\"Daily Telegraph - post\" href=\"http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/antarctica/10546587/US-icebreaker-en-route-to-help-ships-stuck-in-Antarctic-Ice.html\">dispatched to rescue\u003c/a> Russian and Chinese ships, both stuck in heavy ice off Antarctica. (Both ships were later freed by changing weather conditions.) But Congress has \u003ca title=\"Bristol Bay Times - post\" href=\"http://www.thebristolbaytimes.com/article/1431lawmakers_skeptical_of_coast_guard_request_to\">refused to provide funding\u003c/a> for even one new icebreaker, which would cost a billion dollars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’ll take a couple of years, maybe 3-4-5 years to build this thing,” says Garamendi. “It may take even longer for Congress to wake up and realize that you cannot run the biggest, most important economy in the world on the cheap.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Garamendi says money may have to be corralled from several budgets: the Coast Guard, Navy and National Science Foundation, all of which would benefit from a new icebreaker.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[edge_animation id=”7″ left=”auto”]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Back aboard Polar Star, Captain Walker says there’s another wake-up call coming: That the science supported by these ships might be the biggest strategic issue of all.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“By us going down there,” he says, “I like to think that we are allowing those scientists to conduct that work and that research that just might save the planet.”\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Audio of the Antarctic ice-breaking was provided by the National Science Foundation.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_23264\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1019px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/10/Polar_Star_2.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-23264\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/10/Polar_Star_2.jpg\" alt=\"Built in the 1970s, USCGC Polar Star is the Coast Guard's only remaining heavy-duty icebreaker. (USCG)\" width=\"1019\" height=\"555\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Built in the 1970s, the USCGC Polar Star is the Coast Guard’s only remaining heavy-duty icebreaker. (U.S. Coast Guard)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>This week, workers at Mare Island, near Vallejo, plan to put the nation’s most capable icebreaker back into service after months of refurbishing. That’s the good news.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The bad news is that the Coast Guard is struggling to maintain an aging — and shrinking — U.S. icebreaker fleet at a time when polar science is more important than ever. Without capable icebreakers, getting into the field to do polar science is a dicey proposition.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Currently the USCGC Polar Star is the only U.S. ship with enough brawn to lead the annual “break-in” to \u003ca title=\"NSF - McMurdo\" href=\"http://www.nsf.gov/geo/plr/support/mcmurdo.jsp\">McMurdo Station\u003c/a>, the American-operated research hub of Antarctica. It can take a week to break through the pack ice but the annual resupply mission is crucial to keeping the remote facility going.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you can imagine the earthquake we had recently, and experiencing that every minute for a few hours as we crush through the ice, it’s pretty violent,” says Captain Matt Walker, who took command of the Polar Star in July.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Standing on the floor of the Mare Island dry dock, gazing up at 10,000 tons of hull, it’s easy to see why this ship gets the call for McMurdo duty. Her engines can deliver 25,000 horsepower to each of three enormous propellers, 18 feet in diameter. It’s like having a daisy chain of diesel locomotives on board. Polar Star can break through ice six feet thick without stopping and can safely “back and ram” through ice as much as 21 feet thick.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But paradoxically, those attributes have put a crimp in her science mission. The ship is designed to accommodate a team of more than 20 scientists but the onboard laboratory is essentially a storeroom these days.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">‘I like to think that we are allowing those scientists to conduct that work and that research that just might save the planet.’\u003ccite>— Captain Matt WalkerUSCGC Polar Star\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>“Now that we’re the only heavy icebreaker that can go to Antarctica for the U.S., the science has curtailed tremendously,” Walker laments, “because we are too busy breaking in the channel to let the logistics ships into McMurdo.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Coast Guard has one lighter-duty icebreaker that patrols Arctic waters, and the National Science Foundation has a \u003ca title=\"NSF - NB Palmer\" href=\"http://www.nsf.gov/geo/plr/support/nathpalm.jsp\">smaller research icebreaker\u003c/a>. That’s it. And Polar Star is showing her age. Commissioned in 1976, the ship was designed for 30 years of service. Her sister ship, Polar Sea, has been deactivated since 2010, and some of her vital parts cannibalized to keep Polar Star going. Recent refurbishing is calculated to add only about seven years to the Polar Star’s working life. Few in maritime or polar science circles think that will suffice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think the answer clearly is, ‘No,’” says Ted Scambos, lead scientist at the \u003ca title=\"NSIDC - main\" href=\"http://nsidc.org/\">National Snow and Ice Data Center\u003c/a> in Boulder, Colorado. He’s logged months aboard icebreakers, doing research. Global warming, he says, means we need icebreakers more than ever.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Both poles are areas of the world that are changing rapidly,” he says. “They’re responding a lot to global warming and that has lots of effects with ocean circulation and air circulation and weather and climate — and biology.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http://projects1.kqed.org/daily/slideshows/icebreakerslideshow.html\" width=\"640\" height=\"470\" frameborder=\"no\" scrolling=\"no\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Icebreakers are also vital for search-and-rescue missions and to support shipping and other U.S. interests at the literal ends of the Earth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We need a new heavy-duty icebreaker and we need it now,” says Congressman John Garamendi, the ranking Democrat on a House subcommittee that oversees the Coast Guard and maritime affairs. He says there’s a strategic component to this, that’s being ignored.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Right now Russia is way, way ahead of us in dealing with the Arctic,” Garamendi says. “In fact, if we need an icebreaker in the Arctic, we often have to rent a Russian icebreaker.” According to a count compiled for a congressional report, Russia has 40 icebreakers of all types, including six nuclear-powered ships operational as of July, with nearly a dozen more planned or under construction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last January, Polar Star was \u003ca title=\"Daily Telegraph - post\" href=\"http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/antarctica/10546587/US-icebreaker-en-route-to-help-ships-stuck-in-Antarctic-Ice.html\">dispatched to rescue\u003c/a> Russian and Chinese ships, both stuck in heavy ice off Antarctica. (Both ships were later freed by changing weather conditions.) But Congress has \u003ca title=\"Bristol Bay Times - post\" href=\"http://www.thebristolbaytimes.com/article/1431lawmakers_skeptical_of_coast_guard_request_to\">refused to provide funding\u003c/a> for even one new icebreaker, which would cost a billion dollars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’ll take a couple of years, maybe 3-4-5 years to build this thing,” says Garamendi. “It may take even longer for Congress to wake up and realize that you cannot run the biggest, most important economy in the world on the cheap.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Garamendi says money may have to be corralled from several budgets: the Coast Guard, Navy and National Science Foundation, all of which would benefit from a new icebreaker.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[edge_animation id=”7″ left=”auto”]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Back aboard Polar Star, Captain Walker says there’s another wake-up call coming: That the science supported by these ships might be the biggest strategic issue of all.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“By us going down there,” he says, “I like to think that we are allowing those scientists to conduct that work and that research that just might save the planet.”\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
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"info": "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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"possible": {
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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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"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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"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",
"info": "Rightnowish digs into life in the Bay Area right now… ish. Journalist Pendarvis Harshaw takes us to galleries painted on the sides of liquor stores in West Oakland. We'll dance in warehouses in the Bayview, make smoothies with kids in South Berkeley, and listen to classical music in a 1984 Cutlass Supreme in Richmond. Every week, Pen talks to movers and shakers about how the Bay Area shapes what they create, and how they shape the place we call home.",
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"order": 16
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},
"science-friday": {
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"info": "Science Friday is a weekly science talk show, broadcast live over public radio stations nationwide. Each week, the show focuses on science topics that are in the news and tries to bring an educated, balanced discussion to bear on the scientific issues at hand. Panels of expert guests join host Ira Flatow, a veteran science journalist, to discuss science and to take questions from listeners during the call-in portion of the program.",
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"description": "[caption id=\"attachment_13657\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"351\"]\u003ca href=\"http://blogs.kqed.org/science/files/2014/01/Fracking-main.jpg\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-13657\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/files/2014/01/Fracking-main.jpg\" alt=\"Just over 2,000 wells have been fracked in California, according to industry data. (Craig Miller/KQED)\" width=\"351\" height=\"263\" />\u003c/a> Just over 2,000 wells have been fracked in California, according to industry data. (Craig Miller/KQED)[/caption]\r\n\r\nHydraulic fracturing, or fracking, has been used for more than 30 years in California, but it’s attracting attention and scrutiny because of renewed interest in the state’s large oil reserve, known as the \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/2014/05/21/californias-monterey-shale-bonanza-or-bust-nobody-really-knows/\">Monterey Shale\u003c/a>.\r\n\r\nIn California, fracking is done mainly for oil, while in other states with recent fracking booms, like Pennsylvania and Texas, it’s used largely for natural gas.\r\n\r\n\u003cstrong>What is it?\u003c/strong>\r\n\r\nFracking is just one phase of the process used to bring an oil or gas well into production. The technique is used to release oil from rocks deep underground. Water, mixed with sand and chemicals, is injected down the well bore at high pressure to create tiny fractures in the rock. \u003ca href=\"http://fracfocus.org/\">According to the oil industry\u003c/a>, more than 2,000 wells have been fracked in the state.\r\n\r\n\u003cstrong>Concerns\u003c/strong>\r\n\r\nEnvironmental groups have called for a moratorium on fracking until the state does a comprehensive review of potential impacts on both water and air quality. A chief concern is the chemicals used, some of which are carcinogens, and potential contamination of groundwater. Fracking also \u003ca href=\"http://blogs.kqed.org/science/audio/with-drought-new-scrutiny-over-frackings-water-use/\">uses large volumes of freshwater\u003c/a>. Industry sources say it uses less freshwater in California than is used in other states and no cases of groundwater contamination have been found.\r\n\r\n\u003cstrong>Where it Stands\r\n\u003c/strong>\r\n\r\nIn November 2013, state regulators \u003ca href=\"http://blogs.kqed.org/science/2013/11/15/what-californias-new-fracking-rules-would-do-and-not-do/\">released draft rules for fracking\u003c/a> that are now \u003ca href=\"http://blogs.kqed.org/science/2014/07/11/californias-new-fracking-regulations-delayed-half-a-year/\">expected to go into effect in July 2015\u003c/a>. They followed passage of \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2013/09/11/110875/fracking-bill-caifornia-senate-vote\">SB 4\u003c/a>, a bill signed by Governor Jerry Brown, that spelled out what the regulations should cover.\r\n\r\nUnder the rules, oil and gas operators would be required to apply for a permit prior to fracking a well, and to provide written notice to nearby landowners. Operators would have to disclose what chemicals they use, but not the specific concentrations if they consider those a trade secret. State water regulators are also developing a groundwater monitoring program. The regulations are expected to be finalized by the end of 2014.",
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"description": "[caption id=\"attachment_13657\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"351\"] Just over 2,000 wells have been fracked in California, according to industry data. (Craig Miller/KQED)[/caption] Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, has been used for more than 30 years in California, but it’s attracting attention and scrutiny because of renewed interest in the state’s large oil reserve, known as the Monterey Shale. In California, fracking is done mainly for oil, while in other states with recent fracking booms, like Pennsylvania and Texas, it’s used largely for natural gas. What is it? Fracking is just one phase of the process used to bring an oil or gas well into production. The technique is used to release oil from rocks deep underground. Water, mixed with sand and chemicals, is injected down the well bore at high pressure to create tiny fractures in the rock. According to the oil industry, more than 2,000 wells have been fracked in the state. Concerns Environmental groups have called for a moratorium on fracking until the state does a comprehensive review of potential impacts on both water and air quality. A chief concern is the chemicals used, some of which are carcinogens, and potential contamination of groundwater. Fracking also uses large volumes of freshwater. Industry sources say it uses less freshwater in California than is used in other states and no cases of groundwater contamination have been found. Where it Stands In November 2013, state regulators released draft rules for fracking that are now expected to go into effect in July 2015. They followed passage of SB 4, a bill signed by Governor Jerry Brown, that spelled out what the regulations should cover. Under the rules, oil and gas operators would be required to apply for a permit prior to fracking a well, and to provide written notice to nearby landowners. Operators would have to disclose what chemicals they use, but not the specific concentrations if they consider those a trade secret. State water regulators are also developing a groundwater monitoring program. The regulations are expected to be finalized by the end of 2014.",
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