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"content": "\u003cp>2025 has been a year of upheaval.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We saw a new administration in Washington take sweeping action to cut the work of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12029795/california-scientists-left-adrift-mass-federal-layoffs-noaa\">federal scientists and researchers\u003c/a> and\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101909572/how-president-trump-aims-to-dismantle-environmental-protections\"> gut environmental\u003c/a> and species protections. We saw the most \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12026682/how-we-rebuild-la-recovers-from-wildfire\">destructive fires in California’s history\u003c/a> ravage areas of Los Angeles. We saw a protracted government shutdown and a state government more or less constantly at war with the federal government.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We also saw people taking local action to improve land and communities they care about, and people reaching out to others – again and again – in the hopes of making their lives a little better.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Through it all, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science\">KQED’s Science\u003c/a> and climate team has been here bringing you the stories you need.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As we wrap up this year, we’ve handpicked some of the stories that we find especially memorable, thought-provoking or that changed how we thought about something.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1999092\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/20251101_QUEERWOODS-GC-24-KQED-1.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1999092\" title=\"\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/20251101_QUEERWOODS-GC-24-KQED-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/20251101_QUEERWOODS-GC-24-KQED-1.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/20251101_QUEERWOODS-GC-24-KQED-1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/20251101_QUEERWOODS-GC-24-KQED-1-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/20251101_QUEERWOODS-GC-24-KQED-1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Nikola Alexandre, of Shelterwood Collective, performs a burn at the property in Cazadero on Nov. 1, 2025. \u003ccite>(Gina Castro/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero, climate reporter:\u003c/strong> “They want to change the culture to make this place one that’s not just about a party, but a place that cares about the river and cares about the ecosystem, so that it can have a long life.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ezra David Romero chose his Dec. 1 story \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13984173/shelterwood-collective-soloar-punk-farms-lgbtq-history-russian-river\">“A Queer Climate Movement Takes Root Along the Russian River” \u003c/a>profiling people caring for land in an area with a long queer legacy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This was a big year of negative environmental news, with the Trump administration rolling back so much. I wrote dozens of those stories earlier this year. I wanted to do something that felt more regenerative, something focusing on positive news in the climate world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I kept meeting so many queer people in interviews, so I wondered if there were any interesting stories about queer people and climate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I found these two groups who purchased land up in the Guerneville area and are sort of reinvigorating this idea that the Russian River area had all these queer communes, in the ’60s, ’70s, but in a climate conscious way. They want to make sure the Russian River remains a queer place — that’s only going to happen if there’s forest restoration there, because the area is prone to fires, and if the place is able to withstand the future floods, because in a warming climate atmospheric rivers will be wetter and make bigger floods.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“And so it’s cool to hear that they’re not just changing the land, but they want to change the culture to make this place a place that’s not just about a party, but a place that cares about the river and cares about the ecosystem, so that it can have a long life.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1997021\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/05/250523-SOLAR-BALCONY-MD-01-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1997021\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/05/250523-SOLAR-BALCONY-MD-01-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/05/250523-SOLAR-BALCONY-MD-01-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/05/250523-SOLAR-BALCONY-MD-01-KQED-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/05/250523-SOLAR-BALCONY-MD-01-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/05/250523-SOLAR-BALCONY-MD-01-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/05/250523-SOLAR-BALCONY-MD-01-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/05/250523-SOLAR-BALCONY-MD-01-KQED-1536x1025.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/05/250523-SOLAR-BALCONY-MD-01-KQED-1920x1281.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Matthew Milner (left) and Rupert Mayer work to install solar panels in Milner’s backyard in Kensington on May 23, 2025. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cbr>\nLaura Klivans, climate reporter:\u003c/strong> “This helped me see what trends look like in the beginning — things might start out like the Wild West — before larger entities can wrap their heads around procedures and make policy around it. ”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Laura Klivans chose her Jul. 28 story \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1997918/forget-rooftops-bay-area-residents-are-plugging-solar-into-the-wall\">“Forget Rooftops — Bay Area Residents Are Plugging Solar Into the Wall” \u003c/a>about an emerging climate solution: people installing solar panels on balconies or in their backyards to get clean energy, even if they don’t own their homes or have the capital to invest in traditional solar setups. Laura’s reporting captured the attention of regulators and PBS Newshour.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I saw that I was informing some of the interested parties, important stakeholders in this matter, that this was even happening. Someone at the California Energy Commission wrote to me and said ‘We’re all passing this around the office today.’\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That felt great because a lot of my stories are on trends, solutions, events that have already happened or been established for a long time. That doesn’t do much to inform policy. But with this story, the people who have yet to write the policy are looking at my work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Using solar panels in this way isn’t really allowed in its current form. It was interesting to talk to so many people who were willing to go on the record with something that is emerging right now and not really sanctioned.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It feels like the work has more reach. And I think that’s why the post was so popular. I caught this wave of developing news.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1997768\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/07/Rodriguez_CARE_07_07_2025-4.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1997768\" title=\"\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/07/Rodriguez_CARE_07_07_2025-4.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1800\" height=\"1202\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/07/Rodriguez_CARE_07_07_2025-4.jpg 1800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/07/Rodriguez_CARE_07_07_2025-4-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/07/Rodriguez_CARE_07_07_2025-4-768x513.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/07/Rodriguez_CARE_07_07_2025-4-1536x1026.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1800px) 100vw, 1800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Giovanni Figueroa, a mental health specialist with the Orange County Health Care Agency, writes a to-do list before meeting with a client at the Central Men’s & Women’s Jails in Orange County on July 7, 2025. \u003ccite>(David Rodriguez for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>April Dembosky, health correspondent:\u003c/strong> “If you have a person whose illness makes them believe they’re not ill, how do you convince them to accept treatment?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>April Dembosky chose her July 17 post \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1997759/he-relentlessly-drove-30000-miles-asking-one-question-do-you-want-help\">‘Do You Want Help?’: Inside Orange County’s Bet on Voluntary Mental Health Care\u003c/a>” looking at Orange County’s implementation of a new state program that seeks to help the people with serious mental illness, through radical patience and relentless outreach.[aside postID=news_12068387 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/04/04242019_measles-vaccination-california-legislature-qut.jpg']“Getting people with serious mental illness into treatment has been a historical problem and in recent years has resparked a vexing ethical debate: is treating people against their will an act of cruelty or compassion? California has been experimenting with new policies that make it easier to coerce people into treatment. ‘Care Court’ is one of those programs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Orange County ’s healthcare leaders surprised me because, while they volunteered to be one of the first counties to implement the program, they are completely against forcing people into care. They believe we need to invest in long-term relationships if we want to see long-term results. Their approach is to coax, rather than coerce.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I went down there to see what this looks like and I met Giovanni Figueroa. He’s a social worker for the county who spends his days looking for and building trust with people with psychotic illness. He builds trust one bottle of water, one hamburger at a time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Sometimes it can take six months or more before someone finally says, ‘OK, I’ll go see the doctor. OK, I’ll think about taking medication.’ He is incredibly patient and devoted to his clients.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“His approach looks completely different from any other I have ever seen in the healthcare system – which is basically ‘take it or leave it.’\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He continues to show up for people, over and over, no matter what. It’s not a quick fix by any means and time will tell if it ultimately works. But this story showed me a different way of doing things is possible. Giovanni is an inspiration.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1998532\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250916_SEAOTTERS_GH-9-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1998532\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250916_SEAOTTERS_GH-9-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250916_SEAOTTERS_GH-9-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250916_SEAOTTERS_GH-9-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250916_SEAOTTERS_GH-9-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250916_SEAOTTERS_GH-9-KQED-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kayakers paddle through Elkhorn Slough as a sea otter floats nearby. Conservationists warn that proposed rollbacks to Endangered Species Act protections could threaten the species’ recovery. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sarah Mohamad, science engagement producer: \u003c/strong>“Watching otters float by, completely unaware of the decisions being made about their future, made the policy debate feel immediate and human.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sarah Mohamad chose a piece she worked on with Ezra David Romero that published on Oct. 16, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1998802/california-otters-could-face-new-threats-if-trump-weakens-law-for-endangered-animals\">“California Sea Otters Could Face New Threats if Trump Weakens Law for Endangered Animals.”\u003c/a> It’s about southern sea otters in Elkhorn Slough. The reporters kayaked to see otters up close for a s\u003ca class=\"hoverZoomLink\" title=\"\" href=\"https://www.instagram.com/p/DQMy_WnjzuF/\">ocial video\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What I expected to be a pretty straightforward wildlife comeback story ended up being something much bigger, a reminder of just how interconnected ecosystems are, and how fragile those connections can be.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’ve always thought of sea otters as these really charismatic animals — they’re adorable, and I knew they were important in a general conservation sense. But seeing them in the water, watching them float with their pups, and listening to scientists talk about what they actually do in this ecosystem shifted my thinking. The otters aren’t just surviving in Elkhorn Slough, they’re actively shaping it. By eating crabs, they help stabilize marsh banks, make space for eelgrass to grow, and even help the ecosystem store carbon. They’re influencing biodiversity, habitat health, and climate resilience all at the same time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1998311\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/08/250826_ALAMEDASWEEPS_GH-20-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1998311\" title=\"\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/08/250826_ALAMEDASWEEPS_GH-20-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/08/250826_ALAMEDASWEEPS_GH-20-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/08/250826_ALAMEDASWEEPS_GH-20-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/08/250826_ALAMEDASWEEPS_GH-20-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/08/250826_ALAMEDASWEEPS_GH-20-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Donald Sims rests under a tree with his belongings across from St. Vincent de Paul of Alameda County in Oakland on Aug. 26, 2025. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg, health correspondent: \u003c/strong>“What happens to people living on the street when encampments are swept away?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In her Sept. 15 post \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1998435/the-hidden-health-risk-behind-bay-area-homeless-encampment-sweeps#:~:text=For%20people%20using%20illicit%20drugs,deaths%20in%20the%20next%20decade.\">“The Hidden Health Risk Behind Bay Area Homeless Encampment Sweeps”\u003c/a> Lesley McClurg investigated the unintentional health harms to unhoused people when authorities move them off the street.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A year ago the Supreme Court made it possible for communities to move people living on the street, even if there weren’t enough shelter beds to offer them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The sweeps are sold as being good for public health. Officials tell the public, ‘Look, it’s not healthy for people to be defecating in the streets or for all the garbage to be there. And yet it endangers the people who are displaced. What we found, and what the studies show, is that displacing people does lead to a higher rate of overdoses, instability, and mental health issues. They’re in a much more precarious physical and mental position, which overall is going to hurt society.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I spent about 10 hours on the streets talking to people.They all had understandable reasons for being there. It gave me a window into their lives that I didn’t have.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1996372\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/03/250102-KidsFleece-14.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1996372\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/03/250102-KidsFleece-14.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/03/250102-KidsFleece-14.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/03/250102-KidsFleece-14-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/03/250102-KidsFleece-14-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/03/250102-KidsFleece-14-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/03/250102-KidsFleece-14-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/03/250102-KidsFleece-14-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/03/250102-KidsFleece-14-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Teddy holds his fleece stuffed animal, Bunny, at the KQED offices in San Francisco on Jan. 2, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Danielle Venton, science reporter:\u003c/strong> “There’s no ‘away’ to throw our stuff to, everything is connected and comes back to us.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Danielle Venton chose her Mar. 25 story \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1996394/cuddly-costly-unseen-dangers-fleece-kids-clothes-toys\">“Cuddly but Costly: The Unseen Dangers of Fleece in Kids Clothes and Toys”\u003c/a> where she tried to answer the question for herself, ‘Should I let my kid wear fleece and play with fleece toys?’\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I was interested in this question for practical reasons. I’m concerned about microplastic pollution coming from fleece and my son has a lot of beloved polyester stuffed animals and warm fleece jacket hand-me-downs. Should I let him have these things? If yes, how do I best care for them?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It opened my eyes to this new way of looking at consumption, the lifecycle of our products and the burden our bodies bear in this era where we are surrounded by plastic all the time. I was especially dismayed to learn that landfills often leak material they’re holding into groundwater and they give off pollution into the air as well. This made me question, ‘Can we ever truly throw something away?’ Instead I now feel more responsibility for the entire life cycle of a product.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Fortunately, reporting this piece made me somewhat less worried about the fleece in my home. And it cemented a game plan for how we [at home] wash it, treat it, we avoid the dryer and we always pass it on. But we do not purchase any new fleece items because there is far too much of it in the world already.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg id=\"hzDownscaled\" style=\"position: absolute;top: -10000px\">\u003cimg id=\"hzDownscaled\" style=\"position: absolute;top: -10000px\">\u003cimg id=\"hzDownscaled\" style=\"position: absolute;top: -10000px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"title": "Stories That Stuck With Us This Year, Handpicked by the KQED Science Team | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>2025 has been a year of upheaval.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We saw a new administration in Washington take sweeping action to cut the work of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12029795/california-scientists-left-adrift-mass-federal-layoffs-noaa\">federal scientists and researchers\u003c/a> and\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101909572/how-president-trump-aims-to-dismantle-environmental-protections\"> gut environmental\u003c/a> and species protections. We saw the most \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12026682/how-we-rebuild-la-recovers-from-wildfire\">destructive fires in California’s history\u003c/a> ravage areas of Los Angeles. We saw a protracted government shutdown and a state government more or less constantly at war with the federal government.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We also saw people taking local action to improve land and communities they care about, and people reaching out to others – again and again – in the hopes of making their lives a little better.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Through it all, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science\">KQED’s Science\u003c/a> and climate team has been here bringing you the stories you need.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As we wrap up this year, we’ve handpicked some of the stories that we find especially memorable, thought-provoking or that changed how we thought about something.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1999092\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/20251101_QUEERWOODS-GC-24-KQED-1.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1999092\" title=\"\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/20251101_QUEERWOODS-GC-24-KQED-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/20251101_QUEERWOODS-GC-24-KQED-1.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/20251101_QUEERWOODS-GC-24-KQED-1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/20251101_QUEERWOODS-GC-24-KQED-1-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/20251101_QUEERWOODS-GC-24-KQED-1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Nikola Alexandre, of Shelterwood Collective, performs a burn at the property in Cazadero on Nov. 1, 2025. \u003ccite>(Gina Castro/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ezra David Romero, climate reporter:\u003c/strong> “They want to change the culture to make this place one that’s not just about a party, but a place that cares about the river and cares about the ecosystem, so that it can have a long life.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ezra David Romero chose his Dec. 1 story \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13984173/shelterwood-collective-soloar-punk-farms-lgbtq-history-russian-river\">“A Queer Climate Movement Takes Root Along the Russian River” \u003c/a>profiling people caring for land in an area with a long queer legacy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This was a big year of negative environmental news, with the Trump administration rolling back so much. I wrote dozens of those stories earlier this year. I wanted to do something that felt more regenerative, something focusing on positive news in the climate world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I kept meeting so many queer people in interviews, so I wondered if there were any interesting stories about queer people and climate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I found these two groups who purchased land up in the Guerneville area and are sort of reinvigorating this idea that the Russian River area had all these queer communes, in the ’60s, ’70s, but in a climate conscious way. They want to make sure the Russian River remains a queer place — that’s only going to happen if there’s forest restoration there, because the area is prone to fires, and if the place is able to withstand the future floods, because in a warming climate atmospheric rivers will be wetter and make bigger floods.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“And so it’s cool to hear that they’re not just changing the land, but they want to change the culture to make this place a place that’s not just about a party, but a place that cares about the river and cares about the ecosystem, so that it can have a long life.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1997021\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/05/250523-SOLAR-BALCONY-MD-01-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1997021\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/05/250523-SOLAR-BALCONY-MD-01-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/05/250523-SOLAR-BALCONY-MD-01-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/05/250523-SOLAR-BALCONY-MD-01-KQED-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/05/250523-SOLAR-BALCONY-MD-01-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/05/250523-SOLAR-BALCONY-MD-01-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/05/250523-SOLAR-BALCONY-MD-01-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/05/250523-SOLAR-BALCONY-MD-01-KQED-1536x1025.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/05/250523-SOLAR-BALCONY-MD-01-KQED-1920x1281.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Matthew Milner (left) and Rupert Mayer work to install solar panels in Milner’s backyard in Kensington on May 23, 2025. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cbr>\nLaura Klivans, climate reporter:\u003c/strong> “This helped me see what trends look like in the beginning — things might start out like the Wild West — before larger entities can wrap their heads around procedures and make policy around it. ”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Laura Klivans chose her Jul. 28 story \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1997918/forget-rooftops-bay-area-residents-are-plugging-solar-into-the-wall\">“Forget Rooftops — Bay Area Residents Are Plugging Solar Into the Wall” \u003c/a>about an emerging climate solution: people installing solar panels on balconies or in their backyards to get clean energy, even if they don’t own their homes or have the capital to invest in traditional solar setups. Laura’s reporting captured the attention of regulators and PBS Newshour.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I saw that I was informing some of the interested parties, important stakeholders in this matter, that this was even happening. Someone at the California Energy Commission wrote to me and said ‘We’re all passing this around the office today.’\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That felt great because a lot of my stories are on trends, solutions, events that have already happened or been established for a long time. That doesn’t do much to inform policy. But with this story, the people who have yet to write the policy are looking at my work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Using solar panels in this way isn’t really allowed in its current form. It was interesting to talk to so many people who were willing to go on the record with something that is emerging right now and not really sanctioned.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It feels like the work has more reach. And I think that’s why the post was so popular. I caught this wave of developing news.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1997768\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/07/Rodriguez_CARE_07_07_2025-4.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1997768\" title=\"\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/07/Rodriguez_CARE_07_07_2025-4.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1800\" height=\"1202\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/07/Rodriguez_CARE_07_07_2025-4.jpg 1800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/07/Rodriguez_CARE_07_07_2025-4-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/07/Rodriguez_CARE_07_07_2025-4-768x513.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/07/Rodriguez_CARE_07_07_2025-4-1536x1026.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1800px) 100vw, 1800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Giovanni Figueroa, a mental health specialist with the Orange County Health Care Agency, writes a to-do list before meeting with a client at the Central Men’s & Women’s Jails in Orange County on July 7, 2025. \u003ccite>(David Rodriguez for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>April Dembosky, health correspondent:\u003c/strong> “If you have a person whose illness makes them believe they’re not ill, how do you convince them to accept treatment?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>April Dembosky chose her July 17 post \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1997759/he-relentlessly-drove-30000-miles-asking-one-question-do-you-want-help\">‘Do You Want Help?’: Inside Orange County’s Bet on Voluntary Mental Health Care\u003c/a>” looking at Orange County’s implementation of a new state program that seeks to help the people with serious mental illness, through radical patience and relentless outreach.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“Getting people with serious mental illness into treatment has been a historical problem and in recent years has resparked a vexing ethical debate: is treating people against their will an act of cruelty or compassion? California has been experimenting with new policies that make it easier to coerce people into treatment. ‘Care Court’ is one of those programs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Orange County ’s healthcare leaders surprised me because, while they volunteered to be one of the first counties to implement the program, they are completely against forcing people into care. They believe we need to invest in long-term relationships if we want to see long-term results. Their approach is to coax, rather than coerce.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I went down there to see what this looks like and I met Giovanni Figueroa. He’s a social worker for the county who spends his days looking for and building trust with people with psychotic illness. He builds trust one bottle of water, one hamburger at a time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Sometimes it can take six months or more before someone finally says, ‘OK, I’ll go see the doctor. OK, I’ll think about taking medication.’ He is incredibly patient and devoted to his clients.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“His approach looks completely different from any other I have ever seen in the healthcare system – which is basically ‘take it or leave it.’\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He continues to show up for people, over and over, no matter what. It’s not a quick fix by any means and time will tell if it ultimately works. But this story showed me a different way of doing things is possible. Giovanni is an inspiration.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1998532\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250916_SEAOTTERS_GH-9-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1998532\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250916_SEAOTTERS_GH-9-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250916_SEAOTTERS_GH-9-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250916_SEAOTTERS_GH-9-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250916_SEAOTTERS_GH-9-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250916_SEAOTTERS_GH-9-KQED-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kayakers paddle through Elkhorn Slough as a sea otter floats nearby. Conservationists warn that proposed rollbacks to Endangered Species Act protections could threaten the species’ recovery. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sarah Mohamad, science engagement producer: \u003c/strong>“Watching otters float by, completely unaware of the decisions being made about their future, made the policy debate feel immediate and human.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sarah Mohamad chose a piece she worked on with Ezra David Romero that published on Oct. 16, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1998802/california-otters-could-face-new-threats-if-trump-weakens-law-for-endangered-animals\">“California Sea Otters Could Face New Threats if Trump Weakens Law for Endangered Animals.”\u003c/a> It’s about southern sea otters in Elkhorn Slough. The reporters kayaked to see otters up close for a s\u003ca class=\"hoverZoomLink\" title=\"\" href=\"https://www.instagram.com/p/DQMy_WnjzuF/\">ocial video\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What I expected to be a pretty straightforward wildlife comeback story ended up being something much bigger, a reminder of just how interconnected ecosystems are, and how fragile those connections can be.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’ve always thought of sea otters as these really charismatic animals — they’re adorable, and I knew they were important in a general conservation sense. But seeing them in the water, watching them float with their pups, and listening to scientists talk about what they actually do in this ecosystem shifted my thinking. The otters aren’t just surviving in Elkhorn Slough, they’re actively shaping it. By eating crabs, they help stabilize marsh banks, make space for eelgrass to grow, and even help the ecosystem store carbon. They’re influencing biodiversity, habitat health, and climate resilience all at the same time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1998311\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/08/250826_ALAMEDASWEEPS_GH-20-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1998311\" title=\"\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/08/250826_ALAMEDASWEEPS_GH-20-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/08/250826_ALAMEDASWEEPS_GH-20-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/08/250826_ALAMEDASWEEPS_GH-20-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/08/250826_ALAMEDASWEEPS_GH-20-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/08/250826_ALAMEDASWEEPS_GH-20-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Donald Sims rests under a tree with his belongings across from St. Vincent de Paul of Alameda County in Oakland on Aug. 26, 2025. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesley McClurg, health correspondent: \u003c/strong>“What happens to people living on the street when encampments are swept away?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In her Sept. 15 post \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1998435/the-hidden-health-risk-behind-bay-area-homeless-encampment-sweeps#:~:text=For%20people%20using%20illicit%20drugs,deaths%20in%20the%20next%20decade.\">“The Hidden Health Risk Behind Bay Area Homeless Encampment Sweeps”\u003c/a> Lesley McClurg investigated the unintentional health harms to unhoused people when authorities move them off the street.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A year ago the Supreme Court made it possible for communities to move people living on the street, even if there weren’t enough shelter beds to offer them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The sweeps are sold as being good for public health. Officials tell the public, ‘Look, it’s not healthy for people to be defecating in the streets or for all the garbage to be there. And yet it endangers the people who are displaced. What we found, and what the studies show, is that displacing people does lead to a higher rate of overdoses, instability, and mental health issues. They’re in a much more precarious physical and mental position, which overall is going to hurt society.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I spent about 10 hours on the streets talking to people.They all had understandable reasons for being there. It gave me a window into their lives that I didn’t have.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1996372\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/03/250102-KidsFleece-14.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1996372\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/03/250102-KidsFleece-14.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/03/250102-KidsFleece-14.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/03/250102-KidsFleece-14-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/03/250102-KidsFleece-14-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/03/250102-KidsFleece-14-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/03/250102-KidsFleece-14-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/03/250102-KidsFleece-14-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/03/250102-KidsFleece-14-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Teddy holds his fleece stuffed animal, Bunny, at the KQED offices in San Francisco on Jan. 2, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Danielle Venton, science reporter:\u003c/strong> “There’s no ‘away’ to throw our stuff to, everything is connected and comes back to us.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Danielle Venton chose her Mar. 25 story \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1996394/cuddly-costly-unseen-dangers-fleece-kids-clothes-toys\">“Cuddly but Costly: The Unseen Dangers of Fleece in Kids Clothes and Toys”\u003c/a> where she tried to answer the question for herself, ‘Should I let my kid wear fleece and play with fleece toys?’\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I was interested in this question for practical reasons. I’m concerned about microplastic pollution coming from fleece and my son has a lot of beloved polyester stuffed animals and warm fleece jacket hand-me-downs. Should I let him have these things? If yes, how do I best care for them?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It opened my eyes to this new way of looking at consumption, the lifecycle of our products and the burden our bodies bear in this era where we are surrounded by plastic all the time. I was especially dismayed to learn that landfills often leak material they’re holding into groundwater and they give off pollution into the air as well. This made me question, ‘Can we ever truly throw something away?’ Instead I now feel more responsibility for the entire life cycle of a product.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Fortunately, reporting this piece made me somewhat less worried about the fleece in my home. And it cemented a game plan for how we [at home] wash it, treat it, we avoid the dryer and we always pass it on. But we do not purchase any new fleece items because there is far too much of it in the world already.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg id=\"hzDownscaled\" style=\"position: absolute;top: -10000px\">\u003cimg id=\"hzDownscaled\" style=\"position: absolute;top: -10000px\">\u003cimg id=\"hzDownscaled\" style=\"position: absolute;top: -10000px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://kqed.org/news/12070341/setas-venenosas-california\">\u003cem>Leer en español\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After the first rains of the year, two Decembers ago, Noe and his brothers went hiking in the hills of Santa Rosa and\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12066441/california-mushroom-poisoning-symptoms-death-cap-identification-toxic-foraging\"> found some mushrooms\u003c/a>. They fried them up that evening and kicked back a few beers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Instead of sleeping, the men spent the night dizzy, vomiting, battling diarrhea. Cramps twisted Noe’s stomach like a wet rag. At the hospital the next day, doctors told him he needed a liver transplant, and fast. If they couldn’t find a donor within a week, he would die. He was 36.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I got scared thinking I might not see my family again,” Noe said in Spanish. He and his clinicians asked KQED not to use his last name out of concern for his health and safety. “The mushrooms here look just like the ones we used to eat in Mexico, but they just weren’t the same.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This fall, warm temperatures and early rains fueled what fungi experts are calling a “super bloom” of poisonous mushrooms known as death caps in California. Already, 24 people have been sickened, the largest outbreak of mushroom poisonings in at least three decades. Of those who fell ill so far, 18 were hospitalized for more than a week, two needed liver transplants, and one died, prompting state health officials to take the rare step of warning the public to stop all foraging for the rest of the rainy season.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These cases often occur in communities that may be immigrant, may not speak English, and have experience foraging for mushrooms in another country,” said Craig Smollin, UCSF emergency physician and medical director of the San Francisco division of the California Poison Control System, adding that patients from this outbreak are from Mexico, Guatemala, and China. “It’s very easy to confuse a poisonous mushroom for an edible mushroom. That’s a very easy mistake to make.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1999537\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1999537\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/251209-DEATHCAPMUSHROOMS-10-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/251209-DEATHCAPMUSHROOMS-10-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/251209-DEATHCAPMUSHROOMS-10-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/251209-DEATHCAPMUSHROOMS-10-BL-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/251209-DEATHCAPMUSHROOMS-10-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Craig Smollin, professor of emergency medicine at UCSF Medical Center and medical director of the California Poison Control System’s San Francisco division, at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital in San Francisco on Dec. 9, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beth La Berge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But local mushroom experts and enthusiasts complained the state’s blanket guidance to stop foraging was overly broad and could lead to mycophobia, an irrational fear of fungi. When\u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/66/wr/mm6621a1.htm\"> 14 people got sick\u003c/a> during the last death cap super bloom in 2016, California health officials advised the public to “use caution” when foraging for wild mushrooms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They told people to “be careful” \u003ca href=\"https://www.fox8live.com/story/20076860/two-residents-in-elder-home-renew-mushroom-warnings/\">in 2012\u003c/a>, after a caretaker at a residential facility for the elderly in Loomis served soup made from mushrooms she picked in the backyard, accidentally killing \u003ca href=\"https://abcnews.go.com/Health/mushrooms-kill-fourth-california-senior-us-cases-rise/story?id=17826740\">four seniors.\u003c/a>[aside postID=news_12066441 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/LEDE-Amanita-phalloides-Bay-Area-2016-1.jpg']“We really think that it’s a better idea to get educated about the miraculous, amazing beings these mushrooms are,” said Sita Davis, who leads foraging trips during the winter rainy season in Northern California, then spends the summer rainy season living and foraging in Mexico.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For Davis, mushroom foraging is a kind of spiritual practice, a way to commune with nature and revel in the generosity of the earth. She recommends learning about one mushroom at a time, slowly “building a relationship” with it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One December afternoon, on a hiking trail in Oakland, she turned over logs covered in turkey tail mushrooms, clambered up side paths to stroke a cluster of oyster mushrooms, sniff the stem of an agaricus, and scrape the spongy underside of a bolete, all to demonstrate the basics of identifying mushrooms, including poisonous ones.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What tree is it growing under? How does it smell? What’s its texture? What color is it?” she asked. “All these wonderful questions to find out if a mushroom is one that you want to bring home with you or not.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the top of the hill, underneath a sprawling live oak tree, Davis pawed through a mound of leaves to uncover a mushroom with a slender white stem and drooping greenish-yellow cap. There was a whole cluster of them nearby.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We found some death caps,” she announced, aka, \u003cem>amanita phalloides\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1999539\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1999539\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/251209-DEATHCAPMUSHROOMS-12-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/251209-DEATHCAPMUSHROOMS-12-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/251209-DEATHCAPMUSHROOMS-12-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/251209-DEATHCAPMUSHROOMS-12-BL-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/251209-DEATHCAPMUSHROOMS-12-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Information hangs on the wall at the California Poison Control System offices at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital in San Francisco on Dec. 9, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beth La Berge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>They look very similar to Caesars, edible kinds of amanitas that grow in Mexico, where there is a deep cultural and culinary tradition of foraging for mushrooms, Davis said, especially among indigenous communities. One cluster of cases this fall was concentrated among Mixtec immigrants from southern Mexico now living in the Salinas Valley.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They may be an expert in Mexico, but the knowledge doesn’t travel well because the species are different,” said Debbie Viess, co-founder of the\u003ca href=\"https://www.bayareamushrooms.org/\"> Bay Area Mycological Society\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bottom line, experts said, never ever eat a mushroom that you can’t identify with 100% certainty.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That can be a deadly, deadly mistake,” Davis said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1999732\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1999px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1999732\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/251211-DeathCapMushrooms-04-BL_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1999\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/251211-DeathCapMushrooms-04-BL_qed.jpg 1999w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/251211-DeathCapMushrooms-04-BL_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/251211-DeathCapMushrooms-04-BL_qed-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/251211-DeathCapMushrooms-04-BL_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1999px) 100vw, 1999px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sita Davis holds a mushroom during an educational mushroom walk at Anthony Chabot Regional Park in Oakland on Dec. 12, 2025. Mushroom foraging is not allowed in the park. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>A mistake health officials like Dr. Smollin don’t want on their hands, especially because mushroom poisoning is easily misdiagnosed — many ER doctors often confuse it with typical gastroenteritis, sending patients home prematurely and missing the chance to stem the progression of serious liver damage. Among those sickened this fall was a family of seven, including a toddler. Smollin stands by his blanket warning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’d rather have the mycology community up in arms at me for coming down too hard and saying that you shouldn’t forage than have a 19-month-old who’s listed for transplant,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After his liver transplant, Noe said the same. He doesn’t eat wild mushrooms anymore, or any kind of mushroom, really.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Just the smell of them makes me dizzy,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This fall, warm temperatures and early rains fueled what fungi experts are calling a “super bloom” of poisonous mushrooms known as death caps in California. Already, 24 people have been sickened, the largest outbreak of mushroom poisonings in at least three decades. Of those who fell ill so far, 18 were hospitalized for more than a week, two needed liver transplants, and one died, prompting state health officials to take the rare step of warning the public to stop all foraging for the rest of the rainy season.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These cases often occur in communities that may be immigrant, may not speak English, and have experience foraging for mushrooms in another country,” said Craig Smollin, UCSF emergency physician and medical director of the San Francisco division of the California Poison Control System, adding that patients from this outbreak are from Mexico, Guatemala, and China. “It’s very easy to confuse a poisonous mushroom for an edible mushroom. That’s a very easy mistake to make.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1999537\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1999537\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/251209-DEATHCAPMUSHROOMS-10-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/251209-DEATHCAPMUSHROOMS-10-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/251209-DEATHCAPMUSHROOMS-10-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/251209-DEATHCAPMUSHROOMS-10-BL-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/251209-DEATHCAPMUSHROOMS-10-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Craig Smollin, professor of emergency medicine at UCSF Medical Center and medical director of the California Poison Control System’s San Francisco division, at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital in San Francisco on Dec. 9, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beth La Berge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But local mushroom experts and enthusiasts complained the state’s blanket guidance to stop foraging was overly broad and could lead to mycophobia, an irrational fear of fungi. When\u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/66/wr/mm6621a1.htm\"> 14 people got sick\u003c/a> during the last death cap super bloom in 2016, California health officials advised the public to “use caution” when foraging for wild mushrooms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They told people to “be careful” \u003ca href=\"https://www.fox8live.com/story/20076860/two-residents-in-elder-home-renew-mushroom-warnings/\">in 2012\u003c/a>, after a caretaker at a residential facility for the elderly in Loomis served soup made from mushrooms she picked in the backyard, accidentally killing \u003ca href=\"https://abcnews.go.com/Health/mushrooms-kill-fourth-california-senior-us-cases-rise/story?id=17826740\">four seniors.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“We really think that it’s a better idea to get educated about the miraculous, amazing beings these mushrooms are,” said Sita Davis, who leads foraging trips during the winter rainy season in Northern California, then spends the summer rainy season living and foraging in Mexico.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For Davis, mushroom foraging is a kind of spiritual practice, a way to commune with nature and revel in the generosity of the earth. She recommends learning about one mushroom at a time, slowly “building a relationship” with it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One December afternoon, on a hiking trail in Oakland, she turned over logs covered in turkey tail mushrooms, clambered up side paths to stroke a cluster of oyster mushrooms, sniff the stem of an agaricus, and scrape the spongy underside of a bolete, all to demonstrate the basics of identifying mushrooms, including poisonous ones.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What tree is it growing under? How does it smell? What’s its texture? What color is it?” she asked. “All these wonderful questions to find out if a mushroom is one that you want to bring home with you or not.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the top of the hill, underneath a sprawling live oak tree, Davis pawed through a mound of leaves to uncover a mushroom with a slender white stem and drooping greenish-yellow cap. There was a whole cluster of them nearby.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We found some death caps,” she announced, aka, \u003cem>amanita phalloides\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1999539\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1999539\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/251209-DEATHCAPMUSHROOMS-12-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/251209-DEATHCAPMUSHROOMS-12-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/251209-DEATHCAPMUSHROOMS-12-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/251209-DEATHCAPMUSHROOMS-12-BL-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/251209-DEATHCAPMUSHROOMS-12-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Information hangs on the wall at the California Poison Control System offices at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital in San Francisco on Dec. 9, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beth La Berge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>They look very similar to Caesars, edible kinds of amanitas that grow in Mexico, where there is a deep cultural and culinary tradition of foraging for mushrooms, Davis said, especially among indigenous communities. One cluster of cases this fall was concentrated among Mixtec immigrants from southern Mexico now living in the Salinas Valley.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They may be an expert in Mexico, but the knowledge doesn’t travel well because the species are different,” said Debbie Viess, co-founder of the\u003ca href=\"https://www.bayareamushrooms.org/\"> Bay Area Mycological Society\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bottom line, experts said, never ever eat a mushroom that you can’t identify with 100% certainty.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That can be a deadly, deadly mistake,” Davis said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1999732\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1999px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1999732\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/251211-DeathCapMushrooms-04-BL_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1999\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/251211-DeathCapMushrooms-04-BL_qed.jpg 1999w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/251211-DeathCapMushrooms-04-BL_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/251211-DeathCapMushrooms-04-BL_qed-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/251211-DeathCapMushrooms-04-BL_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1999px) 100vw, 1999px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sita Davis holds a mushroom during an educational mushroom walk at Anthony Chabot Regional Park in Oakland on Dec. 12, 2025. Mushroom foraging is not allowed in the park. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>A mistake health officials like Dr. Smollin don’t want on their hands, especially because mushroom poisoning is easily misdiagnosed — many ER doctors often confuse it with typical gastroenteritis, sending patients home prematurely and missing the chance to stem the progression of serious liver damage. Among those sickened this fall was a family of seven, including a toddler. Smollin stands by his blanket warning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’d rather have the mycology community up in arms at me for coming down too hard and saying that you shouldn’t forage than have a 19-month-old who’s listed for transplant,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After his liver transplant, Noe said the same. He doesn’t eat wild mushrooms anymore, or any kind of mushroom, really.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Just the smell of them makes me dizzy,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Scientists Say San Ramon’s Latest Earthquake Swarm Is Normal, but Residents Are on Edge",
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"content": "\u003cp>Two \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1936949/do-little-quakes-mean-the-big-one-is-close-at-hand\">earthquakes\u003c/a> shook Mona Epstein awake in the middle of the night, long before she crawled out of bed on the morning of Dec. 8.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But it was the rocking from the magnitude 3.6 quake just after 9 a.m. that caused the San Ramon resident to scream.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There was a loud rumble,” said Epstein, who lives about a mile from where the quake hit. “The cupboard doors opened, my armoire door popped open and things popped out of the closet.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Epstein said she hesitated to even shower afterward for fear of another earthquake. “If it was the big one,” then she didn’t want to “be naked and have to run out.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nearly 1,600 people as far away as San José reported they felt the quake, which occurred along the Calaveras Fault, the United States Geological Survey \u003ca href=\"https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/nc75276661/impact\">reported\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over the last month, more than 150 earthquakes jolted the San Ramon area — including \u003ca href=\"https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/map/?currentFeatureId=nc75276661&extent=37.73196,-121.97116&extent=37.77139,-121.91623&range=week&settings=true\">10 earthquakes at or above a magnitude 2.5\u003c/a> on Dec. 8, according to Amy Williamson, a research seismologist at the \u003ca href=\"https://earthquakes.berkeley.edu/seismo.real.time.map.html\">UC Berkeley Seismology Lab\u003c/a>. On Friday, an additional half dozen quakes rocked San Ramon, including a \u003ca href=\"https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/map/?extent=37.70936,-121.99236&extent=37.78822,-121.8825&range=week&settings=true\">magnitude 4.0 earthquake\u003c/a> just before 8 p.m.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1999667\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1999667\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/251215-EarthquakeSwarms-15-BL_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/251215-EarthquakeSwarms-15-BL_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/251215-EarthquakeSwarms-15-BL_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/251215-EarthquakeSwarms-15-BL_qed-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/251215-EarthquakeSwarms-15-BL_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mona Epstein stands in her apartment in San Ramon on Dec. 15, 2025. She experienced a recent swarm of small earthquakes in the area. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>This part of Contra Costa County is prone to earthquake swarms and has experienced these events a handful of times since the 1970s, due to a complex system of faults.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They’ve had these sorts of swarms for decades now,” Williamson said. “For San Ramon to the Danville area, it’s really common.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Epstein experienced an earlier swarm back in 2018 while living in San Ramon, a city with a population of nearly 80,000.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While these earthquake clusters aren’t out of the ordinary, they can still come as a surprise, especially if you live right above the jolt, like Rachael Heys, whose street in San Ramon is located right over the epicenter of last week’s swarm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1999657\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1999657\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/251215-EARTHQUAKESWARMS-16-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/251215-EARTHQUAKESWARMS-16-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/251215-EARTHQUAKESWARMS-16-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/251215-EARTHQUAKESWARMS-16-BL-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/251215-EARTHQUAKESWARMS-16-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mona Epstein keeps a weather radio and flashlight on her kitchen counter in her apartment in San Ramon on Dec. 15, 2025. A recent swarm of small earthquakes in the area motivated her to prepare for emergencies. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>She credits her cat, Marshall — named after rapper Eminem — for warning her that an earthquake was about to hit in the middle of the night. He made “weird little noises” and hid under a table.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Within seconds of him yelling this big loud meow, there was a big earthquake,” Heys said. “It really shook me. It sounded like a dresser hit the wall. It was like this one big bang.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Heys and her boyfriend felt at least two other quakes that morning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We had all of these mini ones mostly in that one day,” Heys said. “This is insane.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1999655\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1999655\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/251215-EARTHQUAKESWARMS-04-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/251215-EARTHQUAKESWARMS-04-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/251215-EARTHQUAKESWARMS-04-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/251215-EARTHQUAKESWARMS-04-BL-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/251215-EARTHQUAKESWARMS-04-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Rachael Heys holds her cat Marshall outside her apartment building in San Ramon on Dec. 15, 2025. The area recently experienced a sequence of small earthquakes that residents reported feeling over several days. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Earthquake swarms differ from a typical earthquake sequence, where there’s one main shock and then a series of small aftershocks, Williamson said. Swarms don’t usually have a dominant earthquake. Instead, a cluster of tiny or minor earthquakes takes place over a more extended period of time, and then the fault quiets down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The fact that there’s a swarm here doesn’t make it any more or less likely for the big one that people are always talking about in the Bay Area,” Williamson said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Earthquake swarms typically occur due to changes in the liquid around a fault. They’re common in places near volcanoes and geothermal areas. But Williamson said what makes the San Ramon area “a little bit unique” is that the area isn’t volcanic or hydrothermal.[aside postID=news_12060130 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/SFFireDeptLomaPrieta1.jpg']San Ramon sits over a complex geologic environment, which is one theory, Williamson said, for why the area gets swarms every few years. The Calaveras Fault runs underneath the city in a transition zone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It is part of the San Andreas Fault system and is \u003ca href=\"https://pubs.usgs.gov/publication/fs20153009\">capable of a magnitude 6.7 earthquake\u003c/a>. To the east, the Mount Diablo Thrust Fault begins.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“All these earthquakes happen in that transition area,” Williamson said. “Any small changes kind of cause that area to preferentially get more earthquakes.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The last big quake the Calaveras Fault produced was in 1984 in Morgan Hill with a magnitude of 6.2. But if the Hayward Fault and the Calaveras Fault, which UC Berkeley scientists found are \u003ca href=\"https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/calaveras-hayward-fault-link-means-potentially-larger-quakes\">connected\u003c/a>, rock simultaneously, that could result in a magnitude 7.3 earthquake.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Faults contain liquid that lubricates the earth, making it easier to move and causing earthquakes. Similar to a person wetting their hands and sliding them together, the fluid reduces the friction, and the rock “can slide more freely,” Williamson said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Williamson said the liquid is usually a mix of water and minerals, and that there isn’t a “great model” to say exactly how it moves through cracks within the fault system. That movement can cause the quakes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Williamson said the “constant rattle” should serve as a reminder that Bay Area residents live in a “really seismically active area.” She recommended \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1949019/its-about-time-how-to-get-ready-for-the-next-emergency\">preparing a go bag\u003c/a> with clothes, food and water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1999661\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1999661\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/251215-EARTHQUAKESWARMS-19-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/251215-EARTHQUAKESWARMS-19-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/251215-EARTHQUAKESWARMS-19-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/251215-EARTHQUAKESWARMS-19-BL-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/251215-EARTHQUAKESWARMS-19-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A sign for apartments on Deerwood Road in San Ramon on Dec. 15, 2025. The area sits near the Calaveras Fault, an active fault that runs underground through the East Bay. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Epstein, who is retired, said she’s started to prepare for a larger earthquake, collecting masks, gloves, water, tools, and canned food — although she needs to double-check the expiration dates to make sure the food is still good to eat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m not to the point where I’m gonna sleep with my shoes on or anything,” Epstein said. “I just hope if the worst happens that I can get to the bag in the closet.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Heys, who works as a server in Danville, on the other hand, is very prepared. She has a supply of perishable food, flashlights, portable chargers that also act as flashlights, mini candles, gallons of water and a case of water in her car.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She’s talked with her friends and neighbors about the quakes and how they’ve prepared, but they don’t seem as concerned.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Nobody really has any major concerns as of now,” Heys said. “I think that’s because none of us has experienced a huge one yet.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Two \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1936949/do-little-quakes-mean-the-big-one-is-close-at-hand\">earthquakes\u003c/a> shook Mona Epstein awake in the middle of the night, long before she crawled out of bed on the morning of Dec. 8.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But it was the rocking from the magnitude 3.6 quake just after 9 a.m. that caused the San Ramon resident to scream.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There was a loud rumble,” said Epstein, who lives about a mile from where the quake hit. “The cupboard doors opened, my armoire door popped open and things popped out of the closet.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Epstein said she hesitated to even shower afterward for fear of another earthquake. “If it was the big one,” then she didn’t want to “be naked and have to run out.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nearly 1,600 people as far away as San José reported they felt the quake, which occurred along the Calaveras Fault, the United States Geological Survey \u003ca href=\"https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/nc75276661/impact\">reported\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over the last month, more than 150 earthquakes jolted the San Ramon area — including \u003ca href=\"https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/map/?currentFeatureId=nc75276661&extent=37.73196,-121.97116&extent=37.77139,-121.91623&range=week&settings=true\">10 earthquakes at or above a magnitude 2.5\u003c/a> on Dec. 8, according to Amy Williamson, a research seismologist at the \u003ca href=\"https://earthquakes.berkeley.edu/seismo.real.time.map.html\">UC Berkeley Seismology Lab\u003c/a>. On Friday, an additional half dozen quakes rocked San Ramon, including a \u003ca href=\"https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/map/?extent=37.70936,-121.99236&extent=37.78822,-121.8825&range=week&settings=true\">magnitude 4.0 earthquake\u003c/a> just before 8 p.m.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1999667\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1999667\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/251215-EarthquakeSwarms-15-BL_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/251215-EarthquakeSwarms-15-BL_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/251215-EarthquakeSwarms-15-BL_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/251215-EarthquakeSwarms-15-BL_qed-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/251215-EarthquakeSwarms-15-BL_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mona Epstein stands in her apartment in San Ramon on Dec. 15, 2025. She experienced a recent swarm of small earthquakes in the area. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>This part of Contra Costa County is prone to earthquake swarms and has experienced these events a handful of times since the 1970s, due to a complex system of faults.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They’ve had these sorts of swarms for decades now,” Williamson said. “For San Ramon to the Danville area, it’s really common.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Epstein experienced an earlier swarm back in 2018 while living in San Ramon, a city with a population of nearly 80,000.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While these earthquake clusters aren’t out of the ordinary, they can still come as a surprise, especially if you live right above the jolt, like Rachael Heys, whose street in San Ramon is located right over the epicenter of last week’s swarm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1999657\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1999657\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/251215-EARTHQUAKESWARMS-16-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/251215-EARTHQUAKESWARMS-16-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/251215-EARTHQUAKESWARMS-16-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/251215-EARTHQUAKESWARMS-16-BL-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/251215-EARTHQUAKESWARMS-16-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mona Epstein keeps a weather radio and flashlight on her kitchen counter in her apartment in San Ramon on Dec. 15, 2025. A recent swarm of small earthquakes in the area motivated her to prepare for emergencies. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>She credits her cat, Marshall — named after rapper Eminem — for warning her that an earthquake was about to hit in the middle of the night. He made “weird little noises” and hid under a table.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Within seconds of him yelling this big loud meow, there was a big earthquake,” Heys said. “It really shook me. It sounded like a dresser hit the wall. It was like this one big bang.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Heys and her boyfriend felt at least two other quakes that morning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We had all of these mini ones mostly in that one day,” Heys said. “This is insane.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1999655\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1999655\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/251215-EARTHQUAKESWARMS-04-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/251215-EARTHQUAKESWARMS-04-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/251215-EARTHQUAKESWARMS-04-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/251215-EARTHQUAKESWARMS-04-BL-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/251215-EARTHQUAKESWARMS-04-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Rachael Heys holds her cat Marshall outside her apartment building in San Ramon on Dec. 15, 2025. The area recently experienced a sequence of small earthquakes that residents reported feeling over several days. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Earthquake swarms differ from a typical earthquake sequence, where there’s one main shock and then a series of small aftershocks, Williamson said. Swarms don’t usually have a dominant earthquake. Instead, a cluster of tiny or minor earthquakes takes place over a more extended period of time, and then the fault quiets down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The fact that there’s a swarm here doesn’t make it any more or less likely for the big one that people are always talking about in the Bay Area,” Williamson said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Earthquake swarms typically occur due to changes in the liquid around a fault. They’re common in places near volcanoes and geothermal areas. But Williamson said what makes the San Ramon area “a little bit unique” is that the area isn’t volcanic or hydrothermal.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>San Ramon sits over a complex geologic environment, which is one theory, Williamson said, for why the area gets swarms every few years. The Calaveras Fault runs underneath the city in a transition zone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It is part of the San Andreas Fault system and is \u003ca href=\"https://pubs.usgs.gov/publication/fs20153009\">capable of a magnitude 6.7 earthquake\u003c/a>. To the east, the Mount Diablo Thrust Fault begins.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“All these earthquakes happen in that transition area,” Williamson said. “Any small changes kind of cause that area to preferentially get more earthquakes.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The last big quake the Calaveras Fault produced was in 1984 in Morgan Hill with a magnitude of 6.2. But if the Hayward Fault and the Calaveras Fault, which UC Berkeley scientists found are \u003ca href=\"https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/calaveras-hayward-fault-link-means-potentially-larger-quakes\">connected\u003c/a>, rock simultaneously, that could result in a magnitude 7.3 earthquake.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Faults contain liquid that lubricates the earth, making it easier to move and causing earthquakes. Similar to a person wetting their hands and sliding them together, the fluid reduces the friction, and the rock “can slide more freely,” Williamson said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Williamson said the liquid is usually a mix of water and minerals, and that there isn’t a “great model” to say exactly how it moves through cracks within the fault system. That movement can cause the quakes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Williamson said the “constant rattle” should serve as a reminder that Bay Area residents live in a “really seismically active area.” She recommended \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1949019/its-about-time-how-to-get-ready-for-the-next-emergency\">preparing a go bag\u003c/a> with clothes, food and water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1999661\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1999661\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/251215-EARTHQUAKESWARMS-19-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/251215-EARTHQUAKESWARMS-19-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/251215-EARTHQUAKESWARMS-19-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/251215-EARTHQUAKESWARMS-19-BL-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/251215-EARTHQUAKESWARMS-19-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A sign for apartments on Deerwood Road in San Ramon on Dec. 15, 2025. The area sits near the Calaveras Fault, an active fault that runs underground through the East Bay. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Epstein, who is retired, said she’s started to prepare for a larger earthquake, collecting masks, gloves, water, tools, and canned food — although she needs to double-check the expiration dates to make sure the food is still good to eat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m not to the point where I’m gonna sleep with my shoes on or anything,” Epstein said. “I just hope if the worst happens that I can get to the bag in the closet.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Heys, who works as a server in Danville, on the other hand, is very prepared. She has a supply of perishable food, flashlights, portable chargers that also act as flashlights, mini candles, gallons of water and a case of water in her car.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She’s talked with her friends and neighbors about the quakes and how they’ve prepared, but they don’t seem as concerned.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Nobody really has any major concerns as of now,” Heys said. “I think that’s because none of us has experienced a huge one yet.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/california\">California’s\u003c/a> planet-warming pollution shrank by 3% in 2023, one of the largest year-over-year reductions the state has seen, according to a report by nonprofit Next 10. The state’s use of cleaner fuels in heavy-duty transportation, like big rigs, and its deployment of battery storage and solar energy drove this climate progress, in large part.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The report found that fossil fuels supplied just 36.3% of the state’s electricity in 2024, an all-time low, and renewables surpassed 50% of the energy that powers California’s grid.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“California is doing extremely well in reducing our carbon emissions and moving towards a low-carbon economy,” said F. Noel Perry, founder of Next 10, a nonprofit that aims to educate the public and policymakers on economic, environmental, and quality of life issues.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the transportation sector comprised the state’s largest category of emissions, accounting for roughly 38% of emissions in 2023, it also saw the largest percentage decrease in emissions of any other sector, falling by 4.6%. Heavy-duty trucks relied more on biofuels, which are made from plants or other organic materials instead of fossil fuels, which account for the majority of the drop.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There was a dip in pollution from cars, too, although it was far smaller.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1999624\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1999624\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/251021-I-580-MD-02_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/251021-I-580-MD-02_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/251021-I-580-MD-02_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/251021-I-580-MD-02_qed-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/251021-I-580-MD-02_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The 580 freeway in Oakland on Oct. 21, 2025. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Emissions fell in all other categories the researchers reviewed, with the exception of pollution from residential and commercial sectors, which grew by nearly 7%.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The large increase is from grocery stores, commercial and industrial cold storage facilities, and others, that have replaced gases in old refrigeration systems with ones that don’t harm the ozone layer, but can cause a lot of warming if they leak.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Researchers said that while the data is encouraging, California policymakers and regulators need to do more to hit the state’s 2030 goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 40% below 1990 levels.[aside postID=news_12052390 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/230928-EAGLE-ROCK-SETTLE-MD-07_qed.jpg']That would require an average annual emissions reduction rate of 4.4%, a number far higher than historic annual reductions. For the state to reach its even more ambitious 2045 emissions goal — of 85% below 1990 levels — California would have to double that reduction rate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is an encouraging result, especially amid the current federal administration’s hostility toward clean energy and climate change and environmental policies,” said Hoyu Chong, lead researcher on Next 10’s report.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“California is still not quite on track to meet its 2030 goals, but I do think it’s getting closer to within striking distance,” Chong said. “I like to use the analogy of saving money. Even if a person might not reach their savings goal by their deadline, the fact that the person has saved something is still better than nothing, right?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The report echoes an oft-touted phrase by Gov. Gavin Newsom: that California’s economy grows while the state reduces emissions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Authors say further phasing out of fossil fuels and electrifying the grid will be crucial, as well as more cuts to emissions from transportation, buildings and industry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Next 10 has tracked California’s progress toward its 2030 climate goals since the state adopted the targets in 2006.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/california\">California’s\u003c/a> planet-warming pollution shrank by 3% in 2023, one of the largest year-over-year reductions the state has seen, according to a report by nonprofit Next 10. The state’s use of cleaner fuels in heavy-duty transportation, like big rigs, and its deployment of battery storage and solar energy drove this climate progress, in large part.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The report found that fossil fuels supplied just 36.3% of the state’s electricity in 2024, an all-time low, and renewables surpassed 50% of the energy that powers California’s grid.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“California is doing extremely well in reducing our carbon emissions and moving towards a low-carbon economy,” said F. Noel Perry, founder of Next 10, a nonprofit that aims to educate the public and policymakers on economic, environmental, and quality of life issues.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the transportation sector comprised the state’s largest category of emissions, accounting for roughly 38% of emissions in 2023, it also saw the largest percentage decrease in emissions of any other sector, falling by 4.6%. Heavy-duty trucks relied more on biofuels, which are made from plants or other organic materials instead of fossil fuels, which account for the majority of the drop.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There was a dip in pollution from cars, too, although it was far smaller.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1999624\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1999624\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/251021-I-580-MD-02_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/251021-I-580-MD-02_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/251021-I-580-MD-02_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/251021-I-580-MD-02_qed-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/251021-I-580-MD-02_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The 580 freeway in Oakland on Oct. 21, 2025. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Emissions fell in all other categories the researchers reviewed, with the exception of pollution from residential and commercial sectors, which grew by nearly 7%.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The large increase is from grocery stores, commercial and industrial cold storage facilities, and others, that have replaced gases in old refrigeration systems with ones that don’t harm the ozone layer, but can cause a lot of warming if they leak.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Researchers said that while the data is encouraging, California policymakers and regulators need to do more to hit the state’s 2030 goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 40% below 1990 levels.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>That would require an average annual emissions reduction rate of 4.4%, a number far higher than historic annual reductions. For the state to reach its even more ambitious 2045 emissions goal — of 85% below 1990 levels — California would have to double that reduction rate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is an encouraging result, especially amid the current federal administration’s hostility toward clean energy and climate change and environmental policies,” said Hoyu Chong, lead researcher on Next 10’s report.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“California is still not quite on track to meet its 2030 goals, but I do think it’s getting closer to within striking distance,” Chong said. “I like to use the analogy of saving money. Even if a person might not reach their savings goal by their deadline, the fact that the person has saved something is still better than nothing, right?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The report echoes an oft-touted phrase by Gov. Gavin Newsom: that California’s economy grows while the state reduces emissions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Authors say further phasing out of fossil fuels and electrifying the grid will be crucial, as well as more cuts to emissions from transportation, buildings and industry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Next 10 has tracked California’s progress toward its 2030 climate goals since the state adopted the targets in 2006.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Monarch Butterflies Now Wear Tiny Tags — for Scientists to Track Them in Real Time",
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"content": "\u003cp>Thanks to \u003ca href=\"https://xerces.org/press/new-ultralight-radio-tags-are-tracking-monarch-butterflies-in-santa-cruz\">tiny new ultralight radio tags\u003c/a> small enough for a fragile butterfly to carry, scientists are getting a rare, real-time look at how western monarchs move through their winter habitat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s part of a breakthrough tracking effort reshaping what we know about one of North America’s most iconic migrations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In November, the \u003ca href=\"https://xerces.org/\">Xerces Society\u003c/a> for Invertebrate Conservation joined with scientific collaborators to deploy roughly 100 ultra-light Bluetooth tags along the Central Coast, offering an unprecedented look at how Western monarchs move through their fragmented winter habitat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Eyelash glue was delicately applied to each monarch’s thorax and used to attach the tiny tag.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The solar-powered tag, developed by \u003ca href=\"https://celltracktech.com/\">Cellular Tracking Technologies\u003c/a>, weighs about 60 milligrams, which works out to only about a tenth of the weight of a monarch. By broadcasting its signals to billions of Bluetooth-enabled devices, the system allows researchers to follow individual butterflies through an app called \u003ca href=\"https://apps.apple.com/us/app/project-monarch-science/id6460006970\">Project Monarch Science\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The public can follow along on the monarch’s journey, too. If you want to participate in tracking monarch populations, you can download the Project Monarch App, where you can log any sightings, and the Bluetooth technology in your phone will also help triangulate other butterflies that might be in the area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1999596\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1999596\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/monarchTagging_overhead_cCapeMayPointArtsAndScienceCenter.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1647\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/monarchTagging_overhead_cCapeMayPointArtsAndScienceCenter.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/monarchTagging_overhead_cCapeMayPointArtsAndScienceCenter-160x132.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/monarchTagging_overhead_cCapeMayPointArtsAndScienceCenter-768x632.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/monarchTagging_overhead_cCapeMayPointArtsAndScienceCenter-1536x1265.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A monarch butterfly wearing one of Cellular Tracking Technologies’ transmitters. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Cellular Tracking Technologies)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In late 2024, a tagged monarch named Lionel migrated from New Jersey to Florida, logging thousands of detections along the way. “For the first time, we got a full southbound track of a monarch for over a thousand miles along that track,” said Dr. David La Puma, director of global market development at CTT.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More than 400 monarchs like Lionel have since been tagged, revealing detailed flight paths, unexpected detours and long-distance movements never documented before.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The monarch picture in California\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In California, the project tagged over 40 monarchs in Santa Cruz County, covering Natural Bridges, Lighthouse Field, and Moran Lake. Additional researchers tagged monarchs in San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara, bringing the West Coast total to about 100 individual butterflies. The effort required more than a year of preparation and buy-in from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Early detections already hint at butterfly behavior that scientists had previously only theorized about. “We knew they moved between overwintering sites, but the frequency we’re seeing is just very quick,” said Ashley Fisher, conservation biologist at the Xerces Society.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1985061\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2121px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1985061\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/GettyImages-460036505.jpg\" alt=\"A number of brightly colored monarch butterflies in hues of orange and yellow against a bright blue backdrop\" width=\"2121\" height=\"1414\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/GettyImages-460036505.jpg 2121w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/GettyImages-460036505-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/GettyImages-460036505-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/GettyImages-460036505-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/GettyImages-460036505-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/GettyImages-460036505-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/GettyImages-460036505-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/GettyImages-460036505-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2121px) 100vw, 2121px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Monarch butterfly photos flying in the sky near Santa Cruz, California, during migration. \u003ccite>(Mark Miller Photos/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>According to the Bluetooth tracking, one monarch traveled more than 100 miles in just two days, passing several known winter sites and surprising researchers with long-distance movement during the overwintering season — when butterflies are hibernating, conserving energy for the upcoming spring migration.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1995508/monarch-butterflies-are-on-the-decline-in-california-heres-why\">Western monarch population has plummeted \u003c/a>by more than 99% since the 1980s due to habitat loss, pesticide use and human-caused climate change affecting migration and nectar sources.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Protecting the coastal groves where they overwinter is a cornerstone of recovery — but scientists have long lacked a clear view of how individual butterflies travel during the season.[aside postID=science_1995508 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/01/025_KQEDScience_IntCommunitySchoolOakland_10202022_qed-1020x680.jpg']This California deployment is key for understanding how Western monarchs use coastal habitat, especially as populations remain low, with a preliminary estimate of about \u003ca href=\"https://westernmonarchcount.org/mid-season-western-monarch-count-tally-reaches-8000/\">8,000 butterflies counted\u003c/a> so far this winter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By revealing which sites monarchs rely on, how often they leave to forage and where they disperse in early spring, the data will help California agencies and conservation groups identify critical habitat, guide restoration and reduce threats like pesticide exposure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The detailed day-to-day movements are blowing the lid off our understanding” of these creatures, Fisher said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The tagged butterflies will also help researchers understand when and where monarchs move \u003cem>among \u003c/em>overwintering sites and the surrounding areas, said Emma Pelton, senior conservation biologist with the Xerces Society.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These details will help us identify where to prioritize conservation of western monarch habitat, as well as provide the most accurate picture of their home range to date,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Where can I see monarchs in and around the Bay Area?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>For the best Western monarch butterfly viewing, head south along the coast to groves in Monterey, Santa Cruz and San Luis Obispo. Some exceptional viewing sites include:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.pgmuseum.org/monarch-viewing/\">Pacific Grove’s butterfly grove\u003c/a> near Monterey\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=541\">Natural Bridges State Beach\u003c/a> in Santa Cruz\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=550\">Lighthouse Field State Beach\u003c/a> in Santa Cruz\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"http://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=595\">Pismo State Beach\u003c/a> in San Luis Obispo\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>There have also been reports of monarchs in the East Bay, at spots like:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.ebparks.org/parks/ardenwood\">The Ardenwood Historic Farm\u003c/a> in Fremont\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://berkeleyca.gov/community-recreation/parks-recreation/parks/aquatic-park\">Berkeley Aquatic Park\u003c/a> in Berkeley\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.ebparks.org/parks/oyster-bay\">Oyster Bay Regional Shoreline\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.ebparks.org/parks/point-pinole\">Point Pinole Regional Shoreline\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.albanyca.gov/Residents/Parks-Open-Space/Albany-Hill\">Albany Hill Park\u003c/a> in Albany\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Xerces has a \u003ca href=\"https://westernmonarchcount.org/map-of-overwintering-sites/\">map of all the monarch butterfly overwintering sites in California\u003c/a>, but please note that some of these locations might not be open to the public.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>What attracts monarch butterflies to a certain spot?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Monarch butterflies gravitate toward coastal areas, said Natalie Johnston, education manager at Pacific Grove Museum of Natural History, and the largest population in the state this year was recorded in Santa Cruz.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Martha Nitzberg, an interpreter at \u003ca href=\"https://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=541\">Natural Bridges State Beach\u003c/a> in Santa Cruz, said their location is an apt example of how a particular place can offer up a welcoming, attractive environment for migrating butterflies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1985064\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2124px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1985064\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/GettyImages-184945669.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2124\" height=\"1411\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/GettyImages-184945669.jpg 2124w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/GettyImages-184945669-800x531.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/GettyImages-184945669-1020x678.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/GettyImages-184945669-160x106.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/GettyImages-184945669-768x510.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/GettyImages-184945669-1536x1020.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/GettyImages-184945669-2048x1361.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/GettyImages-184945669-1920x1275.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2124px) 100vw, 2124px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) resting on a tree branch in its winter nesting area. Taken in Santa Cruz, California. \u003ccite>(GomezDavid/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>First, like many other top viewing spots in the state, it’s by the ocean, where winter temperatures are moderate and frost can’t permeate the ground and vegetation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At Natural Bridges, monarchs find extra protection from the elements, too. Located in a canyon, a series of concentric rings of trees helps block wind and protect the monarchs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They find a microclimate, as they don’t like wind,” Nitzberg said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nitzberg said they even have owls living nearby that scare off other birds that could be potential predators for these butterflies.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>When is peak monarch butterfly viewing season?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Nitzberg said the butterflies start to become more numerous in the middle of October, and their visit tends to peak in Santa Cruz right around Thanksgiving. This year’s peak count at Natural Bridges, Nitzberg said, was 1,700 on Nov. 28.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At Pacific Grove, by contrast, Johnston said they \u003ca href=\"https://www.pgmuseum.org/monarchs\">recorded fewer than 200 butterflies\u003c/a> at their peak this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1994688\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2048px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1994688\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/10/IMG_1398-2048x1365-1.jpg\" alt=\"Orange and black-colored butterflies flutter around white-petaled flower plants. The backdrop is the blue sky.\" width=\"2048\" height=\"1365\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/10/IMG_1398-2048x1365-1.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/10/IMG_1398-2048x1365-1-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/10/IMG_1398-2048x1365-1-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/10/IMG_1398-2048x1365-1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/10/IMG_1398-2048x1365-1-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/10/IMG_1398-2048x1365-1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/10/IMG_1398-2048x1365-1-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2048px) 100vw, 2048px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Western monarchs feed on Pacific aster nectar while overwintering in the Monarch Butterfly Sanctuary in Pacific Grove, California. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Barry Bergman)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Fall is also the best time to visit if you’re hoping to see a lot of action, as they’re actively hunting for flowers and nectar to build up stores for winter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But keep in mind: Monarch butterflies can’t actually fly if it’s under 56 degrees Fahrenheit. So in the colder months or times of day, it’s unlikely you’ll see any fluttering around at all.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>What should you know about viewing monarchs?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Nitzberg said it’s best to bring binoculars, although many state parks like Natural Bridges also set up spotting scopes and hand out some binoculars to visitors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Without binoculars, monarchs can admittedly sometimes be hard to spot, she said. Visitors might be more likely to mistake their dark “clumps” high up in the eucalyptus trees for pinecones, until they get a closer look.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you’re hoping to see them flying about, Johnston recommends visiting in the afternoon, when the sun has had time to warm their tiny bodies up a touch.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Why do monarch butterflies migrate?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>“The sun is the key to their migration,” Nitzberg said. “The butterflies are always looking for spring.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On their migration path, the butterflies are looking for milkweed and flowers. And as the seasons turn and plants dry up, the monarchs continue northward, inland, and, oftentimes, to higher elevations, in search of places where they’re most likely to find springtime conditions into summer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1999598\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1999598\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/Monarch-cluster.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1080\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/Monarch-cluster.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/Monarch-cluster-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/Monarch-cluster-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/Monarch-cluster-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/Monarch-cluster-1200x675.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">When monarch butterflies overwinter, they cluster on trees, making them look like orange and black chandeliers. \u003ccite>(JHVEPhoto/iStock)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But because butterflies live only a handful of weeks, the journey north and east can see up to four generations of monarchs passing the baton to each other as the season progresses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Their short lifespan makes them “like little flitting beauties,” Johnston said. ”You get a glimpse of them, and then they’re gone.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The reverse is also true: In the fall, the monarchs head south, following the sun toward warmer temperatures.[aside postID=science_1985049 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/10/DEEP_914_This_Parasite_Is_Cramping_the_Monarch_Butterflys_Style_V2_KQED.jpg']These butterflies, Nitzberg explained, experience a hormone shift on their travels south that allows them to accumulate fat and live longer. This can extend a monarch’s lifespan to as many as 9 months: a “super generation,” Johnston said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Instead of just going dormant like most insects do when it gets cold, they all migrate down and become social, and hang out in these beautiful clusters,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s also what makes them prime for tagging, Johnston explained – not only because they live long enough to get useful tracking information, but also because one butterfly’s location can reveal that of a cluster of monarchs, which can then be counted and interpreted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“By tracking the monarch butterfly population, we can essentially use that to extrapolate how other important pollinators like other species of butterflies or even bumblebees, which require the same similar conditions, how they’re doing,” she said. “We can study them and learn from them in a way that we can’t with other insects.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>What can you do to aid monarchs’ migration?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In your own garden, if you have \u003ca href=\"https://xerces.org/sites/default/files/publications/19-004.pdf\">milkweed plants native to your area\u003c/a>, planting them can help the butterflies find food. However, Nitzberg warned against planting \u003ca href=\"https://www.nwf.org/-/media/Documents/PDFs/Garden-for-Wildlife/Tip-Sheets/Native-vs-Tropical-Milkweed.pdf\">non-native milkweed\u003c/a>, as it remains active in winter and can therefore aid in the spread of disease and confuse monarchs’ migrations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And don’t forget that protecting the caterpillar is the first step to a healthy monarch — so if you have a lot of yellow jackets or wasps, removing those can create a haven for caterpillar populations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But it’s not just monarchs at risk, stressed Nitzberg, so creating a garden without pesticides can benefit all species of butterflies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Poisons are really hard on all butterflies, especially these migrating monarchs,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Thanks to \u003ca href=\"https://xerces.org/press/new-ultralight-radio-tags-are-tracking-monarch-butterflies-in-santa-cruz\">tiny new ultralight radio tags\u003c/a> small enough for a fragile butterfly to carry, scientists are getting a rare, real-time look at how western monarchs move through their winter habitat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s part of a breakthrough tracking effort reshaping what we know about one of North America’s most iconic migrations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In November, the \u003ca href=\"https://xerces.org/\">Xerces Society\u003c/a> for Invertebrate Conservation joined with scientific collaborators to deploy roughly 100 ultra-light Bluetooth tags along the Central Coast, offering an unprecedented look at how Western monarchs move through their fragmented winter habitat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Eyelash glue was delicately applied to each monarch’s thorax and used to attach the tiny tag.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The solar-powered tag, developed by \u003ca href=\"https://celltracktech.com/\">Cellular Tracking Technologies\u003c/a>, weighs about 60 milligrams, which works out to only about a tenth of the weight of a monarch. By broadcasting its signals to billions of Bluetooth-enabled devices, the system allows researchers to follow individual butterflies through an app called \u003ca href=\"https://apps.apple.com/us/app/project-monarch-science/id6460006970\">Project Monarch Science\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The public can follow along on the monarch’s journey, too. If you want to participate in tracking monarch populations, you can download the Project Monarch App, where you can log any sightings, and the Bluetooth technology in your phone will also help triangulate other butterflies that might be in the area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1999596\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1999596\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/monarchTagging_overhead_cCapeMayPointArtsAndScienceCenter.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1647\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/monarchTagging_overhead_cCapeMayPointArtsAndScienceCenter.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/monarchTagging_overhead_cCapeMayPointArtsAndScienceCenter-160x132.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/monarchTagging_overhead_cCapeMayPointArtsAndScienceCenter-768x632.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/monarchTagging_overhead_cCapeMayPointArtsAndScienceCenter-1536x1265.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A monarch butterfly wearing one of Cellular Tracking Technologies’ transmitters. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Cellular Tracking Technologies)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In late 2024, a tagged monarch named Lionel migrated from New Jersey to Florida, logging thousands of detections along the way. “For the first time, we got a full southbound track of a monarch for over a thousand miles along that track,” said Dr. David La Puma, director of global market development at CTT.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More than 400 monarchs like Lionel have since been tagged, revealing detailed flight paths, unexpected detours and long-distance movements never documented before.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The monarch picture in California\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In California, the project tagged over 40 monarchs in Santa Cruz County, covering Natural Bridges, Lighthouse Field, and Moran Lake. Additional researchers tagged monarchs in San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara, bringing the West Coast total to about 100 individual butterflies. The effort required more than a year of preparation and buy-in from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Early detections already hint at butterfly behavior that scientists had previously only theorized about. “We knew they moved between overwintering sites, but the frequency we’re seeing is just very quick,” said Ashley Fisher, conservation biologist at the Xerces Society.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1985061\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2121px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1985061\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/GettyImages-460036505.jpg\" alt=\"A number of brightly colored monarch butterflies in hues of orange and yellow against a bright blue backdrop\" width=\"2121\" height=\"1414\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/GettyImages-460036505.jpg 2121w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/GettyImages-460036505-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/GettyImages-460036505-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/GettyImages-460036505-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/GettyImages-460036505-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/GettyImages-460036505-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/GettyImages-460036505-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/GettyImages-460036505-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2121px) 100vw, 2121px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Monarch butterfly photos flying in the sky near Santa Cruz, California, during migration. \u003ccite>(Mark Miller Photos/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>According to the Bluetooth tracking, one monarch traveled more than 100 miles in just two days, passing several known winter sites and surprising researchers with long-distance movement during the overwintering season — when butterflies are hibernating, conserving energy for the upcoming spring migration.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1995508/monarch-butterflies-are-on-the-decline-in-california-heres-why\">Western monarch population has plummeted \u003c/a>by more than 99% since the 1980s due to habitat loss, pesticide use and human-caused climate change affecting migration and nectar sources.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Protecting the coastal groves where they overwinter is a cornerstone of recovery — but scientists have long lacked a clear view of how individual butterflies travel during the season.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>This California deployment is key for understanding how Western monarchs use coastal habitat, especially as populations remain low, with a preliminary estimate of about \u003ca href=\"https://westernmonarchcount.org/mid-season-western-monarch-count-tally-reaches-8000/\">8,000 butterflies counted\u003c/a> so far this winter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By revealing which sites monarchs rely on, how often they leave to forage and where they disperse in early spring, the data will help California agencies and conservation groups identify critical habitat, guide restoration and reduce threats like pesticide exposure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The detailed day-to-day movements are blowing the lid off our understanding” of these creatures, Fisher said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The tagged butterflies will also help researchers understand when and where monarchs move \u003cem>among \u003c/em>overwintering sites and the surrounding areas, said Emma Pelton, senior conservation biologist with the Xerces Society.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These details will help us identify where to prioritize conservation of western monarch habitat, as well as provide the most accurate picture of their home range to date,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Where can I see monarchs in and around the Bay Area?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>For the best Western monarch butterfly viewing, head south along the coast to groves in Monterey, Santa Cruz and San Luis Obispo. Some exceptional viewing sites include:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.pgmuseum.org/monarch-viewing/\">Pacific Grove’s butterfly grove\u003c/a> near Monterey\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=541\">Natural Bridges State Beach\u003c/a> in Santa Cruz\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=550\">Lighthouse Field State Beach\u003c/a> in Santa Cruz\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"http://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=595\">Pismo State Beach\u003c/a> in San Luis Obispo\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>There have also been reports of monarchs in the East Bay, at spots like:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.ebparks.org/parks/ardenwood\">The Ardenwood Historic Farm\u003c/a> in Fremont\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://berkeleyca.gov/community-recreation/parks-recreation/parks/aquatic-park\">Berkeley Aquatic Park\u003c/a> in Berkeley\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.ebparks.org/parks/oyster-bay\">Oyster Bay Regional Shoreline\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.ebparks.org/parks/point-pinole\">Point Pinole Regional Shoreline\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.albanyca.gov/Residents/Parks-Open-Space/Albany-Hill\">Albany Hill Park\u003c/a> in Albany\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Xerces has a \u003ca href=\"https://westernmonarchcount.org/map-of-overwintering-sites/\">map of all the monarch butterfly overwintering sites in California\u003c/a>, but please note that some of these locations might not be open to the public.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>What attracts monarch butterflies to a certain spot?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Monarch butterflies gravitate toward coastal areas, said Natalie Johnston, education manager at Pacific Grove Museum of Natural History, and the largest population in the state this year was recorded in Santa Cruz.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Martha Nitzberg, an interpreter at \u003ca href=\"https://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=541\">Natural Bridges State Beach\u003c/a> in Santa Cruz, said their location is an apt example of how a particular place can offer up a welcoming, attractive environment for migrating butterflies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1985064\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2124px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1985064\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/GettyImages-184945669.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2124\" height=\"1411\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/GettyImages-184945669.jpg 2124w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/GettyImages-184945669-800x531.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/GettyImages-184945669-1020x678.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/GettyImages-184945669-160x106.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/GettyImages-184945669-768x510.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/GettyImages-184945669-1536x1020.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/GettyImages-184945669-2048x1361.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/GettyImages-184945669-1920x1275.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2124px) 100vw, 2124px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) resting on a tree branch in its winter nesting area. Taken in Santa Cruz, California. \u003ccite>(GomezDavid/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>First, like many other top viewing spots in the state, it’s by the ocean, where winter temperatures are moderate and frost can’t permeate the ground and vegetation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At Natural Bridges, monarchs find extra protection from the elements, too. Located in a canyon, a series of concentric rings of trees helps block wind and protect the monarchs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They find a microclimate, as they don’t like wind,” Nitzberg said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nitzberg said they even have owls living nearby that scare off other birds that could be potential predators for these butterflies.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>When is peak monarch butterfly viewing season?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Nitzberg said the butterflies start to become more numerous in the middle of October, and their visit tends to peak in Santa Cruz right around Thanksgiving. This year’s peak count at Natural Bridges, Nitzberg said, was 1,700 on Nov. 28.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At Pacific Grove, by contrast, Johnston said they \u003ca href=\"https://www.pgmuseum.org/monarchs\">recorded fewer than 200 butterflies\u003c/a> at their peak this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1994688\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2048px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1994688\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/10/IMG_1398-2048x1365-1.jpg\" alt=\"Orange and black-colored butterflies flutter around white-petaled flower plants. The backdrop is the blue sky.\" width=\"2048\" height=\"1365\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/10/IMG_1398-2048x1365-1.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/10/IMG_1398-2048x1365-1-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/10/IMG_1398-2048x1365-1-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/10/IMG_1398-2048x1365-1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/10/IMG_1398-2048x1365-1-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/10/IMG_1398-2048x1365-1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/10/IMG_1398-2048x1365-1-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2048px) 100vw, 2048px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Western monarchs feed on Pacific aster nectar while overwintering in the Monarch Butterfly Sanctuary in Pacific Grove, California. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Barry Bergman)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Fall is also the best time to visit if you’re hoping to see a lot of action, as they’re actively hunting for flowers and nectar to build up stores for winter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But keep in mind: Monarch butterflies can’t actually fly if it’s under 56 degrees Fahrenheit. So in the colder months or times of day, it’s unlikely you’ll see any fluttering around at all.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>What should you know about viewing monarchs?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Nitzberg said it’s best to bring binoculars, although many state parks like Natural Bridges also set up spotting scopes and hand out some binoculars to visitors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Without binoculars, monarchs can admittedly sometimes be hard to spot, she said. Visitors might be more likely to mistake their dark “clumps” high up in the eucalyptus trees for pinecones, until they get a closer look.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you’re hoping to see them flying about, Johnston recommends visiting in the afternoon, when the sun has had time to warm their tiny bodies up a touch.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Why do monarch butterflies migrate?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>“The sun is the key to their migration,” Nitzberg said. “The butterflies are always looking for spring.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On their migration path, the butterflies are looking for milkweed and flowers. And as the seasons turn and plants dry up, the monarchs continue northward, inland, and, oftentimes, to higher elevations, in search of places where they’re most likely to find springtime conditions into summer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1999598\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1999598\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/Monarch-cluster.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1080\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/Monarch-cluster.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/Monarch-cluster-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/Monarch-cluster-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/Monarch-cluster-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/Monarch-cluster-1200x675.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">When monarch butterflies overwinter, they cluster on trees, making them look like orange and black chandeliers. \u003ccite>(JHVEPhoto/iStock)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But because butterflies live only a handful of weeks, the journey north and east can see up to four generations of monarchs passing the baton to each other as the season progresses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Their short lifespan makes them “like little flitting beauties,” Johnston said. ”You get a glimpse of them, and then they’re gone.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The reverse is also true: In the fall, the monarchs head south, following the sun toward warmer temperatures.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>These butterflies, Nitzberg explained, experience a hormone shift on their travels south that allows them to accumulate fat and live longer. This can extend a monarch’s lifespan to as many as 9 months: a “super generation,” Johnston said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Instead of just going dormant like most insects do when it gets cold, they all migrate down and become social, and hang out in these beautiful clusters,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s also what makes them prime for tagging, Johnston explained – not only because they live long enough to get useful tracking information, but also because one butterfly’s location can reveal that of a cluster of monarchs, which can then be counted and interpreted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“By tracking the monarch butterfly population, we can essentially use that to extrapolate how other important pollinators like other species of butterflies or even bumblebees, which require the same similar conditions, how they’re doing,” she said. “We can study them and learn from them in a way that we can’t with other insects.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>What can you do to aid monarchs’ migration?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In your own garden, if you have \u003ca href=\"https://xerces.org/sites/default/files/publications/19-004.pdf\">milkweed plants native to your area\u003c/a>, planting them can help the butterflies find food. However, Nitzberg warned against planting \u003ca href=\"https://www.nwf.org/-/media/Documents/PDFs/Garden-for-Wildlife/Tip-Sheets/Native-vs-Tropical-Milkweed.pdf\">non-native milkweed\u003c/a>, as it remains active in winter and can therefore aid in the spread of disease and confuse monarchs’ migrations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And don’t forget that protecting the caterpillar is the first step to a healthy monarch — so if you have a lot of yellow jackets or wasps, removing those can create a haven for caterpillar populations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But it’s not just monarchs at risk, stressed Nitzberg, so creating a garden without pesticides can benefit all species of butterflies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Poisons are really hard on all butterflies, especially these migrating monarchs,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "Will AI Replace Your Therapist? Kaiser Won’t Say No",
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"content": "\u003cp>Every day, clinical social worker Ilana Marcucci-Morris talks to her patients about the most private, most vulnerable details of their lives, and she’s not interested in having AI software listen in or sharing any of her responsibilities with\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1999388/california-warns-families-to-watch-out-for-teens-as-character-ai-shuts-off-chatbot-access\"> a chatbot\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A self-attested millennial and lover of gadgets, Marcucci-Morris knows artificial intelligence is here to stay in health care, but when it comes to therapy, she wants it to be optional and assistive, a tool that will augment human connection, not diminish it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She figured that would be a simple assurance her union could win when they sat down\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/kaiser-permanente-mental-health\"> at the bargaining table\u003c/a> last summer to hash out their next contract with Kaiser Permanente. The therapists with the \u003ca href=\"https://home.nuhw.org/\">National Union of Healthcare Workers\u003c/a> submitted their proposed contract language — that AI would be used to “assist” mental health clinicians, but not “replace” them — never expecting it to be controversial. After all, Kaiser signed a contract with their sister union in Southern California just months earlier that contained the same language.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But this time, Kaiser refused, sending back a counterproposal in the fall with that paragraph deleted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>“\u003c/strong>We have asked them point-blank about language to prevent replacing therapists with artificial intelligence, and they have been very clear that they want the ‘flexibility’ to increase AI and reduce their need for us,” Marcucci-Morris said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The local contract debate taps into an existential question plaguing American workers across professions: When is AI coming for my job? As health systems embrace the technology to save money and time, and consumers increasingly consult AI chatbots for mental health support, the theoretical question has suddenly turned concrete for Kaiser therapists and they are testing their union power to see if and how they can influence the inevitable transformation of their vocation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1999559\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1999559\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/HealthCareWorkerKQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1440\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/HealthCareWorkerKQED.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/HealthCareWorkerKQED-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/HealthCareWorkerKQED-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/HealthCareWorkerKQED-1536x1152.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A Kaiser clinician during the previous December 2018 strike. \u003ccite>(April Dembosky/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“AI is not inherently good or bad. It holds promise, but it isn’t without serious risks,” said Maya Sandalow, associate director for health programs at the nonprofit \u003ca href=\"https://bipartisanpolicy.org/\">Bipartisan Policy Center\u003c/a>. “When we talk about this, we need to be asking, ‘how might this solution improve upon the status quo?’ The status quo is that we are in a mental health crisis.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Worldwide prevalence of depression and anxiety\u003ca href=\"https://www.who.int/news/item/02-03-2022-covid-19-pandemic-triggers-25-increase-in-prevalence-of-anxiety-and-depression-worldwide\"> spiked 25%\u003c/a> in 2022, and today\u003ca href=\"https://bipartisanpolicy.org/article/youth-experience-survey/\"> nearly two-thirds of American youth\u003c/a> regularly experience mental health distress, though fewer than half of them seek professional help.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Finding a therapist, especially one who accepts insurance,\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/stateofhealth/series/state-of-mind\"> has become notoriously difficult\u003c/a> as the field contends with workforce shortages and low reimbursement rates.[aside postID=news_12063401 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/OpenAiLawsuitsGetty.jpg']Kaiser has been battling these industry dynamics for\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/stateofhealth/21358/kaiser-agrees-to-pay-4-million-fine-over-mental-health-care-drops-lawsuit\"> more than a decade\u003c/a>. California regulators have\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11791527/kaiser-therapists-strike-again-over-long-wait-times\"> cited the company multiple times\u003c/a> and\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/health/2023/10/kaiser-permanente-california-behavioral-health-settlement/\"> fined it twice\u003c/a> for making patients wait\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11891049/california-bill-would-reduce-wait-times-for-mental-health-appointments\"> too long\u003c/a> for mental health appointments, ordering Kaiser to address understaffing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Administrators are actively exploring how AI tools could help expand access to therapists, for example, by helping them spend less time on paperwork and more time with patients.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kaiser declined several requests for an interview, but said in a statement that AI tools don’t make medical decisions or replace human care. Rather, they hold “significant potential to benefit health care by supporting better diagnostics, enhancing patient-clinician relationships, optimizing clinicians’ time, and ensuring fairness in care experiences and health outcomes by addressing individual needs.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kaiser contracts with mental health workers typically span two to four years. The company did not respond to specific questions about how AI could lead to job losses during that timeframe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Managers told the union during negotiations that they do not “intend” to lay off therapists because of the technology, but when pressed to put that in writing in the contract, several union representatives, including Marcucci-Morris, said Kaiser told them, “We can’t predict the future. We need to maintain flexibility,” and “We want to leave our options open.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>How Kaiser uses AI now in mental health care\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Kaiser is already deploying AI note-taking technology in mental health care. Piloted first in medical exam rooms, these digital scribes record interactions between doctors and patients, then generate summaries for the patient’s medical record. Many mental health clinicians are optimistic about this innovation, as they typically spend two and a half hours a day, often in the evenings, writing clinical notes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s called pajama time,” said \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1999280/ai-safety-expert-warns-parents-to-watch-kids-in-wake-of-chatbot-ban\">Jodi Halpern\u003c/a>, a psychiatrist and professor of bioethics at UC Berkeley. Her research shows that paperwork is the biggest cause of burnout among clinicians. “So the idea that we could replace that so that human care could grow, I love that idea.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1999568\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1999568\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/029_KQED_KaiserStrikeOakland_08192022_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/029_KQED_KaiserStrikeOakland_08192022_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/029_KQED_KaiserStrikeOakland_08192022_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/029_KQED_KaiserStrikeOakland_08192022_qed-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/029_KQED_KaiserStrikeOakland_08192022_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kaiser mental health care workers and supporters march from Oakland Kaiser Medical Center to Kaiser’s corporate headquarters on Friday, Aug. 19, 2022, the fifth day of an open-ended strike. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The technology is controversial among Kaiser clinicians, though. Some appreciate digital scribe software as a time saver that also allows them to be more present with their clients, making eye contact rather than typing. But many are wary of potential privacy breaches, the ethical implications of using therapy transcripts to train AI models, and whether patients might censor themselves when they’re being recorded. Marcucci-Morris has declined to use it for these reasons, anticipating that only one out of 10 of her patients would consent to it if she asked.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s not the same as talking to your physician about a rash or your vitamin D deficiency,” she said. “I wouldn’t want a recording of my disagreements with a family member or details of the terrible things that have happened to me.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In light of the unknowns, therapists have asked Kaiser management for a contract clause that stipulates the use of digital scribes will remain optional, or at least “not mandatory,” but Kaiser declined the proposal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The union is also concerned about Kaiser’s recent introduction of electronic mental health triaging, an optional tool where patients are routed into care based on how they answer questions about anxiety and depression in an online questionnaire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1999406\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1999406\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/20251124_AIKAISER_GC-4-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/20251124_AIKAISER_GC-4-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/20251124_AIKAISER_GC-4-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/20251124_AIKAISER_GC-4-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/20251124_AIKAISER_GC-4-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Brittany Beard, a licensed clinical therapist at Kaiser Permanente, poses for a portrait at her home in Vallejo on Nov. 24, 2025. \u003ccite>(Gina Castro/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Some patients won’t like this, but some will prefer it, said Merage Ghane, a clinical psychologist and director of responsible AI at the\u003ca href=\"https://www.chai.org/\"> Coalition for Health AI\u003c/a>. “There are people who really don’t like talking to a real person,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Vallejo-based therapist Brittany Beard used to do this triage work herself, talking to clients for 15 to 20 minutes on the phone, but after Kaiser outsourced many of those calls to an outside company and developed the e-visit, she was reassigned to a new department. Though still employed at Kaiser, she already feels replaced by an app.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They sell it as accessing care faster, but I’ve seen the opposite,” Beard said. Now, when some of her patients meet her for their first appointment, “They’re frustrated. It was like they were battling just to get to me.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Is AI coming for your therapist?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>How much AI infiltrates mental health care will be determined, in part, by the consumer. Experts have identified a “\u003ca href=\"https://bipartisanpolicy.org/article/ai-in-health-care-administration-a-conversation-with-experts/\">trust gap\u003c/a>” between health administrators’ eagerness to roll out AI tools and patient concerns; to bridge the divide, they recommend transparency and involving patients in implementation. Qualitative studies show that patients are optimistic about the technology’s potential to improve diagnosis and treatment, but they remain skeptical of “robots” or “machines” taking over from humans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The prevailing sentiment really was that AI is at its best when it’s a tool that doctors can use to do their jobs better. Once that moved into the realm of replacing human interaction and experience, that was not a good thing,” said Michele Cordoba, a researcher at \u003ca href=\"https://cultureiq.group/\">Culture IQ\u003c/a>, which produced a \u003ca href=\"https://www.chcf.org/resource/patients-say-yes-artificial-intelligence-doctors-stay-charge/\">report\u003c/a> for the California Health Care Foundation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1999565\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1999565\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/038_KQED_KaiserStrikeOakland_08192022_qed-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/038_KQED_KaiserStrikeOakland_08192022_qed-1.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/038_KQED_KaiserStrikeOakland_08192022_qed-1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/038_KQED_KaiserStrikeOakland_08192022_qed-1-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/038_KQED_KaiserStrikeOakland_08192022_qed-1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kaiser mental health care workers and supporters march from Oakland Kaiser Medical Center to Kaiser’s corporate headquarters on Friday, Aug. 19, 2022, the fifth day of an open-ended strike. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>At the same time, the use of commercial AI chatbots for mental health has soared.\u003ca href=\"https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Fpri0000292\"> One study\u003c/a> surveyed AI users who have mental health conditions and found nearly half turn to their chatbot for psychological support, and of those, 63% said the advice was helpful.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But mental health professionals have questioned the efficacy of such advice, and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12063401/openai-faces-legal-storm-over-claims-its-ai-drove-users-to-suicide-delusions\">several families have sued\u003c/a> AI companies, alleging their chatbots encouraged suicidal and self-harming behavior.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the meantime, clinical psychologists are developing evidence-based chatbots, like\u003ca href=\"https://home.dartmouth.edu/news/2025/03/first-therapy-chatbot-trial-yields-mental-health-benefits\"> TheraBot\u003c/a>, to deliver tested therapeutic guidance. The Food and Drug Administration acknowledged the broad demand for such apps at a \u003ca href=\"https://www.fda.gov/advisory-committees/advisory-committee-calendar/november-6-2025-digital-health-advisory-committee-meeting-announcement-11062025#event-information\">November meeting\u003c/a> and is exploring what kind of authority it might have to regulate them, including requiring human mental health professionals to oversee them.[aside postID=news_12066395 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/San-Francisco-General-Hospital-Getty.jpg']Kaiser therapists want to know what all these trends mean for their own job security in the immediate and long term. When one of them asked a panel of AI experts to expound on this during a statewide training webinar in October, the 200 therapists in attendance heard a wide range of answers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I would encourage you all not to fear for your profession,” said Nicholas Jacobson, a psychologist at Dartmouth and co-creator of TheraBot. “I think there is no possibility in your lifetime that you all will feel replaced by AI.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But UC Berkeley’s Halpern was much more circumspect, especially in light of chatbots’ popularity among youth. \u003ca href=\"https://www.commonsensemedia.org/research/talk-trust-and-trade-offs-how-and-why-teens-use-ai-companions\">A third of teen AI users\u003c/a> said they preferred to have serious conversations with their chatbot rather than a human. “I am not sure we won’t see a tremendous loss of human interactions,” Halpern said. “I’m very worried about that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ultimately, patients should have choices, psychologist Ghane told KQED. If they live in rural areas and can’t access a therapist, or they have a neurodevelopmental condition where human communication is more aversive than facilitative, she said it’s important they have AI options. In that version of the future, therapists are right to ask if they will be replaced.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The answer is they can be,” Ghane said. “We can all be replaced at some point.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Every day, clinical social worker Ilana Marcucci-Morris talks to her patients about the most private, most vulnerable details of their lives, and she’s not interested in having AI software listen in or sharing any of her responsibilities with\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1999388/california-warns-families-to-watch-out-for-teens-as-character-ai-shuts-off-chatbot-access\"> a chatbot\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A self-attested millennial and lover of gadgets, Marcucci-Morris knows artificial intelligence is here to stay in health care, but when it comes to therapy, she wants it to be optional and assistive, a tool that will augment human connection, not diminish it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She figured that would be a simple assurance her union could win when they sat down\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/kaiser-permanente-mental-health\"> at the bargaining table\u003c/a> last summer to hash out their next contract with Kaiser Permanente. The therapists with the \u003ca href=\"https://home.nuhw.org/\">National Union of Healthcare Workers\u003c/a> submitted their proposed contract language — that AI would be used to “assist” mental health clinicians, but not “replace” them — never expecting it to be controversial. After all, Kaiser signed a contract with their sister union in Southern California just months earlier that contained the same language.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But this time, Kaiser refused, sending back a counterproposal in the fall with that paragraph deleted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>“\u003c/strong>We have asked them point-blank about language to prevent replacing therapists with artificial intelligence, and they have been very clear that they want the ‘flexibility’ to increase AI and reduce their need for us,” Marcucci-Morris said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The local contract debate taps into an existential question plaguing American workers across professions: When is AI coming for my job? As health systems embrace the technology to save money and time, and consumers increasingly consult AI chatbots for mental health support, the theoretical question has suddenly turned concrete for Kaiser therapists and they are testing their union power to see if and how they can influence the inevitable transformation of their vocation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1999559\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1999559\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/HealthCareWorkerKQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1440\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/HealthCareWorkerKQED.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/HealthCareWorkerKQED-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/HealthCareWorkerKQED-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/HealthCareWorkerKQED-1536x1152.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A Kaiser clinician during the previous December 2018 strike. \u003ccite>(April Dembosky/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“AI is not inherently good or bad. It holds promise, but it isn’t without serious risks,” said Maya Sandalow, associate director for health programs at the nonprofit \u003ca href=\"https://bipartisanpolicy.org/\">Bipartisan Policy Center\u003c/a>. “When we talk about this, we need to be asking, ‘how might this solution improve upon the status quo?’ The status quo is that we are in a mental health crisis.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Worldwide prevalence of depression and anxiety\u003ca href=\"https://www.who.int/news/item/02-03-2022-covid-19-pandemic-triggers-25-increase-in-prevalence-of-anxiety-and-depression-worldwide\"> spiked 25%\u003c/a> in 2022, and today\u003ca href=\"https://bipartisanpolicy.org/article/youth-experience-survey/\"> nearly two-thirds of American youth\u003c/a> regularly experience mental health distress, though fewer than half of them seek professional help.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Finding a therapist, especially one who accepts insurance,\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/stateofhealth/series/state-of-mind\"> has become notoriously difficult\u003c/a> as the field contends with workforce shortages and low reimbursement rates.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Kaiser has been battling these industry dynamics for\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/stateofhealth/21358/kaiser-agrees-to-pay-4-million-fine-over-mental-health-care-drops-lawsuit\"> more than a decade\u003c/a>. California regulators have\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11791527/kaiser-therapists-strike-again-over-long-wait-times\"> cited the company multiple times\u003c/a> and\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/health/2023/10/kaiser-permanente-california-behavioral-health-settlement/\"> fined it twice\u003c/a> for making patients wait\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11891049/california-bill-would-reduce-wait-times-for-mental-health-appointments\"> too long\u003c/a> for mental health appointments, ordering Kaiser to address understaffing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Administrators are actively exploring how AI tools could help expand access to therapists, for example, by helping them spend less time on paperwork and more time with patients.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kaiser declined several requests for an interview, but said in a statement that AI tools don’t make medical decisions or replace human care. Rather, they hold “significant potential to benefit health care by supporting better diagnostics, enhancing patient-clinician relationships, optimizing clinicians’ time, and ensuring fairness in care experiences and health outcomes by addressing individual needs.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kaiser contracts with mental health workers typically span two to four years. The company did not respond to specific questions about how AI could lead to job losses during that timeframe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Managers told the union during negotiations that they do not “intend” to lay off therapists because of the technology, but when pressed to put that in writing in the contract, several union representatives, including Marcucci-Morris, said Kaiser told them, “We can’t predict the future. We need to maintain flexibility,” and “We want to leave our options open.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>How Kaiser uses AI now in mental health care\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Kaiser is already deploying AI note-taking technology in mental health care. Piloted first in medical exam rooms, these digital scribes record interactions between doctors and patients, then generate summaries for the patient’s medical record. Many mental health clinicians are optimistic about this innovation, as they typically spend two and a half hours a day, often in the evenings, writing clinical notes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s called pajama time,” said \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1999280/ai-safety-expert-warns-parents-to-watch-kids-in-wake-of-chatbot-ban\">Jodi Halpern\u003c/a>, a psychiatrist and professor of bioethics at UC Berkeley. Her research shows that paperwork is the biggest cause of burnout among clinicians. “So the idea that we could replace that so that human care could grow, I love that idea.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1999568\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1999568\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/029_KQED_KaiserStrikeOakland_08192022_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/029_KQED_KaiserStrikeOakland_08192022_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/029_KQED_KaiserStrikeOakland_08192022_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/029_KQED_KaiserStrikeOakland_08192022_qed-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/029_KQED_KaiserStrikeOakland_08192022_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kaiser mental health care workers and supporters march from Oakland Kaiser Medical Center to Kaiser’s corporate headquarters on Friday, Aug. 19, 2022, the fifth day of an open-ended strike. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The technology is controversial among Kaiser clinicians, though. Some appreciate digital scribe software as a time saver that also allows them to be more present with their clients, making eye contact rather than typing. But many are wary of potential privacy breaches, the ethical implications of using therapy transcripts to train AI models, and whether patients might censor themselves when they’re being recorded. Marcucci-Morris has declined to use it for these reasons, anticipating that only one out of 10 of her patients would consent to it if she asked.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s not the same as talking to your physician about a rash or your vitamin D deficiency,” she said. “I wouldn’t want a recording of my disagreements with a family member or details of the terrible things that have happened to me.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In light of the unknowns, therapists have asked Kaiser management for a contract clause that stipulates the use of digital scribes will remain optional, or at least “not mandatory,” but Kaiser declined the proposal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The union is also concerned about Kaiser’s recent introduction of electronic mental health triaging, an optional tool where patients are routed into care based on how they answer questions about anxiety and depression in an online questionnaire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1999406\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1999406\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/20251124_AIKAISER_GC-4-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/20251124_AIKAISER_GC-4-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/20251124_AIKAISER_GC-4-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/20251124_AIKAISER_GC-4-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/20251124_AIKAISER_GC-4-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Brittany Beard, a licensed clinical therapist at Kaiser Permanente, poses for a portrait at her home in Vallejo on Nov. 24, 2025. \u003ccite>(Gina Castro/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Some patients won’t like this, but some will prefer it, said Merage Ghane, a clinical psychologist and director of responsible AI at the\u003ca href=\"https://www.chai.org/\"> Coalition for Health AI\u003c/a>. “There are people who really don’t like talking to a real person,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Vallejo-based therapist Brittany Beard used to do this triage work herself, talking to clients for 15 to 20 minutes on the phone, but after Kaiser outsourced many of those calls to an outside company and developed the e-visit, she was reassigned to a new department. Though still employed at Kaiser, she already feels replaced by an app.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They sell it as accessing care faster, but I’ve seen the opposite,” Beard said. Now, when some of her patients meet her for their first appointment, “They’re frustrated. It was like they were battling just to get to me.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Is AI coming for your therapist?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>How much AI infiltrates mental health care will be determined, in part, by the consumer. Experts have identified a “\u003ca href=\"https://bipartisanpolicy.org/article/ai-in-health-care-administration-a-conversation-with-experts/\">trust gap\u003c/a>” between health administrators’ eagerness to roll out AI tools and patient concerns; to bridge the divide, they recommend transparency and involving patients in implementation. Qualitative studies show that patients are optimistic about the technology’s potential to improve diagnosis and treatment, but they remain skeptical of “robots” or “machines” taking over from humans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The prevailing sentiment really was that AI is at its best when it’s a tool that doctors can use to do their jobs better. Once that moved into the realm of replacing human interaction and experience, that was not a good thing,” said Michele Cordoba, a researcher at \u003ca href=\"https://cultureiq.group/\">Culture IQ\u003c/a>, which produced a \u003ca href=\"https://www.chcf.org/resource/patients-say-yes-artificial-intelligence-doctors-stay-charge/\">report\u003c/a> for the California Health Care Foundation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1999565\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1999565\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/038_KQED_KaiserStrikeOakland_08192022_qed-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/038_KQED_KaiserStrikeOakland_08192022_qed-1.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/038_KQED_KaiserStrikeOakland_08192022_qed-1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/038_KQED_KaiserStrikeOakland_08192022_qed-1-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/038_KQED_KaiserStrikeOakland_08192022_qed-1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kaiser mental health care workers and supporters march from Oakland Kaiser Medical Center to Kaiser’s corporate headquarters on Friday, Aug. 19, 2022, the fifth day of an open-ended strike. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>At the same time, the use of commercial AI chatbots for mental health has soared.\u003ca href=\"https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Fpri0000292\"> One study\u003c/a> surveyed AI users who have mental health conditions and found nearly half turn to their chatbot for psychological support, and of those, 63% said the advice was helpful.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But mental health professionals have questioned the efficacy of such advice, and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12063401/openai-faces-legal-storm-over-claims-its-ai-drove-users-to-suicide-delusions\">several families have sued\u003c/a> AI companies, alleging their chatbots encouraged suicidal and self-harming behavior.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the meantime, clinical psychologists are developing evidence-based chatbots, like\u003ca href=\"https://home.dartmouth.edu/news/2025/03/first-therapy-chatbot-trial-yields-mental-health-benefits\"> TheraBot\u003c/a>, to deliver tested therapeutic guidance. The Food and Drug Administration acknowledged the broad demand for such apps at a \u003ca href=\"https://www.fda.gov/advisory-committees/advisory-committee-calendar/november-6-2025-digital-health-advisory-committee-meeting-announcement-11062025#event-information\">November meeting\u003c/a> and is exploring what kind of authority it might have to regulate them, including requiring human mental health professionals to oversee them.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Kaiser therapists want to know what all these trends mean for their own job security in the immediate and long term. When one of them asked a panel of AI experts to expound on this during a statewide training webinar in October, the 200 therapists in attendance heard a wide range of answers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I would encourage you all not to fear for your profession,” said Nicholas Jacobson, a psychologist at Dartmouth and co-creator of TheraBot. “I think there is no possibility in your lifetime that you all will feel replaced by AI.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But UC Berkeley’s Halpern was much more circumspect, especially in light of chatbots’ popularity among youth. \u003ca href=\"https://www.commonsensemedia.org/research/talk-trust-and-trade-offs-how-and-why-teens-use-ai-companions\">A third of teen AI users\u003c/a> said they preferred to have serious conversations with their chatbot rather than a human. “I am not sure we won’t see a tremendous loss of human interactions,” Halpern said. “I’m very worried about that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ultimately, patients should have choices, psychologist Ghane told KQED. If they live in rural areas and can’t access a therapist, or they have a neurodevelopmental condition where human communication is more aversive than facilitative, she said it’s important they have AI options. In that version of the future, therapists are right to ask if they will be replaced.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The answer is they can be,” Ghane said. “We can all be replaced at some point.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/stanford-university\">Stanford\u003c/a> scientists may be closing in on an explanation for a rare cardiac side effect experienced by a small number of people a few days after they received a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/covid-19\">COVID-19\u003c/a> shot. Fewer than 30 people in every million who are vaccinated experience brief chest pain and shortness of breath. The myocarditis primarily affects teenage boys and young men and has puzzled clinicians since the rollout of vaccines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To investigate what might be happening inside the body after the shot, the researchers used human plasma, lab-grown heart tissue, modeling, and mice. In every lab model, the same thing happened: right after a shot — especially the second one — immune cells sent out a burst of two signaling proteins. Normally, they help the body fight viruses, but at unusually high levels, these cytokines, CXCL10 and interferon-gamma, seemed to put stress on heart cells.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The results of the study outlining this possible mechanism were published on Wednesday in Science Translational Medicine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When we block these two with the antibodies, the cardiac damage goes down,” said Dr. Joseph Wu, senior author of the study and director of the Stanford Cardiovascular Institute. “So we’re pretty confident that these two cytokines are probably two key players in terms of causing COVID myocarditis.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The authors stress that these findings are lab results. The next step will be to run human clinical trials. They also said the results should not lead individuals to avoid Moderna or Pfizer COVID-19 shots. Myocarditis after an mRNA shot is extremely uncommon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cardiac risks are much more common and far more severe after a COVID-19 infection, which can inflame not only the heart but also the lungs and other organs.[aside postID=news_12060358 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/08/GettyImages-1414098149-1020x643.jpg']The vaccine schedule may also be a factor. Some data suggest the risk of myocarditis is higher when the second dose follows within weeks of the first. That raises the possibility that spacing out doses — as Canada did early in the pandemic — may blunt the immune spikes that stress the heart.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One possible reason the condition affects young men more often is that estrogen may provide some protection. In mice, the researchers found that estrogen eased the inflammatory damage triggered by the cytokine surge. That led them to test genistein, a plant-based phytoestrogen found in soy, which similarly reduced inflammation in lab models.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What we see here [in the Stanford study] is when we give this drug [genistein], we decrease the cardiac inflammation or the myocarditis,” said Dr. Amir Munir, a UCSF cardiologist not involved in the research. “However, we still keep the protective properties of the vaccine to protect against COVID.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Understanding why myocarditis occurs is a first step toward designing safer mRNA vaccines. It may also lead to medication for myocarditis that arises outside of vaccination.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have no FDA-approved treatments for myocarditis,” Munir said. “Having models like this, where we can understand the mechanisms that drive myocarditis, allow us to think how we can specifically target inflammation to treat patients with it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/stanford-university\">Stanford\u003c/a> scientists may be closing in on an explanation for a rare cardiac side effect experienced by a small number of people a few days after they received a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/covid-19\">COVID-19\u003c/a> shot. Fewer than 30 people in every million who are vaccinated experience brief chest pain and shortness of breath. The myocarditis primarily affects teenage boys and young men and has puzzled clinicians since the rollout of vaccines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To investigate what might be happening inside the body after the shot, the researchers used human plasma, lab-grown heart tissue, modeling, and mice. In every lab model, the same thing happened: right after a shot — especially the second one — immune cells sent out a burst of two signaling proteins. Normally, they help the body fight viruses, but at unusually high levels, these cytokines, CXCL10 and interferon-gamma, seemed to put stress on heart cells.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The results of the study outlining this possible mechanism were published on Wednesday in Science Translational Medicine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When we block these two with the antibodies, the cardiac damage goes down,” said Dr. Joseph Wu, senior author of the study and director of the Stanford Cardiovascular Institute. “So we’re pretty confident that these two cytokines are probably two key players in terms of causing COVID myocarditis.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The authors stress that these findings are lab results. The next step will be to run human clinical trials. They also said the results should not lead individuals to avoid Moderna or Pfizer COVID-19 shots. Myocarditis after an mRNA shot is extremely uncommon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cardiac risks are much more common and far more severe after a COVID-19 infection, which can inflame not only the heart but also the lungs and other organs.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The vaccine schedule may also be a factor. Some data suggest the risk of myocarditis is higher when the second dose follows within weeks of the first. That raises the possibility that spacing out doses — as Canada did early in the pandemic — may blunt the immune spikes that stress the heart.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One possible reason the condition affects young men more often is that estrogen may provide some protection. In mice, the researchers found that estrogen eased the inflammatory damage triggered by the cytokine surge. That led them to test genistein, a plant-based phytoestrogen found in soy, which similarly reduced inflammation in lab models.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What we see here [in the Stanford study] is when we give this drug [genistein], we decrease the cardiac inflammation or the myocarditis,” said Dr. Amir Munir, a UCSF cardiologist not involved in the research. “However, we still keep the protective properties of the vaccine to protect against COVID.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Understanding why myocarditis occurs is a first step toward designing safer mRNA vaccines. It may also lead to medication for myocarditis that arises outside of vaccination.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have no FDA-approved treatments for myocarditis,” Munir said. “Having models like this, where we can understand the mechanisms that drive myocarditis, allow us to think how we can specifically target inflammation to treat patients with it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "A Maze of Clinics: Navigating Ketamine’s Rapid Rise",
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"content": "\u003cp>When Aliyah Economos lifted a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101906838/what-science-says-about-ketamines-risks-and-benefits\">ketamine\u003c/a> nasal spray to her nose and settled into her therapist’s plush grey couch, a candle flickered nearby. Images flooded her mind — Medusa, dragons and fire. Emotions swirled: rage tangled with arousal, failure mixed with shame. Over many sessions, those fragments sharpened into long-buried memories of sexual abuse.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“At first, I had a lot of denial,” said Economos, now 51. “There were many, many moments where it was overwhelming and I’d shut back down for weeks sometimes. I did not have the capacity to feel the depth and the pain of what my body was holding back without ketamine.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She’s part of a growing wave of patients turning to ketamine when nothing else helps.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For decades, the drug has lived in two very different worlds. In hospitals, it’s a reliable, inexpensive anesthetic — fast-acting, safe enough for children. In clubs, it’s a hallucinogen that can send users into a dissociative haze.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More recently, psychiatrists have prescribed it for treatment-resistant depression. Unlike traditional antidepressants, which can take weeks to work, ketamine can provide relief in hours — even snapping people out of \u003ca href=\"https://www.nature.com/articles/s41398-024-02973-1?\">suicidal spirals\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It really is a potentially life-saving drug for many people,” said Gerard Sanacora, a professor of psychiatry at the Yale School of Medicine. “The best evidence by far is for people with major depressive disorder.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The market for ketamine really took off after 2019, when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved esketamine, a chemically related compound, for patients with treatment-resistant depression. Clinicians also prescribe ketamine off-label for everything from anxiety to chronic pain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1998716\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1998716\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/10/20251001_KETAMINE_GC-1-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/10/20251001_KETAMINE_GC-1-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/10/20251001_KETAMINE_GC-1-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/10/20251001_KETAMINE_GC-1-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/10/20251001_KETAMINE_GC-1-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sage Integrative Health, where ketamine-assisted therapy is provided, in Berkeley on Oct. 1, 2025. \u003ccite>(Gina Castro/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>As demand has grown, so has concern about uneven oversight: the \u003ca href=\"https://askp.org/directory/?\">number of ketamine clinics\u003c/a> nationwide jumped from 60 in 2015 to 1,500 today, according to a 2024 \u003ca href=\"https://www.psy-ins.com/psychedelic-medicine-2024-report\">industry report\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the Bay Area, clients might land in a spa-like East Bay center, a soft-lit therapy office in San Francisco, or a strip-mall infusion suite down the Peninsula. But behind those doors, protocols differ widely — from dosing and monitoring to whether any psychological support is offered — leaving patients with a patchwork of practices and protections.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s more and more of these clinics that are popping up that are touting ketamine as a treatment for depression, PTSD, OCD and more without it actually being currently in practice guidelines,” said Smita Das, an addiction psychiatrist at Stanford Medicine. “There’s a lot of hope. However, just because there is a study of a small handful of people, we still don’t know how effective that medication is in the long term.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The crash before the breakthrough\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Economos carries herself as though nothing could come undone. She dresses in relaxed, flowing clothes, gold rings stacked just so, her long brown hair falling in loose waves. Yet, for most of her life, she felt flat on the inside — cycling through antidepressants for 15 years. Then, about six years ago, she crashed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“My body really just shut down entirely on me,” she recalled. “Like I’d just run a marathon and yet I hadn’t. I couldn’t get out of bed. Light was painful. I fainted all the time.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1999530\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1999530\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/20251001_Ketamine_GC-5_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/20251001_Ketamine_GC-5_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/20251001_Ketamine_GC-5_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/20251001_Ketamine_GC-5_qed-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/20251001_Ketamine_GC-5_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Genesee Herzberg, clinical psychologist, speaks to Aliyah Economos, right, at Sage Integrative Health in Berkeley on Oct. 1, 2025. \u003ccite>(Gina Castro/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The mother of three threw herself at every possible fix: cardiologists, neurologists and rheumatologists. MRIs and blood work came back normal. She tried a trauma specialist, naturopaths and elimination diets. Hormone regimens. At one point, she said, she was swallowing as many as 38 pills a day — antibiotics, supplements and thyroid meds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then she tried ketamine-assisted therapy at a tranquil clinic in Berkeley. Clients sipped tea in the waiting room, yoga mats lined the corner and treatments could be paired with acupuncture, sound therapy or craniosacral work. Each three-hour session is $1,100.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With each appointment, more memories started to unlock, and slowly over nearly three years, Economos said her health began to improve.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Ketamine has this remarkable ability to help people tolerate emotional pain that they previously couldn’t,” said Genesee Herzberg, the psychologist guiding Economos’ therapy. “It’s almost like the emotions and memories that were previously dissociated because they were too much become more accessible because of the kind of softening that ketamine does.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As a dissociative anesthetic, ketamine disrupts normal communication patterns in the brain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It seems shortly after giving a dose of ketamine, there’s an increase in the brain’s ability to form new connections that could be sustained,” Sanacora said. “And we think that is likely to be one of the primary mechanisms. I’m sure there’s many different things that contribute to it, but we think that’s the main thing.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>It was supposed to be ‘the answer’ but went sideways\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Jennifer Siegel was grappling with a divorce, her brother’s suicide and a fractured relationship with her father that worsened before he died.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her familiar self-doubt had calcified into a constant self-critic, reminding her she’d failed and was running out of time. By then, her antidepressant had been augmented with an antipsychotic to boost its effect, but the medications had stopped working and were fueling stress-eating.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I felt like I was paralyzed in my own body,” Siegel said. “I lost faith in antidepressants — like they weren’t strong enough anymore.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1998718\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 1333px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1998718 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/10/20251001_KETAMINE_GC-6-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1333\" height=\"2000\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/10/20251001_KETAMINE_GC-6-KQED.jpg 1333w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/10/20251001_KETAMINE_GC-6-KQED-160x240.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/10/20251001_KETAMINE_GC-6-KQED-768x1152.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/10/20251001_KETAMINE_GC-6-KQED-1024x1536.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1333px) 100vw, 1333px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Genesee Herzberg, a clinical psychologist at Sage Integrative Health, poses for a portrait at the clinic in Berkeley on Oct. 1, 2025. \u003ccite>(Gina Castro/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Encouraged by a psychiatrist who said esketamine “would be the answer,” the 57-year-old signed up for 10 sessions at an Oakland clinic, which were covered by her insurance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But, she soon learned sessions can go sideways without the right support.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She entered a sparse treatment room: a recliner, a box of tissues, a nearly empty jar of Jolly Ranchers. A technician drifted in and out to cuff Siegel’s arm and log her blood pressure. When the session began, the esketamine nasal spray dripped down her throat, numbing her mouth and tipping her into panic. The psychiatrist offered little reassurance, even as Siegel began to sob.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I was feeling really helpless, really scared — like he just didn’t care at all,” she said. “I felt like he was just there to make sure I didn’t die.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, the drug cracked something open. She touched the grief she’d been white-knuckling, and that access, however rough, motivated her to return. But the second session was no better; the psychiatrist kept his distance as she wept, and she canceled the rest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Siegel switched to a Berkeley psychologist who offers ketamine-assisted therapy. Because off-label care isn’t covered, she paid about $5,000 for a package.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There was the same kind of grief, tears and helplessness, but the therapist had her hand on my arm the whole time,” Siegel said. “She was really connected. It was exactly what I had been looking for.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Soon she noticed real shifts: her days began trending “good to great,” and her self-criticism finally relented. Treatment, as Siegel learned, can differ dramatically from one room to the next.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The risks\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Patients can even skip clinics altogether by logging on to telehealth sites, where providers ship ketamine lozenges for about $75 a dose. Operators like Michael Petegorsky, former chief strategy officer at Mindbloom, a ketamine telehealth platform, insist that clients undergo psychiatric evaluations, begin with small doses, have a peer present during sessions and follow other protocols to ensure it’s safe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is not drive-by medicine or ketamine through the mail,” he said, arguing the model is more structured than critics assume.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yet, a 2023 \u003ca href=\"https://plusapn.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/2023-Future-of-Mental-Health-Ketamine-Therapy-Report-by-APN.pdf\">survey\u003c/a> found that more than half of people who tried ketamine at home said they took more than the recommended dose, sometimes by accident, sometimes on purpose. The \u003ca href=\"https://www.fda.gov/drugs/human-drug-compounding/fda-warns-patients-and-health-care-providers-about-potential-risks-associated-compounded-ketamine\">FDA warned\u003c/a> in 2023 against compounded ketamine products, which are commonly used in mail-order services, because they may not be safe or effective.[aside postID=science_1998793 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/09/250924-CANCERMOMS00123_TV-KQED.jpg']“Some of my patients have developed a dependence because they were able to access ketamine so easily,” Das said. She’s also seen trauma survivors rattled by the drug’s dissociative pull. “Suddenly, you’re not in control of your body, and that can be profoundly destabilizing.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While research suggests ketamine doesn’t create the kind of physical dependence seen with opioids or alcohol, the long-term risks are still unknown. Heavy use has been linked to \u003ca href=\"https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9888585/?\">bladder damage and cognitive issues\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The dangers also grabbed national attention two years ago when Matthew Perry, the longtime star of \u003cem>Friends\u003c/em>, died from the acute effects of ketamine. He had been receiving medically supervised infusions, but the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner found the levels in his body when he died could not have been from his most recent treatment about a week earlier.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Economos has avoided those pitfalls, thus far. Under her psychologist’s guidance, she takes a relatively low dose and she says she’s not worried about addiction. Ketamine, she said, “gave me a gentle opportunity to meet myself in those really awful experiences without my mind having to turn it back off.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She no longer relies on antidepressants, her body doesn’t hurt and her energy has returned. But her path took resources most people don’t have — tens of thousands of dollars and a skilled therapist to guide her through months of hard emotional work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ketamine can be a lifeline when standard treatments fail, but it can also be a costly gamble in a marketplace with little oversight and uncertain health risks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>When Aliyah Economos lifted a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101906838/what-science-says-about-ketamines-risks-and-benefits\">ketamine\u003c/a> nasal spray to her nose and settled into her therapist’s plush grey couch, a candle flickered nearby. Images flooded her mind — Medusa, dragons and fire. Emotions swirled: rage tangled with arousal, failure mixed with shame. Over many sessions, those fragments sharpened into long-buried memories of sexual abuse.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“At first, I had a lot of denial,” said Economos, now 51. “There were many, many moments where it was overwhelming and I’d shut back down for weeks sometimes. I did not have the capacity to feel the depth and the pain of what my body was holding back without ketamine.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She’s part of a growing wave of patients turning to ketamine when nothing else helps.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For decades, the drug has lived in two very different worlds. In hospitals, it’s a reliable, inexpensive anesthetic — fast-acting, safe enough for children. In clubs, it’s a hallucinogen that can send users into a dissociative haze.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More recently, psychiatrists have prescribed it for treatment-resistant depression. Unlike traditional antidepressants, which can take weeks to work, ketamine can provide relief in hours — even snapping people out of \u003ca href=\"https://www.nature.com/articles/s41398-024-02973-1?\">suicidal spirals\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It really is a potentially life-saving drug for many people,” said Gerard Sanacora, a professor of psychiatry at the Yale School of Medicine. “The best evidence by far is for people with major depressive disorder.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The market for ketamine really took off after 2019, when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved esketamine, a chemically related compound, for patients with treatment-resistant depression. Clinicians also prescribe ketamine off-label for everything from anxiety to chronic pain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1998716\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1998716\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/10/20251001_KETAMINE_GC-1-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/10/20251001_KETAMINE_GC-1-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/10/20251001_KETAMINE_GC-1-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/10/20251001_KETAMINE_GC-1-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/10/20251001_KETAMINE_GC-1-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sage Integrative Health, where ketamine-assisted therapy is provided, in Berkeley on Oct. 1, 2025. \u003ccite>(Gina Castro/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>As demand has grown, so has concern about uneven oversight: the \u003ca href=\"https://askp.org/directory/?\">number of ketamine clinics\u003c/a> nationwide jumped from 60 in 2015 to 1,500 today, according to a 2024 \u003ca href=\"https://www.psy-ins.com/psychedelic-medicine-2024-report\">industry report\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the Bay Area, clients might land in a spa-like East Bay center, a soft-lit therapy office in San Francisco, or a strip-mall infusion suite down the Peninsula. But behind those doors, protocols differ widely — from dosing and monitoring to whether any psychological support is offered — leaving patients with a patchwork of practices and protections.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s more and more of these clinics that are popping up that are touting ketamine as a treatment for depression, PTSD, OCD and more without it actually being currently in practice guidelines,” said Smita Das, an addiction psychiatrist at Stanford Medicine. “There’s a lot of hope. However, just because there is a study of a small handful of people, we still don’t know how effective that medication is in the long term.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The crash before the breakthrough\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Economos carries herself as though nothing could come undone. She dresses in relaxed, flowing clothes, gold rings stacked just so, her long brown hair falling in loose waves. Yet, for most of her life, she felt flat on the inside — cycling through antidepressants for 15 years. Then, about six years ago, she crashed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“My body really just shut down entirely on me,” she recalled. “Like I’d just run a marathon and yet I hadn’t. I couldn’t get out of bed. Light was painful. I fainted all the time.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1999530\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1999530\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/20251001_Ketamine_GC-5_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/20251001_Ketamine_GC-5_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/20251001_Ketamine_GC-5_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/20251001_Ketamine_GC-5_qed-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/20251001_Ketamine_GC-5_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Genesee Herzberg, clinical psychologist, speaks to Aliyah Economos, right, at Sage Integrative Health in Berkeley on Oct. 1, 2025. \u003ccite>(Gina Castro/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The mother of three threw herself at every possible fix: cardiologists, neurologists and rheumatologists. MRIs and blood work came back normal. She tried a trauma specialist, naturopaths and elimination diets. Hormone regimens. At one point, she said, she was swallowing as many as 38 pills a day — antibiotics, supplements and thyroid meds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then she tried ketamine-assisted therapy at a tranquil clinic in Berkeley. Clients sipped tea in the waiting room, yoga mats lined the corner and treatments could be paired with acupuncture, sound therapy or craniosacral work. Each three-hour session is $1,100.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With each appointment, more memories started to unlock, and slowly over nearly three years, Economos said her health began to improve.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Ketamine has this remarkable ability to help people tolerate emotional pain that they previously couldn’t,” said Genesee Herzberg, the psychologist guiding Economos’ therapy. “It’s almost like the emotions and memories that were previously dissociated because they were too much become more accessible because of the kind of softening that ketamine does.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As a dissociative anesthetic, ketamine disrupts normal communication patterns in the brain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It seems shortly after giving a dose of ketamine, there’s an increase in the brain’s ability to form new connections that could be sustained,” Sanacora said. “And we think that is likely to be one of the primary mechanisms. I’m sure there’s many different things that contribute to it, but we think that’s the main thing.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>It was supposed to be ‘the answer’ but went sideways\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Jennifer Siegel was grappling with a divorce, her brother’s suicide and a fractured relationship with her father that worsened before he died.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her familiar self-doubt had calcified into a constant self-critic, reminding her she’d failed and was running out of time. By then, her antidepressant had been augmented with an antipsychotic to boost its effect, but the medications had stopped working and were fueling stress-eating.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I felt like I was paralyzed in my own body,” Siegel said. “I lost faith in antidepressants — like they weren’t strong enough anymore.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1998718\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 1333px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1998718 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/10/20251001_KETAMINE_GC-6-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1333\" height=\"2000\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/10/20251001_KETAMINE_GC-6-KQED.jpg 1333w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/10/20251001_KETAMINE_GC-6-KQED-160x240.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/10/20251001_KETAMINE_GC-6-KQED-768x1152.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/10/20251001_KETAMINE_GC-6-KQED-1024x1536.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1333px) 100vw, 1333px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Genesee Herzberg, a clinical psychologist at Sage Integrative Health, poses for a portrait at the clinic in Berkeley on Oct. 1, 2025. \u003ccite>(Gina Castro/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Encouraged by a psychiatrist who said esketamine “would be the answer,” the 57-year-old signed up for 10 sessions at an Oakland clinic, which were covered by her insurance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But, she soon learned sessions can go sideways without the right support.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She entered a sparse treatment room: a recliner, a box of tissues, a nearly empty jar of Jolly Ranchers. A technician drifted in and out to cuff Siegel’s arm and log her blood pressure. When the session began, the esketamine nasal spray dripped down her throat, numbing her mouth and tipping her into panic. The psychiatrist offered little reassurance, even as Siegel began to sob.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I was feeling really helpless, really scared — like he just didn’t care at all,” she said. “I felt like he was just there to make sure I didn’t die.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, the drug cracked something open. She touched the grief she’d been white-knuckling, and that access, however rough, motivated her to return. But the second session was no better; the psychiatrist kept his distance as she wept, and she canceled the rest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Siegel switched to a Berkeley psychologist who offers ketamine-assisted therapy. Because off-label care isn’t covered, she paid about $5,000 for a package.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There was the same kind of grief, tears and helplessness, but the therapist had her hand on my arm the whole time,” Siegel said. “She was really connected. It was exactly what I had been looking for.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Soon she noticed real shifts: her days began trending “good to great,” and her self-criticism finally relented. Treatment, as Siegel learned, can differ dramatically from one room to the next.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The risks\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Patients can even skip clinics altogether by logging on to telehealth sites, where providers ship ketamine lozenges for about $75 a dose. Operators like Michael Petegorsky, former chief strategy officer at Mindbloom, a ketamine telehealth platform, insist that clients undergo psychiatric evaluations, begin with small doses, have a peer present during sessions and follow other protocols to ensure it’s safe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is not drive-by medicine or ketamine through the mail,” he said, arguing the model is more structured than critics assume.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yet, a 2023 \u003ca href=\"https://plusapn.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/2023-Future-of-Mental-Health-Ketamine-Therapy-Report-by-APN.pdf\">survey\u003c/a> found that more than half of people who tried ketamine at home said they took more than the recommended dose, sometimes by accident, sometimes on purpose. The \u003ca href=\"https://www.fda.gov/drugs/human-drug-compounding/fda-warns-patients-and-health-care-providers-about-potential-risks-associated-compounded-ketamine\">FDA warned\u003c/a> in 2023 against compounded ketamine products, which are commonly used in mail-order services, because they may not be safe or effective.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“Some of my patients have developed a dependence because they were able to access ketamine so easily,” Das said. She’s also seen trauma survivors rattled by the drug’s dissociative pull. “Suddenly, you’re not in control of your body, and that can be profoundly destabilizing.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While research suggests ketamine doesn’t create the kind of physical dependence seen with opioids or alcohol, the long-term risks are still unknown. Heavy use has been linked to \u003ca href=\"https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9888585/?\">bladder damage and cognitive issues\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The dangers also grabbed national attention two years ago when Matthew Perry, the longtime star of \u003cem>Friends\u003c/em>, died from the acute effects of ketamine. He had been receiving medically supervised infusions, but the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner found the levels in his body when he died could not have been from his most recent treatment about a week earlier.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Economos has avoided those pitfalls, thus far. Under her psychologist’s guidance, she takes a relatively low dose and she says she’s not worried about addiction. Ketamine, she said, “gave me a gentle opportunity to meet myself in those really awful experiences without my mind having to turn it back off.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She no longer relies on antidepressants, her body doesn’t hurt and her energy has returned. But her path took resources most people don’t have — tens of thousands of dollars and a skilled therapist to guide her through months of hard emotional work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ketamine can be a lifeline when standard treatments fail, but it can also be a costly gamble in a marketplace with little oversight and uncertain health risks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>On a Friday afternoon after school, 15-year-olds \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/wildphotop/\">Parham Pourahmad\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/wild0nfilm/\">Arnav Singhal\u003c/a> walked through the changing colors of fall, surrounded by red, yellow, shades of amber, and lingering green leaves at Vasona Lake County Park, cameras slung over their shoulders.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The 152-acre Santa Clara County park is one of their favorite places to photograph wildlife near their neighborhood, especially the coyotes that have increasingly appeared in backyards and around creek trails across the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kron4.com/news/bay-area/multiple-coyote-sightings-reported-in-south-bay/\">South Bay\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pourahmad started snapping these photos as a hobby during the pandemic, but his work has earned statewide and national recognition, including the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1993447/see-the-bay-area-winners-of-the-2024-audubon-photography-awards\">Audubon Photography Awards’ Youth Prize\u003c/a> for his image of two American kestrels perched on a post at Calero County Park outside San José.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But these days, it’s coyotes that draw most of his attention.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s so much conflict we see between humans and coyotes: like coyotes eating pets. And as a result, people poison coyotes,” Pourahmad said. “That makes me want to help them out, both the coyotes and humans.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A \u003ca href=\"https://vcresearch.berkeley.edu/news/fostering-coexistence-san-franciscos-urban-coyotes#:~:text=Published%20last%20week%20in%20People,the%20dawn%20and%20dusk%20hours.\">2023 study\u003c/a> analyzing 10 years of coyote-human interactions in San Francisco found that conflicts had increased in recent years, especially during the pup-rearing season and in areas with greater access to green spaces.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1999203\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1999203 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/20251107_COYOTETEENS_GC-4-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/20251107_COYOTETEENS_GC-4-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/20251107_COYOTETEENS_GC-4-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/20251107_COYOTETEENS_GC-4-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/20251107_COYOTETEENS_GC-4-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Arnav Singhal, left, speaks to his friends before heading off to find coyotes at Vasona Lake County Park in Los Gatos on Nov. 7, 2025. \u003ccite>(Gina Castro for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The animal control around Silicon Valley \u003ca href=\"https://www.losaltosonline.com/news/coyote-encounters-escalating-in-and-around-los-altos-this-fall/article_7f59dd1d-84bf-4c61-9e8f-eff113d63e1e.html#:~:text=According%20to%20local%20animal%20control%20authorities%2C%20coyote,cities%20like%20San%20Francisco%20and%20Los%20Angeles**\">reported\u003c/a> an increase in coyote sightings, according to the Los Altos Town Crier.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Coyotes have their own neighborhoods, and each coyote you see isn’t random. So it’s kind of their home as well as ours,” Singhal said. He and Pourahmad attend Los Gatos High School together and are close friends. Singhal picked up photography after watching his friend’s dedication, and now spends several hours a week practicing alongside him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The two teens founded the \u003ca href=\"https://svwildlifegroup.wixsite.com/silicon-valley-wildl/coyote-sighting-map\">Silicon Valley Wildlife Group\u003c/a>, a youth-led project to track coyotes across the region.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1999208\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1999208\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/20251107_COYOTETEENS_GC-18-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/20251107_COYOTETEENS_GC-18-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/20251107_COYOTETEENS_GC-18-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/20251107_COYOTETEENS_GC-18-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/20251107_COYOTETEENS_GC-18-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Arnav Singhal shows a photo he took of a coyote at Stanford University, at Vasona Lake County Park, in Los Gatos on Nov. 7, 2025. \u003ccite>(Gina Castro for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>They collected every sighting they could since February: from their own photos, the updates posted by the Santa Clara County Vector Control and reports on Nextdoor and social media. They even invited residents to share encounters through a \u003ca href=\"https://svwildlifegroup.wixsite.com/silicon-valley-wildl/report-a-coyote-sighting\">form on their website\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They compiled all this information into \u003ca href=\"https://earth.google.com/web/@37.41932704,-122.06065396,9.81775331a,92227.12854624d,35y,-0h,0t,0r/data=CgRCAggBMikKJwolCiExOWJSWTdobDN0Q2FYb1ozWXNScDZ2eG54Qkl1OWtIdzUgAToDCgEwQgIIAEoICJj08M0HEAE?authuser=0\">an interactive map with more than a thousand data points\u003c/a>, color-coded by time and day, location, and behavior. Many sightings cluster along the creeks that run through South Bay neighborhoods.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They use the many creeks we have, like Guadalupe River, Los Gatos Creek, Coyote Creek, and a lot more to move around in urban areas without being sighted,” Pourahmad said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those urban wildlife corridors, they realized, connect the Santa Cruz Mountains to suburban parks, golf courses and backyards, a kind of wildlife highway rambling through the suburban sprawl.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Filling the gaps\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Urban ecologists have long suspected that suburban development pushes animals to adapt in surprising ways. Beverly Perez, a community resource specialist with Santa Clara County Vector Control, said the teens’ work helps put those patterns in context.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Perez said the biggest challenge isn’t managing coyotes, it’s managing humans. “Urban expansion shrinks their habitat,” she said. Coyotes learn to find food and shelter in cities, especially when residents leave trash, pet food, or even small pets unprotected. “That’s when conflicts start.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1999207\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1999207\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/20251107_COYOTETEENS_GC-17-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/20251107_COYOTETEENS_GC-17-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/20251107_COYOTETEENS_GC-17-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/20251107_COYOTETEENS_GC-17-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/20251107_COYOTETEENS_GC-17-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An area of Los Gatos Creek where there have been frequent coyote sightings at Vasona Lake County Park in Los Gatos on Nov. 7, 2025. \u003ccite>(Gina Castro for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://talicaspi.weebly.com/publications.html\">Tali Caspi\u003c/a>, a postdoctoral researcher at UC Berkeley who studies coyotes in San Francisco, said projects like the Silicon Valley Wildlife Group can help fill the gap in existing research and promote coexistence. She analyzes DNA to study the genetics of urban coyotes and uses motion-activated cameras to track their movements.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>San Francisco’s coyotes have adapted to dense human environments, she said. Silicon Valley coyotes may behave differently, relying more on creek corridors and staying more elusive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Coyotes play a critical role as apex predators, and they help keep balance in the ecosystem by controlling rodent populations and dispersing seeds in urban landscapes, she added.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The next layer of investigation\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The teens’ map identified distinct territories and recurring coyote behavior. They can identify an alpha male or female by photos or reports of pets being chased, an indicator of coyotes becoming bold or defending dens.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now they want to build more advanced tools. With help from researchers at UC Berkeley, they’re learning \u003ca href=\"https://qgis.org/\">QGIS\u003c/a>, a professional mapping software used by conservation scientists, to model how the coyotes move.[aside postID=science_1999411 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/fullcoldmoonsfgetty.jpg']As part of their project, Pourahmad and Singhal visit schools and libraries to give talks about wildlife in the area and on how to coexist with wildlife, sharing tips like securing trash cans and keeping dogs leashed near open spaces.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We want our map to be an inspiration for the community to help mitigate human-wildlife conflict,” Singhal said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over the next couple of years, they hope to build a Bay Area-wide dataset showing how wildlife adapts to human development, with the help of ten other high school students they’ve recently recruited.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Both teens say the project has shaped their aspirations to pursue careers in urban wildlife and ecology.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pourahmad wants to study wildlife biology — particularly DNA analysis and the statistics behind ecological research. “I’m interested in the science of urban wildlife,” he said. “There’s so much we still don’t know.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Singhal is drawn to a different path. “I want to become a lawyer,” he said. “I’m really interested in using what we’re learning now to influence policy or advocate for environmental issues.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>On a Friday afternoon after school, 15-year-olds \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/wildphotop/\">Parham Pourahmad\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/wild0nfilm/\">Arnav Singhal\u003c/a> walked through the changing colors of fall, surrounded by red, yellow, shades of amber, and lingering green leaves at Vasona Lake County Park, cameras slung over their shoulders.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The 152-acre Santa Clara County park is one of their favorite places to photograph wildlife near their neighborhood, especially the coyotes that have increasingly appeared in backyards and around creek trails across the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kron4.com/news/bay-area/multiple-coyote-sightings-reported-in-south-bay/\">South Bay\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pourahmad started snapping these photos as a hobby during the pandemic, but his work has earned statewide and national recognition, including the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1993447/see-the-bay-area-winners-of-the-2024-audubon-photography-awards\">Audubon Photography Awards’ Youth Prize\u003c/a> for his image of two American kestrels perched on a post at Calero County Park outside San José.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But these days, it’s coyotes that draw most of his attention.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s so much conflict we see between humans and coyotes: like coyotes eating pets. And as a result, people poison coyotes,” Pourahmad said. “That makes me want to help them out, both the coyotes and humans.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A \u003ca href=\"https://vcresearch.berkeley.edu/news/fostering-coexistence-san-franciscos-urban-coyotes#:~:text=Published%20last%20week%20in%20People,the%20dawn%20and%20dusk%20hours.\">2023 study\u003c/a> analyzing 10 years of coyote-human interactions in San Francisco found that conflicts had increased in recent years, especially during the pup-rearing season and in areas with greater access to green spaces.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1999203\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1999203 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/20251107_COYOTETEENS_GC-4-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/20251107_COYOTETEENS_GC-4-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/20251107_COYOTETEENS_GC-4-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/20251107_COYOTETEENS_GC-4-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/20251107_COYOTETEENS_GC-4-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Arnav Singhal, left, speaks to his friends before heading off to find coyotes at Vasona Lake County Park in Los Gatos on Nov. 7, 2025. \u003ccite>(Gina Castro for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The animal control around Silicon Valley \u003ca href=\"https://www.losaltosonline.com/news/coyote-encounters-escalating-in-and-around-los-altos-this-fall/article_7f59dd1d-84bf-4c61-9e8f-eff113d63e1e.html#:~:text=According%20to%20local%20animal%20control%20authorities%2C%20coyote,cities%20like%20San%20Francisco%20and%20Los%20Angeles**\">reported\u003c/a> an increase in coyote sightings, according to the Los Altos Town Crier.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Coyotes have their own neighborhoods, and each coyote you see isn’t random. So it’s kind of their home as well as ours,” Singhal said. He and Pourahmad attend Los Gatos High School together and are close friends. Singhal picked up photography after watching his friend’s dedication, and now spends several hours a week practicing alongside him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The two teens founded the \u003ca href=\"https://svwildlifegroup.wixsite.com/silicon-valley-wildl/coyote-sighting-map\">Silicon Valley Wildlife Group\u003c/a>, a youth-led project to track coyotes across the region.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1999208\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1999208\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/20251107_COYOTETEENS_GC-18-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/20251107_COYOTETEENS_GC-18-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/20251107_COYOTETEENS_GC-18-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/20251107_COYOTETEENS_GC-18-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/20251107_COYOTETEENS_GC-18-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Arnav Singhal shows a photo he took of a coyote at Stanford University, at Vasona Lake County Park, in Los Gatos on Nov. 7, 2025. \u003ccite>(Gina Castro for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>They collected every sighting they could since February: from their own photos, the updates posted by the Santa Clara County Vector Control and reports on Nextdoor and social media. They even invited residents to share encounters through a \u003ca href=\"https://svwildlifegroup.wixsite.com/silicon-valley-wildl/report-a-coyote-sighting\">form on their website\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They compiled all this information into \u003ca href=\"https://earth.google.com/web/@37.41932704,-122.06065396,9.81775331a,92227.12854624d,35y,-0h,0t,0r/data=CgRCAggBMikKJwolCiExOWJSWTdobDN0Q2FYb1ozWXNScDZ2eG54Qkl1OWtIdzUgAToDCgEwQgIIAEoICJj08M0HEAE?authuser=0\">an interactive map with more than a thousand data points\u003c/a>, color-coded by time and day, location, and behavior. Many sightings cluster along the creeks that run through South Bay neighborhoods.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They use the many creeks we have, like Guadalupe River, Los Gatos Creek, Coyote Creek, and a lot more to move around in urban areas without being sighted,” Pourahmad said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those urban wildlife corridors, they realized, connect the Santa Cruz Mountains to suburban parks, golf courses and backyards, a kind of wildlife highway rambling through the suburban sprawl.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Filling the gaps\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Urban ecologists have long suspected that suburban development pushes animals to adapt in surprising ways. Beverly Perez, a community resource specialist with Santa Clara County Vector Control, said the teens’ work helps put those patterns in context.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Perez said the biggest challenge isn’t managing coyotes, it’s managing humans. “Urban expansion shrinks their habitat,” she said. Coyotes learn to find food and shelter in cities, especially when residents leave trash, pet food, or even small pets unprotected. “That’s when conflicts start.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1999207\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1999207\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/20251107_COYOTETEENS_GC-17-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/20251107_COYOTETEENS_GC-17-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/20251107_COYOTETEENS_GC-17-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/20251107_COYOTETEENS_GC-17-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/20251107_COYOTETEENS_GC-17-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An area of Los Gatos Creek where there have been frequent coyote sightings at Vasona Lake County Park in Los Gatos on Nov. 7, 2025. \u003ccite>(Gina Castro for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://talicaspi.weebly.com/publications.html\">Tali Caspi\u003c/a>, a postdoctoral researcher at UC Berkeley who studies coyotes in San Francisco, said projects like the Silicon Valley Wildlife Group can help fill the gap in existing research and promote coexistence. She analyzes DNA to study the genetics of urban coyotes and uses motion-activated cameras to track their movements.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>San Francisco’s coyotes have adapted to dense human environments, she said. Silicon Valley coyotes may behave differently, relying more on creek corridors and staying more elusive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Coyotes play a critical role as apex predators, and they help keep balance in the ecosystem by controlling rodent populations and dispersing seeds in urban landscapes, she added.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The next layer of investigation\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The teens’ map identified distinct territories and recurring coyote behavior. They can identify an alpha male or female by photos or reports of pets being chased, an indicator of coyotes becoming bold or defending dens.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now they want to build more advanced tools. With help from researchers at UC Berkeley, they’re learning \u003ca href=\"https://qgis.org/\">QGIS\u003c/a>, a professional mapping software used by conservation scientists, to model how the coyotes move.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>As part of their project, Pourahmad and Singhal visit schools and libraries to give talks about wildlife in the area and on how to coexist with wildlife, sharing tips like securing trash cans and keeping dogs leashed near open spaces.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We want our map to be an inspiration for the community to help mitigate human-wildlife conflict,” Singhal said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over the next couple of years, they hope to build a Bay Area-wide dataset showing how wildlife adapts to human development, with the help of ten other high school students they’ve recently recruited.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Both teens say the project has shaped their aspirations to pursue careers in urban wildlife and ecology.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pourahmad wants to study wildlife biology — particularly DNA analysis and the statistics behind ecological research. “I’m interested in the science of urban wildlife,” he said. “There’s so much we still don’t know.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Singhal is drawn to a different path. “I want to become a lawyer,” he said. “I’m really interested in using what we’re learning now to influence policy or advocate for environmental issues.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "king-tides-to-flood-bay-area-shorelines-this-week-heres-where-and-when-to-safely-see-them",
"title": "King Tides to Flood Bay Area Shorelines This Week. Here's Where and When to Safely See Them",
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"headTitle": "King Tides to Flood Bay Area Shorelines This Week. Here’s Where and When to Safely See Them | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>Beachgoers across the Bay Area and the coast are in for some of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12018103/king-tides-foreshadow-far-wetter-future-sf-shoreline\">highest tides\u003c/a> of the year this week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>King tides — caused by a stronger-than-normal\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1955598/king-tides-are-here-why-they-happen-and--they-teach-us\"> gravitational pull\u003c/a> when the sun, moon and Earth align — could push water onto low-lying areas. Parts of Highway 101 in Marin County often flood during these events, as do communities like San Rafael and San Francisco’s Embarcadero.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the other end of the tidal cycle, tidepoolers can expect some of the lowest astronomical tides of the year, too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The negative \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1991709/the-best-places-to-go-tide-pooling-in-the-bay-area\">low tide\u003c/a> can unveil submerged rocky habitats and species usually hidden from onlookers. Beachgoers can glimpse urchin, algae, California muscles, and — if they are lucky — octopuses and other creatures, said Erin Hubach, an interpretive programs specialist with the Monterey Bay Aquarium.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The tidal extremes will build through Friday, before slowly returning to normal this weekend into next week. The National Weather Service’s Bay Area office issued a coastal flood advisory for minor flooding due to high tides from Tuesday through 3 p.m. Sunday for communities along San Francisco Bay, San Pablo Bay and Monterey Bay. Forecasters said that the tides and high surf through Wednesday could lead to unexpected sneaker waves and advised taking caution when visiting the coastline.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1999469\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1999469\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/241213-PortFlood-74_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/241213-PortFlood-74_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/241213-PortFlood-74_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/241213-PortFlood-74_qed-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/241213-PortFlood-74_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Water flows onto the sidewalk during a high king tide at Pier 14 along the Embarcadero in San Francisco on Dec. 13, 2024. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://www.coastal.ca.gov/kingtides/participate.html\">California King Tides Project\u003c/a>, a citizen science project tracking the impact of rising sea levels, encourages people to send photos of the high tides as part of an ongoing citizen science project. Manager Annie Kohut Frankel said the images will help planners, researchers and communicators understand current coastal vulnerabilities and how severe sea level rise could inundate areas in the coming decades.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There are places that are already impacted by these extremely high tides,” Kohut Frankel said. “For our project, if you know of a place that floods, we appreciate you going and taking a photo of it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today, California’s king tides mainly cause ponding on roads and other short-term nuisance flooding. However, scientists point out that they foreshadow a far wetter future due to sea-level rise caused by human-caused climate change. Climate scientists predict that melting ice caps and expanding ocean waters could cause the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1997729/oysters-snails-and-a-wall-that-protects-against-climate-change-one-tile-at-a-time\">seas to rise\u003c/a> anywhere between a foot by 2050 and more than 6 feet by the end of the century.[aside postID=news_12018103 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/241213-PortFlood-24-1020x679.jpg']“It’s kind of a signal for the future,” said Dalton Behringer, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s Bay Area office. “If you’re flooding now, it’s not gonna get any better, certainly in the future.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some coastal areas have built tall flood protections to protect against future flooding, but not the Canal neighborhood in San Rafael. The city in Marin County is shaped like a bowl, and its makeshift levees, some constructed with plywood or concrete, and pumps are already struggling, said Carly Finkle, senior policy manager with the nonprofit Canal Alliance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Water will overtop and flow onto the streets in a couple of different areas,” Finkle said. Although she said sometimes the floodwaters impact “people’s cars and access to people’s homes.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Finkle encourages the public to see for themselves how the higher-than-usual tides are already affecting communities like San Rafael. Canal Alliance, alongside the City of San Rafael and other groups, is hosting a \u003ca href=\"https://www.cityofsanrafael.org/event/high-tide-day-december-2025/\">tour\u003c/a> on Saturday from 9 a.m. to noon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s really informal infrastructure that’s blocking the water,” Finkle said. “If those pieces of plywood keep keeping the water out as they have, then we shouldn’t see catastrophic flooding, but it’s also gonna be an important opportunity to go out and see how flimsy they are.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A second round of king tides will occur in early January.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>When will tides be the highest and lowest?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Weather Service forecasters said that in the San Francisco area, water could push more than a foot above the ground level in low-lying areas. They also note that high tide varies by about 90 minutes, and high surf could exacerbate the flooding. The highest chance of flooding is on Thursday and Friday morning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To find out the exact times of low and high tides, use the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s \u003ca href=\"https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/tide_predictions.html\">tide predictions online tool\u003c/a> or other sites like \u003ca href=\"http://tideforecast.com\">tideforecast.com.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1999474\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1999px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1999474\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/241213-PortFlood-54_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1999\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/241213-PortFlood-54_qed.jpg 1999w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/241213-PortFlood-54_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/241213-PortFlood-54_qed-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/241213-PortFlood-54_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1999px) 100vw, 1999px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A person walks on a flooded sidewalk during a high king tide at Pier 14 along the Embarcadero in San Francisco on Dec. 13, 2024. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>San Francisco high tides:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Tuesday at 8:24 a.m.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Wednesday at 9:04 a.m.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Thursday at 9:48 a.m.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Friday at 10:35 a.m.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Saturday at 11:25 a.m.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Sunday at 12:17 a.m.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>San Francisco low tides:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Tuesday at 3:15 p.m.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Wednesday at 4:02 p.m.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Thursday at 4:50 p.m.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Friday at 5:40 p.m.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Saturday at 6:30 p.m.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Sunday at 8:12 p.m.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003ch2>What to know about visiting the water’s edge\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Coastal experts suggest caution. At high tides, visitors should pay close attention to where they park to make sure their cars aren’t flooded. At low tide, experts advise explorers to wear waterproof, non-slippery shoes, a head lamp and always head out with a buddy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hubach, with the Monterey Bay Aquarium, said to always pay close attention to the ocean in case a big wave sneaks up. She also said the lowest tides are occurring around dusk and into the early evening, so be extra careful when walking on coastal reefs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1999476\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1999476\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/241213-PortFlood-37_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/241213-PortFlood-37_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/241213-PortFlood-37_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/241213-PortFlood-37_qed-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/241213-PortFlood-37_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Water flows onto the sidewalk during a high king tide at Pier 14 along the Embarcadero in San Francisco on Dec. 13, 2024. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“Watch for big waves and watch where you step, not only for the slippery factor of the rocks, but also because there might be animals hidden underneath things,” Hubach said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She said there’s a bonus of visiting tide pools when it’s dark outside: “Sometimes different animals hang out in the tide pools at night versus during the daytime.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tides can seemingly rise fast or unexpectedly when you are having a good time looking at critters usually unseen, she added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The important thing is to take only pictures, take memories with you, and leave only footprints,” Hubach said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Where to see king tides and low tides\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>While ocean visitors can see the impact of the high and low tides all around the rim of the bay and edge of the sea, a \u003ca href=\"https://www.coastal.ca.gov/kingtides/\">number of official outings\u003c/a> are taking place across the region this week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Thursday, Dec. 4:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>San Francisco:\u003c/strong> \u003ca href=\"https://www.exploratorium.edu/visit/calendar/after-dark-royal-tides\">After Dark: Royal Tides at the Exploratorium\u003c/a>, Pier 15 (Embarcadero at Green Street), 6-10 p.m. Learn about how king tides shadow a future with human-caused climate change, and how coastal communities are responding to sea level rise.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1999477\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1999477\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/241213-PortFlood-31_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/241213-PortFlood-31_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/241213-PortFlood-31_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/241213-PortFlood-31_qed-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/241213-PortFlood-31_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Water flows onto the sidewalk during a high king tide at Pier 14 along the Embarcadero in San Francisco on Dec. 13, 2024. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Friday, Dec. 5:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pescadero:\u003c/strong> \u003ca href=\"https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSepeRFHVr40lXqWB2kRQZSdR20V2lQykoAZM85EgFKP9mTeGg/viewform\">King Tides and Marsh Trails at Pescadero State Beach\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\nCentral Pescadero Beach Access Parking Lot, Pescadero, San Mateo County 9 a.m. Organizers discuss coastal resilience before a trail walk into the marsh.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Saturday, Dec. 6:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>San Rafael:\u003c/strong> \u003ca href=\"https://www.cityofsanrafael.org/event/high-tide-day-december-2025/\">High Tide Day\u003c/a>, 711 Grand Avenue, 9 a.m. to noon. The City of San Rafael and a number of local organizations will provide community science kits to explore how low-lying spots along the waterfront are affected by high tides.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>San Rafael:\u003c/strong>\u003ca href=\"https://friendsofchinacamp.org/event/watch-the-king-tide-roll-in/\"> King Tides in China Camp\u003c/a> at China Camp State Park, Marin County, Turtle Back Trailhead off of North San Pedro Road from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Friends of China Camp hosts a tabling event to explore how these extreme high tides give us a glimpse into the future of sea level rise.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alameda:\u003c/strong> \u003ca href=\"https://anc.apm.activecommunities.com/ebparks/activity/search/detail/57589?onlineSiteId=0&from_original_cui=true\">King Tide at the Cove \u003c/a>from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Doug Siden Visitor Center at Crab Cove, 1252 McKay Avenue, Alameda. The Oakland Alameda Adaptation Committee and the East Bay Regional Parks District host a watch party at the marine protected area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Palo Alto:\u003c/strong> \u003ca href=\"https://www.eventbrite.com/e/2025-king-tides-walk-at-the-baylands-tickets-1748876710319?aff=oddtdtcreator\">King Tides Walk\u003c/a> from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. EcoCenter, 2560 Embarcadero Road, Palo Alto. The event will include a science talk about tides and a walk through the Baylands.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alviso and Menlo Park:\u003c/strong> \u003ca href=\"https://www.eventbrite.com/e/december-2025-king-tides-in-alviso-tickets-1968823260371\">December 2025 King Tides in Alviso\u003c/a> at Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge. 1751 Grand Blvd., Alviso, Santa Clara County. Noon to 1 p.m. The San Francisco Bay Wildlife Society presents a free guided walk to discover the highest tides of the year. Register \u003ca href=\"https://www.eventbrite.com/e/december-2025-king-tides-at-pond-sf2-tickets-1969953667449?utm-campaign=social&utm-content=attendeeshare&utm-medium=discovery&utm-term=listing&utm-source=cp&aff=ebdsshcopyurl\">here\u003c/a> for the Menlo Park location.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pescadero:\u003c/strong> \u003ca href=\"https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSepeRFHVr40lXqWB2kRQZSdR20V2lQykoAZM85EgFKP9mTeGg/viewform\">King Tides and Marsh Trails at Pescadero State Beach\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\nCentral Pescadero Beach Access Parking Lot, Pescadero, San Mateo County 9:30 a.m. Organizers discuss coastal resilience before a trail walk into the marsh.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "This week’s extra high tide could flood shorelines across the Bay Area, offering a preview of how rising seas could reshape the region. ",
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"title": "King Tides to Flood Bay Area Shorelines This Week. Here's Where and When to Safely See Them | KQED",
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"headline": "King Tides to Flood Bay Area Shorelines This Week. Here's Where and When to Safely See Them",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Beachgoers across the Bay Area and the coast are in for some of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12018103/king-tides-foreshadow-far-wetter-future-sf-shoreline\">highest tides\u003c/a> of the year this week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>King tides — caused by a stronger-than-normal\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1955598/king-tides-are-here-why-they-happen-and--they-teach-us\"> gravitational pull\u003c/a> when the sun, moon and Earth align — could push water onto low-lying areas. Parts of Highway 101 in Marin County often flood during these events, as do communities like San Rafael and San Francisco’s Embarcadero.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the other end of the tidal cycle, tidepoolers can expect some of the lowest astronomical tides of the year, too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The negative \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1991709/the-best-places-to-go-tide-pooling-in-the-bay-area\">low tide\u003c/a> can unveil submerged rocky habitats and species usually hidden from onlookers. Beachgoers can glimpse urchin, algae, California muscles, and — if they are lucky — octopuses and other creatures, said Erin Hubach, an interpretive programs specialist with the Monterey Bay Aquarium.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The tidal extremes will build through Friday, before slowly returning to normal this weekend into next week. The National Weather Service’s Bay Area office issued a coastal flood advisory for minor flooding due to high tides from Tuesday through 3 p.m. Sunday for communities along San Francisco Bay, San Pablo Bay and Monterey Bay. Forecasters said that the tides and high surf through Wednesday could lead to unexpected sneaker waves and advised taking caution when visiting the coastline.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1999469\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1999469\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/241213-PortFlood-74_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/241213-PortFlood-74_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/241213-PortFlood-74_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/241213-PortFlood-74_qed-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/241213-PortFlood-74_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Water flows onto the sidewalk during a high king tide at Pier 14 along the Embarcadero in San Francisco on Dec. 13, 2024. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://www.coastal.ca.gov/kingtides/participate.html\">California King Tides Project\u003c/a>, a citizen science project tracking the impact of rising sea levels, encourages people to send photos of the high tides as part of an ongoing citizen science project. Manager Annie Kohut Frankel said the images will help planners, researchers and communicators understand current coastal vulnerabilities and how severe sea level rise could inundate areas in the coming decades.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There are places that are already impacted by these extremely high tides,” Kohut Frankel said. “For our project, if you know of a place that floods, we appreciate you going and taking a photo of it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today, California’s king tides mainly cause ponding on roads and other short-term nuisance flooding. However, scientists point out that they foreshadow a far wetter future due to sea-level rise caused by human-caused climate change. Climate scientists predict that melting ice caps and expanding ocean waters could cause the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1997729/oysters-snails-and-a-wall-that-protects-against-climate-change-one-tile-at-a-time\">seas to rise\u003c/a> anywhere between a foot by 2050 and more than 6 feet by the end of the century.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“It’s kind of a signal for the future,” said Dalton Behringer, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s Bay Area office. “If you’re flooding now, it’s not gonna get any better, certainly in the future.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some coastal areas have built tall flood protections to protect against future flooding, but not the Canal neighborhood in San Rafael. The city in Marin County is shaped like a bowl, and its makeshift levees, some constructed with plywood or concrete, and pumps are already struggling, said Carly Finkle, senior policy manager with the nonprofit Canal Alliance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Water will overtop and flow onto the streets in a couple of different areas,” Finkle said. Although she said sometimes the floodwaters impact “people’s cars and access to people’s homes.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Finkle encourages the public to see for themselves how the higher-than-usual tides are already affecting communities like San Rafael. Canal Alliance, alongside the City of San Rafael and other groups, is hosting a \u003ca href=\"https://www.cityofsanrafael.org/event/high-tide-day-december-2025/\">tour\u003c/a> on Saturday from 9 a.m. to noon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s really informal infrastructure that’s blocking the water,” Finkle said. “If those pieces of plywood keep keeping the water out as they have, then we shouldn’t see catastrophic flooding, but it’s also gonna be an important opportunity to go out and see how flimsy they are.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A second round of king tides will occur in early January.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>When will tides be the highest and lowest?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Weather Service forecasters said that in the San Francisco area, water could push more than a foot above the ground level in low-lying areas. They also note that high tide varies by about 90 minutes, and high surf could exacerbate the flooding. The highest chance of flooding is on Thursday and Friday morning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To find out the exact times of low and high tides, use the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s \u003ca href=\"https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/tide_predictions.html\">tide predictions online tool\u003c/a> or other sites like \u003ca href=\"http://tideforecast.com\">tideforecast.com.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1999474\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1999px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1999474\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/241213-PortFlood-54_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1999\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/241213-PortFlood-54_qed.jpg 1999w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/241213-PortFlood-54_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/241213-PortFlood-54_qed-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/241213-PortFlood-54_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1999px) 100vw, 1999px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A person walks on a flooded sidewalk during a high king tide at Pier 14 along the Embarcadero in San Francisco on Dec. 13, 2024. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>San Francisco high tides:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Tuesday at 8:24 a.m.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Wednesday at 9:04 a.m.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Thursday at 9:48 a.m.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Friday at 10:35 a.m.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Saturday at 11:25 a.m.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Sunday at 12:17 a.m.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>San Francisco low tides:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Tuesday at 3:15 p.m.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Wednesday at 4:02 p.m.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Thursday at 4:50 p.m.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Friday at 5:40 p.m.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Saturday at 6:30 p.m.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Sunday at 8:12 p.m.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003ch2>What to know about visiting the water’s edge\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Coastal experts suggest caution. At high tides, visitors should pay close attention to where they park to make sure their cars aren’t flooded. At low tide, experts advise explorers to wear waterproof, non-slippery shoes, a head lamp and always head out with a buddy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hubach, with the Monterey Bay Aquarium, said to always pay close attention to the ocean in case a big wave sneaks up. She also said the lowest tides are occurring around dusk and into the early evening, so be extra careful when walking on coastal reefs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1999476\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1999476\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/241213-PortFlood-37_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/241213-PortFlood-37_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/241213-PortFlood-37_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/241213-PortFlood-37_qed-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/241213-PortFlood-37_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Water flows onto the sidewalk during a high king tide at Pier 14 along the Embarcadero in San Francisco on Dec. 13, 2024. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“Watch for big waves and watch where you step, not only for the slippery factor of the rocks, but also because there might be animals hidden underneath things,” Hubach said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She said there’s a bonus of visiting tide pools when it’s dark outside: “Sometimes different animals hang out in the tide pools at night versus during the daytime.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tides can seemingly rise fast or unexpectedly when you are having a good time looking at critters usually unseen, she added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The important thing is to take only pictures, take memories with you, and leave only footprints,” Hubach said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Where to see king tides and low tides\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>While ocean visitors can see the impact of the high and low tides all around the rim of the bay and edge of the sea, a \u003ca href=\"https://www.coastal.ca.gov/kingtides/\">number of official outings\u003c/a> are taking place across the region this week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Thursday, Dec. 4:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>San Francisco:\u003c/strong> \u003ca href=\"https://www.exploratorium.edu/visit/calendar/after-dark-royal-tides\">After Dark: Royal Tides at the Exploratorium\u003c/a>, Pier 15 (Embarcadero at Green Street), 6-10 p.m. Learn about how king tides shadow a future with human-caused climate change, and how coastal communities are responding to sea level rise.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1999477\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1999477\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/241213-PortFlood-31_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/241213-PortFlood-31_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/241213-PortFlood-31_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/241213-PortFlood-31_qed-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/241213-PortFlood-31_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Water flows onto the sidewalk during a high king tide at Pier 14 along the Embarcadero in San Francisco on Dec. 13, 2024. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Friday, Dec. 5:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pescadero:\u003c/strong> \u003ca href=\"https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSepeRFHVr40lXqWB2kRQZSdR20V2lQykoAZM85EgFKP9mTeGg/viewform\">King Tides and Marsh Trails at Pescadero State Beach\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\nCentral Pescadero Beach Access Parking Lot, Pescadero, San Mateo County 9 a.m. Organizers discuss coastal resilience before a trail walk into the marsh.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Saturday, Dec. 6:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>San Rafael:\u003c/strong> \u003ca href=\"https://www.cityofsanrafael.org/event/high-tide-day-december-2025/\">High Tide Day\u003c/a>, 711 Grand Avenue, 9 a.m. to noon. The City of San Rafael and a number of local organizations will provide community science kits to explore how low-lying spots along the waterfront are affected by high tides.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>San Rafael:\u003c/strong>\u003ca href=\"https://friendsofchinacamp.org/event/watch-the-king-tide-roll-in/\"> King Tides in China Camp\u003c/a> at China Camp State Park, Marin County, Turtle Back Trailhead off of North San Pedro Road from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Friends of China Camp hosts a tabling event to explore how these extreme high tides give us a glimpse into the future of sea level rise.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alameda:\u003c/strong> \u003ca href=\"https://anc.apm.activecommunities.com/ebparks/activity/search/detail/57589?onlineSiteId=0&from_original_cui=true\">King Tide at the Cove \u003c/a>from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Doug Siden Visitor Center at Crab Cove, 1252 McKay Avenue, Alameda. The Oakland Alameda Adaptation Committee and the East Bay Regional Parks District host a watch party at the marine protected area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Palo Alto:\u003c/strong> \u003ca href=\"https://www.eventbrite.com/e/2025-king-tides-walk-at-the-baylands-tickets-1748876710319?aff=oddtdtcreator\">King Tides Walk\u003c/a> from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. EcoCenter, 2560 Embarcadero Road, Palo Alto. The event will include a science talk about tides and a walk through the Baylands.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alviso and Menlo Park:\u003c/strong> \u003ca href=\"https://www.eventbrite.com/e/december-2025-king-tides-in-alviso-tickets-1968823260371\">December 2025 King Tides in Alviso\u003c/a> at Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge. 1751 Grand Blvd., Alviso, Santa Clara County. Noon to 1 p.m. The San Francisco Bay Wildlife Society presents a free guided walk to discover the highest tides of the year. Register \u003ca href=\"https://www.eventbrite.com/e/december-2025-king-tides-at-pond-sf2-tickets-1969953667449?utm-campaign=social&utm-content=attendeeshare&utm-medium=discovery&utm-term=listing&utm-source=cp&aff=ebdsshcopyurl\">here\u003c/a> for the Menlo Park location.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pescadero:\u003c/strong> \u003ca href=\"https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSepeRFHVr40lXqWB2kRQZSdR20V2lQykoAZM85EgFKP9mTeGg/viewform\">King Tides and Marsh Trails at Pescadero State Beach\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\nCentral Pescadero Beach Access Parking Lot, Pescadero, San Mateo County 9:30 a.m. Organizers discuss coastal resilience before a trail walk into the marsh.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"slug": "bay-area-electricity-bills-are-some-of-the-highest-where-does-your-money-go",
"title": "Bay Area Electricity Bills Are Some of the Highest. Where Does Your Money Go?",
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"headTitle": "Bay Area Electricity Bills Are Some of the Highest. Where Does Your Money Go? | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>For three days last December, when Kenya Brown’s youngest four kids weren’t in school, they spent their time at her oldest son’s apartment. They did their homework, charged their phones, showered and had dinner.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The children returned to the family home only to sleep. Instead of the normal chatter of TV shows and the sparkle of hall lights, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12051850/as-californias-electricity-rates-rise-parents-struggle-to-pay-their-bills\">the house was dark and cold\u003c/a>. \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101911358/new-state-climate-plan-to-reduce-energy-costs-fortify-grid\">Their utilities had been shut off\u003c/a> — no heat, no lights, no hot water, no gas for cooking; \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101910733/why-your-energy-bill-has-gotten-so-expensive-and-what-can-be-done-about-it\">Brown hadn’t paid the bill in months\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Brown’s bills are like many others in California: high, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12033386/pge-electricity-rates-have-jumped-nearly-70-since-2020\">especially in recent years\u003c/a>. Her electricity and gas bills regularly top $500 a month for the one-story home she’s rented for the past ten years in the East Bay city of Bay Point.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The money from her job at the time as a full-time cashier at Walmart paid for rent, her car loan, and food.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I have to decide: am I going to pay this bill or am I gonna eat food? And I choose food,” Brown said, noting that it’s hard to keep up with the appetites of four growing kids, even with federal food assistance and trips to the food bank.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1999441\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1999px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/20251105_High-electricity-bills_GH-5_qed-1.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1999441\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/20251105_High-electricity-bills_GH-5_qed-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1999\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/20251105_High-electricity-bills_GH-5_qed-1.jpg 1999w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/20251105_High-electricity-bills_GH-5_qed-1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/20251105_High-electricity-bills_GH-5_qed-1-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/20251105_High-electricity-bills_GH-5_qed-1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1999px) 100vw, 1999px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kenya Brown views her house in Bay Point on Nov. 5, 2025. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Brown has tried cutting back on electricity use. She’s asked her kids to turn down the heat and turn off lights and TVs. She weatherized her home, taking advantage of a \u003ca href=\"https://www.csd.ca.gov/Pages/Residential-Energy-Efficiency.aspx\">free federal program\u003c/a> meant to reduce utility costs. She didn’t notice a difference in her bottom line, though.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s never been this high before,” Brown said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Brown’s son’s teacher got wind of the power disconnection in the family’s home. She set up a GoFundMe, which raised $3000 to restore electricity and gas, and pay past-due bills.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s electricity rates are the \u003ca href=\"https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4950#:~:text=Summary,customers%20pay%20can%20vary%20widely.\">second-highest\u003c/a> in the country after Hawaii, and a majority of Californians say the expense is a top \u003ca href=\"https://www.ppic.org/publication/californians-and-the-energy-transition/#:~:text=Californians%20are%20frustrated%20by%20energy%20affordability%20*,economy%20a%20great%20deal%20in%20the%20future.\">concern\u003c/a>. The burden is even higher for low-income families: according to the Public Policy Institute of California, low-income households pay a \u003ca href=\"https://www.ppic.org/blog/low-income-households-struggle-with-the-cost-of-electricity-bills/\">much larger\u003c/a> portion of their income on electricity bills compared to households earning more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Staff at 211 Bay Area, a United Way hotline that refers people to support for food, housing and more, said they fielded more than 6000 calls about utility assistance from January to October this year, compared to around 2000 over that same time period in 2020.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Utility assistance is in our top three most requested needs,” said Clare Margason, 211 Bay Area’s senior director.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>What’s in a bill?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>It’s no shocker that electricity is expensive in California, but what exactly are you paying for? Glancing at your bill will likely leave you more confused: there is a dizzying array of charges, credits, adjustments, taxes and more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>KQED took Brown’s bill to a group of experts to decode it, and in doing so found that her bill included a miscalculation: Brown qualifies for CARE, a program meant to help offset energy costs for low-income Californians, but she is only getting that discount on what she pays for gas, not electricity.[aside postID=science_1999095 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/02/RS60056_023_KQED_HomeElectrificationOakland_11072022-qut-1020x680.jpg']PG&E told KQED in a statement that the company fixed the error and Brown will receive a credit on her next bill.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Brown did not think to question her bills, however, because each month she sees a CARE discount, and high utility bills seem to be the norm when she talks to family and friends.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are real barriers to seeking help for high utility bills, said Constance Slider Pierre, who oversees \u003ca href=\"https://url.us.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/w8rYCXDM32FGNgOxt6f5CWeNI8?domain=turn.org\">The Utility Reform Network\u003c/a>’s consumer hotline. Barriers include speaking limited English, confusion over how to read bills, and difficulty reaching customer service representatives, Slider Pierre said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For this story, KQED spoke to experts at UC Berkeley, UC Santa Barbara, the Natural Resources Defense Council, The Utility Reform Network and California’s largest utility, PG&E.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s worth pointing out that it takes multiple experts, maybe some PhDs, and a bunch of phone calls to understand one electricity bill in California,” Mohit Chhabra of the Natural Resources Defense Council said of the long list of experts KQED spoke to for this story. “If you want people to actually understand [their bills], simplifying the front end would be useful.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We looked at Brown’s bill to understand what she and others pay for and what those charges mean.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Brown spent $576.37 on electricity in September.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1999429\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/IMG_1271.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1999429\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/IMG_1271.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1920\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/IMG_1271.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/IMG_1271-2000x1500.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/IMG_1271-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/IMG_1271-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/IMG_1271-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/IMG_1271-2048x1536.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An illustration of Kenya Brown’s September 2025 energy bill. \u003ccite>(Anna Vignet/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Energy Generation. 25-45%, Brown paid $173.93\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is the cost of producing energy: from sources like natural gas, solar, wind, hydro and nuclear, and the upkeep of these power plants. Utilities generate some of their own energy, but buy the majority of it from third parties.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Brown’s case, her energy comes from MCE, a community power provider that serves some North and East Bay counties. Community choice aggregators like MCE first sprouted up in 2010 as an alternative to investor-owned utilities for buying or generating energy. MCE still relies on PG&E’s poles and wires, so Brown pays a portion of her bill to MCE for electricity generation, and another to PG&E to deliver that electricity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The cost of energy generation is similar, whether you’re enrolled in a community power provider or PG&E.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1999428\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/IMG_1275.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1999428\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/IMG_1275.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1920\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/IMG_1275.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/IMG_1275-2000x1500.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/IMG_1275-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/IMG_1275-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/IMG_1275-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/IMG_1275-2048x1536.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An illustration of Kenya Brown’s September 2025 energy bill. \u003ccite>(Anna Vignet/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Electric Delivery, Brown paid $402.44\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is the cost of moving energy from where it’s created at a power plant or a solar farm to your home. There are tons of aspects to this system, including transmission and distribution.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1999430\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/IMG_1270.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1999430\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/IMG_1270.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1920\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/IMG_1270.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/IMG_1270-2000x1500.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/IMG_1270-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/IMG_1270-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/IMG_1270-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/IMG_1270-2048x1536.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An illustration of Kenya Brown’s September 2025 energy bill. \u003ccite>(Anna Vignet/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>Transmission. \u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003cstrong>7-12%, Brown paid $50.03 \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The transmission system is like a superhighway for electrons. These are the huge towers and high voltage wires you see while driving along the actual highway.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>Distribution. \u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003cstrong>38-45%, Brown paid $292.63\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The distribution system is like all the roads on which you travel after you exit the highway: main thoroughfares, residential streets, even your driveway. These are the poles and wires that connect to your home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Maintaining both transmission and distribution systems means Californians pay utilities for a variety of work meant to prevent wildfires, like cutting trees along power lines, or covering or undergrounding wires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wildfire expenses more than doubled between 2023 and 2024, making up almost \u003ca href=\"http://publicadvocates.cpuc.ca.gov/-/media/cal-advocates-website/files/press-room/reports-and-analyses/240613-public-advocates-office-electric-ious-wildfire-cost-increases.pdf\">a quarter\u003c/a> of the total revenue PG&E collected from customers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wildfire costs include both paying for past disasters – rebuilding and paying claims to people harmed – and preparing the grid for future calamities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Severin Borenstein, a professor of energy and economics at UC Berkeley, said 30 years ago, customers would pay just a couple of cents a month for distribution in their electricity bill.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was basically putting up wires around neighborhoods and then maintaining them,” Borenstein said. “Now that [cost] is many, many times higher because almost all of the fires that have been started are distribution level fires.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Climate change has greatly increased the risks of out-of-control fires caused by falling trees or failing poles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re spending an enormous amount of money to avoid that risk,” Borenstein said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Public Purpose Programs. 5-6%, Brown paid $33.57\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This fee funds programs that help offset electricity costs for low-income Californians. For example, the CARE program provides at least a 20% discount on gas and electricity rates for those who qualify. It also includes energy efficiency programs, like the one Kenya Brown used to help weatherize her home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1999427\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/IMG_1272.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1999427\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/IMG_1272.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1920\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/IMG_1272.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/IMG_1272-2000x1500.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/IMG_1272-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/IMG_1272-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/IMG_1272-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/IMG_1272-2048x1536.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An illustration of Kenya Brown’s September 2025 energy bill. \u003ccite>(Anna Vignet/KQED )\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>How much money goes to PG&E shareholders? \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>PG&E said less than 1% of a typical residential bill is paid out to shareholders as dividends — cash payments the company gives to people who own PG&E stock.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For Kenya Brown’s $648.04 gas and electric bill, she paid under $6.48 to PG&E shareholders.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "A fraction of your bill goes to actually generating electricity, while costs to pay for past wildfires and prevent future ones have skyrocketed.",
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"title": "Bay Area Electricity Bills Are Some of the Highest. Where Does Your Money Go? | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>For three days last December, when Kenya Brown’s youngest four kids weren’t in school, they spent their time at her oldest son’s apartment. They did their homework, charged their phones, showered and had dinner.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The children returned to the family home only to sleep. Instead of the normal chatter of TV shows and the sparkle of hall lights, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12051850/as-californias-electricity-rates-rise-parents-struggle-to-pay-their-bills\">the house was dark and cold\u003c/a>. \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101911358/new-state-climate-plan-to-reduce-energy-costs-fortify-grid\">Their utilities had been shut off\u003c/a> — no heat, no lights, no hot water, no gas for cooking; \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101910733/why-your-energy-bill-has-gotten-so-expensive-and-what-can-be-done-about-it\">Brown hadn’t paid the bill in months\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Brown’s bills are like many others in California: high, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12033386/pge-electricity-rates-have-jumped-nearly-70-since-2020\">especially in recent years\u003c/a>. Her electricity and gas bills regularly top $500 a month for the one-story home she’s rented for the past ten years in the East Bay city of Bay Point.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The money from her job at the time as a full-time cashier at Walmart paid for rent, her car loan, and food.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I have to decide: am I going to pay this bill or am I gonna eat food? And I choose food,” Brown said, noting that it’s hard to keep up with the appetites of four growing kids, even with federal food assistance and trips to the food bank.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1999441\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1999px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/20251105_High-electricity-bills_GH-5_qed-1.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1999441\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/20251105_High-electricity-bills_GH-5_qed-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1999\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/20251105_High-electricity-bills_GH-5_qed-1.jpg 1999w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/20251105_High-electricity-bills_GH-5_qed-1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/20251105_High-electricity-bills_GH-5_qed-1-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/12/20251105_High-electricity-bills_GH-5_qed-1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1999px) 100vw, 1999px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kenya Brown views her house in Bay Point on Nov. 5, 2025. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Brown has tried cutting back on electricity use. She’s asked her kids to turn down the heat and turn off lights and TVs. She weatherized her home, taking advantage of a \u003ca href=\"https://www.csd.ca.gov/Pages/Residential-Energy-Efficiency.aspx\">free federal program\u003c/a> meant to reduce utility costs. She didn’t notice a difference in her bottom line, though.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s never been this high before,” Brown said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Brown’s son’s teacher got wind of the power disconnection in the family’s home. She set up a GoFundMe, which raised $3000 to restore electricity and gas, and pay past-due bills.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s electricity rates are the \u003ca href=\"https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4950#:~:text=Summary,customers%20pay%20can%20vary%20widely.\">second-highest\u003c/a> in the country after Hawaii, and a majority of Californians say the expense is a top \u003ca href=\"https://www.ppic.org/publication/californians-and-the-energy-transition/#:~:text=Californians%20are%20frustrated%20by%20energy%20affordability%20*,economy%20a%20great%20deal%20in%20the%20future.\">concern\u003c/a>. The burden is even higher for low-income families: according to the Public Policy Institute of California, low-income households pay a \u003ca href=\"https://www.ppic.org/blog/low-income-households-struggle-with-the-cost-of-electricity-bills/\">much larger\u003c/a> portion of their income on electricity bills compared to households earning more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Staff at 211 Bay Area, a United Way hotline that refers people to support for food, housing and more, said they fielded more than 6000 calls about utility assistance from January to October this year, compared to around 2000 over that same time period in 2020.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Utility assistance is in our top three most requested needs,” said Clare Margason, 211 Bay Area’s senior director.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>What’s in a bill?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>It’s no shocker that electricity is expensive in California, but what exactly are you paying for? Glancing at your bill will likely leave you more confused: there is a dizzying array of charges, credits, adjustments, taxes and more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>KQED took Brown’s bill to a group of experts to decode it, and in doing so found that her bill included a miscalculation: Brown qualifies for CARE, a program meant to help offset energy costs for low-income Californians, but she is only getting that discount on what she pays for gas, not electricity.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>PG&E told KQED in a statement that the company fixed the error and Brown will receive a credit on her next bill.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Brown did not think to question her bills, however, because each month she sees a CARE discount, and high utility bills seem to be the norm when she talks to family and friends.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are real barriers to seeking help for high utility bills, said Constance Slider Pierre, who oversees \u003ca href=\"https://url.us.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/w8rYCXDM32FGNgOxt6f5CWeNI8?domain=turn.org\">The Utility Reform Network\u003c/a>’s consumer hotline. Barriers include speaking limited English, confusion over how to read bills, and difficulty reaching customer service representatives, Slider Pierre said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For this story, KQED spoke to experts at UC Berkeley, UC Santa Barbara, the Natural Resources Defense Council, The Utility Reform Network and California’s largest utility, PG&E.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s worth pointing out that it takes multiple experts, maybe some PhDs, and a bunch of phone calls to understand one electricity bill in California,” Mohit Chhabra of the Natural Resources Defense Council said of the long list of experts KQED spoke to for this story. “If you want people to actually understand [their bills], simplifying the front end would be useful.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We looked at Brown’s bill to understand what she and others pay for and what those charges mean.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Brown spent $576.37 on electricity in September.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1999429\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/IMG_1271.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1999429\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/IMG_1271.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1920\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/IMG_1271.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/IMG_1271-2000x1500.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/IMG_1271-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/IMG_1271-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/IMG_1271-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/IMG_1271-2048x1536.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An illustration of Kenya Brown’s September 2025 energy bill. \u003ccite>(Anna Vignet/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Energy Generation. 25-45%, Brown paid $173.93\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is the cost of producing energy: from sources like natural gas, solar, wind, hydro and nuclear, and the upkeep of these power plants. Utilities generate some of their own energy, but buy the majority of it from third parties.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Brown’s case, her energy comes from MCE, a community power provider that serves some North and East Bay counties. Community choice aggregators like MCE first sprouted up in 2010 as an alternative to investor-owned utilities for buying or generating energy. MCE still relies on PG&E’s poles and wires, so Brown pays a portion of her bill to MCE for electricity generation, and another to PG&E to deliver that electricity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The cost of energy generation is similar, whether you’re enrolled in a community power provider or PG&E.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1999428\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/IMG_1275.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1999428\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/IMG_1275.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1920\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/IMG_1275.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/IMG_1275-2000x1500.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/IMG_1275-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/IMG_1275-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/IMG_1275-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/IMG_1275-2048x1536.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An illustration of Kenya Brown’s September 2025 energy bill. \u003ccite>(Anna Vignet/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Electric Delivery, Brown paid $402.44\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is the cost of moving energy from where it’s created at a power plant or a solar farm to your home. There are tons of aspects to this system, including transmission and distribution.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1999430\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/IMG_1270.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1999430\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/IMG_1270.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1920\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/IMG_1270.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/IMG_1270-2000x1500.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/IMG_1270-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/IMG_1270-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/IMG_1270-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/IMG_1270-2048x1536.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An illustration of Kenya Brown’s September 2025 energy bill. \u003ccite>(Anna Vignet/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>Transmission. \u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003cstrong>7-12%, Brown paid $50.03 \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The transmission system is like a superhighway for electrons. These are the huge towers and high voltage wires you see while driving along the actual highway.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>Distribution. \u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003cstrong>38-45%, Brown paid $292.63\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The distribution system is like all the roads on which you travel after you exit the highway: main thoroughfares, residential streets, even your driveway. These are the poles and wires that connect to your home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Maintaining both transmission and distribution systems means Californians pay utilities for a variety of work meant to prevent wildfires, like cutting trees along power lines, or covering or undergrounding wires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wildfire expenses more than doubled between 2023 and 2024, making up almost \u003ca href=\"http://publicadvocates.cpuc.ca.gov/-/media/cal-advocates-website/files/press-room/reports-and-analyses/240613-public-advocates-office-electric-ious-wildfire-cost-increases.pdf\">a quarter\u003c/a> of the total revenue PG&E collected from customers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wildfire costs include both paying for past disasters – rebuilding and paying claims to people harmed – and preparing the grid for future calamities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Severin Borenstein, a professor of energy and economics at UC Berkeley, said 30 years ago, customers would pay just a couple of cents a month for distribution in their electricity bill.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was basically putting up wires around neighborhoods and then maintaining them,” Borenstein said. “Now that [cost] is many, many times higher because almost all of the fires that have been started are distribution level fires.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Climate change has greatly increased the risks of out-of-control fires caused by falling trees or failing poles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re spending an enormous amount of money to avoid that risk,” Borenstein said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Public Purpose Programs. 5-6%, Brown paid $33.57\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This fee funds programs that help offset electricity costs for low-income Californians. For example, the CARE program provides at least a 20% discount on gas and electricity rates for those who qualify. It also includes energy efficiency programs, like the one Kenya Brown used to help weatherize her home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1999427\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/IMG_1272.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1999427\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/IMG_1272.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1920\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/IMG_1272.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/IMG_1272-2000x1500.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/IMG_1272-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/IMG_1272-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/IMG_1272-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/IMG_1272-2048x1536.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An illustration of Kenya Brown’s September 2025 energy bill. \u003ccite>(Anna Vignet/KQED )\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>How much money goes to PG&E shareholders? \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>PG&E said less than 1% of a typical residential bill is paid out to shareholders as dividends — cash payments the company gives to people who own PG&E stock.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For Kenya Brown’s $648.04 gas and electric bill, she paid under $6.48 to PG&E shareholders.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Your trash, or the place where it ends up, is also one of the most serious contributors to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/global-warming\">global warming\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After livestock, landfills are the second-largest source of methane emissions in California, responsible for more than 20% of the state’s output. That’s why the California Air Resources Board took action on Thursday to monitor and capture the landfill’s gases.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Methane is a potent greenhouse gas that is generated from the breakdown of waste. Even though it’s a short-lived climate pollutant compared to long-lasting carbon dioxide, it severely exacerbates human-caused climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/our-work/programs/landfill-methane-regulation\">new rules\u003c/a> will eventually require landfill operators to take action when a \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/news/californias-methane-satellite-helps-stop-10-large-leaks\">satellite\u003c/a> or airplane detects a methane leak, improve routine leak monitoring and reporting and mandate stronger action on recurring issues. The protections will add to a suite of regulations the state passed in 2010, which made California the first state to develop stricter standards than the federal government.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is another example of California’s leadership in reducing emissions and harmful climate-warming pollutants across all sources. With these updates, California will be able to more efficiently and effectively monitor methane sources to detect and remedy leaks quickly,” CARB Chair \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/about/leadership/lauren-sanchez\">Lauren Sanchez said \u003c/a>in a press release.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The board reported that the state’s methane satellite, which passes by four to five times a week, has helped stop 10 large leaks since May.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1999362\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1999362\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/230906-850-SINGLETON-RD-MD-09_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/230906-850-SINGLETON-RD-MD-09_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/230906-850-SINGLETON-RD-MD-09_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/230906-850-SINGLETON-RD-MD-09_qed-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/230906-850-SINGLETON-RD-MD-09_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The landfill at 850 Singleton Road in San José, California, on Sept. 6, 2023. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“We believe that many operators would be interested in adopting these technologies to reduce the need for costly labor, especially as the number of mature technologies increases over time,” said air resources engineer Quinn Langfitt, who introduced the regulator’s proposal at a public hearing on Thursday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The changes, which will impact 188 landfills in the state, are part of meeting the state’s goal to reduce methane emissions by 40% below 2013 levels by 2030.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Officials said the new rules could reduce landfill emissions by 427,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per year. They would create $34 million in social benefits and cost landfills around $12 million, with the largest bearing the brunt of the price tag.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A recent report backed up the agency’s findings: By 2050, landfill emissions could be reduced by more than half and up to 64% by the end of the century, according to \u003ca href=\"https://industriouslabs.org/archive/press-release-common-sense-standards-can-deliver-cleaner-air-cut-california-landfill-methane\">a March analysis\u003c/a> by Industrious Labs. The group noted that California landfills emit 7.2 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent of methane annually, which has “the same climate impact as driving 1.7 million cars for one year.”[aside postID=news_12061054 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/CHSugarCrockettGetty.jpg']But even though the board passed the new rules, they won’t go into effect immediately; staff will need to address a slew of clarifying questions raised by the public and board members during the hearing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CARB board member Diane Takvorian supported the rule but pushed for a public-facing dashboard to show when and where emissions plumes are detected.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People are asking for basic information,” Takvorian said, noting that technology is moving fast and that people need information now, not in years. She and others recommended an 18-month technology review after the rule goes into effect. They also suggested that the state and landfills share any data with the public as soon as possible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If we have the data, we should share it,” board member Hector De La Torre said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>John Kennedy, senior policy advocate for the Rural County Representatives of California, said he is “supportive of efforts to reduce emissions.” His group represents more than two-thirds of the landfills to which the standards would apply. Kennedy wants to ensure that the implementation is feasible for local governments “while protecting the communities that are close to those landfills.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A spokesperson from Waste Management, which does business as WM, representing facilities across the state, thanked staff for the updated plan, but said he hopes they will work with the industry on site-specific conditions, which of the new rules are “necessary and useful to diagnose conditions,” and a framework for using alternative monitoring technologies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1947347\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1925px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1947347\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/09/GettyImages-2154411-e1568322782842.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1925\" height=\"1258\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A worker watches as aluminum cans are emptied into a bailer at the Norcal Waste recycling facility on July 11, 2003, in San Francisco. \u003ccite>(Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Multiple residents from the Los Angeles community of Val Verde attended the meeting. They said they have suffered because of widespread noxious odors and hazardous gas emissions from the \u003ca href=\"https://calepa.ca.gov/chiquita-canyon-response/\">Chiquita Canyon Landfill\u003c/a> in recent years. Brandi Howse, who spoke during public comment, said she has lived about 1,000 feet from the landfill for 27 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Howse said she has experienced clouds of methane and other gases at her home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You become dizzy, disoriented, nauseous, you get headaches, burning sinuses and bloody noses,” Howse said. “We are left to be concerned with long-term effects. I know that myself and my neighbors to my left and my right have all had cancer.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Community members from the Kern County community of Avenal approached the podium to say that the landfill in their community is causing health concerns like cancer and people are leaving the town because of it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The smell is really bad,” said Leticia Luna, who moved to Avenal 15 years ago. “People are leaving our community because their homes are not safe, and when they leave, they find it difficult to sell because we live very close to the landfill.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While many groups applauded the new rule, \u003ca href=\"https://www.linkedin.com/in/jane-williams-36820528b/\">Jane Williams\u003c/a>, executive director of California Communities Against Toxics, said it is a “real first step,” and that CARB needs even stronger rules to prevent fires and large emission leaks at landfills.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/our-work/programs/landfill-methane-regulation\">new rules\u003c/a> will eventually require landfill operators to take action when a \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/news/californias-methane-satellite-helps-stop-10-large-leaks\">satellite\u003c/a> or airplane detects a methane leak, improve routine leak monitoring and reporting and mandate stronger action on recurring issues. The protections will add to a suite of regulations the state passed in 2010, which made California the first state to develop stricter standards than the federal government.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is another example of California’s leadership in reducing emissions and harmful climate-warming pollutants across all sources. With these updates, California will be able to more efficiently and effectively monitor methane sources to detect and remedy leaks quickly,” CARB Chair \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/about/leadership/lauren-sanchez\">Lauren Sanchez said \u003c/a>in a press release.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The board reported that the state’s methane satellite, which passes by four to five times a week, has helped stop 10 large leaks since May.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1999362\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1999362\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/230906-850-SINGLETON-RD-MD-09_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/230906-850-SINGLETON-RD-MD-09_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/230906-850-SINGLETON-RD-MD-09_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/230906-850-SINGLETON-RD-MD-09_qed-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/230906-850-SINGLETON-RD-MD-09_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The landfill at 850 Singleton Road in San José, California, on Sept. 6, 2023. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“We believe that many operators would be interested in adopting these technologies to reduce the need for costly labor, especially as the number of mature technologies increases over time,” said air resources engineer Quinn Langfitt, who introduced the regulator’s proposal at a public hearing on Thursday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The changes, which will impact 188 landfills in the state, are part of meeting the state’s goal to reduce methane emissions by 40% below 2013 levels by 2030.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Officials said the new rules could reduce landfill emissions by 427,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per year. They would create $34 million in social benefits and cost landfills around $12 million, with the largest bearing the brunt of the price tag.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A recent report backed up the agency’s findings: By 2050, landfill emissions could be reduced by more than half and up to 64% by the end of the century, according to \u003ca href=\"https://industriouslabs.org/archive/press-release-common-sense-standards-can-deliver-cleaner-air-cut-california-landfill-methane\">a March analysis\u003c/a> by Industrious Labs. The group noted that California landfills emit 7.2 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent of methane annually, which has “the same climate impact as driving 1.7 million cars for one year.”\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>But even though the board passed the new rules, they won’t go into effect immediately; staff will need to address a slew of clarifying questions raised by the public and board members during the hearing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CARB board member Diane Takvorian supported the rule but pushed for a public-facing dashboard to show when and where emissions plumes are detected.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People are asking for basic information,” Takvorian said, noting that technology is moving fast and that people need information now, not in years. She and others recommended an 18-month technology review after the rule goes into effect. They also suggested that the state and landfills share any data with the public as soon as possible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If we have the data, we should share it,” board member Hector De La Torre said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>John Kennedy, senior policy advocate for the Rural County Representatives of California, said he is “supportive of efforts to reduce emissions.” His group represents more than two-thirds of the landfills to which the standards would apply. Kennedy wants to ensure that the implementation is feasible for local governments “while protecting the communities that are close to those landfills.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A spokesperson from Waste Management, which does business as WM, representing facilities across the state, thanked staff for the updated plan, but said he hopes they will work with the industry on site-specific conditions, which of the new rules are “necessary and useful to diagnose conditions,” and a framework for using alternative monitoring technologies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1947347\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1925px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1947347\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/09/GettyImages-2154411-e1568322782842.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1925\" height=\"1258\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A worker watches as aluminum cans are emptied into a bailer at the Norcal Waste recycling facility on July 11, 2003, in San Francisco. \u003ccite>(Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Multiple residents from the Los Angeles community of Val Verde attended the meeting. They said they have suffered because of widespread noxious odors and hazardous gas emissions from the \u003ca href=\"https://calepa.ca.gov/chiquita-canyon-response/\">Chiquita Canyon Landfill\u003c/a> in recent years. Brandi Howse, who spoke during public comment, said she has lived about 1,000 feet from the landfill for 27 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Howse said she has experienced clouds of methane and other gases at her home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You become dizzy, disoriented, nauseous, you get headaches, burning sinuses and bloody noses,” Howse said. “We are left to be concerned with long-term effects. I know that myself and my neighbors to my left and my right have all had cancer.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Community members from the Kern County community of Avenal approached the podium to say that the landfill in their community is causing health concerns like cancer and people are leaving the town because of it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The smell is really bad,” said Leticia Luna, who moved to Avenal 15 years ago. “People are leaving our community because their homes are not safe, and when they leave, they find it difficult to sell because we live very close to the landfill.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While many groups applauded the new rule, \u003ca href=\"https://www.linkedin.com/in/jane-williams-36820528b/\">Jane Williams\u003c/a>, executive director of California Communities Against Toxics, said it is a “real first step,” and that CARB needs even stronger rules to prevent fires and large emission leaks at landfills.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"tagline": "Exploring the Bay Area, one question at a time",
"info": "KQED’s new podcast, Bay Curious, gets to the bottom of the mysteries — both profound and peculiar — that give the Bay Area its unique identity. And we’ll do it with your help! You ask the questions. You decide what Bay Curious investigates. And you join us on the journey to find the answers.",
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},
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"info": "KQED’s statewide radio news program providing daily coverage of issues, trends and public policy decisions.",
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"order": 8
},
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"airtime": "SUN 1pm-2pm, TUE 10pm, WED 1am",
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"source": "City Arts & Lectures"
},
"link": "https://www.cityarts.net",
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"order": 1
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"info": "\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em>, which listeners will hear in the first part of the hour, has fearless and much-needed conversations about race. Hosted by journalists of color, the show tackles the subject of race head-on, exploring how it impacts every part of society — from politics and pop culture to history, sports and more.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em>, which will be in the second part of the hour, guides you through spaces and feelings no one prepares you for — from finances to mental health, from workplace microaggressions to imposter syndrome, from relationships to parenting. The show features experts with real world experience and shares their knowledge. Because everyone needs a little help being human.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510312/codeswitch\">\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/lifekit\">\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />",
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"id": "commonwealth-club",
"title": "Commonwealth Club of California Podcast",
"info": "The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum. As a non-partisan forum, The Club brings to the public airwaves diverse viewpoints on important topics. The Club's weekly radio broadcast - the oldest in the U.S., dating back to 1924 - is carried across the nation on public radio stations and is now podcasting. Our website archive features audio of our recent programs, as well as selected speeches from our long and distinguished history. This podcast feed is usually updated twice a week and is always un-edited.",
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"source": "Commonwealth Club of California"
},
"link": "/radio/program/commonwealth-club",
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"info": "KQED’s live call-in program discussing local, state, national and international issues, as well as in-depth interviews.",
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"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Forum-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"order": 9
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"info": "A live production of NPR and WBUR Boston, in collaboration with stations across the country, Here & Now reflects the fluid world of news as it's happening in the middle of the day, with timely, in-depth news, interviews and conversation. Hosted by Robin Young, Jeremy Hobson and Tonya Mosley.",
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"hidden-brain": {
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"info": "Shankar Vedantam uses science and storytelling to reveal the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, shape our choices and direct our relationships.",
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"airtime": "SUN 7pm-8pm",
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"source": "NPR"
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"how-i-built-this": {
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"info": "Guy Raz dives into the stories behind some of the world's best known companies. How I Built This weaves a narrative journey about innovators, entrepreneurs and idealists—and the movements they built.",
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"airtime": "SUN 7:30pm-8pm",
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"hyphenacion": {
"id": "hyphenacion",
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"tagline": "Where conversation and cultura meet",
"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Hyphenacion_FinalAssets_PodcastTile.png",
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},
"jerrybrown": {
"id": "jerrybrown",
"title": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown",
"tagline": "Lessons from a lifetime in politics",
"info": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown brings listeners the wisdom of the former Governor, Mayor, and presidential candidate. Scott Shafer interviewed Brown for more than 40 hours, covering the former governor's life and half-century in the political game – and Brown has some lessons he'd like to share. ",
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"order": 18
},
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},
"latino-usa": {
"id": "latino-usa",
"title": "Latino USA",
"airtime": "MON 1am-2am, SUN 6pm-7pm",
"info": "Latino USA, the radio journal of news and culture, is the only national, English-language radio program produced from a Latino perspective.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/latinoUsa.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "http://latinousa.org/",
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},
"link": "/radio/program/latino-usa",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=79681317&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510016/podcast.xml"
}
},
"marketplace": {
"id": "marketplace",
"title": "Marketplace",
"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 4pm-4:30pm, MON-WED 6:30pm-7pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Marketplace-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.marketplace.org/",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "American Public Media"
},
"link": "/radio/program/marketplace",
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"rss": "https://feeds.publicradio.org/public_feeds/marketplace-pm/rss/rss"
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},
"masters-of-scale": {
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"title": "Masters of Scale",
"info": "Masters of Scale is an original podcast in which LinkedIn co-founder and Greylock Partner Reid Hoffman sets out to describe and prove theories that explain how great entrepreneurs take their companies from zero to a gazillion in ingenious fashion.",
"airtime": "Every other Wednesday June 12 through October 16 at 8pm (repeats Thursdays at 2am)",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "https://mastersofscale.com/",
"meta": {
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"source": "WaitWhat"
},
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"rss": "https://rss.art19.com/masters-of-scale"
}
},
"mindshift": {
"id": "mindshift",
"title": "MindShift",
"tagline": "A podcast about the future of learning and how we raise our kids",
"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Mindshift-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED MindShift: How We Will Learn",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/mindshift/",
"meta": {
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 12
},
"link": "/podcasts/mindshift",
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM1NzY0NjAwNDI5",
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"stitcher": "https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/kqed/stories-teachers-share",
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}
},
"morning-edition": {
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