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"title": "Meet the Students Who Got San Mateo County High Schools to Declare a Climate Emergency",
"headTitle": "Meet the Students Who Got San Mateo County High Schools to Declare a Climate Emergency | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>Frightened by a warming world, frustrated by inaction and armed with science, teenagers in San Mateo County have successfully convinced two of the county’s three high school districts to declare a climate emergency.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The students got district leadership to adopt language from their \u003ca href=\"https://docs.google.com/document/d/1giAwTCo3h1h3qN0V63zWgCm23-SzRRozJ7ebbCg8z8w/edit\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">template\u003c/span>\u003c/a>, which calls for firm commitments to implement climate action plans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Energized by \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1947584/live-blog-bay-area-climate-strike\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">youth-led climate movements around the Bay Area\u003c/span>\u003c/a>, the students, many of whom are part of the \u003ca href=\"https://cmo.smcgov.org/smcyc\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">San Mateo County Youth Commission\u003c/a>’s Environmental Justice Committee, spoke at school board sessions, met with superintendents, petitioned hundreds of students, and sat on districtwide sustainability committees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1974537\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1974537 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/05/RS48866_004_SanCarlos_KatinkaLennemann_04302021-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/05/RS48866_004_SanCarlos_KatinkaLennemann_04302021-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/05/RS48866_004_SanCarlos_KatinkaLennemann_04302021-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/05/RS48866_004_SanCarlos_KatinkaLennemann_04302021-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/05/RS48866_004_SanCarlos_KatinkaLennemann_04302021-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/05/RS48866_004_SanCarlos_KatinkaLennemann_04302021-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/05/RS48866_004_SanCarlos_KatinkaLennemann_04302021-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sequoia Union High School junior Katinka Lennemann at Highlands Park in San Carlos on April 30, 2021. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“Time is of the essence; the actions we do or do not take now and in the next few years will determine the intensity of climate change and its consequences for generations to come,” one of the declarations begins.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The document goes on to call for an evaluation of all district operations; a commitment to create best practices for powering buildings with clean energy; the identification of areas within the curriculum to discuss climate change; and providing students with workforce training in green jobs.\u003cspan class=\"Apple-converted-space\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last week, the governing board of the Sequoia Union High School District voted 5-0 to adopt a version of the declaration and call on other school boards “to adopt strong efforts to reduce greenhouse emissions.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“My group and I are thrilled and thankful that the SUHSD board passed this resolution unanimously,” said Katinka Lennemann, 16, who led the campaign. “It’s important that schools follow this trend of increasing climate action, because every single aspect of our society needs to turn toward more sustainable practices as an overall way to combat climate change.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Atiya Shah, a senior at San Mateo High School and chair of the youth commission’s Environmental Justice Committee, lives in Foster City, where residents in 2018 \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1924576/measure-p-foster-citys-90-million-tax-to-defend-against-rising-seas\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">voted\u003c/span>\u003c/a> to tax themselves in order to reengineer an eight-mile earthen wall, the only thing standing between them and San Francisco Bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Shah says she was motivated by the threat. “This is how climate change is showing up in my life. Time is of the essence,” she said. “If we don’t take action now, things are moving at such a fast rate that it’s really going to affect our future. And people don’t recognize that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Shah and her group workshopped their emergency declaration with officials in the San Mateo Union High School District, and the district’s Board of Trustees \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qY-SNlD8tE\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">approved it\u003c/span>\u003c/a> April 1.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1974539\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1974539 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/05/RS48879_008_SanMateo_AtiyaAngleenShah_04302021-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/05/RS48879_008_SanMateo_AtiyaAngleenShah_04302021-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/05/RS48879_008_SanMateo_AtiyaAngleenShah_04302021-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/05/RS48879_008_SanMateo_AtiyaAngleenShah_04302021-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/05/RS48879_008_SanMateo_AtiyaAngleenShah_04302021-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/05/RS48879_008_SanMateo_AtiyaAngleenShah_04302021-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/05/RS48879_008_SanMateo_AtiyaAngleenShah_04302021-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">High school senior Atiya Shah at Laurelwood Park in San Mateo on April 30, 2021. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://www.smuhsd.org/cms/lib/CA02206192/Centricity/Domain/55/4-1-21%20Board%20Mtg%20Presentation%20J_2_DeclarationOfClimateEmergencyPresentation_0.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">declaration\u003c/span>\u003c/a> states that the district will require “immediate and effective action from all district operations,” and it commits to passing an action plan addressing 10 areas impacting the climate, including green buildings and grounds, operations and transportation, air quality and direct greenhouse gas measurements, and clean energy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The effort has received “a lot of support,” Shah said.\u003cbr>\nIn a message sent to families announcing the declaration, district Superintendent Kevin Skelly wrote: “More needs to be done — the science is clear — we are heating up our world to unsustainable levels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our teaching and family responsibilities are immense,” he continued. “We may not live to see climate change reversed, but we must surely add to our list of endless duties an effort to transmit the knowledge, skills, and values that will give those young people we serve the chance to do so. On we go, dedicating ourselves to environmental stewardship.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The third high school district, Jefferson Union, has yet to sign on. Shah says the committee reached out to the district but has yet to hear back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Superintendent Toni Presta said administrative officials have yet to receive a draft of the declaration and do not yet have an official position on the issue but “\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">are definitely open to considering passing the resolution.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">\u003cb>‘Most Exposed Throughout Their Lives’\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The students crafted the declaration in partnership with an environmental literacy \u003ca href=\"https://www.smcoe.org/for-communities/initiatives/environmental-literacy.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">initiative\u003c/span>\u003c/a> at San Mateo County’s Office of Education. This is not the first time the youth commission has engaged in climate politics. Several years ago, it wrote letters encouraging the county’s board of supervisors to support sea level rise legislation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The commission “takes a unique interest in the effects that sea level rise will have on San Mateo County’s youngest residents,” the group wrote in a letter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The students, which included Vikram Seshadri, a junior at Menlo School in Atherton and Eeshan Bhat, now in engineering classes at UC Berkeley, noted that a county vulnerability assessment identified several dozen schools that could be impacted by flooding, most of which are located disproportionately in poorer communities of color.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Youth represent the demographic, which will be most exposed throughout their lives to the mounting issues created by sea level rise,” the group wrote. “Tackling these problems in the present and creating opportunities for youth to be involved in that process are important steps towards preparing for the future.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Maram Ahmed, a junior at Mills High School and a co-vice chair of the Environmental Justice Committee, says she has asthma that’s been exacerbated by recent wildfires. “It keeps getting worse and worse,” she said. “There are so many things that I used to be able to do that I can’t anymore.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lilian Chang, a high school senior and current co-vice chair of the Youth Commission, has also been motivated by “the very visible wildfires and their effects.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She hopes the commission can start a conversation and create accountability for schools, ensuring they achieve their climate goals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’ve worked with the county, we worked with school districts,” she said. “It is important that we just have a united front in fighting climate change. We’re starting to get prepared for those consequences, and this is how we’re going to get through it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“All of us are really proud of this work,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Frightened by a warming world, frustrated by inaction and armed with science, teenagers in San Mateo County have successfully convinced two of the county’s three high school districts to declare a climate emergency.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The students got district leadership to adopt language from their \u003ca href=\"https://docs.google.com/document/d/1giAwTCo3h1h3qN0V63zWgCm23-SzRRozJ7ebbCg8z8w/edit\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">template\u003c/span>\u003c/a>, which calls for firm commitments to implement climate action plans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Energized by \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1947584/live-blog-bay-area-climate-strike\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">youth-led climate movements around the Bay Area\u003c/span>\u003c/a>, the students, many of whom are part of the \u003ca href=\"https://cmo.smcgov.org/smcyc\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">San Mateo County Youth Commission\u003c/a>’s Environmental Justice Committee, spoke at school board sessions, met with superintendents, petitioned hundreds of students, and sat on districtwide sustainability committees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1974537\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1974537 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/05/RS48866_004_SanCarlos_KatinkaLennemann_04302021-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/05/RS48866_004_SanCarlos_KatinkaLennemann_04302021-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/05/RS48866_004_SanCarlos_KatinkaLennemann_04302021-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/05/RS48866_004_SanCarlos_KatinkaLennemann_04302021-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/05/RS48866_004_SanCarlos_KatinkaLennemann_04302021-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/05/RS48866_004_SanCarlos_KatinkaLennemann_04302021-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/05/RS48866_004_SanCarlos_KatinkaLennemann_04302021-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sequoia Union High School junior Katinka Lennemann at Highlands Park in San Carlos on April 30, 2021. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“Time is of the essence; the actions we do or do not take now and in the next few years will determine the intensity of climate change and its consequences for generations to come,” one of the declarations begins.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The document goes on to call for an evaluation of all district operations; a commitment to create best practices for powering buildings with clean energy; the identification of areas within the curriculum to discuss climate change; and providing students with workforce training in green jobs.\u003cspan class=\"Apple-converted-space\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last week, the governing board of the Sequoia Union High School District voted 5-0 to adopt a version of the declaration and call on other school boards “to adopt strong efforts to reduce greenhouse emissions.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“My group and I are thrilled and thankful that the SUHSD board passed this resolution unanimously,” said Katinka Lennemann, 16, who led the campaign. “It’s important that schools follow this trend of increasing climate action, because every single aspect of our society needs to turn toward more sustainable practices as an overall way to combat climate change.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Atiya Shah, a senior at San Mateo High School and chair of the youth commission’s Environmental Justice Committee, lives in Foster City, where residents in 2018 \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1924576/measure-p-foster-citys-90-million-tax-to-defend-against-rising-seas\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">voted\u003c/span>\u003c/a> to tax themselves in order to reengineer an eight-mile earthen wall, the only thing standing between them and San Francisco Bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Shah says she was motivated by the threat. “This is how climate change is showing up in my life. Time is of the essence,” she said. “If we don’t take action now, things are moving at such a fast rate that it’s really going to affect our future. And people don’t recognize that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Shah and her group workshopped their emergency declaration with officials in the San Mateo Union High School District, and the district’s Board of Trustees \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qY-SNlD8tE\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">approved it\u003c/span>\u003c/a> April 1.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1974539\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1974539 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/05/RS48879_008_SanMateo_AtiyaAngleenShah_04302021-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/05/RS48879_008_SanMateo_AtiyaAngleenShah_04302021-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/05/RS48879_008_SanMateo_AtiyaAngleenShah_04302021-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/05/RS48879_008_SanMateo_AtiyaAngleenShah_04302021-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/05/RS48879_008_SanMateo_AtiyaAngleenShah_04302021-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/05/RS48879_008_SanMateo_AtiyaAngleenShah_04302021-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/05/RS48879_008_SanMateo_AtiyaAngleenShah_04302021-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">High school senior Atiya Shah at Laurelwood Park in San Mateo on April 30, 2021. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://www.smuhsd.org/cms/lib/CA02206192/Centricity/Domain/55/4-1-21%20Board%20Mtg%20Presentation%20J_2_DeclarationOfClimateEmergencyPresentation_0.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">declaration\u003c/span>\u003c/a> states that the district will require “immediate and effective action from all district operations,” and it commits to passing an action plan addressing 10 areas impacting the climate, including green buildings and grounds, operations and transportation, air quality and direct greenhouse gas measurements, and clean energy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The effort has received “a lot of support,” Shah said.\u003cbr>\nIn a message sent to families announcing the declaration, district Superintendent Kevin Skelly wrote: “More needs to be done — the science is clear — we are heating up our world to unsustainable levels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our teaching and family responsibilities are immense,” he continued. “We may not live to see climate change reversed, but we must surely add to our list of endless duties an effort to transmit the knowledge, skills, and values that will give those young people we serve the chance to do so. On we go, dedicating ourselves to environmental stewardship.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The third high school district, Jefferson Union, has yet to sign on. Shah says the committee reached out to the district but has yet to hear back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Superintendent Toni Presta said administrative officials have yet to receive a draft of the declaration and do not yet have an official position on the issue but “\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">are definitely open to considering passing the resolution.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">\u003cb>‘Most Exposed Throughout Their Lives’\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The students crafted the declaration in partnership with an environmental literacy \u003ca href=\"https://www.smcoe.org/for-communities/initiatives/environmental-literacy.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">initiative\u003c/span>\u003c/a> at San Mateo County’s Office of Education. This is not the first time the youth commission has engaged in climate politics. Several years ago, it wrote letters encouraging the county’s board of supervisors to support sea level rise legislation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The commission “takes a unique interest in the effects that sea level rise will have on San Mateo County’s youngest residents,” the group wrote in a letter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The students, which included Vikram Seshadri, a junior at Menlo School in Atherton and Eeshan Bhat, now in engineering classes at UC Berkeley, noted that a county vulnerability assessment identified several dozen schools that could be impacted by flooding, most of which are located disproportionately in poorer communities of color.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Youth represent the demographic, which will be most exposed throughout their lives to the mounting issues created by sea level rise,” the group wrote. “Tackling these problems in the present and creating opportunities for youth to be involved in that process are important steps towards preparing for the future.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Maram Ahmed, a junior at Mills High School and a co-vice chair of the Environmental Justice Committee, says she has asthma that’s been exacerbated by recent wildfires. “It keeps getting worse and worse,” she said. “There are so many things that I used to be able to do that I can’t anymore.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lilian Chang, a high school senior and current co-vice chair of the Youth Commission, has also been motivated by “the very visible wildfires and their effects.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She hopes the commission can start a conversation and create accountability for schools, ensuring they achieve their climate goals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’ve worked with the county, we worked with school districts,” she said. “It is important that we just have a united front in fighting climate change. We’re starting to get prepared for those consequences, and this is how we’re going to get through it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“All of us are really proud of this work,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "Where Has It Gotten Warmer in the US? Just About Everywhere",
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"content": "\u003cp>America’s new normal temperature is a degree hotter than it was just two decades ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scientists have long talked about climate change — hotter temperatures, changes in rain and snowfall and more extreme weather — being the “new normal.” Data released Tuesday by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration put hard figures on the cliche.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new United States normal is not just hotter, but wetter in the eastern and central parts of the nation and considerably drier in the West than just a decade earlier.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meteorologists calculate \u003ca class=\"\" href=\"https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/products/us-climate-normals\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">climate normals\u003c/a> based on 30 years of data to limit the random swings of daily weather. It’s a standard set by the World Meteorological Organization. Every 10 years, NOAA \u003ca class=\"\" href=\"https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/briefings/20210420.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">updates normal \u003c/a>for the country as a whole, states and cities — by year, month and season.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For the entire nation, the yearly normal temperature is now 53.3 degrees (11.8 degrees Celsius) based on weather station data from 1991 to 2020, nearly half a degree warmer than a decade ago. Twenty years ago, normal was 52.3 degrees (11.3 degrees Celsius) based on data from 1971 to 2000. The average U.S. temperature for the 20th century was 52 degrees (11.1 degrees Celsius).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://twitter.com/borenbears/status/1389624718655991812?s=20\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new normal annual U.S. temperature is 1.7 degrees (0.9 Celsius) hotter than the first normal calculated for 1901 to 1930.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Almost every place in the U.S. has warmed from the 1981 to 2010 normal to the 1991 to 2020 normal,” said Michael Palecki, NOAA’s normals project manager.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fargo, North Dakota, where the new normal is a tenth of a degree cooler than the old one, is an exception, but more than 90% of the U.S. has warmer normal temperatures now than 10 years ago, Palecki said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Chicago and Asheville, North Carolina, the new yearly normal temperature jumped 1.5 degrees in a decade. Seattle, Atlanta, Boston and Phoenix had their normal annual temperature rise by at least half a degree in the last decade.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Charlottesville, Virginia, saw the biggest jump in normal temperatures among 739 major weather stations. Other large changes were in California, Texas, Virginia, Indiana, Arizona, Oregon, Arkansas, Maryland, Florida, North Carolina and Alaska.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>New normals are warmer because the burning of fossil fuels is making \u003ca class=\"\" href=\"https://apnews.com/article/2020-global-temperature-record-b4f5556cbdb2b0b4de6c86d52642db4e\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">the last decade\u003c/a> “a much hotter time period for much of the globe than the decades” before, said Cornell University climate scientist Natalie Mahowald.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For Phoenix, the biggest change in normal came in precipitation. The normal annual rainfall for Phoenix dropped 10% down to 7.2 inches (18.2 centimeters). Rainfall in Los Angeles dropped 4.6%.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the same time, Asheville saw a nearly 9% increase in rainfall, while New York City’s rainfall rose 6%. Seattle’s normal is 5% wetter than it used to be.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Climate scientists are split about how useful or misleading newly calculated normals are.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mahowald and University of Oklahoma meteorology professor Jason Furtado said updating normal calculations helps city and regional planners to prepare for flooding and drought, farmers to decide what and when to plant, energy companies to meet changing demands and doctors to tackle public health issues arising from climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Pennsylvania State University climate scientist Michael Mann said he prefers a constant baseline such as 1951 to 1980, which is what NASA uses. Adjusting normal every 10 years “perverts the meaning of ‘normal’ and ‘normalizes’ away climate change,” he said in an email.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>North Carolina’s state climatologist Kathie Dello said, “It seems odd to still call them normals because 1991-2020 was anything but normal climate-wise.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>America’s new normal temperature is a degree hotter than it was just two decades ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scientists have long talked about climate change — hotter temperatures, changes in rain and snowfall and more extreme weather — being the “new normal.” Data released Tuesday by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration put hard figures on the cliche.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new United States normal is not just hotter, but wetter in the eastern and central parts of the nation and considerably drier in the West than just a decade earlier.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meteorologists calculate \u003ca class=\"\" href=\"https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/products/us-climate-normals\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">climate normals\u003c/a> based on 30 years of data to limit the random swings of daily weather. It’s a standard set by the World Meteorological Organization. Every 10 years, NOAA \u003ca class=\"\" href=\"https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/briefings/20210420.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">updates normal \u003c/a>for the country as a whole, states and cities — by year, month and season.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For the entire nation, the yearly normal temperature is now 53.3 degrees (11.8 degrees Celsius) based on weather station data from 1991 to 2020, nearly half a degree warmer than a decade ago. Twenty years ago, normal was 52.3 degrees (11.3 degrees Celsius) based on data from 1971 to 2000. The average U.S. temperature for the 20th century was 52 degrees (11.1 degrees Celsius).\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\n\u003cp>The new normal annual U.S. temperature is 1.7 degrees (0.9 Celsius) hotter than the first normal calculated for 1901 to 1930.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Almost every place in the U.S. has warmed from the 1981 to 2010 normal to the 1991 to 2020 normal,” said Michael Palecki, NOAA’s normals project manager.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fargo, North Dakota, where the new normal is a tenth of a degree cooler than the old one, is an exception, but more than 90% of the U.S. has warmer normal temperatures now than 10 years ago, Palecki said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Chicago and Asheville, North Carolina, the new yearly normal temperature jumped 1.5 degrees in a decade. Seattle, Atlanta, Boston and Phoenix had their normal annual temperature rise by at least half a degree in the last decade.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Charlottesville, Virginia, saw the biggest jump in normal temperatures among 739 major weather stations. Other large changes were in California, Texas, Virginia, Indiana, Arizona, Oregon, Arkansas, Maryland, Florida, North Carolina and Alaska.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>New normals are warmer because the burning of fossil fuels is making \u003ca class=\"\" href=\"https://apnews.com/article/2020-global-temperature-record-b4f5556cbdb2b0b4de6c86d52642db4e\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">the last decade\u003c/a> “a much hotter time period for much of the globe than the decades” before, said Cornell University climate scientist Natalie Mahowald.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For Phoenix, the biggest change in normal came in precipitation. The normal annual rainfall for Phoenix dropped 10% down to 7.2 inches (18.2 centimeters). Rainfall in Los Angeles dropped 4.6%.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the same time, Asheville saw a nearly 9% increase in rainfall, while New York City’s rainfall rose 6%. Seattle’s normal is 5% wetter than it used to be.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Climate scientists are split about how useful or misleading newly calculated normals are.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mahowald and University of Oklahoma meteorology professor Jason Furtado said updating normal calculations helps city and regional planners to prepare for flooding and drought, farmers to decide what and when to plant, energy companies to meet changing demands and doctors to tackle public health issues arising from climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Pennsylvania State University climate scientist Michael Mann said he prefers a constant baseline such as 1951 to 1980, which is what NASA uses. Adjusting normal every 10 years “perverts the meaning of ‘normal’ and ‘normalizes’ away climate change,” he said in an email.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>North Carolina’s state climatologist Kathie Dello said, “It seems odd to still call them normals because 1991-2020 was anything but normal climate-wise.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "California's Forest Climate Program Could Actually Be Increasing CO2",
"headTitle": "California’s Forest Climate Program Could Actually Be Increasing CO2 | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for \u003ca href=\"https://www.propublica.org/newsletters/the-big-story?source=reprint&placement=top-note\">The Big Story newsletter\u003c/a> to receive stories like this one in your inbox\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv>\n\u003cp>Along the coast of Northern California near the Oregon border, the cool, moist air off the Pacific sustains a strip of temperate rainforests. Soaring redwoods and Douglas firs dominate these thick, wet woodlands, creating a canopy hundreds of feet high.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But if you travel inland the mix of trees gradually shifts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote]New research shows that California’s climate policy created up to 39 million carbon credits that aren’t achieving real carbon savings.[/pullquote]Beyond the crest of the Klamath Mountains, you descend into an evergreen medley of sugar pines, incense cedars and still more Douglas firs. As you continue into the Cascade Range, you pass through sparser forests dominated by Ponderosa pines. These tall, slender trees with prickly cones thrive in the hotter, drier conditions on the eastern side of the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All trees consume carbon dioxide, releasing the oxygen and storing the carbon in their trunks, branches and roots. Every ton of carbon sequestered in a living tree is a ton that isn’t contributing to climate change. And that thick coastal forest can easily store twice as much carbon per acre as the trees deeper inland.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This math is crucial to determining the success of California’s forest offset program, which seeks to reduce carbon emissions by preserving trees. The state established the program a decade ago as part of its efforts to combat climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But ecology is messy. The boundaries between forest types are nebulous, and the actual amount of carbon on any given acre depends on local climate conditions, conservation efforts, logging history and more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s top climate regulator, the Air Resources Board, glossed over much of this complexity in implementing the state’s program. The agency established fixed boundaries around giant regions, boiling down the carbon stored in a wide mix of tree species into simplified, regional averages.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That decision has generated tens of millions of carbon credits with dubious climate value, according to \u003ca href=\"https://carbonplan.org/research/forest-offsets-explainer\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">a new analysis\u003c/a> by CarbonPlan, a San Francisco nonprofit that analyzes the scientific integrity of carbon removal efforts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The offset program allows forest owners across the country to earn credits for taking care of their land in ways that store or absorb more carbon, such as reducing logging or thinning out smaller trees and brush to allow for increased overall growth. Each credit represents one metric ton of CO2. Landowners can sell the credits to major polluters in California, typically oil companies and other businesses that want to emit more carbon than otherwise allowed under state law. Each extra ton of carbon emitted by industry is balanced out by an extra ton stored in the forest, allowing net emissions to stay within a cap set by the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As of last fall, the program had produced some six dozen projects that had generated more than 130 million credits, worth $1.8 billion at recent prices.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While calculating the exact amount of carbon saved by preserving forests is complicated, California’s logic for awarding credits is relatively straightforward.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Air Resources Board establishes the average amount of carbon per acre stored in a few forest types spanning large regions of the United States. If you own land that contains more carbon than the regional average, based on a survey of trees on your site, you can get credits for the difference. For example, if your land holds the equivalent of 100 tons of CO2 per acre, and the regional average is 40 tons, you can earn credits for saving 60 tons per acre. (This story will refer to each ton of CO2-equivalent as a ton of “carbon.”) You must also commit to maintaining your forest’s high carbon storage for the next 100 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These regional averages are meant to represent carbon levels in typical private forests. But the averages are determined from such large areas and such diverse forest types that they can differ dramatically from the carbon stored on lands selected for projects.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Project forests that significantly exceed these averages are frequently earning far more credits than the actual carbon benefits they deliver, CarbonPlan found.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This design also incentivizes the developers who initiate and lead these projects to specifically look for forest tracts where carbon levels stand out above these averages — either due to the site’s location within a region, its combination of tree species, or both.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CarbonPlan estimates the state’s program has generated between 20 million and 39 million credits that don’t achieve real climate benefits. They are, in effect, ghost credits that didn’t preserve additional carbon in forests but did allow polluters to emit far more CO2, equal to the annual emissions of 8.5 million cars at the high end.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those ghost credits represent nearly 1 in 3 credits issued through California’s primary forest offset program, highlighting systemic flaws in the rules and suggesting widespread gaming of the market.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our work shows that California’s forest offsets program increases greenhouse gas emissions, despite being a large part of the state’s strategy for reducing climate pollution,” said Danny Cullenward, the policy director at CarbonPlan. “The program creates the false appearance of progress when in fact it makes the climate problem worse.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Air Resources Board defended the program and disputed the central thesis of the study.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We disagree with your statement that landowners or project developers are gaming the system or that there are inflated estimates” of greenhouse gas reductions, Dave Clegern, a spokesperson for the Air Resources Board, said in an email. Each version of the offset rules “went through our robust public regulatory review process,” with input from the forestry industry, academia, government agencies and nonprofits, he added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s forest offset program is the largest in the country that is government regulated. Other forest offset programs are voluntary, allowing businesses or individuals to purchase credits to shrink their environmental footprint.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CarbonPlan’s study comes days after the \u003ca href=\"https://grist.org/economics/after-a-decade-of-failures-washington-state-passes-a-cap-on-carbon-emissions/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Washington\u003c/a> state legislature moved a cap-and-trade bill with an offset program to the governor’s desk for approval. \u003ca href=\"https://www.oregon.gov/gov/Pages/carbonpolicy_climatechange.aspx\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Oregon\u003c/a> has also debated in recent months establishing a carbon market program that would emulate California’s policy. In Washington, D.C., the Biden administration has \u003ca href=\"https://joebiden.com/clean-energy/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">signaled growing interest\u003c/a> in harnessing forests and soil to draw down CO2. Businesses, too, increasingly plan to rely heavily on trees to offset their emissions in lieu of the harder task of cutting corporate pollution.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Forest offsets have been criticized for a variety of problems, including the risks that the \u003ca href=\"https://grist.org/climate/this-oregon-forest-was-supposed-to-store-carbon-for-100-years-now-its-on-fire/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">carbon reductions will be short-lived\u003c/a>, that carbon savings will be wiped out \u003ca href=\"https://www.technologyreview.com/2019/04/18/65883/californias-cap-and-trade-program-may-vastly-overestimate-emissions-cuts/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">by increased logging elsewhere\u003c/a>, and that the projects are preserving forests \u003ca href=\"https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2020-nature-conservancy-carbon-offsets-trees/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">never in jeopardy of being chopped down\u003c/a>, producing credits that don’t reflect real-world changes in carbon levels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But CarbonPlan’s analysis highlights a different issue, one interlinked with these other problems. Even if everything else about a project were perfect, developers would still be able to undermine the program by exploiting regional averages.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Every time a polluter uses a credit that didn’t actually save a ton of carbon, the total amount of emissions goes up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Far from addressing climate change, California’s forest offsets appear to be adding tens of millions of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere on balance, undermining progress on the state’s long-term emissions goals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When you strip away all the jargon, you’re left with a faulty set of assumptions that leave the door wide open to issuing meaningless offset credits,” said Grayson Badgley, a postdoctoral fellow at Black Rock Forest and Columbia University, and the lead researcher on the study.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Cherry-Picking\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CarbonPlan provided ProPublica and MIT Technology Review full and exclusive access to their analysis as it was being finalized. As part of that process, the news organizations sent the report to independent experts for review. The organizations also interviewed landowners, industry players and scientists and reviewed hundreds of pages of documents, including the project plans submitted by developers. CarbonPlan collaborated on the study with academic experts from the UC Berkeley, Columbia University and other institutions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The study itself wasn’t designed to assess whether developers or landowners are intentionally cherry-picking sites that stand out from regional averages, stating only that the system “allows for” developers to select such land. But the researchers themselves say that the level of excess crediting and the clustering of projects in certain areas suggest that industry players have gamed the system.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One form of cherry-picking identified by the researchers involves geographic boundaries. In the case of Northern California, the state’s offset program established a dividing line that separates that coastal strip of redwoods and Douglas firs from an inland region that spans more than 28,000 square miles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The board’s rules state that tall mixed-conifer forests in the coastal region store an average of 205 tons of carbon per acre. For the neighboring inland region, the agency set the corresponding regional average at 122 tons per acre. The figure is lower because it includes more trees with less carbon, such as Ponderosa pines, which dominate the eastern end of the inland region and are all but absent on the coast.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But where the two regions meet, the forest on either side is virtually identical in many places, storing similar amounts of carbon. That means a project developer can earn far more money by choosing a site just east of the border, simply because they can compare the carbon in their forest against a lower regional average. For instance, maintaining a 10,000-acre forest of coastal redwoods and Douglas firs with carbon levels of 200 tons per acre could earn zero credits west of the line, or 624,000 credits east of it. The choice is between no money and more than $8 million.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To claim the most credits possible, for the full difference between the carbon on their land and the regional averages, developers or landowners must show that it’s legally and financially feasible to log down to those regional averages. The averages are effectively a stand-in for the way that similar forests are typically managed in an area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A dozen projects are located in Northern California, almost entirely lined up along the western edge of the inland zone where the carbon-rich trees are juxtaposed against the lower regional average.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What we’re seeing is developers are taking advantage of the fact that the big stuff and the scrubby stuff have been averaged together,” Badgley said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Once an offset project developer and landowner decide to work together, the developer will generally shepherd them through the process in exchange for a fee or share of the sales of the credits generated — an arrangement that can be worth millions of dollars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the most prolific project developers in the California system is an Australia-based timberlands investment company called New Forests. The company and its affiliates have worked on eight projects located almost entirely along the advantageous side of the border, as well as six elsewhere. CarbonPlan, in a separate analysis done for the news organizations that wasn’t included in the study, found that nearly all earned dubious credits, adding up to as much as $176 million worth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A large share of those credits came from a single project outside California that profited from a glaring mistake in the rules. New Forests’ affiliate, Forest Carbon Partners, helped the Mescalero Apache Tribe develop a forest offset project in New Mexico. The project earned 3.7 million credits worth more than $50 million, largely because it was located in an area where the Air Resources Board had set an erroneously low regional average.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another form of cherry-picking involves tree species: Developers can seek out tracts with particular trees that store far more carbon than the surrounding region.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to the study, one project in Alaska consists almost entirely of giant Sitka spruces, yet the local regional average was calculated from a wide mix of trees, including species like cottonwoods that store far less carbon. The project earned significantly more credits than it should have due to the flaws in the system, the study said. The project owner didn’t return requests for comment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Preserving especially carbon-rich forests is good for the climate, in and of itself. But when the trees in the project area bear little resemblance to the types of trees that went into calculating the regional average, it exaggerates the number of credits at stake, CarbonPlan’s study found.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mark Trexler, a former offsets developer who worked in earlier U.S. and European carbon markets, said the board should have anticipated the perverse incentives created by its program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When people write offset rules, they always ignore the fact that there are 1,000 smart people next door that will try to game them,” he said. Since the board set up a system that “incentivizes people to find the areas that are high-density, or high-carbon, that’s what they’re going to do.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To estimate the extent of overcrediting in California’s program, CarbonPlan calculated its own version of regional averages for each project. The researchers drew on the same raw data used by the Air Resources Board, but only used data from tree species that more closely resemble the particular mix of trees in each project area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In total, 74 such projects had been established as of September 2020, when CarbonPlan began its research. CarbonPlan was able to study 65 projects that had enough documentation to make analysis possible. All received credits for holding more carbon than the regional average.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The researchers found that the vast majority of projects were over-credited, but about a dozen would have received more credits under CarbonPlan’s formula. Those included two New Forests projects, which would have earned as much as an additional 165,000 credits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The news organizations sent officials at the Air Resources Board a copy of the study and its detailed methodology weeks before publication. Clegern declined multiple requests to interview board staff and responded only in writing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He did not address CarbonPlan’s calculations. “We were not given sufficient time to fully analyze an unpublished study and are not commenting further on the authors’ alternative methodology,” he wrote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The outside scientists who reviewed the research on behalf of ProPublica and MIT Technology Review praised the study.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s a really analytically robust paper and it answers a really important policy question,” said Daniel Sanchez, who runs the Carbon Removal Laboratory at UC Berkeley. While close observers are well aware of numerous problems with California’s forest offset rules, “they’re revealing a deeper set of serious methodological flaws,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>None of the reviewers pointed out any major technical or conceptual flaws with the paper, which has been submitted to a journal for peer review.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>‘A Significant New Commodity Market’\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In early 2015, an offsets nonprofit \u003ca href=\"https://vimeo.com/118731835\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">hosted a webinar\u003c/a> highlighting how Native American tribes could participate in California’s program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One speaker was Brian Shillinglaw, a Stanford-trained lawyer and managing director at New Forests who \u003ca href=\"https://newforests.com.au/member/brian-shillinglaw/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">oversees\u003c/a> the company’s U.S. forestry programs. The company manages the sale of carbon credits, \u003ca href=\"https://newforests.com.au/timber-products/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">sells timber\u003c/a> and on behalf of investors manages \u003ca href=\"https://newforests.com.au/new-forests-announces-conversion-of-1-3-billion-australian-forestry-fund-to-long-term-mandate/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">more than 2 million\u003c/a> acres of forests globally, a portfolio it values at more than $4 billion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>New Forests also manages its affiliate, \u003ca href=\"https://newforests.com.au/forests-carbon-partners/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Forest Carbon Partners\u003c/a>, on behalf of an institutional investment client it declined to name. Forest Carbon Partners finances offset projects and \u003ca href=\"https://newforests.com.au/forests-carbon-partners/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">shepherds landowners\u003c/a> through the process of applying for California’s offset program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The bottom line is the California carbon market has really created a significant new commodity market,” Shillinglaw said during his presentation. He said the program is something “many Native American tribes are very well situated to benefit from, in part due to past conservative stewardship of their forests, which can lead to significant credit yield in the near term.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Translation: Because many tribes have logged less aggressively than their neighbors, their carbon-rich forests were primed for big payouts of credits. Under Shillinglaw, New Forests or Forest Carbon Partners have helped to secure tens of millions of dollars’ worth of credits for native tribes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Among the 13 New Forests projects that CarbonPlan researchers were able to analyze, between 33% and 71% of the credits don’t represent real carbon reductions. That’s nearly 13 million credits at the high end.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Although we cannot prove that New Forests acted deliberately on the basis of our statistical analysis, in our judgment there is no reasonable explanation for these outcomes other than that New Forests knowingly engaged in cherry-picking behavior to take advantage of ecological shortcomings in the forest offset protocol,” said Badgley, the lead researcher.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>New Forests managed the first official project in California’s program, registering 7,660 acres of forest land on or near the Yurok Reservation, which runs more than 40 miles along the Klamath River near the top of that West Coast cluster of projects. The state issued more than 700,000 credits to the project for its first year, worth $9.6 million at recent rates.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>State officials have pointed to the tribe’s participation as a triumph of the program. In 2014, the board released \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbjmbqTdXN0&feature=youtu.be\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">a promotional video\u003c/a> that showed the meticulous work of measuring trees in the Yurok project. James Erler, the tribe’s then-forestry director, explained how offsets enabled the tribe to reduce logging. Near the end of the video, Shillinglaw appears in a sunlit forest, wearing a collared shirt and a New Forests-branded jacket.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s a beautiful watershed,” Shillinglaw said over footage of a running stream and an elk standing before a thicket of trees. “This is the Yurok Tribe’s ancestral homeland, and in part due to the carbon market will be managed through a conservation approach.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CarbonPlan estimates the project earned more than half a million ghost credits worth nearly $6.5 million.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here’s why the researchers say it was over credited:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The boundary dividing California’s coastal and inland regions runs through the middle of the reservation. The carbon-rich forests on either side of that line are similar, filled with large Douglas firs like most of the coastal region. But more than 99% of the forest designated for preservation falls within the inland zone, where average carbon levels are much lower. The fact that the project was located in the most carbon-rich area of that zone enabled the landowners to earn an exaggerated number of credits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At least one person involved in the Yurok Tribe’s forest offset efforts was aware of how geographical choices swing the credits that can be earned.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Erler said during a 2015 presentation at a National Indian Timber Symposium that the tribe had the “distinct pleasure” of having the boundary run through its territory.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You can take the same inventory data and apply it to the California Coast” — the region to the west — “and it doesn’t come out with the same numbers as you do if you cross the street,” Erler said at the conference, captured in \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=924&v=SlDrNcW_g3Q&feature=youtu.be\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">a YouTube video\u003c/a> posted to the Intertribal Timber Council’s channel. “Vegetation may be the same, but it changes.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Badgley said that while the researchers can’t speak to the intentions of any actors involved, it’s clear that this project “benefited from over-crediting and that the Yurok Tribe’s forester was aware how the specific aspects of the protocol rules our study criticizes led to beneficial outcomes.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Erler didn’t respond to a list of emailed questions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In an emailed statement, Yurok spokesperson Matt Mais said that the property was the only land the tribe had available to enroll at the time and strongly denied the tribe engaged in any sort of gaming of the system. He didn’t respond before press time to a subsequent inquiry asking why the rest of the tribe’s land wasn’t available for the offset program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over the last decade or so, the tribe has slowly reacquired tens of thousands of acres of its ancestral territory, in and around the watershed of Blue Creek and other streams that sustain migrating salmon, from the Green Diamond Resource Co., a major Seattle-based timber business. The complex multistep land deals were done in partnership with the nonprofit Western Rivers Conservancy and financed through government grants, philanthropic donations and the sale of the tribe’s offset credits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“As we have recovered additional forestlands, we have enrolled additional acreage in California’s climate programs in support of our Tribe’s strategic goals including protecting salmon habitat, sustaining the revitalization of our cultural lifeways, and facilitating economic self-sufficiency,” Mais wrote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s insulting to claim that the Yurok Tribe has ‘gamed’ or ‘exploited’ California’s climate regulations,” he added. “Equally important, it’s concerning that elite institutions now criticize us for legally and ethically using a program that was created to protect mature forests and then using those funds to purchase and restore more forest land that was, at one point, ours.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>New Forests defended its practices in emailed responses to questions, arguing its projects have preserved existing carbon stocks and removed CO2 from the atmosphere through subsequent tree growth “as confirmed via third-party verification.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a statement, the company said it has worked on projects in numerous areas, not just along the program’s regional boundaries. The company said its projects “have protected and will enhance carbon storage on hundreds of thousands of acres of forests,” adding that one project with the Chugach Alaska Corp. \u003ca href=\"https://www.thecordovatimes.com/2017/01/25/bering-river-coal-field-rights-retired/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">enabled the permanent retirement\u003c/a> of a significant portion of the coal reserves in the Bering River Coal Field in southeastern Alaska.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>New Forests follows the board’s “scientifically-accepted regulations to both the spirit and letter of the program,” the company said in a subsequent statement. “New Forests is proud of the forest carbon projects we have developed under California’s climate programs — they have generated positive environmental impact and furthered the economic and cultural objectives of the family forest landowners and Native American tribes with whom we have worked.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>New Forests didn’t respond to numerous additional inquiries, including direct questions about whether it was gaming the rules of the program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In an emailed response, CarbonPlan stressed that its paper criticizes the design of the program — not the Yurok Tribe or other landowners. Nor does it allege anyone has broken the rules. Its analysis doesn’t consider or depend on the intent of any forest owners, who can benefit from flaws in the rules whether they intended to or even know about them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We recognize the injustices experienced by the Yurok Tribe, including the seizure of their historical lands by the United States government and its citizens,” the nonprofit stated. “We also recognize the Yurok Tribe’s legitimate interest in securing resources to repurchase lands that previously belonged to the Tribe and its people.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>An Open Secret\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chris Field, an environmental studies professor at Stanford University, was co-author of a 2017 study that found California’s program was helping to prevent emissions on balance by reducing logging. About 64% of the 39 projects studied were “being actively logged at or prior to project inception.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Field said the state program is “relatively well-designed to address key issues,” but said it can and should be improved.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He added that there are firm limits on the role that offsets can play in California. From now through 2025, state polluters can only buy offsets to cover as much as 4% of their carbon emissions; from 2026 to 2030, that ceiling rises to 6%.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But those numbers understate the critical role of offsets in California’s cap-and-trade program, viewed by some as a model for market-based climate policy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Under that program, California sells permits that allow certain industries to emit greenhouse gases, with each permit worth one metric ton of CO2. The state also regularly gives away a certain number of permits to various regulated companies. The total number of permits, called a “cap,” declines over time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Polluters can also purchase permits from other companies with extras to spare, which constitutes the “trade.” Or they can buy carbon offset credits, which cost slightly less than permits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To participate in the offset program, landowners must hire technicians to survey the trees on their land, then take data such as tree type, height and diameter and plug it into equations to estimate the carbon stored per acre.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most of the credits are distributed during the initial stages of a project, which can help to repay setup costs. Projects can also earn additional credits over time as the trees grow and absorb CO2, but those credits accrue slowly, and are dwarfed by the initial credits given to forests with more carbon than the regional average.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The type of forest projects that CarbonPlan analyzed account for 68% of all credits issued by the Air Resources Board since the program’s launch, far eclipsing other types of offsets like capturing methane from dairy farms \u003ca href=\"https://www.technologyreview.com/2019/08/26/133261/whoops-californias-carbon-offsets-program-could-extend-the-life-of-coal-mines/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">or coal mines\u003c/a>, CarbonPlan found.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cap and trade is designed to slash the state’s carbon footprint by 236 million tons of CO2 over the next decade, about a third of the cumulative reductions needed to meet the state’s emissions targets over that time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Barbara Haya, who leads the Berkeley Carbon Trading Project at UC-Berkeley and is a co-author of the CarbonPlan study, calculated that up to half of those cap-and-trade emissions cuts could come via offsets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Haya said these cherry-picking practices have been an open secret. The study is “revealing to everyone what a lot of people in the industry understand,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Conservation vs. the Climate\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Supporters of forest offsets say no system is perfect, and that focusing solely on the carbon math overlooks the incentives offsets create for protecting forests.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Field said offset systems should balance two goals: ensuring real emissions cuts, and creating ways to fund forest conservation. If CarbonPlan’s study shows projects are gravitating toward high-carbon forests, then those are exactly the types of trees you’d want to save “if you have a conservation agenda,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cody Desautel, president of the Intertribal Timber Council, a Portland-based nonprofit consortium of native tribes, said that offset programs have provided critical financial flexibility for tribes. They’ve allowed them to buy back historic land, build needed infrastructure, create jobs for members or simply save up money for financial security. But above all, they’ve created incentives to manage forests in sustainable ways, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Tribes are very conservation-minded,” said Desautel, who is also the natural resources director for Washington’s Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, which \u003ca href=\"https://www.finitecarbon.com/project/confederated-tribes-colville-reservation/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">operate an offset project\u003c/a> under California’s system. “Their practices are largely based on what’s best for the ecosystem, not what makes the most sense economically. And there’s never been any value to that management approach in the past. These carbon projects provide an opportunity to value that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He added, “If there’s no value to owning forest land, it probably won’t be forest land long into the future.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Yurok Tribe’s offset projects have clearly helped in these sorts of ways, even if they didn’t provide the full promised carbon benefit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The tribe \u003ca href=\"https://lostcoastoutpost.com/2019/aug/14/yurok-tribe-acquires-50000-acres-green-diamond-lan/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">has said\u003c/a> it is using the acquired land and funds to restore its old-growth forests, produce traditional foods and basket-weaving materials, create a salmon sanctuary and improve habitat for endangered or culturally important species like the coho salmon, northern spotted owl, blacktailed deer and Roosevelt elk.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our partnership with New Forests will provide the Tribe with the means to boost biodiversity, accelerate watershed restoration, and increase the abundance of important cultural resources like acorns, huckleberry and hundreds of medicinal plants that thrive in a fully functioning forest ecosystem,” Thomas P. O’Rourke Sr., then-chairman of the Yurok Tribal Council, said \u003ca href=\"https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20140211005853/en/New-Forests-and-Yurok-Tribe-Register-First-Compliance-Forest-Carbon-Offset-Project-for-California-Carbon-Market\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">in a statement\u003c/a> at the time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But if the societal goal is preserving forests, it would be simpler and more effective to describe it accurately and fund it directly, said Haya, the UC Berkeley expert. As soon as these forests get tied up in an offset program, the carbon math does matter, because every additional ton purportedly preserved in trees enables polluters to purchase the right to generate an additional ton of CO2.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Forest offsets appeal to the public partly because of what academics call “\u003ca href=\"https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-020-02653-1?ArticleAuthorAssignedToIssue_20200806&utm_content=AA_en_06082018&utm_medium=email&utm_source=ArticleAuthorAssignedToIssue&wt_mc=Internal.Event.1.SEM.ArticleAuthorAssignedToIssue\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">charismatic carbon\u003c/a>” — they offer a feel-good story of environmental and social good.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Any good conservation advocate would tell you there’s a desperate need for more funding, and we agree entirely,” CarbonPlan’s Cullenward said in an email. The “problem isn’t that conservation is bad, it’s that the system of carbon offsets channels these real needs and sincere hopes into a system that grinds it all up and spits out garbage on the other side.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>‘The Best Bang for the Buck’\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s Air Resources Board approved the forest offset program’s official rules in 2011, after years of discussions with dozens of experts, including government scientists and staff from conservation groups.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In adopting it, the agency relied heavily on Climate Action Reserve, a nonprofit that created programs with voluntary offset credits. The nonprofit, which continues to advise the agency, led an effort to calculate regional carbon averages as part of an initiative to update its voluntary offset rules.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To do so, the nonprofit used data from the U.S. Forest Service, which surveys tens of thousands of forest plots nationwide. The nonprofit grouped data from different tree species and combined data from various geographic zones into larger regional areas called supersections. This simplification allowed the Climate Action Reserve to create a set of common baselines that estimated the amount of carbon stored in typical privately owned forests. The baselines take into account such forest uses as logging.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the use of these broad averages obscured real differences on the ground. Some industry insiders and researchers began to notice that landowners and developers routinely located their projects in areas where the specific tract of forest differed greatly from the regional averages.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Zack Parisa, chief executive of the carbon offsets company SilviaTerra, previously consulted for project developers and landowners enrolling forests in California’s system. But he said he stopped out of frustration, after seeing the ways it was regularly being gamed, including the cherry-picking techniques CarbonPlan highlighted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Parisa said he doesn’t blame landowners or project developers, who are acting out of rational self-interest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If someone shows up and is offering a contract to buy carbon and it doesn’t require them to change anything about how they manage the forests, that’s free money and they’d be stupid not to take it,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m not hunting for a villain here,” Parisa added. “Of course they look for the best bang for the buck.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition to New Forests, other developers also worked on projects where favorable boundaries and forest types boosted the credits that could be earned, according to CarbonPlan. Those include Bluesource and Finite Carbon, which \u003ca href=\"https://www.finitecarbon.com/2020/12/16/bp-acquires-majority-stake-in-largest-us-forest-carbon-offset-developer-finite-carbon/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=bp-acquires-majority-stake-in-largest-us-forest-carbon-offset-developer-finite-carbon\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">BP purchased a majority stake in\u003c/a> late last year. The researchers found that those two developers’ projects, taken together, generated up to 24 million credits that don’t represent actual carbon reductions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.fia.fs.fed.us/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">New Forests,\u003c/a> Finite Carbon, Bluesource and other subjects of this article were provided the full study and an accompanying paper describing its methods.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Finite Carbon declined to address detailed questions, but stressed that the Air Resources Board and an independent auditor found that their projects were in compliance with the rules.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a statement, the company said there were “unanswered questions” about the CarbonPlan study’s methodology, adding, “however we cannot comment further on it as the underlying raw data is not currently available for public review.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Emily Six, the marketing and communications manager for Bluesource, denied the company had gamed the rules in any way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In an email, Six said California’s program actually undercounts the carbon preserved through projects by not crediting the amount stored in other parts of the forest like soil, shrubs and foliage. She also stressed that without offsets, some landowners could have chopped down their forests to carbon levels well below the regional average.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Deliberately overstating climate benefits would run counter to our very purpose for existence,” she wrote. “Bluesource exists to improve the world by improving the environment.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The experts who wrote the original offset rules relied on the only national forest dataset available, from the U.S. Forest Service’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.fia.fs.fed.us/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Forest Inventory and Analysis Program, said\u003c/a> Constance Best, co-founder of the Pacific Forest Trust. The conservation nonprofit was \u003ca href=\"https://www.pacificforest.org/pacific-forest-trust-honored-by-climate-action-reserve-for-advancing-forests-in-climate-policy/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">closely involved\u003c/a> in the creation of the early program and \u003ca href=\"https://www.pacificforest.org/selling-carbon-offsets/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">participated in it\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Best said it was necessary to create carbon averages for larger regions and forest types because there wasn’t enough fine-grained data to ensure accuracy at highly local levels. She disputed CarbonPlan’s claim that its researchers had created a better way of calculating regional averages, since their method required relying on a smaller number of forest plots.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The reason some super sections are large is to assure the data is more accurate,” Best said in an email. “So their solution creates more problems.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a separate note, she said: “The paper you shared has a strong editorial bias that undermines its findings and makes me question their data and analysis. It deliberately exaggerates what they present as smoking gun over-credited projects.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In an emailed statement, CarbonPlan acknowledges that using fewer forest plots entails some uncertainty. But the researchers stressed they clearly accounted for it by providing a range of results, and maintained their findings are more accurate because they considered the specific mix of tree species in each project. CarbonPlan also shot back at the allegation of bias: “Having done our work on the basis of extensive public program records, and with fully reproducible methods, data, and code, we are confident that other researchers are capable of judging our paper on its merits.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the board has updated regional averages based on more recent forest data, \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/sites/default/files/2021-02/tangri_neil_offsets_task_force_letter_020821.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">critics say\u003c/a> efforts to address more fundamental problems \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/sites/default/files/2021-02/nowicki_brian_offsets_task_force_letter_020821.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">have been thwarted\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Researchers and activists also worry about the close ties between the Air Resources Board and the groups that now profit from the program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For example, whenever a landowner wants to enroll a forest tract in California’s program, they open an account at Climate Action Reserve or two other nonprofits that have received the board’s blessing to review the documents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If the project clears the Climate Action Reserve’s review and a subsequent audit by the state board, the nonprofit charges 19 cents for every credit issued. For one of the largest projects in the program, for instance, that would have added up to more than $1 million.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It “strikes me as a massive conflict of interest for an organization — whether nonprofit or not — that designed the system to have a financial stake in its operation,” David Victor, a professor at the UC San Diego, who has \u003ca href=\"https://www.nap.edu/read/13023/chapter/21\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">closely studied international offset systems\u003c/a>, said in an email. (Victor recently co-authored the book “Making Climate Policy Work” with Cullenward.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In any other market, putting the market players in charge of key elements of its design would lead to ‘hollers’” over the conflicts of interest, Victor said. With the forest offset program, “everyone seems fine or even happy about the arrangement.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Climate Action Reserve didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>‘Too Good to Be True’\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hardy, drought-tolerant softwoods like junipers and pinyon pines dominate in the hot, dry landscape of central New Mexico, with smatterings of taller Douglas firs and spruces in the cooler, higher reaches of the mountains.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But under the initial rules of California’s program, those forests were considered to contain no carbon whatsoever.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The error stemmed from the fact that there was no available Forest Service data in that part of New Mexico when the Climate Action Reserve calculated regional averages, said Olaf Kuegler, a Forest Service statistician who provided technical assistance to the nonprofit on the federal database.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Consequently, the Climate Action Reserve set the regional average for an area stretching nearly 34,000 square miles at zero, which meant anyone who owned a few dozen trees could earn carbon credits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kuegler said he wasn’t aware of the mistake until early or mid-2014, when Air Resources Board employee Barbara Bamberger asked him about it. Bamberger, who leads the board’s work on forest offsets, later highlighted the error during an October 2014 \u003ca href=\"https://americancarbonregistry.org/news-events/events/review-of-us-forestry-compliance-offset-protocol-updates\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">webinar\u003c/a> on offsets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During her presentation, Bamberger said the board was updating the regional averages in ways that could lead to major changes in certain areas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This may be due to the fact that no data existed for some years in the original span from years 2002 to 2006,” \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=2400&v=n92ZsQNKPk4&feature=youtu.be\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">she explained\u003c/a>. “For example, in New Mexico data wasn’t collected until the end of that period.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Almost exactly one year after Bamberger’s presentation, New Forests’ affiliate filed the paperwork for a nearly 222,000-acre project in New Mexico, stretching across the Mescalero Apache Tribe’s nearly half-million-acre reservation about ninety minutes west of Roswell. More than a third of the project’s trees were carbon-rich Douglas firs, according to the project’s paperwork. Shillinglaw signed the forms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The erroneously low carbon calculation allowed the developer to claim they could have heavily logged the forest, boosting the amount of credits they could earn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The project earned 3.7 million credits for its first year, worth more than $50 million.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When the California board’s updated rules went into effect two weeks later, it set a far higher regional average for most of the project area. If that standard had been in place earlier, it would have eliminated nearly every credit the project earned, CarbonPlan found. The project generated more ghost credits than any other in the nonprofit’s study, based on its more conservative calculations of regional carbon averages.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Mescalero Apache Tribe’s president at the time, Danny Breuninger Sr., said the tribe welcomed the project.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“None of us had heard about the carbon credit program, and in a way it sounded too good to be true,” he said. “But it was a great deal. It worked out great for us.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Breuninger referred further questions to the tribe’s current president, Gabe Aguilar. Neither Aguilar nor the tribe’s attorney, Nelva Cervantes, responded to repeated inquiries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a statement, the Air Resources Board said the project met all the requirements of the program at that time. The fact that the board was in the process of developing new regional averages using data that didn’t previously exist didn’t make the earlier figures “invalid or erroneous,” it added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>‘A Second Wave of Colonization’\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ghost credits matter because they allow other companies to purchase the right to continue emitting real greenhouse gases.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Credits from the Mescalero Apache Tribe’s project were sold to PG&E, Chevron and a company that drills for oil in Kern County, California, according to the latest figures available.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Yurok Tribe’s 7,660-acre project generated credits that were obtained by a variety of energy companies like Calpine, PG&E and Shell.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some tribal members are \u003ca href=\"https://www.newyorker.com/news/dispatch/how-carbon-trading-became-a-way-of-life-for-californias-yurok-tribe\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">deeply uncomfortable\u003c/a> with the idea of selling offsets to companies like this even if they are legitimate, fearing they’re effectively profiting from pollution.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The offsets, by definition, allow California companies to continue producing more CO2 than otherwise allowed — as well as the toxic pollutants like soot and heavy metals that frequently accompany such emissions — often near poor neighborhoods. Communities near refineries, cement kilns and power plants have frequently opposed offset programs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Thomas Joseph, an activist and a member of the Hoopa Valley Tribe in California, said offset developers target tribal projects because tribes are in “dire need of revenue” and own vast tracts of mostly intact forest. He said his tribe has resisted multiple pitches from developers. “For us to use this as a means to allow corporations to continue to pollute,” he said, goes “against our cultural values.” He added, “I see it as a second wave of colonization.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Desautel, the Intertribal Timber Council president, sees it differently. When the issue comes up among tribal members, he explains that polluters under cap and trade need to pay either the state for permission to pollute, or landowners through carbon offsets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The check is getting written one way or the other,” he said. “It’s just a question of where it goes and what’s being accomplished with that funding.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>SilviaTerra’s Parisa said that landowners and project developers will continue to respond to the incentives created in the program, in ways that overstate climate progress, until the program itself changes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We need better rules,” he said. “Let’s make sure the dollars we spend actually change things.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Forests really can be a part of the solution for the climate, but we haven’t gotten it right yet.”\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://pixel.propublica.org/pixel.js\">http://pixel.propublica.org/pixel.js\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "New research shows that California’s climate policy created up to 39 million carbon credits that aren’t achieving real carbon savings. But companies can buy these forest offsets to justify polluting more anyway.",
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"description": "New research shows that California’s climate policy created up to 39 million carbon credits that aren’t achieving real carbon savings. But companies can buy these forest offsets to justify polluting more anyway.",
"title": "California's Forest Climate Program Could Actually Be Increasing CO2 | KQED",
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"headline": "California's Forest Climate Program Could Actually Be Increasing CO2",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for \u003ca href=\"https://www.propublica.org/newsletters/the-big-story?source=reprint&placement=top-note\">The Big Story newsletter\u003c/a> to receive stories like this one in your inbox\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv>\n\u003cp>Along the coast of Northern California near the Oregon border, the cool, moist air off the Pacific sustains a strip of temperate rainforests. Soaring redwoods and Douglas firs dominate these thick, wet woodlands, creating a canopy hundreds of feet high.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But if you travel inland the mix of trees gradually shifts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Beyond the crest of the Klamath Mountains, you descend into an evergreen medley of sugar pines, incense cedars and still more Douglas firs. As you continue into the Cascade Range, you pass through sparser forests dominated by Ponderosa pines. These tall, slender trees with prickly cones thrive in the hotter, drier conditions on the eastern side of the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All trees consume carbon dioxide, releasing the oxygen and storing the carbon in their trunks, branches and roots. Every ton of carbon sequestered in a living tree is a ton that isn’t contributing to climate change. And that thick coastal forest can easily store twice as much carbon per acre as the trees deeper inland.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This math is crucial to determining the success of California’s forest offset program, which seeks to reduce carbon emissions by preserving trees. The state established the program a decade ago as part of its efforts to combat climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But ecology is messy. The boundaries between forest types are nebulous, and the actual amount of carbon on any given acre depends on local climate conditions, conservation efforts, logging history and more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s top climate regulator, the Air Resources Board, glossed over much of this complexity in implementing the state’s program. The agency established fixed boundaries around giant regions, boiling down the carbon stored in a wide mix of tree species into simplified, regional averages.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That decision has generated tens of millions of carbon credits with dubious climate value, according to \u003ca href=\"https://carbonplan.org/research/forest-offsets-explainer\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">a new analysis\u003c/a> by CarbonPlan, a San Francisco nonprofit that analyzes the scientific integrity of carbon removal efforts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The offset program allows forest owners across the country to earn credits for taking care of their land in ways that store or absorb more carbon, such as reducing logging or thinning out smaller trees and brush to allow for increased overall growth. Each credit represents one metric ton of CO2. Landowners can sell the credits to major polluters in California, typically oil companies and other businesses that want to emit more carbon than otherwise allowed under state law. Each extra ton of carbon emitted by industry is balanced out by an extra ton stored in the forest, allowing net emissions to stay within a cap set by the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As of last fall, the program had produced some six dozen projects that had generated more than 130 million credits, worth $1.8 billion at recent prices.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While calculating the exact amount of carbon saved by preserving forests is complicated, California’s logic for awarding credits is relatively straightforward.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Air Resources Board establishes the average amount of carbon per acre stored in a few forest types spanning large regions of the United States. If you own land that contains more carbon than the regional average, based on a survey of trees on your site, you can get credits for the difference. For example, if your land holds the equivalent of 100 tons of CO2 per acre, and the regional average is 40 tons, you can earn credits for saving 60 tons per acre. (This story will refer to each ton of CO2-equivalent as a ton of “carbon.”) You must also commit to maintaining your forest’s high carbon storage for the next 100 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These regional averages are meant to represent carbon levels in typical private forests. But the averages are determined from such large areas and such diverse forest types that they can differ dramatically from the carbon stored on lands selected for projects.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Project forests that significantly exceed these averages are frequently earning far more credits than the actual carbon benefits they deliver, CarbonPlan found.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This design also incentivizes the developers who initiate and lead these projects to specifically look for forest tracts where carbon levels stand out above these averages — either due to the site’s location within a region, its combination of tree species, or both.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CarbonPlan estimates the state’s program has generated between 20 million and 39 million credits that don’t achieve real climate benefits. They are, in effect, ghost credits that didn’t preserve additional carbon in forests but did allow polluters to emit far more CO2, equal to the annual emissions of 8.5 million cars at the high end.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those ghost credits represent nearly 1 in 3 credits issued through California’s primary forest offset program, highlighting systemic flaws in the rules and suggesting widespread gaming of the market.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our work shows that California’s forest offsets program increases greenhouse gas emissions, despite being a large part of the state’s strategy for reducing climate pollution,” said Danny Cullenward, the policy director at CarbonPlan. “The program creates the false appearance of progress when in fact it makes the climate problem worse.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Air Resources Board defended the program and disputed the central thesis of the study.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We disagree with your statement that landowners or project developers are gaming the system or that there are inflated estimates” of greenhouse gas reductions, Dave Clegern, a spokesperson for the Air Resources Board, said in an email. Each version of the offset rules “went through our robust public regulatory review process,” with input from the forestry industry, academia, government agencies and nonprofits, he added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s forest offset program is the largest in the country that is government regulated. Other forest offset programs are voluntary, allowing businesses or individuals to purchase credits to shrink their environmental footprint.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CarbonPlan’s study comes days after the \u003ca href=\"https://grist.org/economics/after-a-decade-of-failures-washington-state-passes-a-cap-on-carbon-emissions/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Washington\u003c/a> state legislature moved a cap-and-trade bill with an offset program to the governor’s desk for approval. \u003ca href=\"https://www.oregon.gov/gov/Pages/carbonpolicy_climatechange.aspx\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Oregon\u003c/a> has also debated in recent months establishing a carbon market program that would emulate California’s policy. In Washington, D.C., the Biden administration has \u003ca href=\"https://joebiden.com/clean-energy/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">signaled growing interest\u003c/a> in harnessing forests and soil to draw down CO2. Businesses, too, increasingly plan to rely heavily on trees to offset their emissions in lieu of the harder task of cutting corporate pollution.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Forest offsets have been criticized for a variety of problems, including the risks that the \u003ca href=\"https://grist.org/climate/this-oregon-forest-was-supposed-to-store-carbon-for-100-years-now-its-on-fire/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">carbon reductions will be short-lived\u003c/a>, that carbon savings will be wiped out \u003ca href=\"https://www.technologyreview.com/2019/04/18/65883/californias-cap-and-trade-program-may-vastly-overestimate-emissions-cuts/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">by increased logging elsewhere\u003c/a>, and that the projects are preserving forests \u003ca href=\"https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2020-nature-conservancy-carbon-offsets-trees/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">never in jeopardy of being chopped down\u003c/a>, producing credits that don’t reflect real-world changes in carbon levels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But CarbonPlan’s analysis highlights a different issue, one interlinked with these other problems. Even if everything else about a project were perfect, developers would still be able to undermine the program by exploiting regional averages.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Every time a polluter uses a credit that didn’t actually save a ton of carbon, the total amount of emissions goes up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Far from addressing climate change, California’s forest offsets appear to be adding tens of millions of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere on balance, undermining progress on the state’s long-term emissions goals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When you strip away all the jargon, you’re left with a faulty set of assumptions that leave the door wide open to issuing meaningless offset credits,” said Grayson Badgley, a postdoctoral fellow at Black Rock Forest and Columbia University, and the lead researcher on the study.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Cherry-Picking\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CarbonPlan provided ProPublica and MIT Technology Review full and exclusive access to their analysis as it was being finalized. As part of that process, the news organizations sent the report to independent experts for review. The organizations also interviewed landowners, industry players and scientists and reviewed hundreds of pages of documents, including the project plans submitted by developers. CarbonPlan collaborated on the study with academic experts from the UC Berkeley, Columbia University and other institutions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The study itself wasn’t designed to assess whether developers or landowners are intentionally cherry-picking sites that stand out from regional averages, stating only that the system “allows for” developers to select such land. But the researchers themselves say that the level of excess crediting and the clustering of projects in certain areas suggest that industry players have gamed the system.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One form of cherry-picking identified by the researchers involves geographic boundaries. In the case of Northern California, the state’s offset program established a dividing line that separates that coastal strip of redwoods and Douglas firs from an inland region that spans more than 28,000 square miles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The board’s rules state that tall mixed-conifer forests in the coastal region store an average of 205 tons of carbon per acre. For the neighboring inland region, the agency set the corresponding regional average at 122 tons per acre. The figure is lower because it includes more trees with less carbon, such as Ponderosa pines, which dominate the eastern end of the inland region and are all but absent on the coast.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But where the two regions meet, the forest on either side is virtually identical in many places, storing similar amounts of carbon. That means a project developer can earn far more money by choosing a site just east of the border, simply because they can compare the carbon in their forest against a lower regional average. For instance, maintaining a 10,000-acre forest of coastal redwoods and Douglas firs with carbon levels of 200 tons per acre could earn zero credits west of the line, or 624,000 credits east of it. The choice is between no money and more than $8 million.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To claim the most credits possible, for the full difference between the carbon on their land and the regional averages, developers or landowners must show that it’s legally and financially feasible to log down to those regional averages. The averages are effectively a stand-in for the way that similar forests are typically managed in an area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A dozen projects are located in Northern California, almost entirely lined up along the western edge of the inland zone where the carbon-rich trees are juxtaposed against the lower regional average.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What we’re seeing is developers are taking advantage of the fact that the big stuff and the scrubby stuff have been averaged together,” Badgley said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Once an offset project developer and landowner decide to work together, the developer will generally shepherd them through the process in exchange for a fee or share of the sales of the credits generated — an arrangement that can be worth millions of dollars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the most prolific project developers in the California system is an Australia-based timberlands investment company called New Forests. The company and its affiliates have worked on eight projects located almost entirely along the advantageous side of the border, as well as six elsewhere. CarbonPlan, in a separate analysis done for the news organizations that wasn’t included in the study, found that nearly all earned dubious credits, adding up to as much as $176 million worth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A large share of those credits came from a single project outside California that profited from a glaring mistake in the rules. New Forests’ affiliate, Forest Carbon Partners, helped the Mescalero Apache Tribe develop a forest offset project in New Mexico. The project earned 3.7 million credits worth more than $50 million, largely because it was located in an area where the Air Resources Board had set an erroneously low regional average.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another form of cherry-picking involves tree species: Developers can seek out tracts with particular trees that store far more carbon than the surrounding region.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to the study, one project in Alaska consists almost entirely of giant Sitka spruces, yet the local regional average was calculated from a wide mix of trees, including species like cottonwoods that store far less carbon. The project earned significantly more credits than it should have due to the flaws in the system, the study said. The project owner didn’t return requests for comment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Preserving especially carbon-rich forests is good for the climate, in and of itself. But when the trees in the project area bear little resemblance to the types of trees that went into calculating the regional average, it exaggerates the number of credits at stake, CarbonPlan’s study found.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mark Trexler, a former offsets developer who worked in earlier U.S. and European carbon markets, said the board should have anticipated the perverse incentives created by its program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When people write offset rules, they always ignore the fact that there are 1,000 smart people next door that will try to game them,” he said. Since the board set up a system that “incentivizes people to find the areas that are high-density, or high-carbon, that’s what they’re going to do.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To estimate the extent of overcrediting in California’s program, CarbonPlan calculated its own version of regional averages for each project. The researchers drew on the same raw data used by the Air Resources Board, but only used data from tree species that more closely resemble the particular mix of trees in each project area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In total, 74 such projects had been established as of September 2020, when CarbonPlan began its research. CarbonPlan was able to study 65 projects that had enough documentation to make analysis possible. All received credits for holding more carbon than the regional average.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The researchers found that the vast majority of projects were over-credited, but about a dozen would have received more credits under CarbonPlan’s formula. Those included two New Forests projects, which would have earned as much as an additional 165,000 credits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The news organizations sent officials at the Air Resources Board a copy of the study and its detailed methodology weeks before publication. Clegern declined multiple requests to interview board staff and responded only in writing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He did not address CarbonPlan’s calculations. “We were not given sufficient time to fully analyze an unpublished study and are not commenting further on the authors’ alternative methodology,” he wrote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The outside scientists who reviewed the research on behalf of ProPublica and MIT Technology Review praised the study.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s a really analytically robust paper and it answers a really important policy question,” said Daniel Sanchez, who runs the Carbon Removal Laboratory at UC Berkeley. While close observers are well aware of numerous problems with California’s forest offset rules, “they’re revealing a deeper set of serious methodological flaws,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>None of the reviewers pointed out any major technical or conceptual flaws with the paper, which has been submitted to a journal for peer review.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>‘A Significant New Commodity Market’\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In early 2015, an offsets nonprofit \u003ca href=\"https://vimeo.com/118731835\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">hosted a webinar\u003c/a> highlighting how Native American tribes could participate in California’s program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One speaker was Brian Shillinglaw, a Stanford-trained lawyer and managing director at New Forests who \u003ca href=\"https://newforests.com.au/member/brian-shillinglaw/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">oversees\u003c/a> the company’s U.S. forestry programs. The company manages the sale of carbon credits, \u003ca href=\"https://newforests.com.au/timber-products/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">sells timber\u003c/a> and on behalf of investors manages \u003ca href=\"https://newforests.com.au/new-forests-announces-conversion-of-1-3-billion-australian-forestry-fund-to-long-term-mandate/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">more than 2 million\u003c/a> acres of forests globally, a portfolio it values at more than $4 billion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>New Forests also manages its affiliate, \u003ca href=\"https://newforests.com.au/forests-carbon-partners/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Forest Carbon Partners\u003c/a>, on behalf of an institutional investment client it declined to name. Forest Carbon Partners finances offset projects and \u003ca href=\"https://newforests.com.au/forests-carbon-partners/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">shepherds landowners\u003c/a> through the process of applying for California’s offset program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The bottom line is the California carbon market has really created a significant new commodity market,” Shillinglaw said during his presentation. He said the program is something “many Native American tribes are very well situated to benefit from, in part due to past conservative stewardship of their forests, which can lead to significant credit yield in the near term.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Translation: Because many tribes have logged less aggressively than their neighbors, their carbon-rich forests were primed for big payouts of credits. Under Shillinglaw, New Forests or Forest Carbon Partners have helped to secure tens of millions of dollars’ worth of credits for native tribes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Among the 13 New Forests projects that CarbonPlan researchers were able to analyze, between 33% and 71% of the credits don’t represent real carbon reductions. That’s nearly 13 million credits at the high end.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Although we cannot prove that New Forests acted deliberately on the basis of our statistical analysis, in our judgment there is no reasonable explanation for these outcomes other than that New Forests knowingly engaged in cherry-picking behavior to take advantage of ecological shortcomings in the forest offset protocol,” said Badgley, the lead researcher.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>New Forests managed the first official project in California’s program, registering 7,660 acres of forest land on or near the Yurok Reservation, which runs more than 40 miles along the Klamath River near the top of that West Coast cluster of projects. The state issued more than 700,000 credits to the project for its first year, worth $9.6 million at recent rates.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>State officials have pointed to the tribe’s participation as a triumph of the program. In 2014, the board released \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbjmbqTdXN0&feature=youtu.be\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">a promotional video\u003c/a> that showed the meticulous work of measuring trees in the Yurok project. James Erler, the tribe’s then-forestry director, explained how offsets enabled the tribe to reduce logging. Near the end of the video, Shillinglaw appears in a sunlit forest, wearing a collared shirt and a New Forests-branded jacket.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s a beautiful watershed,” Shillinglaw said over footage of a running stream and an elk standing before a thicket of trees. “This is the Yurok Tribe’s ancestral homeland, and in part due to the carbon market will be managed through a conservation approach.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CarbonPlan estimates the project earned more than half a million ghost credits worth nearly $6.5 million.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here’s why the researchers say it was over credited:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The boundary dividing California’s coastal and inland regions runs through the middle of the reservation. The carbon-rich forests on either side of that line are similar, filled with large Douglas firs like most of the coastal region. But more than 99% of the forest designated for preservation falls within the inland zone, where average carbon levels are much lower. The fact that the project was located in the most carbon-rich area of that zone enabled the landowners to earn an exaggerated number of credits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At least one person involved in the Yurok Tribe’s forest offset efforts was aware of how geographical choices swing the credits that can be earned.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Erler said during a 2015 presentation at a National Indian Timber Symposium that the tribe had the “distinct pleasure” of having the boundary run through its territory.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You can take the same inventory data and apply it to the California Coast” — the region to the west — “and it doesn’t come out with the same numbers as you do if you cross the street,” Erler said at the conference, captured in \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=924&v=SlDrNcW_g3Q&feature=youtu.be\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">a YouTube video\u003c/a> posted to the Intertribal Timber Council’s channel. “Vegetation may be the same, but it changes.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Badgley said that while the researchers can’t speak to the intentions of any actors involved, it’s clear that this project “benefited from over-crediting and that the Yurok Tribe’s forester was aware how the specific aspects of the protocol rules our study criticizes led to beneficial outcomes.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Erler didn’t respond to a list of emailed questions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In an emailed statement, Yurok spokesperson Matt Mais said that the property was the only land the tribe had available to enroll at the time and strongly denied the tribe engaged in any sort of gaming of the system. He didn’t respond before press time to a subsequent inquiry asking why the rest of the tribe’s land wasn’t available for the offset program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over the last decade or so, the tribe has slowly reacquired tens of thousands of acres of its ancestral territory, in and around the watershed of Blue Creek and other streams that sustain migrating salmon, from the Green Diamond Resource Co., a major Seattle-based timber business. The complex multistep land deals were done in partnership with the nonprofit Western Rivers Conservancy and financed through government grants, philanthropic donations and the sale of the tribe’s offset credits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“As we have recovered additional forestlands, we have enrolled additional acreage in California’s climate programs in support of our Tribe’s strategic goals including protecting salmon habitat, sustaining the revitalization of our cultural lifeways, and facilitating economic self-sufficiency,” Mais wrote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s insulting to claim that the Yurok Tribe has ‘gamed’ or ‘exploited’ California’s climate regulations,” he added. “Equally important, it’s concerning that elite institutions now criticize us for legally and ethically using a program that was created to protect mature forests and then using those funds to purchase and restore more forest land that was, at one point, ours.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>New Forests defended its practices in emailed responses to questions, arguing its projects have preserved existing carbon stocks and removed CO2 from the atmosphere through subsequent tree growth “as confirmed via third-party verification.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a statement, the company said it has worked on projects in numerous areas, not just along the program’s regional boundaries. The company said its projects “have protected and will enhance carbon storage on hundreds of thousands of acres of forests,” adding that one project with the Chugach Alaska Corp. \u003ca href=\"https://www.thecordovatimes.com/2017/01/25/bering-river-coal-field-rights-retired/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">enabled the permanent retirement\u003c/a> of a significant portion of the coal reserves in the Bering River Coal Field in southeastern Alaska.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>New Forests follows the board’s “scientifically-accepted regulations to both the spirit and letter of the program,” the company said in a subsequent statement. “New Forests is proud of the forest carbon projects we have developed under California’s climate programs — they have generated positive environmental impact and furthered the economic and cultural objectives of the family forest landowners and Native American tribes with whom we have worked.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>New Forests didn’t respond to numerous additional inquiries, including direct questions about whether it was gaming the rules of the program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In an emailed response, CarbonPlan stressed that its paper criticizes the design of the program — not the Yurok Tribe or other landowners. Nor does it allege anyone has broken the rules. Its analysis doesn’t consider or depend on the intent of any forest owners, who can benefit from flaws in the rules whether they intended to or even know about them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We recognize the injustices experienced by the Yurok Tribe, including the seizure of their historical lands by the United States government and its citizens,” the nonprofit stated. “We also recognize the Yurok Tribe’s legitimate interest in securing resources to repurchase lands that previously belonged to the Tribe and its people.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>An Open Secret\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chris Field, an environmental studies professor at Stanford University, was co-author of a 2017 study that found California’s program was helping to prevent emissions on balance by reducing logging. About 64% of the 39 projects studied were “being actively logged at or prior to project inception.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Field said the state program is “relatively well-designed to address key issues,” but said it can and should be improved.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He added that there are firm limits on the role that offsets can play in California. From now through 2025, state polluters can only buy offsets to cover as much as 4% of their carbon emissions; from 2026 to 2030, that ceiling rises to 6%.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But those numbers understate the critical role of offsets in California’s cap-and-trade program, viewed by some as a model for market-based climate policy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Under that program, California sells permits that allow certain industries to emit greenhouse gases, with each permit worth one metric ton of CO2. The state also regularly gives away a certain number of permits to various regulated companies. The total number of permits, called a “cap,” declines over time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Polluters can also purchase permits from other companies with extras to spare, which constitutes the “trade.” Or they can buy carbon offset credits, which cost slightly less than permits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To participate in the offset program, landowners must hire technicians to survey the trees on their land, then take data such as tree type, height and diameter and plug it into equations to estimate the carbon stored per acre.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most of the credits are distributed during the initial stages of a project, which can help to repay setup costs. Projects can also earn additional credits over time as the trees grow and absorb CO2, but those credits accrue slowly, and are dwarfed by the initial credits given to forests with more carbon than the regional average.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The type of forest projects that CarbonPlan analyzed account for 68% of all credits issued by the Air Resources Board since the program’s launch, far eclipsing other types of offsets like capturing methane from dairy farms \u003ca href=\"https://www.technologyreview.com/2019/08/26/133261/whoops-californias-carbon-offsets-program-could-extend-the-life-of-coal-mines/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">or coal mines\u003c/a>, CarbonPlan found.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cap and trade is designed to slash the state’s carbon footprint by 236 million tons of CO2 over the next decade, about a third of the cumulative reductions needed to meet the state’s emissions targets over that time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Barbara Haya, who leads the Berkeley Carbon Trading Project at UC-Berkeley and is a co-author of the CarbonPlan study, calculated that up to half of those cap-and-trade emissions cuts could come via offsets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Haya said these cherry-picking practices have been an open secret. The study is “revealing to everyone what a lot of people in the industry understand,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Conservation vs. the Climate\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Supporters of forest offsets say no system is perfect, and that focusing solely on the carbon math overlooks the incentives offsets create for protecting forests.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Field said offset systems should balance two goals: ensuring real emissions cuts, and creating ways to fund forest conservation. If CarbonPlan’s study shows projects are gravitating toward high-carbon forests, then those are exactly the types of trees you’d want to save “if you have a conservation agenda,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cody Desautel, president of the Intertribal Timber Council, a Portland-based nonprofit consortium of native tribes, said that offset programs have provided critical financial flexibility for tribes. They’ve allowed them to buy back historic land, build needed infrastructure, create jobs for members or simply save up money for financial security. But above all, they’ve created incentives to manage forests in sustainable ways, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Tribes are very conservation-minded,” said Desautel, who is also the natural resources director for Washington’s Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, which \u003ca href=\"https://www.finitecarbon.com/project/confederated-tribes-colville-reservation/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">operate an offset project\u003c/a> under California’s system. “Their practices are largely based on what’s best for the ecosystem, not what makes the most sense economically. And there’s never been any value to that management approach in the past. These carbon projects provide an opportunity to value that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He added, “If there’s no value to owning forest land, it probably won’t be forest land long into the future.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Yurok Tribe’s offset projects have clearly helped in these sorts of ways, even if they didn’t provide the full promised carbon benefit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The tribe \u003ca href=\"https://lostcoastoutpost.com/2019/aug/14/yurok-tribe-acquires-50000-acres-green-diamond-lan/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">has said\u003c/a> it is using the acquired land and funds to restore its old-growth forests, produce traditional foods and basket-weaving materials, create a salmon sanctuary and improve habitat for endangered or culturally important species like the coho salmon, northern spotted owl, blacktailed deer and Roosevelt elk.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our partnership with New Forests will provide the Tribe with the means to boost biodiversity, accelerate watershed restoration, and increase the abundance of important cultural resources like acorns, huckleberry and hundreds of medicinal plants that thrive in a fully functioning forest ecosystem,” Thomas P. O’Rourke Sr., then-chairman of the Yurok Tribal Council, said \u003ca href=\"https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20140211005853/en/New-Forests-and-Yurok-Tribe-Register-First-Compliance-Forest-Carbon-Offset-Project-for-California-Carbon-Market\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">in a statement\u003c/a> at the time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But if the societal goal is preserving forests, it would be simpler and more effective to describe it accurately and fund it directly, said Haya, the UC Berkeley expert. As soon as these forests get tied up in an offset program, the carbon math does matter, because every additional ton purportedly preserved in trees enables polluters to purchase the right to generate an additional ton of CO2.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Forest offsets appeal to the public partly because of what academics call “\u003ca href=\"https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-020-02653-1?ArticleAuthorAssignedToIssue_20200806&utm_content=AA_en_06082018&utm_medium=email&utm_source=ArticleAuthorAssignedToIssue&wt_mc=Internal.Event.1.SEM.ArticleAuthorAssignedToIssue\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">charismatic carbon\u003c/a>” — they offer a feel-good story of environmental and social good.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Any good conservation advocate would tell you there’s a desperate need for more funding, and we agree entirely,” CarbonPlan’s Cullenward said in an email. The “problem isn’t that conservation is bad, it’s that the system of carbon offsets channels these real needs and sincere hopes into a system that grinds it all up and spits out garbage on the other side.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>‘The Best Bang for the Buck’\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s Air Resources Board approved the forest offset program’s official rules in 2011, after years of discussions with dozens of experts, including government scientists and staff from conservation groups.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In adopting it, the agency relied heavily on Climate Action Reserve, a nonprofit that created programs with voluntary offset credits. The nonprofit, which continues to advise the agency, led an effort to calculate regional carbon averages as part of an initiative to update its voluntary offset rules.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To do so, the nonprofit used data from the U.S. Forest Service, which surveys tens of thousands of forest plots nationwide. The nonprofit grouped data from different tree species and combined data from various geographic zones into larger regional areas called supersections. This simplification allowed the Climate Action Reserve to create a set of common baselines that estimated the amount of carbon stored in typical privately owned forests. The baselines take into account such forest uses as logging.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the use of these broad averages obscured real differences on the ground. Some industry insiders and researchers began to notice that landowners and developers routinely located their projects in areas where the specific tract of forest differed greatly from the regional averages.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Zack Parisa, chief executive of the carbon offsets company SilviaTerra, previously consulted for project developers and landowners enrolling forests in California’s system. But he said he stopped out of frustration, after seeing the ways it was regularly being gamed, including the cherry-picking techniques CarbonPlan highlighted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Parisa said he doesn’t blame landowners or project developers, who are acting out of rational self-interest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If someone shows up and is offering a contract to buy carbon and it doesn’t require them to change anything about how they manage the forests, that’s free money and they’d be stupid not to take it,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m not hunting for a villain here,” Parisa added. “Of course they look for the best bang for the buck.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition to New Forests, other developers also worked on projects where favorable boundaries and forest types boosted the credits that could be earned, according to CarbonPlan. Those include Bluesource and Finite Carbon, which \u003ca href=\"https://www.finitecarbon.com/2020/12/16/bp-acquires-majority-stake-in-largest-us-forest-carbon-offset-developer-finite-carbon/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=bp-acquires-majority-stake-in-largest-us-forest-carbon-offset-developer-finite-carbon\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">BP purchased a majority stake in\u003c/a> late last year. The researchers found that those two developers’ projects, taken together, generated up to 24 million credits that don’t represent actual carbon reductions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.fia.fs.fed.us/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">New Forests,\u003c/a> Finite Carbon, Bluesource and other subjects of this article were provided the full study and an accompanying paper describing its methods.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Finite Carbon declined to address detailed questions, but stressed that the Air Resources Board and an independent auditor found that their projects were in compliance with the rules.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a statement, the company said there were “unanswered questions” about the CarbonPlan study’s methodology, adding, “however we cannot comment further on it as the underlying raw data is not currently available for public review.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Emily Six, the marketing and communications manager for Bluesource, denied the company had gamed the rules in any way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In an email, Six said California’s program actually undercounts the carbon preserved through projects by not crediting the amount stored in other parts of the forest like soil, shrubs and foliage. She also stressed that without offsets, some landowners could have chopped down their forests to carbon levels well below the regional average.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Deliberately overstating climate benefits would run counter to our very purpose for existence,” she wrote. “Bluesource exists to improve the world by improving the environment.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The experts who wrote the original offset rules relied on the only national forest dataset available, from the U.S. Forest Service’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.fia.fs.fed.us/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Forest Inventory and Analysis Program, said\u003c/a> Constance Best, co-founder of the Pacific Forest Trust. The conservation nonprofit was \u003ca href=\"https://www.pacificforest.org/pacific-forest-trust-honored-by-climate-action-reserve-for-advancing-forests-in-climate-policy/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">closely involved\u003c/a> in the creation of the early program and \u003ca href=\"https://www.pacificforest.org/selling-carbon-offsets/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">participated in it\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Best said it was necessary to create carbon averages for larger regions and forest types because there wasn’t enough fine-grained data to ensure accuracy at highly local levels. She disputed CarbonPlan’s claim that its researchers had created a better way of calculating regional averages, since their method required relying on a smaller number of forest plots.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The reason some super sections are large is to assure the data is more accurate,” Best said in an email. “So their solution creates more problems.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a separate note, she said: “The paper you shared has a strong editorial bias that undermines its findings and makes me question their data and analysis. It deliberately exaggerates what they present as smoking gun over-credited projects.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In an emailed statement, CarbonPlan acknowledges that using fewer forest plots entails some uncertainty. But the researchers stressed they clearly accounted for it by providing a range of results, and maintained their findings are more accurate because they considered the specific mix of tree species in each project. CarbonPlan also shot back at the allegation of bias: “Having done our work on the basis of extensive public program records, and with fully reproducible methods, data, and code, we are confident that other researchers are capable of judging our paper on its merits.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the board has updated regional averages based on more recent forest data, \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/sites/default/files/2021-02/tangri_neil_offsets_task_force_letter_020821.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">critics say\u003c/a> efforts to address more fundamental problems \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/sites/default/files/2021-02/nowicki_brian_offsets_task_force_letter_020821.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">have been thwarted\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Researchers and activists also worry about the close ties between the Air Resources Board and the groups that now profit from the program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For example, whenever a landowner wants to enroll a forest tract in California’s program, they open an account at Climate Action Reserve or two other nonprofits that have received the board’s blessing to review the documents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If the project clears the Climate Action Reserve’s review and a subsequent audit by the state board, the nonprofit charges 19 cents for every credit issued. For one of the largest projects in the program, for instance, that would have added up to more than $1 million.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It “strikes me as a massive conflict of interest for an organization — whether nonprofit or not — that designed the system to have a financial stake in its operation,” David Victor, a professor at the UC San Diego, who has \u003ca href=\"https://www.nap.edu/read/13023/chapter/21\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">closely studied international offset systems\u003c/a>, said in an email. (Victor recently co-authored the book “Making Climate Policy Work” with Cullenward.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In any other market, putting the market players in charge of key elements of its design would lead to ‘hollers’” over the conflicts of interest, Victor said. With the forest offset program, “everyone seems fine or even happy about the arrangement.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Climate Action Reserve didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>‘Too Good to Be True’\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hardy, drought-tolerant softwoods like junipers and pinyon pines dominate in the hot, dry landscape of central New Mexico, with smatterings of taller Douglas firs and spruces in the cooler, higher reaches of the mountains.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But under the initial rules of California’s program, those forests were considered to contain no carbon whatsoever.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The error stemmed from the fact that there was no available Forest Service data in that part of New Mexico when the Climate Action Reserve calculated regional averages, said Olaf Kuegler, a Forest Service statistician who provided technical assistance to the nonprofit on the federal database.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Consequently, the Climate Action Reserve set the regional average for an area stretching nearly 34,000 square miles at zero, which meant anyone who owned a few dozen trees could earn carbon credits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kuegler said he wasn’t aware of the mistake until early or mid-2014, when Air Resources Board employee Barbara Bamberger asked him about it. Bamberger, who leads the board’s work on forest offsets, later highlighted the error during an October 2014 \u003ca href=\"https://americancarbonregistry.org/news-events/events/review-of-us-forestry-compliance-offset-protocol-updates\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">webinar\u003c/a> on offsets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During her presentation, Bamberger said the board was updating the regional averages in ways that could lead to major changes in certain areas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This may be due to the fact that no data existed for some years in the original span from years 2002 to 2006,” \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=2400&v=n92ZsQNKPk4&feature=youtu.be\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">she explained\u003c/a>. “For example, in New Mexico data wasn’t collected until the end of that period.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Almost exactly one year after Bamberger’s presentation, New Forests’ affiliate filed the paperwork for a nearly 222,000-acre project in New Mexico, stretching across the Mescalero Apache Tribe’s nearly half-million-acre reservation about ninety minutes west of Roswell. More than a third of the project’s trees were carbon-rich Douglas firs, according to the project’s paperwork. Shillinglaw signed the forms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The erroneously low carbon calculation allowed the developer to claim they could have heavily logged the forest, boosting the amount of credits they could earn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The project earned 3.7 million credits for its first year, worth more than $50 million.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When the California board’s updated rules went into effect two weeks later, it set a far higher regional average for most of the project area. If that standard had been in place earlier, it would have eliminated nearly every credit the project earned, CarbonPlan found. The project generated more ghost credits than any other in the nonprofit’s study, based on its more conservative calculations of regional carbon averages.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Mescalero Apache Tribe’s president at the time, Danny Breuninger Sr., said the tribe welcomed the project.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“None of us had heard about the carbon credit program, and in a way it sounded too good to be true,” he said. “But it was a great deal. It worked out great for us.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Breuninger referred further questions to the tribe’s current president, Gabe Aguilar. Neither Aguilar nor the tribe’s attorney, Nelva Cervantes, responded to repeated inquiries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a statement, the Air Resources Board said the project met all the requirements of the program at that time. The fact that the board was in the process of developing new regional averages using data that didn’t previously exist didn’t make the earlier figures “invalid or erroneous,” it added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>‘A Second Wave of Colonization’\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ghost credits matter because they allow other companies to purchase the right to continue emitting real greenhouse gases.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Credits from the Mescalero Apache Tribe’s project were sold to PG&E, Chevron and a company that drills for oil in Kern County, California, according to the latest figures available.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Yurok Tribe’s 7,660-acre project generated credits that were obtained by a variety of energy companies like Calpine, PG&E and Shell.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some tribal members are \u003ca href=\"https://www.newyorker.com/news/dispatch/how-carbon-trading-became-a-way-of-life-for-californias-yurok-tribe\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">deeply uncomfortable\u003c/a> with the idea of selling offsets to companies like this even if they are legitimate, fearing they’re effectively profiting from pollution.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The offsets, by definition, allow California companies to continue producing more CO2 than otherwise allowed — as well as the toxic pollutants like soot and heavy metals that frequently accompany such emissions — often near poor neighborhoods. Communities near refineries, cement kilns and power plants have frequently opposed offset programs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Thomas Joseph, an activist and a member of the Hoopa Valley Tribe in California, said offset developers target tribal projects because tribes are in “dire need of revenue” and own vast tracts of mostly intact forest. He said his tribe has resisted multiple pitches from developers. “For us to use this as a means to allow corporations to continue to pollute,” he said, goes “against our cultural values.” He added, “I see it as a second wave of colonization.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Desautel, the Intertribal Timber Council president, sees it differently. When the issue comes up among tribal members, he explains that polluters under cap and trade need to pay either the state for permission to pollute, or landowners through carbon offsets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The check is getting written one way or the other,” he said. “It’s just a question of where it goes and what’s being accomplished with that funding.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>SilviaTerra’s Parisa said that landowners and project developers will continue to respond to the incentives created in the program, in ways that overstate climate progress, until the program itself changes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We need better rules,” he said. “Let’s make sure the dollars we spend actually change things.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Forests really can be a part of the solution for the climate, but we haven’t gotten it right yet.”\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://pixel.propublica.org/pixel.js\">http://pixel.propublica.org/pixel.js\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Amy Kuo saw firsthand how powerful it can be to tackle the big problems of our times in small ways when she was on a California Conservation Corps work crew a few years ago in the sweltering summer heat deep in a forest outside of Los Angeles. Kuo, now a legislative analyst for the corps, recalls slogging upstream, sometimes waist deep in water or poison oak, hauling gasoline, chain saws and other heavy gear to clear fallen trees and debris blocking the riverbed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The grueling work and discomfort could be overwhelming. But then the sound of the river running and the trees swaying in the wind pierced her consciousness. She recognized that she and her crew were engaged in something bigger than themselves, working in concert with the land like generations before them had done. They were making a difference in the world in a small but meaningful way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s absolutely important to think of the larger picture, be that from your own community or globally,” Kuo said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Solving big problems with a huge workforce making lots of small contributions is the crux of an idea kicking around Washington to take on some of the most challenging issues of our times: reimagining the Depression-era Civilian Conservation Corps. The Biden White House and members of Congress want to tweak that concept to help rebuild the nation’s workforce in a stumbling economy while also reducing greenhouse gas emissions and facilitating the transition to clean energy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But, no matter the final shape, there’s growing support for dusting off the New Deal strategy to solve contemporary challenges, such as how to train the number of workers needed for clean-energy jobs, update the nation’s water infrastructure, reduce wildland fire hazards and foster racial justice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The idea of addressing these challenges with a revived CCC isn’t exactly new, but there are some fresh twists.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>President Biden has been talking about the idea since before he took office. A week into his presidency, he \u003ca href=\"https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/01/27/executive-order-on-tackling-the-climate-crisis-at-home-and-abroad/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">directed\u003c/a> the secretary of the interior to lead development of a strategy to mobilize a Civilian Climate Corps — “the next generation of conservation and resilience workers” — to help address the climate crisis. Then he called for spending $10 billion on the updated CCC in the $2 trillion \u003ca href=\"https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/03/31/fact-sheet-the-american-jobs-plan/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">jobs and infrastructure\u003c/a> plan he proposed earlier this month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s reached a level of seriousness and intention that I have never seen before,” said Mary Ellen Sprenkel, president and CEO of the Corps Network, a national association representing the nation’s 135 existing conservation corps, mostly private-public partnerships that have adopted the corps model for job training and community service.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Update for an Old Jobs Model \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In testimony last month before the House National Parks, Forests and Public Lands Subcommittee, Sprenkel told how then-President Franklin Delano Roosevelt used the Civilian Conservation Corps to put 3 million jobless Americans back to work over nine years during the Great Depression.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“CCC Boys,” as they were called, constructed more than 125,000 miles of roads and trails, 318,000 dams, 47,000 bridges and 3,500 fire towers, according to Sprenkel’s testimony. They installed 90,000 miles of telephone lines, dug irrigation channels long enough to cross from New York to Los Angeles and back, planted billions of trees, developed 800 state and local parks and restored more than 20 million acres of habitat and rangeland. In addition, they responded to hundreds of hurricanes, floods and fires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1974365\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1974365\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/Conservation-Corps-Minnesota-Iowa-800x600.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/Conservation-Corps-Minnesota-Iowa-800x600.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/Conservation-Corps-Minnesota-Iowa-1020x765.jpeg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/Conservation-Corps-Minnesota-Iowa-160x120.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/Conservation-Corps-Minnesota-Iowa-768x576.jpeg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/Conservation-Corps-Minnesota-Iowa-1536x1152.jpeg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/Conservation-Corps-Minnesota-Iowa-1920x1440.jpeg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/Conservation-Corps-Minnesota-Iowa.jpeg 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A member of Conservation Corps Minnesota & Iowa assists with a prescribed burn at Murphy-Hanrehan Park Reserve in Minnesota in May 2019. \u003ccite>(Photo Courtesy of the Corps Network/InsideClimate News)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Even as Washington is discussing updating the concept, today’s corps scattered across the country employ about 25,000 young people a year in urban and rural areas, Sprenkel testified. In 2019, they restored 1.4 million acres of habitat, planted more than 1 million trees, built 13,000 miles of trails, constructed or improved nearly 8,000 community gardens and green spaces, recycled 31,000 pounds of waste, audited the energy use and/or weatherized more than 31,000 homes and responded to 223 natural disasters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ramping up the new CCC could generate 1.5 million jobs, according to a recent \u003ca href=\"https://collaborative.evergreenaction.com/policy-hub/building-civilian-climate-corps\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">report\u003c/a> from the climate advocacy group, Evergreen Action. The Civilian Climate Corps for Jobs and Justice Act\u003cem>, \u003c/em>a bill introduced last week by\u003cem> \u003c/em>Sen. Edward J. Markey, D-Mass., and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-NY, embraces key parts of the proposals in Evergreen’s report.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Ambitious climate action can create millions of good-paying jobs across the country,” the report concluded. “The Biden administration will have the opportunity to drive that growth by training and deploying the next generation of climate workers.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The need would be great, even if the nation didn’t increase its commitment to fight climate change and transition to clean energy. The number of infrastructure and transportation workers nearing retirement will leave nearly 3 million jobs open by 2024, Sprenkel told lawmakers, so today’s corps could be doubled or even tripled in size just to meet the need that’s already coming.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Diversifying a Once White and Male Jobs Program\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The original CCC largely employed white men, 16 to 25, and veterans up to the age of 35. In its report, Evergreen described the target group as fundamentally flawed because it “perpetuated white supremacy and almost entirely excluded women, and many of the national parks in which its corps members worked were formed through violent displacement of Indigenous people.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Key provisions of the proposals now in play include enhancing diversity, equity and inclusion. Existing conservation work programs have made big strides in that direction — the Corps Network reports that the current makeup of groups in the network is about 45% women and 44% people of color.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This focus on diversity, equity and inclusion in the new proposals has brought supporters like the NAACP, the nation’s oldest civil rights organization, and Hispanics Enjoying Camping, Hunting, and the Outdoors (HECHO) into the fold.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nayyirah Shariff, director of Flint Rising, a coalition of advocacy groups, praised the conservation corps concept as “a chance to create climate resilient, self-sufficient urban centers by creating new green spaces using native plants and grasses, wetland reclamation, and training Black, Brown, and Indigenous people in careers that will reframe our relationship with the land.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Others see the events of the last year highlighting the need for a federal corps that employs populations and serves communities that were underserved by the original CCC.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Because the health and economic consequences of the pandemic have fallen disproportionately on communities of color, our approach to healing and recovery must explicitly target those communities,” said Marc H. Morial, National Urban League president, in a statement. “This effort to transform and revive the Civilian Conservation Corps is exactly the kind of initiative that will help us build a more inclusive and equitable economy for the future.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are several bills pending in the current Congress that include the conservation corps concept.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.coons.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/SUMMARY%20Civilian%20Climate%20Corps%20Act.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Bills\u003c/a> creating a new Civilian Climate Corps, one carried in the House by Rep. Joe Neguse, D-Colo., and in the Senate by Chris Coons, D-Del., directs the departments of Interior and Agriculture to focus on conservation and restoration on public lands. But the legislation also would assist front-line communities adapting to climate change by finding natural climate solutions and replacing vulnerable infrastructure. And it would prioritize sending its resources to “disadvantaged communities that are often disproportionately harmed by climate change and environmental degradation, and may have fewer resources build community resilience.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another bill being sponsored by Neguse, this time in concert with Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., focuses on federal forests and rural lands. Wyden has been pointing out since last year that there is a backlog of 2.5 million acres of \u003ca href=\"https://www.wyden.senate.gov/news/press-releases/wyden-presses-forest-service-on-backlog-of-hazardous-fuels-and-wildfire-prevention-projects-in-oregon-\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">hazardous fuel reduction projects\u003c/a> that are ready to go in the nation’s forests, but lack funding.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A kind of rural stimulus, it focuses on farms and forests after Colorado experienced the three largest wildfires in state history last year and hundreds of homes and businesses in Oregon burned in climate-driven wildfires that scorched over 1.2 million acres.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The answer is putting people to work in the woods to manage our forests, supporting science-based hazardous fuels treatments, investing in the health of our watersheds and, ultimately, prioritizing keeping our communities safe,” Wyden and Neguse said in a recent letter to Biden about their bill.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If Congress passes our bill tomorrow, forests would be more resilient and federal land managers would have the resources to reduce wildfire risk,” they wrote. “Neighborhoods would have safer homes and businesses, and cleaner air and water. Rural communities would have more jobs.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Wyden-Neguse legislation, according to information from Neguse’s office, has endorsements from environmental and trade groups, including, the Sierra Club, the Access Fund, the Outdoor Recreation Roundtable, the Family Farm Action Alliance, Backcountry Hunters & Anglers and even the Ochoco Lumber Co. in Oregon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Bipartisan Interest, but Reluctance to Spend More\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In many respects, the conservation corps idea seems like it ought to be embraced by urban blue-state progressives and rural red-state conservatives alike. And polling by Data for Progress cited by Evergreen last fall suggests the idea has strong bipartisan appeal, with 77% of likely voters supporting the concept, including 65% of Republicans and 87% of Democrats.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It helps that the conservation corps idea has thrived during both Republicans and Democratic White House administrations and in Congress. The late Sen. John McCain and onetime Rep. Martha McSally, both Republicans of Arizona, sponsored bipartisan conservation corps legislation in 2015 and 2017 — the 21st Century Conservation Corps Act — before Democrats picked up the legislation in subsequent congressional sessions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sprenkel, the Corps Network CEO, pointed out that Republicans have supported the programs in the past because of the aid corps members have provided in response to natural disasters. But not all Republicans are on board with the idea.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I do think that some, maybe more conservative Republicans, particularly those that represent extraction states, will view this as a potential either land grab or an effort to take jobs away,” she said “But, if it is designed and implemented correctly, it could be sort of a-rising-tide-lifts-all-boats [approach] and I think that’s how the administration is thinking they would like to implement the program, so every community and every person who wants to be a part of that has an opportunity.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But it’s not clear now how much appetite Congress has for another Biden initiative that calls for so much spending after the COVID-19 recovery stimulus bill passed earlier this year. And, so far, just a few Democrats have agreed to be co-sponsors of the main climate and conservation corps bills that are on the table.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kuo’s boss is Bruce Saito, who’s been with the California Conservation Corps for more than four decades. He’s hopeful that both Republicans and Democrats will recognize the value of expanding a program that does everything from improving energy efficiency in Harlem, to more traditional projects like trail building in Yosemite National Park.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Saito said that, since the COVID-19 pandemic and the high unemployment it has brought, along with of civil unrest and Black Lives Matter protests that followed, there’s been a lot of discussion about the value of helping to ease lingering economic and environmental justice problems with an infrastructure package like those being proposed by Biden and congressional Democrats.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’ve heard it before,” he said, recalling how infrastructure proposals have languished in Washington in the past. “But, you know, I’m just so hopeful that now is the time, that it’s not just talk.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">InsideClimate News\u003c/a> is a nonprofit, independent news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. Sign up for the ICN newsletter \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/newsletter\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">here\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Amy Kuo saw firsthand how powerful it can be to tackle the big problems of our times in small ways when she was on a California Conservation Corps work crew a few years ago in the sweltering summer heat deep in a forest outside of Los Angeles. Kuo, now a legislative analyst for the corps, recalls slogging upstream, sometimes waist deep in water or poison oak, hauling gasoline, chain saws and other heavy gear to clear fallen trees and debris blocking the riverbed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The grueling work and discomfort could be overwhelming. But then the sound of the river running and the trees swaying in the wind pierced her consciousness. She recognized that she and her crew were engaged in something bigger than themselves, working in concert with the land like generations before them had done. They were making a difference in the world in a small but meaningful way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s absolutely important to think of the larger picture, be that from your own community or globally,” Kuo said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Solving big problems with a huge workforce making lots of small contributions is the crux of an idea kicking around Washington to take on some of the most challenging issues of our times: reimagining the Depression-era Civilian Conservation Corps. The Biden White House and members of Congress want to tweak that concept to help rebuild the nation’s workforce in a stumbling economy while also reducing greenhouse gas emissions and facilitating the transition to clean energy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But, no matter the final shape, there’s growing support for dusting off the New Deal strategy to solve contemporary challenges, such as how to train the number of workers needed for clean-energy jobs, update the nation’s water infrastructure, reduce wildland fire hazards and foster racial justice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The idea of addressing these challenges with a revived CCC isn’t exactly new, but there are some fresh twists.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>President Biden has been talking about the idea since before he took office. A week into his presidency, he \u003ca href=\"https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/01/27/executive-order-on-tackling-the-climate-crisis-at-home-and-abroad/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">directed\u003c/a> the secretary of the interior to lead development of a strategy to mobilize a Civilian Climate Corps — “the next generation of conservation and resilience workers” — to help address the climate crisis. Then he called for spending $10 billion on the updated CCC in the $2 trillion \u003ca href=\"https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/03/31/fact-sheet-the-american-jobs-plan/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">jobs and infrastructure\u003c/a> plan he proposed earlier this month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s reached a level of seriousness and intention that I have never seen before,” said Mary Ellen Sprenkel, president and CEO of the Corps Network, a national association representing the nation’s 135 existing conservation corps, mostly private-public partnerships that have adopted the corps model for job training and community service.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Update for an Old Jobs Model \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In testimony last month before the House National Parks, Forests and Public Lands Subcommittee, Sprenkel told how then-President Franklin Delano Roosevelt used the Civilian Conservation Corps to put 3 million jobless Americans back to work over nine years during the Great Depression.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“CCC Boys,” as they were called, constructed more than 125,000 miles of roads and trails, 318,000 dams, 47,000 bridges and 3,500 fire towers, according to Sprenkel’s testimony. They installed 90,000 miles of telephone lines, dug irrigation channels long enough to cross from New York to Los Angeles and back, planted billions of trees, developed 800 state and local parks and restored more than 20 million acres of habitat and rangeland. In addition, they responded to hundreds of hurricanes, floods and fires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1974365\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1974365\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/Conservation-Corps-Minnesota-Iowa-800x600.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/Conservation-Corps-Minnesota-Iowa-800x600.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/Conservation-Corps-Minnesota-Iowa-1020x765.jpeg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/Conservation-Corps-Minnesota-Iowa-160x120.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/Conservation-Corps-Minnesota-Iowa-768x576.jpeg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/Conservation-Corps-Minnesota-Iowa-1536x1152.jpeg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/Conservation-Corps-Minnesota-Iowa-1920x1440.jpeg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/Conservation-Corps-Minnesota-Iowa.jpeg 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A member of Conservation Corps Minnesota & Iowa assists with a prescribed burn at Murphy-Hanrehan Park Reserve in Minnesota in May 2019. \u003ccite>(Photo Courtesy of the Corps Network/InsideClimate News)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Even as Washington is discussing updating the concept, today’s corps scattered across the country employ about 25,000 young people a year in urban and rural areas, Sprenkel testified. In 2019, they restored 1.4 million acres of habitat, planted more than 1 million trees, built 13,000 miles of trails, constructed or improved nearly 8,000 community gardens and green spaces, recycled 31,000 pounds of waste, audited the energy use and/or weatherized more than 31,000 homes and responded to 223 natural disasters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ramping up the new CCC could generate 1.5 million jobs, according to a recent \u003ca href=\"https://collaborative.evergreenaction.com/policy-hub/building-civilian-climate-corps\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">report\u003c/a> from the climate advocacy group, Evergreen Action. The Civilian Climate Corps for Jobs and Justice Act\u003cem>, \u003c/em>a bill introduced last week by\u003cem> \u003c/em>Sen. Edward J. Markey, D-Mass., and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-NY, embraces key parts of the proposals in Evergreen’s report.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Ambitious climate action can create millions of good-paying jobs across the country,” the report concluded. “The Biden administration will have the opportunity to drive that growth by training and deploying the next generation of climate workers.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The need would be great, even if the nation didn’t increase its commitment to fight climate change and transition to clean energy. The number of infrastructure and transportation workers nearing retirement will leave nearly 3 million jobs open by 2024, Sprenkel told lawmakers, so today’s corps could be doubled or even tripled in size just to meet the need that’s already coming.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Diversifying a Once White and Male Jobs Program\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The original CCC largely employed white men, 16 to 25, and veterans up to the age of 35. In its report, Evergreen described the target group as fundamentally flawed because it “perpetuated white supremacy and almost entirely excluded women, and many of the national parks in which its corps members worked were formed through violent displacement of Indigenous people.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Key provisions of the proposals now in play include enhancing diversity, equity and inclusion. Existing conservation work programs have made big strides in that direction — the Corps Network reports that the current makeup of groups in the network is about 45% women and 44% people of color.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This focus on diversity, equity and inclusion in the new proposals has brought supporters like the NAACP, the nation’s oldest civil rights organization, and Hispanics Enjoying Camping, Hunting, and the Outdoors (HECHO) into the fold.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nayyirah Shariff, director of Flint Rising, a coalition of advocacy groups, praised the conservation corps concept as “a chance to create climate resilient, self-sufficient urban centers by creating new green spaces using native plants and grasses, wetland reclamation, and training Black, Brown, and Indigenous people in careers that will reframe our relationship with the land.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Others see the events of the last year highlighting the need for a federal corps that employs populations and serves communities that were underserved by the original CCC.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Because the health and economic consequences of the pandemic have fallen disproportionately on communities of color, our approach to healing and recovery must explicitly target those communities,” said Marc H. Morial, National Urban League president, in a statement. “This effort to transform and revive the Civilian Conservation Corps is exactly the kind of initiative that will help us build a more inclusive and equitable economy for the future.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are several bills pending in the current Congress that include the conservation corps concept.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.coons.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/SUMMARY%20Civilian%20Climate%20Corps%20Act.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Bills\u003c/a> creating a new Civilian Climate Corps, one carried in the House by Rep. Joe Neguse, D-Colo., and in the Senate by Chris Coons, D-Del., directs the departments of Interior and Agriculture to focus on conservation and restoration on public lands. But the legislation also would assist front-line communities adapting to climate change by finding natural climate solutions and replacing vulnerable infrastructure. And it would prioritize sending its resources to “disadvantaged communities that are often disproportionately harmed by climate change and environmental degradation, and may have fewer resources build community resilience.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another bill being sponsored by Neguse, this time in concert with Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., focuses on federal forests and rural lands. Wyden has been pointing out since last year that there is a backlog of 2.5 million acres of \u003ca href=\"https://www.wyden.senate.gov/news/press-releases/wyden-presses-forest-service-on-backlog-of-hazardous-fuels-and-wildfire-prevention-projects-in-oregon-\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">hazardous fuel reduction projects\u003c/a> that are ready to go in the nation’s forests, but lack funding.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A kind of rural stimulus, it focuses on farms and forests after Colorado experienced the three largest wildfires in state history last year and hundreds of homes and businesses in Oregon burned in climate-driven wildfires that scorched over 1.2 million acres.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The answer is putting people to work in the woods to manage our forests, supporting science-based hazardous fuels treatments, investing in the health of our watersheds and, ultimately, prioritizing keeping our communities safe,” Wyden and Neguse said in a recent letter to Biden about their bill.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If Congress passes our bill tomorrow, forests would be more resilient and federal land managers would have the resources to reduce wildfire risk,” they wrote. “Neighborhoods would have safer homes and businesses, and cleaner air and water. Rural communities would have more jobs.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Wyden-Neguse legislation, according to information from Neguse’s office, has endorsements from environmental and trade groups, including, the Sierra Club, the Access Fund, the Outdoor Recreation Roundtable, the Family Farm Action Alliance, Backcountry Hunters & Anglers and even the Ochoco Lumber Co. in Oregon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Bipartisan Interest, but Reluctance to Spend More\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In many respects, the conservation corps idea seems like it ought to be embraced by urban blue-state progressives and rural red-state conservatives alike. And polling by Data for Progress cited by Evergreen last fall suggests the idea has strong bipartisan appeal, with 77% of likely voters supporting the concept, including 65% of Republicans and 87% of Democrats.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It helps that the conservation corps idea has thrived during both Republicans and Democratic White House administrations and in Congress. The late Sen. John McCain and onetime Rep. Martha McSally, both Republicans of Arizona, sponsored bipartisan conservation corps legislation in 2015 and 2017 — the 21st Century Conservation Corps Act — before Democrats picked up the legislation in subsequent congressional sessions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sprenkel, the Corps Network CEO, pointed out that Republicans have supported the programs in the past because of the aid corps members have provided in response to natural disasters. But not all Republicans are on board with the idea.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I do think that some, maybe more conservative Republicans, particularly those that represent extraction states, will view this as a potential either land grab or an effort to take jobs away,” she said “But, if it is designed and implemented correctly, it could be sort of a-rising-tide-lifts-all-boats [approach] and I think that’s how the administration is thinking they would like to implement the program, so every community and every person who wants to be a part of that has an opportunity.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But it’s not clear now how much appetite Congress has for another Biden initiative that calls for so much spending after the COVID-19 recovery stimulus bill passed earlier this year. And, so far, just a few Democrats have agreed to be co-sponsors of the main climate and conservation corps bills that are on the table.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kuo’s boss is Bruce Saito, who’s been with the California Conservation Corps for more than four decades. He’s hopeful that both Republicans and Democrats will recognize the value of expanding a program that does everything from improving energy efficiency in Harlem, to more traditional projects like trail building in Yosemite National Park.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Saito said that, since the COVID-19 pandemic and the high unemployment it has brought, along with of civil unrest and Black Lives Matter protests that followed, there’s been a lot of discussion about the value of helping to ease lingering economic and environmental justice problems with an infrastructure package like those being proposed by Biden and congressional Democrats.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’ve heard it before,” he said, recalling how infrastructure proposals have languished in Washington in the past. “But, you know, I’m just so hopeful that now is the time, that it’s not just talk.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "Mapa: Descubre cuáles lugares del Área de la Bahía están en riesgo de inundación por el aumento del nivel del mar",
"headTitle": "Mapa: Descubre cuáles lugares del Área de la Bahía están en riesgo de inundación por el aumento del nivel del mar | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>Esta serie es parte de la iniciativa nacional de periodismo ‘\u003ca href=\"http://connected-coastlines.pulitzercenter.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Connected Coastlines\u003c/a>‘ del Centro Pulitzer.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1973624/maps-see-which-bay-area-locations-are-at-risk-from-rising-seas\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cem>Read in English\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch5>Una proyección del aumento del nivel del mar en el Área de la Bahía hasta el 2050\u003c/h5>\n\u003cp style=\"line-height: 90%\">\u003cspan style=\"font-size: small\">\u003cem>Puede mover su mouse para explorar las direcciones del mapa. Puede usar los signos (+) y (-) para acercarse o alejarse. Selecciona la lupa para buscar una dirección específica. Para esconder la leyenda, selecciona la flecha hacia abajo que está ubicada al lado derecho de la leyenda del mapa. Fuentes: USGS, OCOF, Pacific Institute\u003c/em>\u003c/span>\u003cbr>\n\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://kqed.carto.com/u/kqednews/builder/13e1ca7c-3df3-4f40-bcd3-8072f22d9e6c/embed\" width=\"100%\" height=\"500\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\" frameborder=\"0\">\u003c/iframe>\n\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>El nivel de la marea alta de la bahía se dirige en una dirección: arriba. Los modelos utilizados en \u003ca href=\"http://www.opc.ca.gov/webmaster/ftp/pdf/docs/rising-seas-in-california-an-update-on-sea-level-rise-science.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">la última evaluación\u003c/a> del aumento del nivel del mar del estado de California, en 2017, incluyen un rango superior que está definido en términos de eventos estadísticamente menos probables. Muestran que la bahía podría elevarse hasta 1.9 pies para el año 2050 y 6.9 pies para los fines de siglo, que son mayores que los niveles demostrados en los dos mapas de esta página.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pero esto podría empeorar aún más: las ciudades que ya se están preparando para posibles inundaciones en los próximos años también tienen que preocuparse por unos metros adicionales de agua que se estrellan contra las costas durante una tormenta intensa.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Durante las tormentas, East Palo Alto y otras ciudades a lo largo de la costa de la bahía ya sufren inundaciones y erosión costera, que solo se verán agravadas por el esperando aumento del nivel del mar.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“El aumento del nivel del mar es uno de los efectos más seguros del cambio climático”, dijo \u003ca href=\"https://ce.berkeley.edu/people/faculty/stacey\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Mark Stacey\u003c/a>, ingeniero ambiental de UC Berkeley. “Sabemos que gran parte de eso ya está fijo, y sabemos que los mares seguirán aumentando a un ritmo constante y quizás acelerándose en las próximas décadas”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Son pocas las diferencias entre los escenarios de modelado científico antes del año 2050 , pero estas cambian drásticamente después de mediados de siglo de acuerdo conla trayectoria de las emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero, lo cual queda en manos de los seres humanos, y el destino de las placas de hielo en Groenlandia y la Antártida.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch5>Una proyección del aumento del nivel del mar en el Área de la Bahía en 2100\u003c/h5>\n\u003cp style=\"line-height: 90%\">\u003cspan style=\"font-size: small\">\u003cem>Puede mover su mouse para explorar las direcciones del mapa. Puede usar los signos (+) y (-) para acercarse o alejarse. Selecciona la lupa para buscar una dirección específica. Para esconder la leyenda, selecciona la flecha hacia abajo que está ubicada al lado derecho de la leyenda del mapa. Fuentes: USGS, OCOF, Pacific Institute\u003c/em>\u003c/span>\u003cbr>\n\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://kqed.carto.com/u/kqednews/builder/6f66d357-18dc-49af-95d7-f34ca39e38b7/embed\" width=\"100%\" height=\"500\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\" frameborder=\"0\">\u003c/iframe>\n\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Los mapas o modelos científicos no cuentan una historia más drástica, en el que las placas de hielo de Groenlandia y la Antártida colapsan. Pero si esto ocurre, el Área de la Bahía podría ver un aumento de 10 pies del nivel del mar para el 2100, lo que Stacey llama una “aceleración masiva” de 30 a 40 veces más rápida que la tasa de aumento que hemos visto durante el último siglo.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Esto se extiende más allá del alcance de lo que hemos pensado en nuestro horizonte de planificación en términos de la magnitud del cambio que enfrentaremos en esta región”, dijo, y agregó que tal aumento requeriría un “replanteamiento completo de la comunidades en todo el Área de la Bahía, y un cambio de sistemas de infraestructura que sería bastante profundo “.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>La evaluación del estado dice: “Las reducciones agresivas en las emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero pueden reducir sustancialmente, pero no eliminar, el riesgo de un aumento extremo del nivel del mar en California debido a la pérdida de hielo antártico”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Fuente de datos\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\n\u003cem>Las proyecciones para las inundaciones del Área de la Bahía provienen del escenario 8.5 del “sendero de concentración representativa” o representative concentration pathway en inglés del Panel Intergubernamental sobre el Cambio Climático, como se detalla en \u003ca href=\"http://www.opc.ca.gov/webmaster/ftp/pdf/docs/rising-seas-in-california-an-update-on-sea-level-rise-science.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">la última evaluación científica\u003c/a> del aumento del nivel del mar en California, dirigida por Gary Griggs de UC Santa Cruz.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>El escenario asume que “no hay esfuerzos globales significativos para limitar o reducir las emisiones”.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Los mapas utilizan un modelo dinámico de \u003ca href=\"http://ourcoastourfuture.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Our Coast, Our Future\u003c/a>. Las inundaciones estimadas son aproximaciones. Los datos provienen del U.S. Geological Survey Coastal Storm Modeling System 9 CoSMoS v2.1; Barnard et al, 2014.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Este artículo fue traducido por la periodista, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/lblanco\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Lina Blanco\u003c/a> y editado por la periodista \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/amorga\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Adriana Morga\u003c/a>. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>Esta serie es parte de la iniciativa nacional de periodismo ‘\u003ca href=\"http://connected-coastlines.pulitzercenter.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Connected Coastlines\u003c/a>‘ del Centro Pulitzer.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1973624/maps-see-which-bay-area-locations-are-at-risk-from-rising-seas\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cem>Read in English\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch5>Una proyección del aumento del nivel del mar en el Área de la Bahía hasta el 2050\u003c/h5>\n\u003cp style=\"line-height: 90%\">\u003cspan style=\"font-size: small\">\u003cem>Puede mover su mouse para explorar las direcciones del mapa. Puede usar los signos (+) y (-) para acercarse o alejarse. Selecciona la lupa para buscar una dirección específica. Para esconder la leyenda, selecciona la flecha hacia abajo que está ubicada al lado derecho de la leyenda del mapa. Fuentes: USGS, OCOF, Pacific Institute\u003c/em>\u003c/span>\u003cbr>\n\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://kqed.carto.com/u/kqednews/builder/13e1ca7c-3df3-4f40-bcd3-8072f22d9e6c/embed\" width=\"100%\" height=\"500\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\" frameborder=\"0\">\u003c/iframe>\n\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>El nivel de la marea alta de la bahía se dirige en una dirección: arriba. Los modelos utilizados en \u003ca href=\"http://www.opc.ca.gov/webmaster/ftp/pdf/docs/rising-seas-in-california-an-update-on-sea-level-rise-science.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">la última evaluación\u003c/a> del aumento del nivel del mar del estado de California, en 2017, incluyen un rango superior que está definido en términos de eventos estadísticamente menos probables. Muestran que la bahía podría elevarse hasta 1.9 pies para el año 2050 y 6.9 pies para los fines de siglo, que son mayores que los niveles demostrados en los dos mapas de esta página.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pero esto podría empeorar aún más: las ciudades que ya se están preparando para posibles inundaciones en los próximos años también tienen que preocuparse por unos metros adicionales de agua que se estrellan contra las costas durante una tormenta intensa.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Durante las tormentas, East Palo Alto y otras ciudades a lo largo de la costa de la bahía ya sufren inundaciones y erosión costera, que solo se verán agravadas por el esperando aumento del nivel del mar.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“El aumento del nivel del mar es uno de los efectos más seguros del cambio climático”, dijo \u003ca href=\"https://ce.berkeley.edu/people/faculty/stacey\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Mark Stacey\u003c/a>, ingeniero ambiental de UC Berkeley. “Sabemos que gran parte de eso ya está fijo, y sabemos que los mares seguirán aumentando a un ritmo constante y quizás acelerándose en las próximas décadas”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Son pocas las diferencias entre los escenarios de modelado científico antes del año 2050 , pero estas cambian drásticamente después de mediados de siglo de acuerdo conla trayectoria de las emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero, lo cual queda en manos de los seres humanos, y el destino de las placas de hielo en Groenlandia y la Antártida.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch5>Una proyección del aumento del nivel del mar en el Área de la Bahía en 2100\u003c/h5>\n\u003cp style=\"line-height: 90%\">\u003cspan style=\"font-size: small\">\u003cem>Puede mover su mouse para explorar las direcciones del mapa. Puede usar los signos (+) y (-) para acercarse o alejarse. Selecciona la lupa para buscar una dirección específica. Para esconder la leyenda, selecciona la flecha hacia abajo que está ubicada al lado derecho de la leyenda del mapa. Fuentes: USGS, OCOF, Pacific Institute\u003c/em>\u003c/span>\u003cbr>\n\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://kqed.carto.com/u/kqednews/builder/6f66d357-18dc-49af-95d7-f34ca39e38b7/embed\" width=\"100%\" height=\"500\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\" frameborder=\"0\">\u003c/iframe>\n\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Los mapas o modelos científicos no cuentan una historia más drástica, en el que las placas de hielo de Groenlandia y la Antártida colapsan. Pero si esto ocurre, el Área de la Bahía podría ver un aumento de 10 pies del nivel del mar para el 2100, lo que Stacey llama una “aceleración masiva” de 30 a 40 veces más rápida que la tasa de aumento que hemos visto durante el último siglo.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Esto se extiende más allá del alcance de lo que hemos pensado en nuestro horizonte de planificación en términos de la magnitud del cambio que enfrentaremos en esta región”, dijo, y agregó que tal aumento requeriría un “replanteamiento completo de la comunidades en todo el Área de la Bahía, y un cambio de sistemas de infraestructura que sería bastante profundo “.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>La evaluación del estado dice: “Las reducciones agresivas en las emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero pueden reducir sustancialmente, pero no eliminar, el riesgo de un aumento extremo del nivel del mar en California debido a la pérdida de hielo antártico”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Fuente de datos\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\n\u003cem>Las proyecciones para las inundaciones del Área de la Bahía provienen del escenario 8.5 del “sendero de concentración representativa” o representative concentration pathway en inglés del Panel Intergubernamental sobre el Cambio Climático, como se detalla en \u003ca href=\"http://www.opc.ca.gov/webmaster/ftp/pdf/docs/rising-seas-in-california-an-update-on-sea-level-rise-science.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">la última evaluación científica\u003c/a> del aumento del nivel del mar en California, dirigida por Gary Griggs de UC Santa Cruz.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>El escenario asume que “no hay esfuerzos globales significativos para limitar o reducir las emisiones”.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Los mapas utilizan un modelo dinámico de \u003ca href=\"http://ourcoastourfuture.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Our Coast, Our Future\u003c/a>. Las inundaciones estimadas son aproximaciones. Los datos provienen del U.S. Geological Survey Coastal Storm Modeling System 9 CoSMoS v2.1; Barnard et al, 2014.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Este artículo fue traducido por la periodista, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/lblanco\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Lina Blanco\u003c/a> y editado por la periodista \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/amorga\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Adriana Morga\u003c/a>. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "¿Qué puede hacer el Área de la Bahía ante el aumento del nivel del mar? El Este de Palo Alto ya está proponiendo algunas soluciones",
"headTitle": "¿Qué puede hacer el Área de la Bahía ante el aumento del nivel del mar? El Este de Palo Alto ya está proponiendo algunas soluciones | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>Esta serie es parte de la iniciativa nacional de periodismo ‘\u003ca href=\"http://connected-coastlines.pulitzercenter.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Connected Coastlines\u003c/a>‘ del Centro Pulitzer.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1973805/climate-solutions-in-east-palo-alto\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cem>Read in English\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 4.6875em;float: left;line-height: 0.733em;padding: 0.05em 0.1em 0 0;font-family: times, serif, georgia\">L\u003c/span>a primera vez que las calles se inundaron, Appollonia Grey ‘Uhilamoelangi, mejor conocida como ‘Mamá Dee’ en su comunidad del Este de Palo Alto, recordó el clima de su natal Samoa, pese a que estas lluvias eran más frías y severas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Yo me sentía muy feliz esa vez”, dijo ‘Uhilamoelangi, refiriéndose a su primer gran diluvio en el Área de la Bahía. “Yo estaba afuera nadando en la lluvia, jugando en la lluvia. Había agua por todas partes”, agregó.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote]Según las proyecciones, dentro de unos 10 años hasta dos tercios del Este de Palo Alto podrían sufrir inundaciones con regularidad, lo que podría desencadenar un efecto domino de varias crisis alrededor del Área de la Bahía. Ahora, el gobierno, las empresas y los residentes se han unido para intentar prepararse.[/pullquote]Pero la ciudad del Este de Palo Alto es propensa a inundaciones, y en tres instancias en los últimos treinta años, las lluvias torrenciales han devastado a esta localidad que cuenta con alrededor de 30 mil habitantes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“En las dos últimas inundaciones, la pregunta era, ¿dónde está Dios?”, dijo ella. “No me malinterpreten. Yo creo en el poder de la oración. Pero he sobrevivido muchas catástrofes”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ahora, el nivel del mar en la bahía de San Francisco está subiendo por los efectos del cambio climático, lo cual representa una amenaza existencial para esta pequeña comunidad, compuesta por lo general de familias de color.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>No es una exageración. El Este de Palo Alto se encuentra situado entre las ciudades de San Francisco y San José, al extremo occidental del puente Dumbarton. De todos los condados del Área de la Bahía, el condado San Mateo es el que corre más riesgo por el aumento del nivel del mar. Y de todas las poblaciones en el condado, el Este de Palo Alto es la más vulnerable a las inundaciones provocadas por el clima.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch5>Una proyección del aumento del nivel del mar en el Área de la Bahía hasta el 2050\u003c/h5>\n\u003cp style=\"line-height: 90%\">\u003cspan style=\"font-size: small\">\u003cem>Puede mover su mouse para explorar las direcciones del mapa. Puede usar los signos (+) y (-) para acercarse o alejarse. Selecciona la lupa para buscar una dirección específica. Para esconder la leyenda, selecciona la flecha hacia abajo que está ubicada al lado derecho de la leyenda del mapa. Fuentes: USGS, OCOF, Pacific Institute\u003c/em>\u003c/span>\u003cbr>\n\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://kqed.carto.com/u/kqednews/builder/13e1ca7c-3df3-4f40-bcd3-8072f22d9e6c/embed\" width=\"100%\" height=\"500\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\" frameborder=\"0\">\u003c/iframe>\n\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Con un área de 2.5 millas cuadradas y repleta de árboles de cítricos y casas estilo rancho, la ciudad está rodeada de agua por sus tres lados: el arroyo San Francisquito que serpentea a lo largo del extremo sur y la bahía, al norte y al este.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>La mitad del Este de Palo Alto ya ha sido \u003ca href=\"https://www.cityofepa.org/sites/default/files/fileattachments/community_amp_economic_development/page/2531/fema_maps_2015_201509011239377956.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">designada como una zona de inundación\u003c/a> por el gobierno federal. Según las proyecciones, en alrededor de 10 años, hasta dos tercios del terreno dentro de los límites de la ciudad podrían sufrir inundados con regularidad. A mediados del siglo, esas zonas podrían quedar frecuentemente bajo el agua durante las altas mareas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Los efectos del cambio climático están impactando de manera desproporcionada a las comunidades de color como el Este de Palo Alto.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=\"science_1974232,science_1974195\"]El aburguesamiento (conocido comunmente como ‘gentrificación’) y la afluencia de los gigantes de la tecnología como Facebook, Google y Amazon ha transformado a la ciudad pero aún así, sigue siendo una comunidad mayormente compuesta por personas no blancas. El 66% de la población se identifica como Latina y muchas personas provenientes de las islas del Pacífico, como ‘Uhilamoelangi, viven aquí.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cuando las lluvias son fuertes, el arroyo se desborda e inunda las partes al este de la ciudad y un nivel de mar elevado agravará el problema aún más, complicando la viabilidad de que el Este de Palo Alto siga siendo el hogar para familias obreras, dijo Derek Ouyang académico y gerente de programas con \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://www.cityofepa.org/sites/default/files/fileattachments/community_amp_economic_development/page/2531/fema_maps_2015_201509011239377956.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Stanford Future Bay Initiative\u003c/a>\u003c/em> (o la Iniciativa por el Futuro de la Bahía de Stanford), que trabaja con líderes comunitarios de la ciudad.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Si conocieras a 100 familias del el Este de Palo Alto, quizás 50 de ellas ya han llegado al punto en que sus ahorros son tan bajos…que una inundación…podría ser su límite”, dijo Ouyang.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>En 1998, las aguas de una inundación \u003ca href=\"https://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/2018/02/03/a-flood-next-time\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">anegaron a más de mil hogares\u003c/a>. Y en el 2012, el arroyo se desbordó, resultando en evacuaciones de las zonas afectadas. Para mitigar el riesgo, la ciudad, en colaboración con otras localidades cercanas a través de la oficina de \u003cem>San Francisquito Creek Joint Powers Authority\u003c/em> (o la Autoridad de Poderes Conjuntos del Arroyo San Francisquito) rediseñó partes de su costa.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1974199\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1020px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1974199\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/East-Palo-Alto-Flood-1998-1-1020x574-1.jpg\" alt=\"Varias partes del Este de Palo Alto se inundaron en 1998.\" width=\"1020\" height=\"574\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/East-Palo-Alto-Flood-1998-1-1020x574-1.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/East-Palo-Alto-Flood-1998-1-1020x574-1-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/East-Palo-Alto-Flood-1998-1-1020x574-1-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/East-Palo-Alto-Flood-1998-1-1020x574-1-768x432.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1020px) 100vw, 1020px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Varias partes del Este de Palo Alto se inundaron en 1998. \u003ccite>(Teodros Hailye/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Para algunos residentes del Este de Palo Alto, no es la primera vez que las inundaciones y el cambio climático amenazan a sus hogares.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Aquí viven refugiados que huyeron de una crisis ambiental en las islas del Pacífico, donde el nivel del mar aún sigue creciendo. Y ahora, a pesar de que se encuentran a miles de millas de distancia en un nuevo hogar, nuevamente enfrentan amenazas similares.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Muchos están colaborando con científicos, la ciudad y la autoridad de poderes conjuntos para salvar hogares restaurando y creando un nuevo humedal que se encuentra en la orilla de la bahía.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Y pese a que \u003ca href=\"https://www.cityofepa.org/sites/default/files/fileattachments/finance/page/4321/adopted_fy_2020-21_budget.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">el presupuesto del Este de Palo Alto\u003c/a> (que equivale $41.8 millones) es 325 veces menor que el de San Francisco, la ciudad se está desempeñando muy por encima de su capacidad en términos de planificación para un aumento en la marea.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1974211\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 480px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1974211\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48667_IMG_2781-sfi-1.jpg\" alt=\"Heleine Grewe, de 17 años, y Leia Grewe, su madre, están afuera en un día soleado.\" width=\"480\" height=\"360\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48667_IMG_2781-sfi-1.jpg 480w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48667_IMG_2781-sfi-1-160x120.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Heleine Grewe, de 17 años con su madre, Leia Grewe, en el Este de Palo Alto. \u003ccite>(Kevin Stark/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Sin embargo, puede ser no suficiente. Los ecosistemas y la infraestructura del Área de la Bahía están profundamente interconectados, lo que significa que sin un plan regional que incluya a todas las comunidades a lo largo de la bahía, los esfuerzos de los residentes del Este de Palo Alto podrían tener un impacto muy limitado.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tanto los líderes políticos como los activistas comunitarios de la ciudad, muchos quienes son adolescentes frustrados por el hecho de heredar los peores efectos del aumento en el nivel del océano y el derretimiento de las capas de hielo, entienden la importancia de este hecho.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Sólo quiero un plan para el futuro, porque si esto pasa y hay inundaciones por todas partes, la gente debe de saber cómo responder”, dijo Heleine Grewe, una estudiante de 17 años en el último año de la preparatoria Menlo-Atherton.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote align=\"right\" size=\"medium\" citation=\"Leía Grewe, residente del Este de Palo Alto\"]‘Me acuerdo de todos los lugares que no estaban listos…Como lo que pasó con [el huracán] Katrina. Eso nos podría pasar en algunos años.’[/pullquote]Los abuelos maternos de Grewe emigraron de Tonga y la familia de su papá llegó al Este de Palo Alto como parte de una migración más grande de familias afroamericanas a la ciudad a mediados del siglo pasado. Muchos experimentaron \u003ca href=\"https://bos.smcgov.org/history-east-palo-alto#:~:text=East%20Palo%20Alto%20became%20one,in%201983%3A%201%2C782%20to%201%2C767\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">acoso inmobiliario\u003c/a> y otras \u003ca href=\"https://www.google.com/books/edition/Hearings_Before_the_United_States_Commis/fUXVAAAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=East%20Palo%20Alto\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">tácticas de vivienda discriminatorias\u003c/a>, el resultado de décadas de políticas basadas en la segregación racial.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Leia, su madre, teme que el agua llegará con toda su furia a su puerta.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Me acuerdo de todos los lugares que no estaban listos”, dijo ella. “Como lo que pasó con [el hurac\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">án]\u003c/span> Katrina. Eso nos podría pasar en algunos años”.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Los vínculos del cambio climático\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>‘Uhilamoelangi emigró de Samoa junto a su esposo Senita (quien también lo conocen como ‘Papá Senter’) a mediados de la década de los 70 debido a que en ese entonces, los huracanes y tsunamis comenzaron a llegar con mayor frecuencia.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Todo los isleños…nunca tenemos una conversación casual sobre la lluvia, las inundaciones”, explicó ella, y agregó, “Cada vez que llega un tsunami a nuestra isla, o cualquiera de las islas, todos nosotros sentimos una conexión y es muy emotivo”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pero no fue hasta mediados de los años 2010 que ella entendió el vínculo entre estas tormentas tropicales y el calentamiento del planeta.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Yo no sabía lo que era el cambio climático”, dijo ‘Uhilamoelangi.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside label=\"Aquí puedes escuchar los reportajes que salieron en la radio de esta investigación, en inglés\" link1=\"https://traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/0af137ef-751e-4b19-a055-aaef00d2d578/ffca7e9f-6831-41c5-bcaf-aaef00f5a073/9781a65a-2213-47f8-8203-ad1201221d2f/audio.mp3,Parte 1\" link2=\"https://traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/0af137ef-751e-4b19-a055-aaef00d2d578/ffca7e9f-6831-41c5-bcaf-aaef00f5a073/eceb8c18-f067-4a06-97d7-ad13011a189e/audio.mp3,Parte 2\"]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Las inundaciones en el Este de Palo Alto, el clima extremo en Samoa y él aumento del nivel del mar, para ‘Uhilamoelangi, todo esto está conectado.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ella logró entender cómo las inundaciones en el Este de Palo Alto, el clima extremo en Samoa y la subida del nivel del mar están todos interconectados luego de conocer a Violet Saena del grupo \u003ca href=\"https://www.acterra.org/climate-resilient-communities\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cem>Climate Resilient Communities\u003c/em>\u003c/a> (o las ‘Comunidades Resistentes al Clima’), el cual se dedica a proteger los residentes de la península que no están respresentandos en la crisis climática.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Puedo hacer preguntas que parezcan estúpidas, pero Violet siempre me da una respuesta “, dijo Mamá Dee.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Saena fue la primera en dirigir los esfuerzos para enfrentar el cambio climático en Samoa, creando el primer plan de resistencia del país . Cuando acompañó a su marido al Área de la Bahía, ella vio cómo esta comunidad también necesitaba entender más sobre este riesgo que se avecina.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Con el apoyo de algunos estudiantes de Stanford, ella fue de puerta en puerta en el Este de Palo Alto, preguntando a los residentes qué sabían sobre los efectos del aumento del nivel del mar.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Para mí, esto es algo fácil ya que soy una persona de color y porque vengo de la isla”, dijo ella. “Ellos ven eso y piensan, ‘Ah sí, ella es como nosotros’ “.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1974212\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 1020px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1974212\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48288_014_EastPaloAlto_SeaLevelRise_03292021-qut-1020x680-1.jpg\" alt=\"Violet Saena, directora ejecutiva del grupo 'Comunidades resistentes al clima' en el parque Cooley Landing del Este de Palo Alto.\" width=\"1020\" height=\"680\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48288_014_EastPaloAlto_SeaLevelRise_03292021-qut-1020x680-1.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48288_014_EastPaloAlto_SeaLevelRise_03292021-qut-1020x680-1-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48288_014_EastPaloAlto_SeaLevelRise_03292021-qut-1020x680-1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48288_014_EastPaloAlto_SeaLevelRise_03292021-qut-1020x680-1-768x512.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1020px) 100vw, 1020px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Violet Saena, directora ejecutiva del grupo ‘Comunidades resistentes al clima’ en el parque Cooley Landing del Este de Palo Alto. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Algo que surgió a raíz de esas pláticas fue la creación de grupos climáticos comunitarios destinados a involucrar y educar a residentes en los planes de adaptación del Este de Palo Alto, así como a ayudarles en sus necesidades básicas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>La gente quiere formar parte de “estrategias reales”, dijo Saena. “No sólo les interesa el dique. También quieren saber qué pueden hacer ellos mismos, como manejar cisternas de agua o sistemas de precipitación en sus jardines”, explicó.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ella reconoce que el número de residentes de bajos ingresos que necesitarán ayuda es alto. “No tendrán los medios para comprar otro carro si el que tienen lo pierden en una inundación. Entonces, ¿qué programas podemos desarrollar que puedan ayudar a todos?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Si toda el Área de la Bahía adoptara esta filosofía, la región podría ser mucho más resistente al cambio climático, afirma \u003ca href=\"https://www.elizabethallisonphd.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Elizabeth Allison\u003c/a>, que estudia la intersección entre la religion y la ecología en el Instituto de Estudios Integrales de California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Creo que debemos adoptar una cierta especie de ética integral de cuidado cuando consideramos el cambio climático”, dijo ella. Esto incluye ser consciente de todo el planeta, incluyendo a las generaciones por venir “de la misma manera que nos importa nuestros vecinos, amistades y familiares”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote align=\"right\" size=\"medium\" citation=\"Appollonia Grey ‘Uhilamoelangi, o 'Mamá Dee', residente del Este de Palo Alto y líder comunitaria\"]‘Si queremos impedir otro desastre, ¿a dónde iremos?.’[/pullquote]Este tipo de cuidado está en el corazón de \u003ca href=\"https://anamatangi.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cem>Anamantangi Polynesian Voices\u003c/em>\u003c/a> (o ‘Voces polinesias anamantangi’), la organización creada por los ‘Uhilamoelangi, la cual provee asistencia a los inmigrantes recién llegados con escasos recursos. Esto incluye a la educación, algo que motiva mucho a la pareja.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Somos voluntarios de tiempo completo en los esfuerzos para detener el cambio climático”, dijo Mamá Dee, “si queremos impedir otro desastre, ¿a dónde iremos?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>No escapando a otra localidad posiblemente más segura, dice ella. La pareja está decidida a quedarse en el Este de Palo Alto, pese a la doble amenaza de la subida del nivel del mar y la gentrificación. Se mantendrán firmes hasta el final.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Un semicírculo de protección\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Actualmente existe en desarrollo un proyecto para proteger parte del Este de Palo Alto: un nuevo dique que separaría un segmento de la ciudad y el arroyo de San Francisquito, el cual está conectado a la bahía.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Este proyecto, que ya lleva más de 20 años, comenzó luego de la inundación del 1998”, dijo el alcalde Carlos Romero, parado encima del dique con vista a un vecindario repleto de casas de una planta y calles repletas de carros. “Todo esto estaba inundado. Tenía amigos aquí que sus salas se llenaron con cuatro pies de agua”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Teme que otra inundación arremeta contra el Este de Palo Alto, lo que podría devastar a la ciudad de la misma manera que le pasó a Nueva Orleáns luego del huracán Katrina.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Si te fijas y miras por encima del dique, puedes ver que algunos de los techos están por debajo de ese dique”, dijo el alcalde, “básicamente sería una repetición de lo que le pasó al noveno distrito [de Nuevo Orleáns]”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1974213\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 1020px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1974213\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48549_Image-from-iOS-12-qut-1020x764-1.jpg\" alt=\"El alcalde del Este de Palo Alto, Carlos Romero, con su bicicleta en el nuevo dique que rodea partes de su ciudad. Las casas a la izquierda se encuentran a un extremo de la ciudad y a la derecha hay un arroyo que conduce a la bahía.\" width=\"1020\" height=\"764\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48549_Image-from-iOS-12-qut-1020x764-1.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48549_Image-from-iOS-12-qut-1020x764-1-800x599.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48549_Image-from-iOS-12-qut-1020x764-1-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48549_Image-from-iOS-12-qut-1020x764-1-768x575.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1020px) 100vw, 1020px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">El alcalde del Este de Palo Alto, Carlos Romero, con su bicicleta en el nuevo dique que rodea partes de su ciudad. Las casas a la izquierda se encuentran a un extremo de la ciudad y a la derecha hay un arroyo que conduce a la bahía. \u003ccite>(Ezra David Romero/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Aparte de este nuevo dique, también existe la estructura de otra presa, pero esta es mucho más vieja y “ofrece un poco de protección, pero no mucho”, dijo Tess Byler, directora de proyecto con \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfcjpa.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cem>San Francisquito Creek Joint Powers Authority\u003c/em>\u003c/a>. Ella maneja el programa encargado de proteger a la región de la subida del nivel del mar.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>La meta es completamente reemplazar el antiguo dique antes del 2030. Este proyecto se ha formalizado en el plan \u003cem>Strategy to Advance Flood Protection, Ecosystems and Recreation along San Francisco Bay\u003c/em> (o la Estrategia para Avanzar en la Protección Contra Inundaciones, Ecosistemas y Recreación a lo largo de la Bahía de San Francisco), mejor conocido como \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfcjpa.org/safer-bay-project\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cem>SAFER Bay\u003c/em>\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Diseñado para soportar simultáneamente una inundación centenal, marea alta y hasta un aumento de 3.5 pies en el nivel del mar, este sistema de arcilla e ingeniería que también incluye pantanos y diques, llegará desde la frontera entre Redwood City y Menlo Park en el norte hasta el límite entre Palo Alto y Mountain View en el sur.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>En total, este sistema tendrá que contener una proyección adicional de 10 pies en el promedio actual de la altura máxima del agua.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Este proyecto se divide en nueve fases, con la primera abarcando Menlo Park y el Este de Palo Alto. La finalización del tramo inicial, prevista para 2024, protegerá cerca de mil 600 inmuebles, la mayoría de las viviendas del Este de Palo Alto cerca de las ciénagas gestionadas por el Servicio de Pesca y Vida Silvestre de los Estados Unidos. En Menlo Park, el plan propone restaurar más de 550 acres de estanques de sal y pantanos.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Para lograr formar un círculo de protección en torno a esta parte de la bahía se necesitará cooperación y los fondos de varios propietarios privados y gubernamentales tan diversos como Caltrans, Facebook, varias empresas de servicios públicos y municipios, dice Byler, agregando que también hay que tomar en cuenta la fauna con estatus especial.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Hay varios factores que debemos considerar, por ejemplo, las cosas que no podemos ver, como el posicionamiento de los sistemas de alcantarillado, y las cosas que sí podemos ver como las torres eléctricas”, explicó ella. “Y además debemos de ser conscientes de proteger el marjal que es hogar de muchas maravillosas especies de aves y animales”, dijo.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside label ='Más en español' tag='kqed-en-espanol']Todavía falta mucho que se debe resolver, dice Byler, incluyendo decidir quién va a construir los diques y cómo se va a limpiar la contaminación de arsénico en la tierra, los restos de una vieja planta procesadora de residuos peligrosos.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Aún así, ella está segura que el proyecto seguirá adelante, no sólo por el amplio compromiso de la comunidad, pero también porque muchas entidades parecen estar trabajando juntas, pero quizás no todas a la misma velocidad. Ella dice que fondos estatales podrían ayudar a completar el presupuesto para el proyecto.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Ya tenemos los fondos para el Este de Palo Alto, entonces ese será nuestra primer prioridad”, dijo ella.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pero el sistema de diques es tan solo una solución de ámbito reducido. Para proteger la infraestructura crítica del Área de la Bahía como la autopista 101 se requerirá un enfoque regional que involucre a cada condado de la región, afirma \u003ca href=\"https://oneshoreline.org/staff/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Len Materman\u003c/a>, director ejecutivo de la dependencia \u003cem>San Mateo County Flood and Sea Level Rise Resiliency District\u003c/em> (o el ‘Distrito para la Resistencia a las Inundaciones y la Subida del Nivel del Mar del Condado de San Mateo’).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Aún no lo logramos, todos los nueve condados”, dijo él e indicó, “cuanto antes se incorporen todos, mejor”.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Una reacción en cadena\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Una razón por la cual funcionarios y líderes comunitarios les interesa incluir a toda el Área de la Bahía cuando hablan de soluciones a la crisis climática es que lo que ocurre en el Este de Palo Alto no se va a quedar sólo en esa localidad. Una catástrofe aquí provocará una reacción en cadena la cual podría impactar a millones de habitantes en decenas de ciudades, poniendo en mayor riesgo a quienes viven cerca de la costa.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>La casa de la familia Grewe, ubicada en una zona de alto riesgo, está situada a la misma altura por encima del nivel del mar, que las salidas y entradas del puente Dumbarton. Si se inundaran estas secciones del puente, una de las arterias de transporte más importantes del sur y el este de la Bahía fallaría, y el sistema de transporte vial de la región se podría convertir rápidamente en un caos total.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KTNaQmeCxY\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Un vídeo publicado originalmente por la dependencia del agua del valle de Santa Clara que demuestra varios momentos durante la inundación que afectó al Este de Palo Alto luego de que el arroyo de San Francisquito se desbordara.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lo mismo podría ocurrir para las cadenas de distribución de agua y combustible y las redes de electricidad y comunicaciones, dijo Mark Stacey, un ingeniero ambiental con la Universidad de California en Berkeley. Él explica que el Área de la Bahía es un ecosistema interconectado y que cada rompeolas, cada dique, cada cambio a la costa de la bahía podría tener un gran impacto.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>En el Este de Palo Alto, una inundación podría provocar una serie de crisis a lo largo de la región.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A medida que nosotros transformamos nuestras costas o a medida que nuestras costas son transformadas por la subida del nivel del mar, las dinámicas de las corrientes en la bahía cambian también”, dijo Stacey. “Cambios a nivel local en el litoral pueden tener impactos regionales en el nivel del mar”, indicó.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote]A medida que distintas comunidades fortalecen sus riberas ante la subida del nivel del mar, las corrientes por venir rebotarán en contra de estos rompeolas. Cuando esto ocurre, la fuerza de estas mismas corrientes irá creciendo en otras partes de la bahía.[/pullquote]Cuando las corrientes marinas entran del Pacífico a la bahía de San Francisco, la desembocadura más grande en la costa oeste, a veces se dispersan a lo largo de los humedales que se encuentran en varios puntos de la bahía y en otras ocasiones suman al nivel del mar cuando rebotan contra los rompeolas ubicados junto la costa, dice Stacey.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A medida que distintas comunidades fortalecen sus riberas ante la subida del nivel del mar, las corrientes por venir rebotarán en contra de estos rompeolas. Cuando esto ocurre, la fuerza de estas mismas corrientes irá creciendo en otras partes de la bahía y formaría un ciclo de acción y reacción que podría sumar unas pulgadas adicionales al nivel del mar.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Millones de residentes del Área de la Bahía se podrían ver afectados por esto. El sur de la bahía, donde se encuentra el Este de Palo Alto, es la zona más vulnerable a este fenómeno de “amplificación”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jessica Fain, directora de planeación para la oficina Bay Conservation and Development Commission (en español, la ‘Comisión de Conservación y Desarrollo de la Bahía’ o BCDC por sus siglas en inglés), dice que el Este de Palo Alto es el punto óptimo para abordar en un solo lugar todos los retos relacionados al aumento del nivel del mar.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Aquí se unen todos los puntos”, dijo ella.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1974220\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1020px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1974220\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48685_EPA_image_selects_websize-2-1020x680-1.jpg\" alt=\"Una imagen aérea tomada por un drone del puente Dumbarton cerca de la costa del Este de Palo Alto.\" width=\"1020\" height=\"680\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48685_EPA_image_selects_websize-2-1020x680-1.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48685_EPA_image_selects_websize-2-1020x680-1-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48685_EPA_image_selects_websize-2-1020x680-1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48685_EPA_image_selects_websize-2-1020x680-1-768x512.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1020px) 100vw, 1020px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Una imagen aérea tomada por un drone del puente Dumbarton cerca de la costa del Este de Palo Alto. \u003ccite>(JJ Harris - Techboogie/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Detrás de la estrategia regional que Fain está ayudando a diseñar, llamada \u003ca href=\"https://www.bayadapt.org/\">\u003cem>Bay Adapt\u003c/em>\u003c/a> (o ‘la Bahía se adapta’), está la convicción de que el aumento del nivel del mar afectará a cada aspecto de la vida. La función original de la dependencia no incluía responder al aumento del nivel del mar pero ha evolucionado para formar nexos entre ciudades, condados, negocios y la gente.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Entre las herramientas a la disposición de la BCDC, existen por ejemplo las subvenciones que pueden incluir lineamientos para alentar el cumplimiento de las metas regionales. O también pueden recaudar apoyo para fomentar los buenos proyectos y rechazar aquellos que no son útiles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Pero todavía no llegamos a ese punto”, dijo Fain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote align=\"right\" size=\"medium\" citation=\"Julio García, miembro de 'Nuestra Casa'\"]‘Sin mencionar la situación del COVID-19, el [cambio climático] es la crisis número uno que estamos enfrentando ahora.’[/pullquote]Lo que le falta es la autoridad para forzar a ciudades y condados a coordinar su programa de diques y otras soluciones. Por ahora, la BCDC está trabajando con grupos comunitarios por toda el Área de la Bahía para seguir desarrollando un compromiso con las metas de la dependencia.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Uno de estos grupos es ‘\u003ca href=\"https://nuestracasa.org/es/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Nuestra Casa\u003c/a>‘ en el Este de Palo Alto. Julio García dirige clases, talleres y grupos de sondeo para asegurar que se escuche la voz de los residentes en el proceso en que se forman los planes de la BCDC.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Sin mencionar la situación del COVID-19, el [cambio climático] es la crisis número uno que estamos enfrentando ahora”, dijo García. “Como una comunidad de personas de color, como personas que trabajan, esto es algo muy importante. Porque si las casas comienzan a inundarse, ¿a donde nos vamos a ir?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>La familia Grewe forman parte de este grupo, donde Heleine enseña una clase de justicia ambiental.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“En verdad me encantaría si más ciudades aledañas se unieran para proteger a nuestra pequeña ciudad”, dijo Leía Grewe, durante una junta reciente del grupo.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lo que le preocupa a García, y también a Heleine y Leía, es que si se extienden los marjales con el fin de proteger a las zonas residenciales, esto podría resultar en que suba el costo de la vivienda.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Tendremos que mudarnos a Stockton, a Sacramento”, dijo Leía. “Y detesto eso porque cuando te pones a pensar en el Este de Palo Alto, tenemos a muchos familiares que no pueden regresar. Una propiedad aquí ya está fuera de su alcance”, agregó.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Con 27 años de edad, Antonio López es el concejal más joven del Este de San José y él dice que entiende la preocupación que siente la familia Grewe acerca del aburguesamiento.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1974216\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 1020px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1974216\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48562_Image-from-iOS-30-qut-1020x765-1.jpg\" alt=\"Antonio López, concejal de la ciudad del Este de Palo Alto, se recarga sobre un barendal cerca del arroyo de San Francisquito.\" width=\"1020\" height=\"765\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48562_Image-from-iOS-30-qut-1020x765-1.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48562_Image-from-iOS-30-qut-1020x765-1-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48562_Image-from-iOS-30-qut-1020x765-1-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48562_Image-from-iOS-30-qut-1020x765-1-768x576.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1020px) 100vw, 1020px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Antonio López, concejal de la ciudad del Este de Palo Alto, se recarga sobre un barendal cerca del arroyo de San Francisquito. \u003ccite>(Ezra David Romero/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“Nosotros quienes trabajamos con la ciudad luchamos para que tú puedas seguir aquí y que se escuche tu voz”, dijo él y mantiene que “los diques tan sólo son un símbolo de que todavía tenemos una oportunidad de permanecer aquí”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>López guarda una fotografía del arroyo de San Francisquito en su teléfono móvil, la cual demuestra un momento cuando el arroyo, de color café se desbordó, llegando a una pulgada por debajo de las calles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>En el mismo lugar que se tomó esta foto ahora existe un dique verde de acero que abraza la figura del arroyo, una \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfcjpa.org/reach-1-downstream-project\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">sección del proyecto\u003c/a> fue completada por \u003cem>San Francisquito Creek Joint Powers Authority\u003c/em> en el 2019. En colaboración con esta dependencia, la ciudad del Este de Palo Alto amplió el arroyo, reconstruyó los salares y desarrolló un dique.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Contemplando la foto, “veo la ansiedad causada por las inundaciones, pero también veo una oportunidad y un recordatorio de dónde tenemos que estar”, dijo López.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Este artículo fue traducido por el periodista, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/ccabreralomeli\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Carlos Cabrera-Lomelí \u003c/a>y editado por la periodista \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/soytapatia\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">María Peña\u003c/a> del equipo de \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/kqedenespanol\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">KQED en Español\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003cbr>\n[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "East Palo Alto, o el 'Este de Palo Alto' es una pequeña ciudad costeña que enfrenta el reto de inundaciones a medida que sube el nivel del mar a causa del cambio climático. Sin embargo, la comunidad está tomando acción.\r\n",
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"description": "East Palo Alto, o el 'Este de Palo Alto' es una pequeña ciudad costeña que enfrenta el reto de inundaciones a medida que sube el nivel del mar a causa del cambio climático. Sin embargo, la comunidad está tomando acción.\r\n",
"title": "¿Qué puede hacer el Área de la Bahía ante el aumento del nivel del mar? El Este de Palo Alto ya está proponiendo algunas soluciones | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>Esta serie es parte de la iniciativa nacional de periodismo ‘\u003ca href=\"http://connected-coastlines.pulitzercenter.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Connected Coastlines\u003c/a>‘ del Centro Pulitzer.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1973805/climate-solutions-in-east-palo-alto\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cem>Read in English\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 4.6875em;float: left;line-height: 0.733em;padding: 0.05em 0.1em 0 0;font-family: times, serif, georgia\">L\u003c/span>a primera vez que las calles se inundaron, Appollonia Grey ‘Uhilamoelangi, mejor conocida como ‘Mamá Dee’ en su comunidad del Este de Palo Alto, recordó el clima de su natal Samoa, pese a que estas lluvias eran más frías y severas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Yo me sentía muy feliz esa vez”, dijo ‘Uhilamoelangi, refiriéndose a su primer gran diluvio en el Área de la Bahía. “Yo estaba afuera nadando en la lluvia, jugando en la lluvia. Había agua por todas partes”, agregó.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "Según las proyecciones, dentro de unos 10 años hasta dos tercios del Este de Palo Alto podrían sufrir inundaciones con regularidad, lo que podría desencadenar un efecto domino de varias crisis alrededor del Área de la Bahía. Ahora, el gobierno, las empresas y los residentes se han unido para intentar prepararse.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Pero la ciudad del Este de Palo Alto es propensa a inundaciones, y en tres instancias en los últimos treinta años, las lluvias torrenciales han devastado a esta localidad que cuenta con alrededor de 30 mil habitantes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“En las dos últimas inundaciones, la pregunta era, ¿dónde está Dios?”, dijo ella. “No me malinterpreten. Yo creo en el poder de la oración. Pero he sobrevivido muchas catástrofes”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ahora, el nivel del mar en la bahía de San Francisco está subiendo por los efectos del cambio climático, lo cual representa una amenaza existencial para esta pequeña comunidad, compuesta por lo general de familias de color.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>No es una exageración. El Este de Palo Alto se encuentra situado entre las ciudades de San Francisco y San José, al extremo occidental del puente Dumbarton. De todos los condados del Área de la Bahía, el condado San Mateo es el que corre más riesgo por el aumento del nivel del mar. Y de todas las poblaciones en el condado, el Este de Palo Alto es la más vulnerable a las inundaciones provocadas por el clima.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch5>Una proyección del aumento del nivel del mar en el Área de la Bahía hasta el 2050\u003c/h5>\n\u003cp style=\"line-height: 90%\">\u003cspan style=\"font-size: small\">\u003cem>Puede mover su mouse para explorar las direcciones del mapa. Puede usar los signos (+) y (-) para acercarse o alejarse. Selecciona la lupa para buscar una dirección específica. Para esconder la leyenda, selecciona la flecha hacia abajo que está ubicada al lado derecho de la leyenda del mapa. Fuentes: USGS, OCOF, Pacific Institute\u003c/em>\u003c/span>\u003cbr>\n\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://kqed.carto.com/u/kqednews/builder/13e1ca7c-3df3-4f40-bcd3-8072f22d9e6c/embed\" width=\"100%\" height=\"500\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\" frameborder=\"0\">\u003c/iframe>\n\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Con un área de 2.5 millas cuadradas y repleta de árboles de cítricos y casas estilo rancho, la ciudad está rodeada de agua por sus tres lados: el arroyo San Francisquito que serpentea a lo largo del extremo sur y la bahía, al norte y al este.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>La mitad del Este de Palo Alto ya ha sido \u003ca href=\"https://www.cityofepa.org/sites/default/files/fileattachments/community_amp_economic_development/page/2531/fema_maps_2015_201509011239377956.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">designada como una zona de inundación\u003c/a> por el gobierno federal. Según las proyecciones, en alrededor de 10 años, hasta dos tercios del terreno dentro de los límites de la ciudad podrían sufrir inundados con regularidad. A mediados del siglo, esas zonas podrían quedar frecuentemente bajo el agua durante las altas mareas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Los efectos del cambio climático están impactando de manera desproporcionada a las comunidades de color como el Este de Palo Alto.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>El aburguesamiento (conocido comunmente como ‘gentrificación’) y la afluencia de los gigantes de la tecnología como Facebook, Google y Amazon ha transformado a la ciudad pero aún así, sigue siendo una comunidad mayormente compuesta por personas no blancas. El 66% de la población se identifica como Latina y muchas personas provenientes de las islas del Pacífico, como ‘Uhilamoelangi, viven aquí.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cuando las lluvias son fuertes, el arroyo se desborda e inunda las partes al este de la ciudad y un nivel de mar elevado agravará el problema aún más, complicando la viabilidad de que el Este de Palo Alto siga siendo el hogar para familias obreras, dijo Derek Ouyang académico y gerente de programas con \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://www.cityofepa.org/sites/default/files/fileattachments/community_amp_economic_development/page/2531/fema_maps_2015_201509011239377956.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Stanford Future Bay Initiative\u003c/a>\u003c/em> (o la Iniciativa por el Futuro de la Bahía de Stanford), que trabaja con líderes comunitarios de la ciudad.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Si conocieras a 100 familias del el Este de Palo Alto, quizás 50 de ellas ya han llegado al punto en que sus ahorros son tan bajos…que una inundación…podría ser su límite”, dijo Ouyang.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>En 1998, las aguas de una inundación \u003ca href=\"https://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/2018/02/03/a-flood-next-time\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">anegaron a más de mil hogares\u003c/a>. Y en el 2012, el arroyo se desbordó, resultando en evacuaciones de las zonas afectadas. Para mitigar el riesgo, la ciudad, en colaboración con otras localidades cercanas a través de la oficina de \u003cem>San Francisquito Creek Joint Powers Authority\u003c/em> (o la Autoridad de Poderes Conjuntos del Arroyo San Francisquito) rediseñó partes de su costa.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1974199\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1020px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1974199\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/East-Palo-Alto-Flood-1998-1-1020x574-1.jpg\" alt=\"Varias partes del Este de Palo Alto se inundaron en 1998.\" width=\"1020\" height=\"574\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/East-Palo-Alto-Flood-1998-1-1020x574-1.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/East-Palo-Alto-Flood-1998-1-1020x574-1-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/East-Palo-Alto-Flood-1998-1-1020x574-1-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/East-Palo-Alto-Flood-1998-1-1020x574-1-768x432.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1020px) 100vw, 1020px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Varias partes del Este de Palo Alto se inundaron en 1998. \u003ccite>(Teodros Hailye/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Para algunos residentes del Este de Palo Alto, no es la primera vez que las inundaciones y el cambio climático amenazan a sus hogares.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Aquí viven refugiados que huyeron de una crisis ambiental en las islas del Pacífico, donde el nivel del mar aún sigue creciendo. Y ahora, a pesar de que se encuentran a miles de millas de distancia en un nuevo hogar, nuevamente enfrentan amenazas similares.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Muchos están colaborando con científicos, la ciudad y la autoridad de poderes conjuntos para salvar hogares restaurando y creando un nuevo humedal que se encuentra en la orilla de la bahía.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Y pese a que \u003ca href=\"https://www.cityofepa.org/sites/default/files/fileattachments/finance/page/4321/adopted_fy_2020-21_budget.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">el presupuesto del Este de Palo Alto\u003c/a> (que equivale $41.8 millones) es 325 veces menor que el de San Francisco, la ciudad se está desempeñando muy por encima de su capacidad en términos de planificación para un aumento en la marea.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1974211\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 480px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1974211\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48667_IMG_2781-sfi-1.jpg\" alt=\"Heleine Grewe, de 17 años, y Leia Grewe, su madre, están afuera en un día soleado.\" width=\"480\" height=\"360\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48667_IMG_2781-sfi-1.jpg 480w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48667_IMG_2781-sfi-1-160x120.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Heleine Grewe, de 17 años con su madre, Leia Grewe, en el Este de Palo Alto. \u003ccite>(Kevin Stark/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Sin embargo, puede ser no suficiente. Los ecosistemas y la infraestructura del Área de la Bahía están profundamente interconectados, lo que significa que sin un plan regional que incluya a todas las comunidades a lo largo de la bahía, los esfuerzos de los residentes del Este de Palo Alto podrían tener un impacto muy limitado.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tanto los líderes políticos como los activistas comunitarios de la ciudad, muchos quienes son adolescentes frustrados por el hecho de heredar los peores efectos del aumento en el nivel del océano y el derretimiento de las capas de hielo, entienden la importancia de este hecho.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Sólo quiero un plan para el futuro, porque si esto pasa y hay inundaciones por todas partes, la gente debe de saber cómo responder”, dijo Heleine Grewe, una estudiante de 17 años en el último año de la preparatoria Menlo-Atherton.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "‘Me acuerdo de todos los lugares que no estaban listos…Como lo que pasó con [el huracán] Katrina. Eso nos podría pasar en algunos años.’",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Los abuelos maternos de Grewe emigraron de Tonga y la familia de su papá llegó al Este de Palo Alto como parte de una migración más grande de familias afroamericanas a la ciudad a mediados del siglo pasado. Muchos experimentaron \u003ca href=\"https://bos.smcgov.org/history-east-palo-alto#:~:text=East%20Palo%20Alto%20became%20one,in%201983%3A%201%2C782%20to%201%2C767\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">acoso inmobiliario\u003c/a> y otras \u003ca href=\"https://www.google.com/books/edition/Hearings_Before_the_United_States_Commis/fUXVAAAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=East%20Palo%20Alto\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">tácticas de vivienda discriminatorias\u003c/a>, el resultado de décadas de políticas basadas en la segregación racial.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Leia, su madre, teme que el agua llegará con toda su furia a su puerta.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Me acuerdo de todos los lugares que no estaban listos”, dijo ella. “Como lo que pasó con [el hurac\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">án]\u003c/span> Katrina. Eso nos podría pasar en algunos años”.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Los vínculos del cambio climático\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>‘Uhilamoelangi emigró de Samoa junto a su esposo Senita (quien también lo conocen como ‘Papá Senter’) a mediados de la década de los 70 debido a que en ese entonces, los huracanes y tsunamis comenzaron a llegar con mayor frecuencia.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Todo los isleños…nunca tenemos una conversación casual sobre la lluvia, las inundaciones”, explicó ella, y agregó, “Cada vez que llega un tsunami a nuestra isla, o cualquiera de las islas, todos nosotros sentimos una conexión y es muy emotivo”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pero no fue hasta mediados de los años 2010 que ella entendió el vínculo entre estas tormentas tropicales y el calentamiento del planeta.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Yo no sabía lo que era el cambio climático”, dijo ‘Uhilamoelangi.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"label": "Aquí puedes escuchar los reportajes que salieron en la radio de esta investigación, en inglés ",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Las inundaciones en el Este de Palo Alto, el clima extremo en Samoa y él aumento del nivel del mar, para ‘Uhilamoelangi, todo esto está conectado.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ella logró entender cómo las inundaciones en el Este de Palo Alto, el clima extremo en Samoa y la subida del nivel del mar están todos interconectados luego de conocer a Violet Saena del grupo \u003ca href=\"https://www.acterra.org/climate-resilient-communities\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cem>Climate Resilient Communities\u003c/em>\u003c/a> (o las ‘Comunidades Resistentes al Clima’), el cual se dedica a proteger los residentes de la península que no están respresentandos en la crisis climática.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Puedo hacer preguntas que parezcan estúpidas, pero Violet siempre me da una respuesta “, dijo Mamá Dee.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Saena fue la primera en dirigir los esfuerzos para enfrentar el cambio climático en Samoa, creando el primer plan de resistencia del país . Cuando acompañó a su marido al Área de la Bahía, ella vio cómo esta comunidad también necesitaba entender más sobre este riesgo que se avecina.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Con el apoyo de algunos estudiantes de Stanford, ella fue de puerta en puerta en el Este de Palo Alto, preguntando a los residentes qué sabían sobre los efectos del aumento del nivel del mar.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Para mí, esto es algo fácil ya que soy una persona de color y porque vengo de la isla”, dijo ella. “Ellos ven eso y piensan, ‘Ah sí, ella es como nosotros’ “.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1974212\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 1020px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1974212\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48288_014_EastPaloAlto_SeaLevelRise_03292021-qut-1020x680-1.jpg\" alt=\"Violet Saena, directora ejecutiva del grupo 'Comunidades resistentes al clima' en el parque Cooley Landing del Este de Palo Alto.\" width=\"1020\" height=\"680\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48288_014_EastPaloAlto_SeaLevelRise_03292021-qut-1020x680-1.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48288_014_EastPaloAlto_SeaLevelRise_03292021-qut-1020x680-1-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48288_014_EastPaloAlto_SeaLevelRise_03292021-qut-1020x680-1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48288_014_EastPaloAlto_SeaLevelRise_03292021-qut-1020x680-1-768x512.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1020px) 100vw, 1020px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Violet Saena, directora ejecutiva del grupo ‘Comunidades resistentes al clima’ en el parque Cooley Landing del Este de Palo Alto. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Algo que surgió a raíz de esas pláticas fue la creación de grupos climáticos comunitarios destinados a involucrar y educar a residentes en los planes de adaptación del Este de Palo Alto, así como a ayudarles en sus necesidades básicas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>La gente quiere formar parte de “estrategias reales”, dijo Saena. “No sólo les interesa el dique. También quieren saber qué pueden hacer ellos mismos, como manejar cisternas de agua o sistemas de precipitación en sus jardines”, explicó.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ella reconoce que el número de residentes de bajos ingresos que necesitarán ayuda es alto. “No tendrán los medios para comprar otro carro si el que tienen lo pierden en una inundación. Entonces, ¿qué programas podemos desarrollar que puedan ayudar a todos?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Si toda el Área de la Bahía adoptara esta filosofía, la región podría ser mucho más resistente al cambio climático, afirma \u003ca href=\"https://www.elizabethallisonphd.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Elizabeth Allison\u003c/a>, que estudia la intersección entre la religion y la ecología en el Instituto de Estudios Integrales de California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Creo que debemos adoptar una cierta especie de ética integral de cuidado cuando consideramos el cambio climático”, dijo ella. Esto incluye ser consciente de todo el planeta, incluyendo a las generaciones por venir “de la misma manera que nos importa nuestros vecinos, amistades y familiares”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "‘Si queremos impedir otro desastre, ¿a dónde iremos?.’",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Este tipo de cuidado está en el corazón de \u003ca href=\"https://anamatangi.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cem>Anamantangi Polynesian Voices\u003c/em>\u003c/a> (o ‘Voces polinesias anamantangi’), la organización creada por los ‘Uhilamoelangi, la cual provee asistencia a los inmigrantes recién llegados con escasos recursos. Esto incluye a la educación, algo que motiva mucho a la pareja.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Somos voluntarios de tiempo completo en los esfuerzos para detener el cambio climático”, dijo Mamá Dee, “si queremos impedir otro desastre, ¿a dónde iremos?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>No escapando a otra localidad posiblemente más segura, dice ella. La pareja está decidida a quedarse en el Este de Palo Alto, pese a la doble amenaza de la subida del nivel del mar y la gentrificación. Se mantendrán firmes hasta el final.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Un semicírculo de protección\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Actualmente existe en desarrollo un proyecto para proteger parte del Este de Palo Alto: un nuevo dique que separaría un segmento de la ciudad y el arroyo de San Francisquito, el cual está conectado a la bahía.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Este proyecto, que ya lleva más de 20 años, comenzó luego de la inundación del 1998”, dijo el alcalde Carlos Romero, parado encima del dique con vista a un vecindario repleto de casas de una planta y calles repletas de carros. “Todo esto estaba inundado. Tenía amigos aquí que sus salas se llenaron con cuatro pies de agua”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Teme que otra inundación arremeta contra el Este de Palo Alto, lo que podría devastar a la ciudad de la misma manera que le pasó a Nueva Orleáns luego del huracán Katrina.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Si te fijas y miras por encima del dique, puedes ver que algunos de los techos están por debajo de ese dique”, dijo el alcalde, “básicamente sería una repetición de lo que le pasó al noveno distrito [de Nuevo Orleáns]”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1974213\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 1020px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1974213\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48549_Image-from-iOS-12-qut-1020x764-1.jpg\" alt=\"El alcalde del Este de Palo Alto, Carlos Romero, con su bicicleta en el nuevo dique que rodea partes de su ciudad. Las casas a la izquierda se encuentran a un extremo de la ciudad y a la derecha hay un arroyo que conduce a la bahía.\" width=\"1020\" height=\"764\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48549_Image-from-iOS-12-qut-1020x764-1.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48549_Image-from-iOS-12-qut-1020x764-1-800x599.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48549_Image-from-iOS-12-qut-1020x764-1-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48549_Image-from-iOS-12-qut-1020x764-1-768x575.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1020px) 100vw, 1020px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">El alcalde del Este de Palo Alto, Carlos Romero, con su bicicleta en el nuevo dique que rodea partes de su ciudad. Las casas a la izquierda se encuentran a un extremo de la ciudad y a la derecha hay un arroyo que conduce a la bahía. \u003ccite>(Ezra David Romero/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Aparte de este nuevo dique, también existe la estructura de otra presa, pero esta es mucho más vieja y “ofrece un poco de protección, pero no mucho”, dijo Tess Byler, directora de proyecto con \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfcjpa.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cem>San Francisquito Creek Joint Powers Authority\u003c/em>\u003c/a>. Ella maneja el programa encargado de proteger a la región de la subida del nivel del mar.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>La meta es completamente reemplazar el antiguo dique antes del 2030. Este proyecto se ha formalizado en el plan \u003cem>Strategy to Advance Flood Protection, Ecosystems and Recreation along San Francisco Bay\u003c/em> (o la Estrategia para Avanzar en la Protección Contra Inundaciones, Ecosistemas y Recreación a lo largo de la Bahía de San Francisco), mejor conocido como \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfcjpa.org/safer-bay-project\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cem>SAFER Bay\u003c/em>\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Diseñado para soportar simultáneamente una inundación centenal, marea alta y hasta un aumento de 3.5 pies en el nivel del mar, este sistema de arcilla e ingeniería que también incluye pantanos y diques, llegará desde la frontera entre Redwood City y Menlo Park en el norte hasta el límite entre Palo Alto y Mountain View en el sur.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>En total, este sistema tendrá que contener una proyección adicional de 10 pies en el promedio actual de la altura máxima del agua.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Este proyecto se divide en nueve fases, con la primera abarcando Menlo Park y el Este de Palo Alto. La finalización del tramo inicial, prevista para 2024, protegerá cerca de mil 600 inmuebles, la mayoría de las viviendas del Este de Palo Alto cerca de las ciénagas gestionadas por el Servicio de Pesca y Vida Silvestre de los Estados Unidos. En Menlo Park, el plan propone restaurar más de 550 acres de estanques de sal y pantanos.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Para lograr formar un círculo de protección en torno a esta parte de la bahía se necesitará cooperación y los fondos de varios propietarios privados y gubernamentales tan diversos como Caltrans, Facebook, varias empresas de servicios públicos y municipios, dice Byler, agregando que también hay que tomar en cuenta la fauna con estatus especial.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Hay varios factores que debemos considerar, por ejemplo, las cosas que no podemos ver, como el posicionamiento de los sistemas de alcantarillado, y las cosas que sí podemos ver como las torres eléctricas”, explicó ella. “Y además debemos de ser conscientes de proteger el marjal que es hogar de muchas maravillosas especies de aves y animales”, dijo.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Todavía falta mucho que se debe resolver, dice Byler, incluyendo decidir quién va a construir los diques y cómo se va a limpiar la contaminación de arsénico en la tierra, los restos de una vieja planta procesadora de residuos peligrosos.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Aún así, ella está segura que el proyecto seguirá adelante, no sólo por el amplio compromiso de la comunidad, pero también porque muchas entidades parecen estar trabajando juntas, pero quizás no todas a la misma velocidad. Ella dice que fondos estatales podrían ayudar a completar el presupuesto para el proyecto.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Ya tenemos los fondos para el Este de Palo Alto, entonces ese será nuestra primer prioridad”, dijo ella.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pero el sistema de diques es tan solo una solución de ámbito reducido. Para proteger la infraestructura crítica del Área de la Bahía como la autopista 101 se requerirá un enfoque regional que involucre a cada condado de la región, afirma \u003ca href=\"https://oneshoreline.org/staff/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Len Materman\u003c/a>, director ejecutivo de la dependencia \u003cem>San Mateo County Flood and Sea Level Rise Resiliency District\u003c/em> (o el ‘Distrito para la Resistencia a las Inundaciones y la Subida del Nivel del Mar del Condado de San Mateo’).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Aún no lo logramos, todos los nueve condados”, dijo él e indicó, “cuanto antes se incorporen todos, mejor”.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Una reacción en cadena\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Una razón por la cual funcionarios y líderes comunitarios les interesa incluir a toda el Área de la Bahía cuando hablan de soluciones a la crisis climática es que lo que ocurre en el Este de Palo Alto no se va a quedar sólo en esa localidad. Una catástrofe aquí provocará una reacción en cadena la cual podría impactar a millones de habitantes en decenas de ciudades, poniendo en mayor riesgo a quienes viven cerca de la costa.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>La casa de la familia Grewe, ubicada en una zona de alto riesgo, está situada a la misma altura por encima del nivel del mar, que las salidas y entradas del puente Dumbarton. Si se inundaran estas secciones del puente, una de las arterias de transporte más importantes del sur y el este de la Bahía fallaría, y el sistema de transporte vial de la región se podría convertir rápidamente en un caos total.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/2KTNaQmeCxY'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/2KTNaQmeCxY'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>Un vídeo publicado originalmente por la dependencia del agua del valle de Santa Clara que demuestra varios momentos durante la inundación que afectó al Este de Palo Alto luego de que el arroyo de San Francisquito se desbordara.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lo mismo podría ocurrir para las cadenas de distribución de agua y combustible y las redes de electricidad y comunicaciones, dijo Mark Stacey, un ingeniero ambiental con la Universidad de California en Berkeley. Él explica que el Área de la Bahía es un ecosistema interconectado y que cada rompeolas, cada dique, cada cambio a la costa de la bahía podría tener un gran impacto.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>En el Este de Palo Alto, una inundación podría provocar una serie de crisis a lo largo de la región.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A medida que nosotros transformamos nuestras costas o a medida que nuestras costas son transformadas por la subida del nivel del mar, las dinámicas de las corrientes en la bahía cambian también”, dijo Stacey. “Cambios a nivel local en el litoral pueden tener impactos regionales en el nivel del mar”, indicó.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "A medida que distintas comunidades fortalecen sus riberas ante la subida del nivel del mar, las corrientes por venir rebotarán en contra de estos rompeolas. Cuando esto ocurre, la fuerza de estas mismas corrientes irá creciendo en otras partes de la bahía.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Cuando las corrientes marinas entran del Pacífico a la bahía de San Francisco, la desembocadura más grande en la costa oeste, a veces se dispersan a lo largo de los humedales que se encuentran en varios puntos de la bahía y en otras ocasiones suman al nivel del mar cuando rebotan contra los rompeolas ubicados junto la costa, dice Stacey.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A medida que distintas comunidades fortalecen sus riberas ante la subida del nivel del mar, las corrientes por venir rebotarán en contra de estos rompeolas. Cuando esto ocurre, la fuerza de estas mismas corrientes irá creciendo en otras partes de la bahía y formaría un ciclo de acción y reacción que podría sumar unas pulgadas adicionales al nivel del mar.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Millones de residentes del Área de la Bahía se podrían ver afectados por esto. El sur de la bahía, donde se encuentra el Este de Palo Alto, es la zona más vulnerable a este fenómeno de “amplificación”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jessica Fain, directora de planeación para la oficina Bay Conservation and Development Commission (en español, la ‘Comisión de Conservación y Desarrollo de la Bahía’ o BCDC por sus siglas en inglés), dice que el Este de Palo Alto es el punto óptimo para abordar en un solo lugar todos los retos relacionados al aumento del nivel del mar.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Aquí se unen todos los puntos”, dijo ella.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1974220\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1020px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1974220\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48685_EPA_image_selects_websize-2-1020x680-1.jpg\" alt=\"Una imagen aérea tomada por un drone del puente Dumbarton cerca de la costa del Este de Palo Alto.\" width=\"1020\" height=\"680\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48685_EPA_image_selects_websize-2-1020x680-1.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48685_EPA_image_selects_websize-2-1020x680-1-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48685_EPA_image_selects_websize-2-1020x680-1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48685_EPA_image_selects_websize-2-1020x680-1-768x512.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1020px) 100vw, 1020px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Una imagen aérea tomada por un drone del puente Dumbarton cerca de la costa del Este de Palo Alto. \u003ccite>(JJ Harris - Techboogie/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Detrás de la estrategia regional que Fain está ayudando a diseñar, llamada \u003ca href=\"https://www.bayadapt.org/\">\u003cem>Bay Adapt\u003c/em>\u003c/a> (o ‘la Bahía se adapta’), está la convicción de que el aumento del nivel del mar afectará a cada aspecto de la vida. La función original de la dependencia no incluía responder al aumento del nivel del mar pero ha evolucionado para formar nexos entre ciudades, condados, negocios y la gente.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Entre las herramientas a la disposición de la BCDC, existen por ejemplo las subvenciones que pueden incluir lineamientos para alentar el cumplimiento de las metas regionales. O también pueden recaudar apoyo para fomentar los buenos proyectos y rechazar aquellos que no son útiles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Pero todavía no llegamos a ese punto”, dijo Fain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "‘Sin mencionar la situación del COVID-19, el [cambio climático] es la crisis número uno que estamos enfrentando ahora.’",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Lo que le falta es la autoridad para forzar a ciudades y condados a coordinar su programa de diques y otras soluciones. Por ahora, la BCDC está trabajando con grupos comunitarios por toda el Área de la Bahía para seguir desarrollando un compromiso con las metas de la dependencia.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Uno de estos grupos es ‘\u003ca href=\"https://nuestracasa.org/es/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Nuestra Casa\u003c/a>‘ en el Este de Palo Alto. Julio García dirige clases, talleres y grupos de sondeo para asegurar que se escuche la voz de los residentes en el proceso en que se forman los planes de la BCDC.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Sin mencionar la situación del COVID-19, el [cambio climático] es la crisis número uno que estamos enfrentando ahora”, dijo García. “Como una comunidad de personas de color, como personas que trabajan, esto es algo muy importante. Porque si las casas comienzan a inundarse, ¿a donde nos vamos a ir?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>La familia Grewe forman parte de este grupo, donde Heleine enseña una clase de justicia ambiental.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“En verdad me encantaría si más ciudades aledañas se unieran para proteger a nuestra pequeña ciudad”, dijo Leía Grewe, durante una junta reciente del grupo.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lo que le preocupa a García, y también a Heleine y Leía, es que si se extienden los marjales con el fin de proteger a las zonas residenciales, esto podría resultar en que suba el costo de la vivienda.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Tendremos que mudarnos a Stockton, a Sacramento”, dijo Leía. “Y detesto eso porque cuando te pones a pensar en el Este de Palo Alto, tenemos a muchos familiares que no pueden regresar. Una propiedad aquí ya está fuera de su alcance”, agregó.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Con 27 años de edad, Antonio López es el concejal más joven del Este de San José y él dice que entiende la preocupación que siente la familia Grewe acerca del aburguesamiento.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1974216\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 1020px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1974216\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48562_Image-from-iOS-30-qut-1020x765-1.jpg\" alt=\"Antonio López, concejal de la ciudad del Este de Palo Alto, se recarga sobre un barendal cerca del arroyo de San Francisquito.\" width=\"1020\" height=\"765\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48562_Image-from-iOS-30-qut-1020x765-1.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48562_Image-from-iOS-30-qut-1020x765-1-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48562_Image-from-iOS-30-qut-1020x765-1-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48562_Image-from-iOS-30-qut-1020x765-1-768x576.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1020px) 100vw, 1020px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Antonio López, concejal de la ciudad del Este de Palo Alto, se recarga sobre un barendal cerca del arroyo de San Francisquito. \u003ccite>(Ezra David Romero/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“Nosotros quienes trabajamos con la ciudad luchamos para que tú puedas seguir aquí y que se escuche tu voz”, dijo él y mantiene que “los diques tan sólo son un símbolo de que todavía tenemos una oportunidad de permanecer aquí”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>López guarda una fotografía del arroyo de San Francisquito en su teléfono móvil, la cual demuestra un momento cuando el arroyo, de color café se desbordó, llegando a una pulgada por debajo de las calles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>En el mismo lugar que se tomó esta foto ahora existe un dique verde de acero que abraza la figura del arroyo, una \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfcjpa.org/reach-1-downstream-project\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">sección del proyecto\u003c/a> fue completada por \u003cem>San Francisquito Creek Joint Powers Authority\u003c/em> en el 2019. En colaboración con esta dependencia, la ciudad del Este de Palo Alto amplió el arroyo, reconstruyó los salares y desarrolló un dique.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Contemplando la foto, “veo la ansiedad causada por las inundaciones, pero también veo una oportunidad y un recordatorio de dónde tenemos que estar”, dijo López.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Este artículo fue traducido por el periodista, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/ccabreralomeli\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Carlos Cabrera-Lomelí \u003c/a>y editado por la periodista \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/soytapatia\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">María Peña\u003c/a> del equipo de \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/kqedenespanol\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">KQED en Español\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "In Their Own Words: East Palo Alto Residents on the Coming Rise in Sea Level",
"headTitle": "In Their Own Words: East Palo Alto Residents on the Coming Rise in Sea Level | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>This series is part of the Pulitzer Center’s nationwide \u003ca href=\"http://connected-coastlines.pulitzercenter.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Connected Coastlines reporting initiative\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1974232/en-sus-propias-palabras-los-residentes-de-la-ciudad-del-este-de-palo-alto-responden-al-aumento-del-nivel-del-mar-que-se-avecina\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Leer en español\u003c/a>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rising seas due to climate change will not affect everyone equally.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the Bay Area, the city of East Palo Alto is \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1973805\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">particularly vulnerable\u003c/a> to sea level rise: It’s surrounded by water on three sides; it’s low-lying; and it sits beside the southern part of the bay, where tides are highest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=\"science_1973805,science_1973624\"]Critical infrastructure like the Dumbarton Bridge and Highway 101 lie within or next to East Palo Alto, and a rising tide on the city’s shoreline will disrupt life for many in the Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But to those whose homes line the city’s streets, who frequent its neighborhood stores and parks, whose neighbors are family and friends, the prospect of sea level rise is far more frightening.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Below, three residents share their thoughts about protecting the people and places they hold dear as the world continues to warm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The following has been edited for length and clarity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Filiberto Zaragoza, 18, senior at Menlo-Atherton High School\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When I first heard of climate change, I wasn’t sure how to take it. I was still young and just thinking, “Oh, the world is fine and everything.” But learning about it made me question, what are people really doing to help out?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/OwnWordsPhoto1.png\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-1973715 \" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/OwnWordsPhoto1-1020x639.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"426\" height=\"268\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/OwnWordsPhoto1-1020x639.png 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/OwnWordsPhoto1-800x501.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/OwnWordsPhoto1-160x100.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/OwnWordsPhoto1-768x481.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/OwnWordsPhoto1.png 1424w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 426px) 100vw, 426px\">\u003c/a>I’ve lived in East Palo Alto all my life. We live right by the bay, surrounded by water. My number one biggest fear is coming back here in the future to see only parts of my city still left, having neighborhoods I’ve been through now underwater or flooded.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But I am hopeful for change. I am a core member at Youth United for Community Action, where we fight for housing, environmental justice and restorative justice. I know that in the future, as things might get worse, YUCA will still be here in East Palo Alto protecting the city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ulises Barbosa, 34, works in construction\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-1973718\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/Ulises-scaled-e1618344888530-800x1141.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"275\" height=\"392\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/Ulises-scaled-e1618344888530-800x1141.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/Ulises-scaled-e1618344888530-1020x1455.jpeg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/Ulises-scaled-e1618344888530-160x228.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/Ulises-scaled-e1618344888530-768x1095.jpeg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/Ulises-scaled-e1618344888530-1077x1536.jpeg 1077w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/Ulises-scaled-e1618344888530-1436x2048.jpeg 1436w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/Ulises-scaled-e1618344888530.jpeg 1440w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 275px) 100vw, 275px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When I first heard about climate change, it was bittersweet. I had mixed emotions. I was interested in learning more about the topic, but I also realized that in an unconscious way we were damaging our planet. And that made me feel very sad and powerless, because I didn’t know what to do.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those of us who live here in East Palo Alto are afraid because we know that we’ve already been affected, and that if we don’t get to work, we’ll continue to be affected. We’d like to learn more about climate change. Right now, most of my friends and I have been taking an environmental awareness class, where they talk a lot about climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We live along the seashore. Climate change can affect the sea level enough that it could cover much of East Palo Alto, practically covering our homes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I hope it’s not just us, but also the rest of our community, politicians and people around the world who unite to counteract this problem. Meanwhile, we’ll continue to do our part here, bit by bit, every day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Cristina Becerra, 16, junior at Palo Alto High School\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I feel really sad but hopeful, and a sense of urgency — like we have to do this now. I feel I have to tell as many people as possible about what’s going on and how they can help. I always talk to my dad about how we should go solar, and I really want to plant trees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/Cristina.jpeg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-1973716\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/Cristina-1020x680.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"417\" height=\"279\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/Cristina-1020x680.jpeg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/Cristina-800x533.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/Cristina-160x107.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/Cristina-768x512.jpeg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/Cristina.jpeg 1280w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 417px) 100vw, 417px\">\u003c/a>My greatest fear is that if nothing is done and the time comes and all these houses flood, a bunch of people have nowhere to go, or have to live with water on the ground. It just won’t be safe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And having to worry about paying rent and fixing your house, what are they supposed to do? Where are all those people going to go?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>My hope is that some changes are made. Small-scale changes like just East Palo Alto itself, the entire city going solar. That would really motivate other cities: “Oh, look at what they’re doing. We should do that, too.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I hope East Palo Alto is able to take preventive measures, building levees or just making sure that every home, especially those near the areas usually flooded, is prepared.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "East Palo Alto is particularly susceptible to sea level rise. Three of the city's residents talk about living with the threat and what they're doing about it. ",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>This series is part of the Pulitzer Center’s nationwide \u003ca href=\"http://connected-coastlines.pulitzercenter.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Connected Coastlines reporting initiative\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1974232/en-sus-propias-palabras-los-residentes-de-la-ciudad-del-este-de-palo-alto-responden-al-aumento-del-nivel-del-mar-que-se-avecina\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Leer en español\u003c/a>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rising seas due to climate change will not affect everyone equally.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the Bay Area, the city of East Palo Alto is \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1973805\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">particularly vulnerable\u003c/a> to sea level rise: It’s surrounded by water on three sides; it’s low-lying; and it sits beside the southern part of the bay, where tides are highest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Critical infrastructure like the Dumbarton Bridge and Highway 101 lie within or next to East Palo Alto, and a rising tide on the city’s shoreline will disrupt life for many in the Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But to those whose homes line the city’s streets, who frequent its neighborhood stores and parks, whose neighbors are family and friends, the prospect of sea level rise is far more frightening.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Below, three residents share their thoughts about protecting the people and places they hold dear as the world continues to warm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The following has been edited for length and clarity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Filiberto Zaragoza, 18, senior at Menlo-Atherton High School\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When I first heard of climate change, I wasn’t sure how to take it. I was still young and just thinking, “Oh, the world is fine and everything.” But learning about it made me question, what are people really doing to help out?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/OwnWordsPhoto1.png\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-1973715 \" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/OwnWordsPhoto1-1020x639.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"426\" height=\"268\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/OwnWordsPhoto1-1020x639.png 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/OwnWordsPhoto1-800x501.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/OwnWordsPhoto1-160x100.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/OwnWordsPhoto1-768x481.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/OwnWordsPhoto1.png 1424w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 426px) 100vw, 426px\">\u003c/a>I’ve lived in East Palo Alto all my life. We live right by the bay, surrounded by water. My number one biggest fear is coming back here in the future to see only parts of my city still left, having neighborhoods I’ve been through now underwater or flooded.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But I am hopeful for change. I am a core member at Youth United for Community Action, where we fight for housing, environmental justice and restorative justice. I know that in the future, as things might get worse, YUCA will still be here in East Palo Alto protecting the city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ulises Barbosa, 34, works in construction\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-1973718\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/Ulises-scaled-e1618344888530-800x1141.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"275\" height=\"392\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/Ulises-scaled-e1618344888530-800x1141.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/Ulises-scaled-e1618344888530-1020x1455.jpeg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/Ulises-scaled-e1618344888530-160x228.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/Ulises-scaled-e1618344888530-768x1095.jpeg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/Ulises-scaled-e1618344888530-1077x1536.jpeg 1077w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/Ulises-scaled-e1618344888530-1436x2048.jpeg 1436w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/Ulises-scaled-e1618344888530.jpeg 1440w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 275px) 100vw, 275px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When I first heard about climate change, it was bittersweet. I had mixed emotions. I was interested in learning more about the topic, but I also realized that in an unconscious way we were damaging our planet. And that made me feel very sad and powerless, because I didn’t know what to do.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those of us who live here in East Palo Alto are afraid because we know that we’ve already been affected, and that if we don’t get to work, we’ll continue to be affected. We’d like to learn more about climate change. Right now, most of my friends and I have been taking an environmental awareness class, where they talk a lot about climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We live along the seashore. Climate change can affect the sea level enough that it could cover much of East Palo Alto, practically covering our homes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I hope it’s not just us, but also the rest of our community, politicians and people around the world who unite to counteract this problem. Meanwhile, we’ll continue to do our part here, bit by bit, every day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Cristina Becerra, 16, junior at Palo Alto High School\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I feel really sad but hopeful, and a sense of urgency — like we have to do this now. I feel I have to tell as many people as possible about what’s going on and how they can help. I always talk to my dad about how we should go solar, and I really want to plant trees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/Cristina.jpeg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-1973716\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/Cristina-1020x680.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"417\" height=\"279\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/Cristina-1020x680.jpeg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/Cristina-800x533.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/Cristina-160x107.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/Cristina-768x512.jpeg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/Cristina.jpeg 1280w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 417px) 100vw, 417px\">\u003c/a>My greatest fear is that if nothing is done and the time comes and all these houses flood, a bunch of people have nowhere to go, or have to live with water on the ground. It just won’t be safe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And having to worry about paying rent and fixing your house, what are they supposed to do? Where are all those people going to go?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>My hope is that some changes are made. Small-scale changes like just East Palo Alto itself, the entire city going solar. That would really motivate other cities: “Oh, look at what they’re doing. We should do that, too.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I hope East Palo Alto is able to take preventive measures, building levees or just making sure that every home, especially those near the areas usually flooded, is prepared.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "What Can the Bay Area Do About Rising Seas? East Palo Alto Has a Few Great Answers",
"headTitle": "What Can the Bay Area Do About Rising Seas? East Palo Alto Has a Few Great Answers | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>This series is part of the Pulitzer Center’s nationwide \u003ca href=\"http://connected-coastlines.pulitzercenter.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Connected Coastlines reporting initiative\u003c/a>.\u003cbr>\n\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1974191/que-puede-hacer-el-area-de-la-bahia-ante-el-aumento-del-nivel-del-mar-el-este-de-palo-alto-ya-esta-proponiendo-algunas-soluciones\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003ci data-stringify-type=\"italic\">Leer en español\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 4.6875em;float: left;line-height: 0.733em;padding: 0.05em 0.1em 0 0;font-family: times, serif, georgia\">T\u003c/span>he first time the streets flooded, Appollonia Grey ‘Uhilamoelangi, known as Mama Dee in her East Palo Alto community, got a little nostalgic. The weather, though severely inclement, at least reminded her of home in Samoa.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That time I was very happy,” ‘Uhilamoelangi said, about her first Bay Area deluge. “I was outside swimming in the rain, playing in the rain. There was water everywhere.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote]According to projections, in 10 years or so up to two-thirds of East Palo Alto may regularly experience flooding, which could trigger cascading crises around the bay. Now, government, business and people have forged a new kind of partnership trying to prepare.[/pullquote]But East Palo Alto, with a population of 30,000, is prone to flooding, and three times over the next 30 years, torrential rains devastated the city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The last two floods over here, the question is, where was God?’ she said. “Don’t get me wrong. I believe in prayers. But I lived through so many disasters.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Now, the bay waters being pushed higher by the effects of climate change pose an existential threat to this small community of mostly people of color.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s not hyperbole. East Palo Alto is located between San Francisco and San Jose at the western end of the Dumbarton Bridge. Of all Bay Area counties, San Mateo is the most at risk from sea level rise, and of all places in the county, East Palo Alto is one of the most vulnerable to climate-driven inundation.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch5>Bay Area 2050 Projected Sea Level Rise\u003c/h5>\n\u003cp style=\"line-height: 90%\">\u003cspan style=\"font-size: small\">\u003cem>Use your mouse to move the map. Click the arrow to view the map legend. Use the + and – signs to zoom in and out. Click on the magnifying glass at the bottom to search for a specific address. Click on the down arrow top right of the legend to remove it. Sources: USGS, OCOF, Pacific Institute\u003c/em>\u003c/span>\u003cbr>\n\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://www.arcgis.com/apps/Embed/index.html?webmap=1f92f63dee1840c3b472fc341d98b11d&extent=-122.3564,37.3627,-121.9818,37.6717&home=true&zoom=true&previewImage=false&scale=true&search=true&searchextent=false&details=true&legend=true&active_panel=legend&disable_scroll=true&theme=light\" width=\"100%\" height=\"500\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\" frameborder=\"0\">\u003c/iframe>\n\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Roughly 2.5 square miles of ranch-style homes and citrus trees, the city is bound by water on three sides, the San Francisquito Creek, meandering along the southern edge, the bay lying to the north and east.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Already, half of East Palo Alto sits within a federally \u003ca href=\"https://www.cityofepa.org/sites/default/files/fileattachments/community_amp_economic_development/page/2531/fema_maps_2015_201509011239377956.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s2\">designated flood zone\u003c/span>\u003c/a>. According to projections, in 10 years or so up to two-thirds of the land within city limits may regularly experience flooding. By mid-century, those areas could be frequently underwater during high tides.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=\"science_1973645,science_1973624\"]The effects of climate change are disproportionately impacting communities of color like those in East Palo Alto. Gentrification and an influx of tech behemoths like Facebook, Google and Amazon has changed the makeup of the city, but it’s still largely non-white, with a population of 66% Latino. Many Pacific Islanders like ‘Uhilamoelangi also live here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Heavy rains regularly swell the creek and flood the city’s eastern sections, and an elevated sea level will severely exacerbate the problem, undermining the viability of East Palo Alto’s working-class community, says Derek Ouyang, a program manager and lecturer at the \u003ca href=\"http://bay.stanford.edu/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s2\">Stanford Future Bay Initiative\u003c/span>\u003c/a> who works with community leaders in the city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you were to get to know 100 families in East Palo Alto, maybe 50 out of 100 already are right at that point at which savings are so low that … a flood event … could be that tipping point,” Ouyang said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Floodwaters \u003ca href=\"https://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/2018/02/03/a-flood-next-time\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s2\">swamped\u003c/span>\u003c/a> more than 1,000 homes here in 1998. In 2012, the creek overtopped its banks, forcing evacuations. The city, working with its neighbors through the San Francisquito Creek Joint Powers Authority, reengineered parts of its shoreline to mitigate the risk.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"mceTemp\">\u003c/div>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1973972\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/East-Palo-Alto-Flood-1998-1.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1973972\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/East-Palo-Alto-Flood-1998-1-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/East-Palo-Alto-Flood-1998-1-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/East-Palo-Alto-Flood-1998-1-1020x574.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/East-Palo-Alto-Flood-1998-1-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/East-Palo-Alto-Flood-1998-1-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/East-Palo-Alto-Flood-1998-1-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/East-Palo-Alto-Flood-1998-1.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Floodwaters swamped East Palo Alto in 1998. \u003ccite>(Teodros Hailye/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>For some in East Palo Alto, flooding and climate change are threatening their homes a second time. Climate refugees here from the Pacific Islands have already fled rising seas, only to face similar threats in a new country thousands of miles away.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many are collaborating with scientists, the city and the joint powers authority to save homes by restoring and creating a new wetland at the bay’s edge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While East Palo Alto’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.cityofepa.org/sites/default/files/fileattachments/finance/page/4321/adopted_fy_2020-21_budget.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s2\">budget\u003c/span>\u003c/a>, at $41.8 million, is 325 times smaller than San Francisco’s, the city is punching well above its weight in terms of planning for a higher tide.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1973849\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 480px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1973849\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48667_IMG_2781-sfi.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"480\" height=\"360\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48667_IMG_2781-sfi.jpg 480w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48667_IMG_2781-sfi-160x120.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Heleine Grewe, 17, and Leia Grewe, her mother. \u003ccite>(Kevin Stark/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Yet, it may not be enough. The interconnected nature of both the Bay Area’s ecosystem and infrastructure means that without a regional plan to protect all communities along the bay, East Palo Alto’s best efforts can be undermined, a fact not lost on city leadership and young activists, some of whom are teenagers frustrated they will inherit a city soon to be transformed by the fury of rising oceans and melting ice sheets.\u003cspan class=\"Apple-converted-space\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I just want a plan for the future, because if this happens and there’s going to be flooding everywhere, people should know how to respond,” said Heleine Grewe, a 17-year-old senior at Menlo-Atherton High School.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Grewe’s maternal grandparents emigrated from Tonga, and her dad’s family arrived in a wave of Black Americans who moved to East Palo Alto in the middle of the last century. Many endured \u003ca href=\"https://bos.smcgov.org/history-east-palo-alto#:~:text=East%20Palo%20Alto%20became%20one,in%201983%3A%201%2C782%20to%201%2C767\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s2\">blockbusting\u003c/span>\u003c/a> and other \u003ca href=\"https://www.google.com/books/edition/Hearings_Before_the_United_States_Commis/fUXVAAAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=East%20Palo%20Alto\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s2\">discriminatory housing practices\u003c/span>\u003c/a>, decades of bad policy rooted in deliberate racial segregation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her mom, Leia, is worried the water will come purling through her back door.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m thinking back to the places that weren’t ready,” she said. “Let’s talk about Katrina. That could be us in the next couple of years.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Connecting the Climate Change Dots\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>‘Uhilamoelangi and her husband, Senita, known as Papa Senter, emigrated from Samoa to the United States in the mid-1970s because of the increasing frequency of hurricanes and tsunamis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“All of us islanders … never have a casual conversation [when we] talk about the rain, the flood,” she said. “Anytime there’s a tsunami at home, on any island, all of us connect and emotions rise.”\u003cbr>\nBut it wasn’t until the mid-2010s that she understood the link between those storms and a warming world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I had no clue at all about climate change,” ‘Uhilamoelangi said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside label=\"Listen to the Radio Stories\" link1=\"https://traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/0af137ef-751e-4b19-a055-aaef00d2d578/ffca7e9f-6831-41c5-bcaf-aaef00f5a073/9781a65a-2213-47f8-8203-ad1201221d2f/audio.mp3,Part 1\" link2=\"https://traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/0af137ef-751e-4b19-a055-aaef00d2d578/ffca7e9f-6831-41c5-bcaf-aaef00f5a073/eceb8c18-f067-4a06-97d7-ad13011a189e/audio.mp3,Part 2\" link3=\"https://traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/0af137ef-751e-4b19-a055-aaef00d2d578/ffca7e9f-6831-41c5-bcaf-aaef00f5a073/bcb8dc0d-d1ed-4496-bb0e-ad1701254f79/audio.mp3,Part 3\"]She connected the dots of flooding in East Palo Alto, severe weather in Samoa and rising seas when she met \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Violet Wulf-Saena\u003c/span> from \u003ca href=\"https://www.acterra.org/climate-resilient-communities\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s2\">Climate Resilient Communities\u003c/span>\u003c/a>, a group dedicated to protecting the Peninsula’s underrepresented residents as the climate crisis grows.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I can ask questions that sound like stupid questions, but I always have an answer from Violet,” said Mama Dee.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Saena was Samoa’s original climate change officer, creating the country’s first resiliency plan. When she followed her husband to the Bay Area, she saw that the community needed to understand the looming threat. With the help of Stanford students, she went door to door in East Palo Alto, asking people what they knew about the effects of sea level rise.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s easier for me, because I’m a person of color and I do come from the island,” she said. “They see that: ‘Oh, yeah, she’s part of us.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1973818\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1973818 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48288_014_EastPaloAlto_SeaLevelRise_03292021-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48288_014_EastPaloAlto_SeaLevelRise_03292021-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48288_014_EastPaloAlto_SeaLevelRise_03292021-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48288_014_EastPaloAlto_SeaLevelRise_03292021-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48288_014_EastPaloAlto_SeaLevelRise_03292021-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48288_014_EastPaloAlto_SeaLevelRise_03292021-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48288_014_EastPaloAlto_SeaLevelRise_03292021-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Climate Resilient Communities Executive Director Violet Wulf-Saena at Cooley Landing Park in East Palo Alto. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Out of those discussions grew community climate groups aimed at educating and involving residents in East Palo Alto’s adaptation plans, as well as helping them with basic needs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>People want to take part in “tangible strategies,” \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Wulf-Saena\u003c/span> said. “It’s not just the levee. It’s also other things that they can do themselves, like water cisterns or a rain garden system.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She notes the large number of low-income residents who are going to need help. “(T)hey won’t have the means to be able to buy a car if their car is ruined by flooding. So, what programs can we implement that will help everybody?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Such a philosophy, if adopted by the entire Bay Area, can lead to a more climate-resilient region, says \u003ca href=\"https://www.elizabethallisonphd.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s2\">Elizabeth Allison\u003c/span>\u003c/a>, who studies the intersection of religion and ecology at the California Institute of Integral Studies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think that we need to adopt a sort of comprehensive ethic of care, actually, when we think about climate change,” she said. This would mean keeping in mind the entire planet, including future generations, “as if they mattered to us as much as our neighbors and friends and families do.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Care is at the center of the ‘Uhilamoelangis’ organization, \u003ca href=\"https://anamatangi.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s2\">Anamantangi Polynesian Voices\u003c/span>\u003c/a>, which focuses on helping underserved new arrivals. Through person-to-person education, the couple have found a calling.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are full-time volunteers for climate change,” Mama Dee said. “To avoid another disaster … where do we run?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not to higher ground, she says. The couple want East Palo Alto to remain diverse in the face of both sea level rise and gentrification, so they are sticking it out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Semicircle of Protection\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Residents in East Palo Alto will be protected in part by a new, high levee, separating a portion of the city from the San Francisquito Creek, which is connected to the bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is a 20-year-in-the making project [that] really started in that 1998 flood,” said Mayor Carlos Romero, standing atop the levee overlooking a neighborhood of mostly one-story homes and car-lined streets. “This was inundated. I had friends here who had 4 feet of water in their living room.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He fears another flooding event would hit East Palo Alto hard, devastating the city much like Hurricane Katrina did to New Orleans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you were to just lie down here and look over the levee, you could see that some of the rooftops are below that levee,” he said. “Basically, it’s another Ninth Ward.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1973835\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1973835\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48549_Image-from-iOS-12-qut-800x600.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48549_Image-from-iOS-12-qut-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48549_Image-from-iOS-12-qut-1020x764.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48549_Image-from-iOS-12-qut-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48549_Image-from-iOS-12-qut-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48549_Image-from-iOS-12-qut-1536x1151.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48549_Image-from-iOS-12-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">East Palo Alto Mayor Carlos Romero on the new levee east of East Palo Alto. Homes to the left are the start of the city and to the right is a creek that leads to the bay. \u003ccite>(Ezra David Romero/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Where this fancy new levee ends, the deteriorating structure it’s replacing picks up, providing “some protection, but not a lot,” said Tess Byler, senior project manager with the \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfcjpa.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s2\">San Francisquito Creek Joint Powers Authority\u003c/span>\u003c/a>, where she oversees a program to help protect the region from sea level rise.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The goal is to have the old levee entirely replaced by 2030. The project has formalized into the Strategy to Advance Flood Protection, Ecosystems and Recreation along San Francisco Bay, less cumbersomely known as \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfcjpa.org/safer-bay-project\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s2\">SAFER Bay\u003c/span>\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Designed to simultaneously withstand a 100-year flood, high tide, and up to a 3.5 feet rise in sea level, this system of earthen and engineered systems, including marshes and levees, will stretch along the shoreline from the Redwood City-Menlo Park border in the north to the Palo Alto-Mountain View line in the south. Altogether, the system will have to contain a projected additional 10 feet to the current mean high-water mark.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The project is split into nine portions, with phase one encompassing East Palo Alto and Menlo Park. Completion of the initial section, scheduled for 2024, will defend nearly 1,600 properties, mostly East Palo Alto homes, along marshes managed by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. In Menlo Park, the plan calls for restoring more than 550 acres of former salt ponds to marsh.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To enclose the circle of protection around this chunk of the bay will demand cooperation and dollars from private and government landowners as diverse as Caltrans, Facebook, and various utilities and municipalities, says Byler. Special-status wildlife must also be considered.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s just these invisible threads that we have to account for — things that we don’t see — the sanitary sewer alignment —and the electrical towers, which we can,” she said. “And then making sure that we’re being protective of the current high value marsh that is home to many wonderful species of birds and animals.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Much has yet to be decided, Byler says, including figuring out who is going to build the levees and how to clean up arsenic contamination left in the soil from an old hazardous waste plant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, she has confidence in the project, not only due to widespread community buy-in, but because the various entities appear to be working together, albeit not at the same pace. She says matching state money may add to the financing, which is almost complete.\u003cbr>\n“We have the funding for East Palo Alto, so that will be our initial focus,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The levee system is just one bite-size solution, though. Protecting critical infrastructure like Highway 101 will take a regional approach that includes every county in the Bay Area, says \u003ca href=\"https://oneshoreline.org/staff/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s2\">Len Materman\u003c/span>\u003c/a>, CEO of the San Mateo County Flood and Sea Level Rise Resiliency District.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re not there yet, by all nine counties,” he said. “The sooner that everybody’s on board, the better.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Cascading Effects\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One reason local stakeholders tend to expand the conversation to the entire Bay Area when they talk about solutions is that what happens in East Palo Alto doesn’t stay in East Alto, at least when it comes to the effects of climate change. A catastrophe here will ripple through the region to affect millions of inhabitants in dozens of cities bordering those on the shoreline most at risk.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Grewes’ at-risk rent home, for instance, is roughly the same distance above sea level as the off-ramps to and from the Dumbarton Bridge. A deluged bridge could mean shutting down one of the major arteries connecting the East and South Bay, throwing the region’s already overburdened transportation system into disarray.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KTNaQmeCxY\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The same type of snowballing effects holds true for water and fuel distribution, communications systems and electricity, said Mark Stacey, an environmental engineer at UC Berkeley. The Bay Area is one interconnected ecosystem, he says, and every seawall, every dredge, every change to the bay’s edge has an impact.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In East Palo Alto, flooding could trigger cascading crises across the region.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“As we transform our shorelines or as our shorelines are transformed for us by sea level rise, the tidal dynamics in the bay are themselves altered,” Stacey said. “Local changes in the shoreline can have regional effects on high water levels.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As tides constantly pulse into San Francisco Bay, the largest estuary along the West Coast, they sometimes dissipate gently across wetlands, and at other times raise the water level when pushing off seawalls along the shore, Stacey says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As different communities harden their shorelines against the water’s rise, future tides will slam against these seawalls, amplifying their power elsewhere along the bay and creating a feedback loop that will force the water several inches higher. This will impact millions of Bay Area residents. The southern part of the bay where East Palo Alto is located is most vulnerable to this amplification effect.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1973862\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1973862\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48685_EPA_image_selects_websize-2-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48685_EPA_image_selects_websize-2-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48685_EPA_image_selects_websize-2-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48685_EPA_image_selects_websize-2-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48685_EPA_image_selects_websize-2-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48685_EPA_image_selects_websize-2-1536x1023.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48685_EPA_image_selects_websize-2.jpg 1600w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Dumbarton Bridge near East Palo Alto’s shoreline. \u003ccite>(JJ Harris - Techboogie/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Jessica Fain, planning director for the Bay Conservation and Development Commission, says East Palo Alto is a “sweet spot” where the Bay Area has the opportunity to address in one place many of the overlapping challenges related to sea level rise.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“All lines point to here,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The premise of the regional strategy that Fain is helping to design, called \u003ca href=\"https://www.bayadapt.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s2\">Bay Adapt\u003c/span>\u003c/a>, is that rising sea levels will affect all aspects of life.\u003cbr>\nThe agency, with no original mandate to take on sea level rise, has had to build a new kind of collaboration between cities, counties, businesses and people. It can use the carrot of grants that include guidance to conform to regional goals. Or it could try to gain a broader mandate to encourage good projects and reject unhelpful ones.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“But we’re not quite there yet,” Fain said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Absent a directive to force cities and counties to coordinate their levees and other solutions, BCDC is working with community groups around the bay to encourage buy-in.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the group \u003ca href=\"https://nuestracasa.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s2\">Nuestra Casa\u003c/span>\u003c/a> in East Palo Alto, program director Julio Garcia runs classes, workshops and focus groups to help give people a seat at the table in the creation of BCDC’s plan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If we didn’t have COVID-19, [climate change] is the number one crisis that we are facing,” Garcia said. “As a community of color, people who are workers, it is really important. Because if houses start flooding, where are we going to be moving to?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Grewes are both members of the group, where Heleine teaches an environmental justice class.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I would really love it if more surrounding cities would come together and kind of protect our little city,” Leia Grewe said, during a recent meeting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Garcia’s concern, as well as Heleine’s and Leia’s, is that the expanded marshlands that can protect the homes here could also drive up housing prices.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’ll get moved out to like Stockton, Sacramento,” Leia said. “And I hate that, because when you think about East Palo Alto … a lot of our family members can’t come back. We can’t afford the property here.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>East Palo Alto’s youngest City Council member, 27-year-old Antonio López, says he understands the Grewes’ concerns about gentrification.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1973840\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1973840\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48562_Image-from-iOS-30-qut-800x600.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48562_Image-from-iOS-30-qut-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48562_Image-from-iOS-30-qut-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48562_Image-from-iOS-30-qut-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48562_Image-from-iOS-30-qut-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48562_Image-from-iOS-30-qut-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48562_Image-from-iOS-30-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">East Palo Alto City Council member Antonio López. \u003ccite>(Ezra David Romero/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“We here, certainly in the city, are fighting for you to stay here and be able to have a voice at the table,” he said. “The levees are just a symbol of us having that fighting chance of staying here.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>López keeps a photo on his phone of San Francisquito Creek, swollen with rainwater, brown with mud, an inch below spilling over into neighborhood streets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">At the same spot the photo was taken, a green steel levee hugs the gentle turns of the creek — a \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfcjpa.org/reach-1-downstream-project\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s2\">section\u003c/span>\u003c/a> completed by the San Francisquito Creek Joint Powers Authority in 2019. East Palo Alto, working with the authority, widened the creek channel, rebuilt salt marshes and engineered the levee.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Looking at the photo, “I see the anxiety of flood levels, but I also see opportunity and a reminder of where we need to be,” López said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "East Palo Alto, a small, mostly residential city, is punching well above its weight in terms of planning for the effects of accelerated climate change and the risk of rising tides.",
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"description": "East Palo Alto, a small, mostly residential city, is punching well above its weight in terms of planning for the effects of accelerated climate change and the risk of rising tides.",
"title": "What Can the Bay Area Do About Rising Seas? East Palo Alto Has a Few Great Answers | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>This series is part of the Pulitzer Center’s nationwide \u003ca href=\"http://connected-coastlines.pulitzercenter.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Connected Coastlines reporting initiative\u003c/a>.\u003cbr>\n\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1974191/que-puede-hacer-el-area-de-la-bahia-ante-el-aumento-del-nivel-del-mar-el-este-de-palo-alto-ya-esta-proponiendo-algunas-soluciones\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003ci data-stringify-type=\"italic\">Leer en español\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 4.6875em;float: left;line-height: 0.733em;padding: 0.05em 0.1em 0 0;font-family: times, serif, georgia\">T\u003c/span>he first time the streets flooded, Appollonia Grey ‘Uhilamoelangi, known as Mama Dee in her East Palo Alto community, got a little nostalgic. The weather, though severely inclement, at least reminded her of home in Samoa.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That time I was very happy,” ‘Uhilamoelangi said, about her first Bay Area deluge. “I was outside swimming in the rain, playing in the rain. There was water everywhere.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "According to projections, in 10 years or so up to two-thirds of East Palo Alto may regularly experience flooding, which could trigger cascading crises around the bay. Now, government, business and people have forged a new kind of partnership trying to prepare.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>But East Palo Alto, with a population of 30,000, is prone to flooding, and three times over the next 30 years, torrential rains devastated the city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The last two floods over here, the question is, where was God?’ she said. “Don’t get me wrong. I believe in prayers. But I lived through so many disasters.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Now, the bay waters being pushed higher by the effects of climate change pose an existential threat to this small community of mostly people of color.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s not hyperbole. East Palo Alto is located between San Francisco and San Jose at the western end of the Dumbarton Bridge. Of all Bay Area counties, San Mateo is the most at risk from sea level rise, and of all places in the county, East Palo Alto is one of the most vulnerable to climate-driven inundation.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch5>Bay Area 2050 Projected Sea Level Rise\u003c/h5>\n\u003cp style=\"line-height: 90%\">\u003cspan style=\"font-size: small\">\u003cem>Use your mouse to move the map. Click the arrow to view the map legend. Use the + and – signs to zoom in and out. Click on the magnifying glass at the bottom to search for a specific address. Click on the down arrow top right of the legend to remove it. Sources: USGS, OCOF, Pacific Institute\u003c/em>\u003c/span>\u003cbr>\n\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://www.arcgis.com/apps/Embed/index.html?webmap=1f92f63dee1840c3b472fc341d98b11d&extent=-122.3564,37.3627,-121.9818,37.6717&home=true&zoom=true&previewImage=false&scale=true&search=true&searchextent=false&details=true&legend=true&active_panel=legend&disable_scroll=true&theme=light\" width=\"100%\" height=\"500\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\" frameborder=\"0\">\u003c/iframe>\n\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Roughly 2.5 square miles of ranch-style homes and citrus trees, the city is bound by water on three sides, the San Francisquito Creek, meandering along the southern edge, the bay lying to the north and east.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Already, half of East Palo Alto sits within a federally \u003ca href=\"https://www.cityofepa.org/sites/default/files/fileattachments/community_amp_economic_development/page/2531/fema_maps_2015_201509011239377956.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s2\">designated flood zone\u003c/span>\u003c/a>. According to projections, in 10 years or so up to two-thirds of the land within city limits may regularly experience flooding. By mid-century, those areas could be frequently underwater during high tides.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The effects of climate change are disproportionately impacting communities of color like those in East Palo Alto. Gentrification and an influx of tech behemoths like Facebook, Google and Amazon has changed the makeup of the city, but it’s still largely non-white, with a population of 66% Latino. Many Pacific Islanders like ‘Uhilamoelangi also live here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Heavy rains regularly swell the creek and flood the city’s eastern sections, and an elevated sea level will severely exacerbate the problem, undermining the viability of East Palo Alto’s working-class community, says Derek Ouyang, a program manager and lecturer at the \u003ca href=\"http://bay.stanford.edu/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s2\">Stanford Future Bay Initiative\u003c/span>\u003c/a> who works with community leaders in the city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you were to get to know 100 families in East Palo Alto, maybe 50 out of 100 already are right at that point at which savings are so low that … a flood event … could be that tipping point,” Ouyang said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Floodwaters \u003ca href=\"https://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/2018/02/03/a-flood-next-time\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s2\">swamped\u003c/span>\u003c/a> more than 1,000 homes here in 1998. In 2012, the creek overtopped its banks, forcing evacuations. The city, working with its neighbors through the San Francisquito Creek Joint Powers Authority, reengineered parts of its shoreline to mitigate the risk.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"mceTemp\">\u003c/div>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1973972\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/East-Palo-Alto-Flood-1998-1.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1973972\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/East-Palo-Alto-Flood-1998-1-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/East-Palo-Alto-Flood-1998-1-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/East-Palo-Alto-Flood-1998-1-1020x574.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/East-Palo-Alto-Flood-1998-1-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/East-Palo-Alto-Flood-1998-1-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/East-Palo-Alto-Flood-1998-1-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/04/East-Palo-Alto-Flood-1998-1.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Floodwaters swamped East Palo Alto in 1998. \u003ccite>(Teodros Hailye/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>For some in East Palo Alto, flooding and climate change are threatening their homes a second time. Climate refugees here from the Pacific Islands have already fled rising seas, only to face similar threats in a new country thousands of miles away.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many are collaborating with scientists, the city and the joint powers authority to save homes by restoring and creating a new wetland at the bay’s edge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While East Palo Alto’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.cityofepa.org/sites/default/files/fileattachments/finance/page/4321/adopted_fy_2020-21_budget.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s2\">budget\u003c/span>\u003c/a>, at $41.8 million, is 325 times smaller than San Francisco’s, the city is punching well above its weight in terms of planning for a higher tide.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1973849\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 480px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1973849\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48667_IMG_2781-sfi.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"480\" height=\"360\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48667_IMG_2781-sfi.jpg 480w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48667_IMG_2781-sfi-160x120.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Heleine Grewe, 17, and Leia Grewe, her mother. \u003ccite>(Kevin Stark/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Yet, it may not be enough. The interconnected nature of both the Bay Area’s ecosystem and infrastructure means that without a regional plan to protect all communities along the bay, East Palo Alto’s best efforts can be undermined, a fact not lost on city leadership and young activists, some of whom are teenagers frustrated they will inherit a city soon to be transformed by the fury of rising oceans and melting ice sheets.\u003cspan class=\"Apple-converted-space\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I just want a plan for the future, because if this happens and there’s going to be flooding everywhere, people should know how to respond,” said Heleine Grewe, a 17-year-old senior at Menlo-Atherton High School.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Grewe’s maternal grandparents emigrated from Tonga, and her dad’s family arrived in a wave of Black Americans who moved to East Palo Alto in the middle of the last century. Many endured \u003ca href=\"https://bos.smcgov.org/history-east-palo-alto#:~:text=East%20Palo%20Alto%20became%20one,in%201983%3A%201%2C782%20to%201%2C767\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s2\">blockbusting\u003c/span>\u003c/a> and other \u003ca href=\"https://www.google.com/books/edition/Hearings_Before_the_United_States_Commis/fUXVAAAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=East%20Palo%20Alto\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s2\">discriminatory housing practices\u003c/span>\u003c/a>, decades of bad policy rooted in deliberate racial segregation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her mom, Leia, is worried the water will come purling through her back door.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m thinking back to the places that weren’t ready,” she said. “Let’s talk about Katrina. That could be us in the next couple of years.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Connecting the Climate Change Dots\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>‘Uhilamoelangi and her husband, Senita, known as Papa Senter, emigrated from Samoa to the United States in the mid-1970s because of the increasing frequency of hurricanes and tsunamis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“All of us islanders … never have a casual conversation [when we] talk about the rain, the flood,” she said. “Anytime there’s a tsunami at home, on any island, all of us connect and emotions rise.”\u003cbr>\nBut it wasn’t until the mid-2010s that she understood the link between those storms and a warming world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I had no clue at all about climate change,” ‘Uhilamoelangi said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>She connected the dots of flooding in East Palo Alto, severe weather in Samoa and rising seas when she met \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Violet Wulf-Saena\u003c/span> from \u003ca href=\"https://www.acterra.org/climate-resilient-communities\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s2\">Climate Resilient Communities\u003c/span>\u003c/a>, a group dedicated to protecting the Peninsula’s underrepresented residents as the climate crisis grows.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I can ask questions that sound like stupid questions, but I always have an answer from Violet,” said Mama Dee.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Saena was Samoa’s original climate change officer, creating the country’s first resiliency plan. When she followed her husband to the Bay Area, she saw that the community needed to understand the looming threat. With the help of Stanford students, she went door to door in East Palo Alto, asking people what they knew about the effects of sea level rise.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s easier for me, because I’m a person of color and I do come from the island,” she said. “They see that: ‘Oh, yeah, she’s part of us.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1973818\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1973818 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48288_014_EastPaloAlto_SeaLevelRise_03292021-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48288_014_EastPaloAlto_SeaLevelRise_03292021-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48288_014_EastPaloAlto_SeaLevelRise_03292021-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48288_014_EastPaloAlto_SeaLevelRise_03292021-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48288_014_EastPaloAlto_SeaLevelRise_03292021-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48288_014_EastPaloAlto_SeaLevelRise_03292021-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48288_014_EastPaloAlto_SeaLevelRise_03292021-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Climate Resilient Communities Executive Director Violet Wulf-Saena at Cooley Landing Park in East Palo Alto. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Out of those discussions grew community climate groups aimed at educating and involving residents in East Palo Alto’s adaptation plans, as well as helping them with basic needs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>People want to take part in “tangible strategies,” \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Wulf-Saena\u003c/span> said. “It’s not just the levee. It’s also other things that they can do themselves, like water cisterns or a rain garden system.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She notes the large number of low-income residents who are going to need help. “(T)hey won’t have the means to be able to buy a car if their car is ruined by flooding. So, what programs can we implement that will help everybody?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Such a philosophy, if adopted by the entire Bay Area, can lead to a more climate-resilient region, says \u003ca href=\"https://www.elizabethallisonphd.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s2\">Elizabeth Allison\u003c/span>\u003c/a>, who studies the intersection of religion and ecology at the California Institute of Integral Studies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think that we need to adopt a sort of comprehensive ethic of care, actually, when we think about climate change,” she said. This would mean keeping in mind the entire planet, including future generations, “as if they mattered to us as much as our neighbors and friends and families do.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Care is at the center of the ‘Uhilamoelangis’ organization, \u003ca href=\"https://anamatangi.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s2\">Anamantangi Polynesian Voices\u003c/span>\u003c/a>, which focuses on helping underserved new arrivals. Through person-to-person education, the couple have found a calling.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are full-time volunteers for climate change,” Mama Dee said. “To avoid another disaster … where do we run?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not to higher ground, she says. The couple want East Palo Alto to remain diverse in the face of both sea level rise and gentrification, so they are sticking it out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Semicircle of Protection\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Residents in East Palo Alto will be protected in part by a new, high levee, separating a portion of the city from the San Francisquito Creek, which is connected to the bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is a 20-year-in-the making project [that] really started in that 1998 flood,” said Mayor Carlos Romero, standing atop the levee overlooking a neighborhood of mostly one-story homes and car-lined streets. “This was inundated. I had friends here who had 4 feet of water in their living room.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He fears another flooding event would hit East Palo Alto hard, devastating the city much like Hurricane Katrina did to New Orleans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you were to just lie down here and look over the levee, you could see that some of the rooftops are below that levee,” he said. “Basically, it’s another Ninth Ward.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1973835\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1973835\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48549_Image-from-iOS-12-qut-800x600.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48549_Image-from-iOS-12-qut-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48549_Image-from-iOS-12-qut-1020x764.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48549_Image-from-iOS-12-qut-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48549_Image-from-iOS-12-qut-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48549_Image-from-iOS-12-qut-1536x1151.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48549_Image-from-iOS-12-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">East Palo Alto Mayor Carlos Romero on the new levee east of East Palo Alto. Homes to the left are the start of the city and to the right is a creek that leads to the bay. \u003ccite>(Ezra David Romero/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Where this fancy new levee ends, the deteriorating structure it’s replacing picks up, providing “some protection, but not a lot,” said Tess Byler, senior project manager with the \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfcjpa.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s2\">San Francisquito Creek Joint Powers Authority\u003c/span>\u003c/a>, where she oversees a program to help protect the region from sea level rise.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The goal is to have the old levee entirely replaced by 2030. The project has formalized into the Strategy to Advance Flood Protection, Ecosystems and Recreation along San Francisco Bay, less cumbersomely known as \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfcjpa.org/safer-bay-project\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s2\">SAFER Bay\u003c/span>\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Designed to simultaneously withstand a 100-year flood, high tide, and up to a 3.5 feet rise in sea level, this system of earthen and engineered systems, including marshes and levees, will stretch along the shoreline from the Redwood City-Menlo Park border in the north to the Palo Alto-Mountain View line in the south. Altogether, the system will have to contain a projected additional 10 feet to the current mean high-water mark.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The project is split into nine portions, with phase one encompassing East Palo Alto and Menlo Park. Completion of the initial section, scheduled for 2024, will defend nearly 1,600 properties, mostly East Palo Alto homes, along marshes managed by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. In Menlo Park, the plan calls for restoring more than 550 acres of former salt ponds to marsh.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To enclose the circle of protection around this chunk of the bay will demand cooperation and dollars from private and government landowners as diverse as Caltrans, Facebook, and various utilities and municipalities, says Byler. Special-status wildlife must also be considered.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s just these invisible threads that we have to account for — things that we don’t see — the sanitary sewer alignment —and the electrical towers, which we can,” she said. “And then making sure that we’re being protective of the current high value marsh that is home to many wonderful species of birds and animals.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Much has yet to be decided, Byler says, including figuring out who is going to build the levees and how to clean up arsenic contamination left in the soil from an old hazardous waste plant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, she has confidence in the project, not only due to widespread community buy-in, but because the various entities appear to be working together, albeit not at the same pace. She says matching state money may add to the financing, which is almost complete.\u003cbr>\n“We have the funding for East Palo Alto, so that will be our initial focus,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The levee system is just one bite-size solution, though. Protecting critical infrastructure like Highway 101 will take a regional approach that includes every county in the Bay Area, says \u003ca href=\"https://oneshoreline.org/staff/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s2\">Len Materman\u003c/span>\u003c/a>, CEO of the San Mateo County Flood and Sea Level Rise Resiliency District.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re not there yet, by all nine counties,” he said. “The sooner that everybody’s on board, the better.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Cascading Effects\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One reason local stakeholders tend to expand the conversation to the entire Bay Area when they talk about solutions is that what happens in East Palo Alto doesn’t stay in East Alto, at least when it comes to the effects of climate change. A catastrophe here will ripple through the region to affect millions of inhabitants in dozens of cities bordering those on the shoreline most at risk.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Grewes’ at-risk rent home, for instance, is roughly the same distance above sea level as the off-ramps to and from the Dumbarton Bridge. A deluged bridge could mean shutting down one of the major arteries connecting the East and South Bay, throwing the region’s already overburdened transportation system into disarray.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/2KTNaQmeCxY'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/2KTNaQmeCxY'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>The same type of snowballing effects holds true for water and fuel distribution, communications systems and electricity, said Mark Stacey, an environmental engineer at UC Berkeley. The Bay Area is one interconnected ecosystem, he says, and every seawall, every dredge, every change to the bay’s edge has an impact.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In East Palo Alto, flooding could trigger cascading crises across the region.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“As we transform our shorelines or as our shorelines are transformed for us by sea level rise, the tidal dynamics in the bay are themselves altered,” Stacey said. “Local changes in the shoreline can have regional effects on high water levels.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As tides constantly pulse into San Francisco Bay, the largest estuary along the West Coast, they sometimes dissipate gently across wetlands, and at other times raise the water level when pushing off seawalls along the shore, Stacey says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As different communities harden their shorelines against the water’s rise, future tides will slam against these seawalls, amplifying their power elsewhere along the bay and creating a feedback loop that will force the water several inches higher. This will impact millions of Bay Area residents. The southern part of the bay where East Palo Alto is located is most vulnerable to this amplification effect.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1973862\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1973862\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48685_EPA_image_selects_websize-2-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48685_EPA_image_selects_websize-2-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48685_EPA_image_selects_websize-2-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48685_EPA_image_selects_websize-2-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48685_EPA_image_selects_websize-2-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48685_EPA_image_selects_websize-2-1536x1023.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48685_EPA_image_selects_websize-2.jpg 1600w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Dumbarton Bridge near East Palo Alto’s shoreline. \u003ccite>(JJ Harris - Techboogie/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Jessica Fain, planning director for the Bay Conservation and Development Commission, says East Palo Alto is a “sweet spot” where the Bay Area has the opportunity to address in one place many of the overlapping challenges related to sea level rise.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“All lines point to here,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The premise of the regional strategy that Fain is helping to design, called \u003ca href=\"https://www.bayadapt.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s2\">Bay Adapt\u003c/span>\u003c/a>, is that rising sea levels will affect all aspects of life.\u003cbr>\nThe agency, with no original mandate to take on sea level rise, has had to build a new kind of collaboration between cities, counties, businesses and people. It can use the carrot of grants that include guidance to conform to regional goals. Or it could try to gain a broader mandate to encourage good projects and reject unhelpful ones.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“But we’re not quite there yet,” Fain said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Absent a directive to force cities and counties to coordinate their levees and other solutions, BCDC is working with community groups around the bay to encourage buy-in.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the group \u003ca href=\"https://nuestracasa.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s2\">Nuestra Casa\u003c/span>\u003c/a> in East Palo Alto, program director Julio Garcia runs classes, workshops and focus groups to help give people a seat at the table in the creation of BCDC’s plan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If we didn’t have COVID-19, [climate change] is the number one crisis that we are facing,” Garcia said. “As a community of color, people who are workers, it is really important. Because if houses start flooding, where are we going to be moving to?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Grewes are both members of the group, where Heleine teaches an environmental justice class.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I would really love it if more surrounding cities would come together and kind of protect our little city,” Leia Grewe said, during a recent meeting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Garcia’s concern, as well as Heleine’s and Leia’s, is that the expanded marshlands that can protect the homes here could also drive up housing prices.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’ll get moved out to like Stockton, Sacramento,” Leia said. “And I hate that, because when you think about East Palo Alto … a lot of our family members can’t come back. We can’t afford the property here.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>East Palo Alto’s youngest City Council member, 27-year-old Antonio López, says he understands the Grewes’ concerns about gentrification.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1973840\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1973840\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48562_Image-from-iOS-30-qut-800x600.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48562_Image-from-iOS-30-qut-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48562_Image-from-iOS-30-qut-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48562_Image-from-iOS-30-qut-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48562_Image-from-iOS-30-qut-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48562_Image-from-iOS-30-qut-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/04/RS48562_Image-from-iOS-30-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">East Palo Alto City Council member Antonio López. \u003ccite>(Ezra David Romero/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“We here, certainly in the city, are fighting for you to stay here and be able to have a voice at the table,” he said. “The levees are just a symbol of us having that fighting chance of staying here.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>López keeps a photo on his phone of San Francisquito Creek, swollen with rainwater, brown with mud, an inch below spilling over into neighborhood streets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">At the same spot the photo was taken, a green steel levee hugs the gentle turns of the creek — a \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfcjpa.org/reach-1-downstream-project\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s2\">section\u003c/span>\u003c/a> completed by the San Francisquito Creek Joint Powers Authority in 2019. East Palo Alto, working with the authority, widened the creek channel, rebuilt salt marshes and engineered the levee.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Looking at the photo, “I see the anxiety of flood levels, but I also see opportunity and a reminder of where we need to be,” López said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "Maps: See Which Bay Area Locations Are at Risk From Rising Seas",
"headTitle": "Maps: See Which Bay Area Locations Are at Risk From Rising Seas | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>This series is part of the Pulitzer Center’s nationwide \u003ca href=\"http://connected-coastlines.pulitzercenter.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Connected Coastlines reporting initiative\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1974195/mapa-ver-los-lugares-en-riesgo-de-inundacion-por-el-aumento-del-nivel-del-mar\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Leer en español\u003c/a>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch5>Bay Area 2050 Projected Sea Level Rise\u003c/h5>\n\u003cp style=\"line-height: 90%\">\u003cspan style=\"font-size: small\">\u003cem>Use your mouse to move the map. Click the arrow to view the map legend. Use the + and – signs to zoom in and out. Click on the magnifying glass at the bottom to search for a specific address. Click on the down arrow top right of the legend to remove it. Sources: USGS, OCOF, Pacific Institute\u003c/em>\u003c/span>\u003cbr>\n\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://www.arcgis.com/apps/Embed/index.html?webmap=1f92f63dee1840c3b472fc341d98b11d&extent=-122.3564,37.3627,-121.9818,37.6717&home=true&zoom=true&previewImage=false&scale=true&search=true&searchextent=false&details=true&legend=true&active_panel=legend&disable_scroll=true&theme=light\" width=\"100%\" height=\"500\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\" frameborder=\"0\">\u003c/iframe>\n\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The bay’s high tide level is going in one direction: up. Models used in the state’s latest sea level rise \u003ca href=\"http://www.opc.ca.gov/webmaster/ftp/pdf/docs/rising-seas-in-california-an-update-on-sea-level-rise-science.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">assessment\u003c/a>, from 2017, include an upper range defined in terms of statistically less probable events. They show the bay could rise by up to 1.9 feet by the year 2050 and 6.9 feet by the end of the century, which are greater than the levels shown in the two maps on this page.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But it could get even worse: Cities preparing for future flooding also have to worry about several additional feet of water crashing against their shorelines during a bad storm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Already during storms, East Palo Alto and other cities along the shoreline experience coastal flooding and erosion, which will only be exacerbated by the coming rise in sea level.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Rising seas is one of the most certain of the effects of climate change,” said \u003ca href=\"https://ce.berkeley.edu/people/faculty/stacey\">Mark Stacey\u003c/a>, a UC Berkeley environmental engineer. “We know much of that is already baked in, and we know the seas are going to continue to rise at pace and perhaps accelerate in the coming decades.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Differences in scientific modeling scenarios before the year 2050 are minor, but they diverge significantly after mid-century depending on the trajectory of greenhouse gas emissions, which human beings will determine, and the fate of ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch5>Bay Area 2100 Projected Sea Level Rise\u003c/h5>\n\u003cp style=\"line-height: 90%\">\u003cspan style=\"font-size: small\">\u003cem>Use your mouse to move different directions on the map. Use the + and – signs to zoom in and out. Click on the magnifying glass at the bottom to search for a specific address. Click on the down arrow top right of the legend to remove it. Sources: USGS, OCOF, Pacific Institute\u003c/em>\u003c/span>\u003cbr>\n\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://www.arcgis.com/apps/Embed/index.html?webmap=64c2754019244ff7ae2ac93f22843366&extent=-122.3832,37.3647,-121.9633,37.6737&home=true&zoom=true&previewImage=false&scale=true&search=true&searchextent=false&details=true&legendlayers=true&active_panel=legend&disable_scroll=true&theme=light\" width=\"100%\" height=\"500\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\" frameborder=\"0\">\u003c/iframe>\n\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These models don’t incorporate a more extreme scenario, in which ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica collapse. If this occurs, the Bay Area could see 10 feet of sea level rise by 2100 — what Stacey calls a “massive acceleration” that’s 30 to 40 times faster than the rate of increase we’ve experienced over the last century.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This goes beyond the scope of what we’ve thought about in planning horizons in terms of the magnitude of change that we’d be facing as a region,” he said, adding that such an increase would require a “complete rethinking of the community surrounding the entire Bay Area, and a move of infrastructure systems that would be pretty profound.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state’s assessment says: “Aggressive reductions in greenhouse gas emissions may substantially reduce but do not eliminate the risk to California of extreme sea-level rise from Antarctic ice loss.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Data Sources\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Projections for Bay Area flooding are from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change “representative concentration pathway” 8.5 scenario as detailed in California’s latest sea level rise science \u003ca href=\"http://www.opc.ca.gov/webmaster/ftp/pdf/docs/rising-seas-in-california-an-update-on-sea-level-rise-science.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">assessment\u003c/a>, led by Gary Griggs from UC Santa Cruz.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>The scenario assumes “there are no significant global efforts to limit or reduce emissions.”\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>The maps uses a dynamic computer model from \u003ca href=\"http://ourcoastourfuture.org/\">Our\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"http://ourcoastourfuture.org/\">Coast\u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"http://ourcoastourfuture.org/\">, \u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"http://ourcoastourfuture.org/\">Our\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"http://ourcoastourfuture.org/\">Future\u003c/a>. Flood estimates are approximations. Data are from the U.S. Geological Survey Coastal Storm Modeling System 9 CoSMoS v2.1; Barnard et al, 2014.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "The bay’s high tide level is going in one direction: up. See where rising seas are projected to encroach on Bay Area shorelines by 2050 and 2100.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>This series is part of the Pulitzer Center’s nationwide \u003ca href=\"http://connected-coastlines.pulitzercenter.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Connected Coastlines reporting initiative\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1974195/mapa-ver-los-lugares-en-riesgo-de-inundacion-por-el-aumento-del-nivel-del-mar\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Leer en español\u003c/a>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch5>Bay Area 2050 Projected Sea Level Rise\u003c/h5>\n\u003cp style=\"line-height: 90%\">\u003cspan style=\"font-size: small\">\u003cem>Use your mouse to move the map. Click the arrow to view the map legend. Use the + and – signs to zoom in and out. Click on the magnifying glass at the bottom to search for a specific address. Click on the down arrow top right of the legend to remove it. Sources: USGS, OCOF, Pacific Institute\u003c/em>\u003c/span>\u003cbr>\n\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://www.arcgis.com/apps/Embed/index.html?webmap=1f92f63dee1840c3b472fc341d98b11d&extent=-122.3564,37.3627,-121.9818,37.6717&home=true&zoom=true&previewImage=false&scale=true&search=true&searchextent=false&details=true&legend=true&active_panel=legend&disable_scroll=true&theme=light\" width=\"100%\" height=\"500\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\" frameborder=\"0\">\u003c/iframe>\n\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The bay’s high tide level is going in one direction: up. Models used in the state’s latest sea level rise \u003ca href=\"http://www.opc.ca.gov/webmaster/ftp/pdf/docs/rising-seas-in-california-an-update-on-sea-level-rise-science.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">assessment\u003c/a>, from 2017, include an upper range defined in terms of statistically less probable events. They show the bay could rise by up to 1.9 feet by the year 2050 and 6.9 feet by the end of the century, which are greater than the levels shown in the two maps on this page.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But it could get even worse: Cities preparing for future flooding also have to worry about several additional feet of water crashing against their shorelines during a bad storm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Already during storms, East Palo Alto and other cities along the shoreline experience coastal flooding and erosion, which will only be exacerbated by the coming rise in sea level.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Rising seas is one of the most certain of the effects of climate change,” said \u003ca href=\"https://ce.berkeley.edu/people/faculty/stacey\">Mark Stacey\u003c/a>, a UC Berkeley environmental engineer. “We know much of that is already baked in, and we know the seas are going to continue to rise at pace and perhaps accelerate in the coming decades.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Differences in scientific modeling scenarios before the year 2050 are minor, but they diverge significantly after mid-century depending on the trajectory of greenhouse gas emissions, which human beings will determine, and the fate of ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch5>Bay Area 2100 Projected Sea Level Rise\u003c/h5>\n\u003cp style=\"line-height: 90%\">\u003cspan style=\"font-size: small\">\u003cem>Use your mouse to move different directions on the map. Use the + and – signs to zoom in and out. Click on the magnifying glass at the bottom to search for a specific address. Click on the down arrow top right of the legend to remove it. Sources: USGS, OCOF, Pacific Institute\u003c/em>\u003c/span>\u003cbr>\n\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://www.arcgis.com/apps/Embed/index.html?webmap=64c2754019244ff7ae2ac93f22843366&extent=-122.3832,37.3647,-121.9633,37.6737&home=true&zoom=true&previewImage=false&scale=true&search=true&searchextent=false&details=true&legendlayers=true&active_panel=legend&disable_scroll=true&theme=light\" width=\"100%\" height=\"500\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\" frameborder=\"0\">\u003c/iframe>\n\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These models don’t incorporate a more extreme scenario, in which ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica collapse. If this occurs, the Bay Area could see 10 feet of sea level rise by 2100 — what Stacey calls a “massive acceleration” that’s 30 to 40 times faster than the rate of increase we’ve experienced over the last century.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This goes beyond the scope of what we’ve thought about in planning horizons in terms of the magnitude of change that we’d be facing as a region,” he said, adding that such an increase would require a “complete rethinking of the community surrounding the entire Bay Area, and a move of infrastructure systems that would be pretty profound.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state’s assessment says: “Aggressive reductions in greenhouse gas emissions may substantially reduce but do not eliminate the risk to California of extreme sea-level rise from Antarctic ice loss.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Data Sources\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Projections for Bay Area flooding are from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change “representative concentration pathway” 8.5 scenario as detailed in California’s latest sea level rise science \u003ca href=\"http://www.opc.ca.gov/webmaster/ftp/pdf/docs/rising-seas-in-california-an-update-on-sea-level-rise-science.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">assessment\u003c/a>, led by Gary Griggs from UC Santa Cruz.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>The scenario assumes “there are no significant global efforts to limit or reduce emissions.”\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>The maps uses a dynamic computer model from \u003ca href=\"http://ourcoastourfuture.org/\">Our\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"http://ourcoastourfuture.org/\">Coast\u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"http://ourcoastourfuture.org/\">, \u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"http://ourcoastourfuture.org/\">Our\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"http://ourcoastourfuture.org/\">Future\u003c/a>. Flood estimates are approximations. Data are from the U.S. Geological Survey Coastal Storm Modeling System 9 CoSMoS v2.1; Barnard et al, 2014.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>At a normal tide on a normal day on the Southern California coast, ankle-high waves glide over a narrow strip of gold sand. On one side sits the largest body of water in the world. On the other, a row of houses with a cumulative value in the hundreds of millions of dollars, propped on water-stained stilts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Property value ebbs and flows, but when it comes to coastal real estate “the trend lines are pretty clear,” says California state Sen. Ben Allen, squinting in the sun. “And they’re not pretty.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Within the span of a 30-year mortgage, \u003ca href=\"https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/underwater\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">more than $100 billion\u003c/a> worth of American homes is expected to be at risk of chronic flooding. As the climate warms and oceans rise, narrow strips of sand such as the one Allen is standing on, will be submerged, leaving coastal communities — affluent and not — with the torturous question of how to adjust. Build seawalls? Dump sand? For how long and at what cost?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s becoming a really serious resource question for a lot of local governments,” says Allen, who represents coastal communities in the greater Los Angeles area that are spending millions to keep their beaches intact.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s expensive to fight the sea. It’s expensive not to do so. When property values plummet, so do property taxes. But right now property values here are still high, and Allen wants to put that value to use before it’s gone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s why the 43-year-old Democrat has proposed legislation to create a revolving loan program, allowing California counties and communities to purchase vulnerable coastal properties. The goal would then be to rent those properties out, either to the original homeowner or someone else, and use that money to pay off the loan until the property is no longer safe to live in.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Think of it like a city-run Airbnb, where the profits go to making sure nobody is left picking up the full tab when the Pacific comes to collect.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s a strategy that’s never been tried at such a large scale, and its implementation would come with plenty of questions, policy experts say. But there’s hope in various parts of the country that the legislation passes, putting to test a buy-to-rent strategy that could offer a more permanent solution to a growing problem.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>‘Not a Conversation … Communities Want to Have’\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At its core, Allen’s proposal is a buyout program — a government-subsidized effort to limit the state’s longer-term exposure to sea level rise.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Within the next 30 years \u003ca href=\"https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4261\">$8 billion to $10 billion\u003c/a> of existing property in California is expected to be underwater, according to the state’s nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office. An additional $6 billion to $10 billion will be at risk during high tide.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The magnitude of the potential impacts mean that the state cannot afford to indefinitely delay taking steps to prepare,” the report warns. “Waiting too long to initiate adaptation efforts likely will make responding effectively more difficult and costly.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Communities have three options for dealing with that threat: They can defend those properties using seawalls and buffering beaches; they can learn to live with higher waters; or they can retreat, moving to higher ground.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The last option is often the least popular, says Julia Stein, a project director at the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at UCLA School of Law.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That’s just not a conversation that a lot of coastal communities want to have,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And when the conversation does come up, one of the first questions to arise is cost.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Take Del Mar, a low-lying, upscale community north of San Diego. Residents there have been in a \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2018/12/04/672285546/retreat-is-not-an-option-as-a-california-beach-town-plans-for-rising-seas\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">yearslong fight\u003c/a> with the state over the term “managed retreat.” The state wants the city to consider retreating from a particularly vulnerable area. Problem is: The combined market value of the homes in that area is more than $1.5 billion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s a whole lot of research out there that indicates the market value of coastal property just really doesn’t account for sea level rise in a meaningful way right now, and in the ways that it maybe should,” Stein says. “But at some point, the market is going to realize the problem. And at that point, it may be too late.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s why Stein helped Allen draft his \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/2020-senate-bill-1293-allen-ben-sea-level-rise-revolving-loan-program-dead\">novel legislation\u003c/a>. She thinks the state needs to get ahead of the problem before it becomes another money pit like wildfires. Thousands of California homes are becoming uninsurable due to wildfire risk despite expensive, ever-expanding efforts to fight them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think that’s kind of a vision of the future for some coastal properties,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rent Out Now, Save Money Later\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over the last 30 years, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has supported buyouts of more than 43,000 U.S. homes, according to an\u003ca href=\"https://www.nrdc.org/experts/anna-weber/going-under-post-flood-buyouts-take-years-complete\"> analysis\u003c/a> by the Natural Resources Defense Council. Most are in the more flood-prone East. A few patterns have emerged.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s usually homeowners who are in good standing on their mortgage, after a disaster, who probably can speak pretty good English and are well-off enough to navigate a really complicated, bureaucratic process for three to five years,” says Miyuki Hino, an assistant professor of city and regional planning at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Just because a property owner is willing to sell a home doesn’t mean the resources exist to carry it out. Demand already exceeds supply, and demand is only going to grow.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are facing some really unprecedented difficulties, and we need to be willing to experiment and try new things and see what works and what doesn’t,” Hino says. The California proposal fits that bill, even if she has questions about how it would work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Governments have long played landlord for public housing projects, but coastal real estate would be another beast altogether. There’s no guarantee that homeowners would want to participate. And there are questions of equity. Who would get prioritized for buyouts? Is potentially spending public money to buy multimillion-dollar homes the best use of those funds?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Andy Keeler, an economist at East Carolina University’s Department of Coastal Studies, believes the answer is yes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Keeler has spent years studying buy-to-rent strategies similar to that proposed in California, and he thinks they could be a useful tool for disrupting a pervasive problem when it comes to coastal real estate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The value of a coastal home is hugely dependent on the public sector, he says. If a city or state invests in protecting properties by building sea walls or nourishing beaches, it signals to homeowners that their property values will stay intact, so they continue to invest in their property. More investment means more reason to protect down the road.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s a positive feedback loop that strings out how much longer you’re going to be there,” Keeler says. “All it buys you, which is really valuable, is time.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>From a purely economic perspective though, it doesn’t add up. A community pays on the front end, pays again, and again, and then is left with the cleanup and emergency response in the end.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Keeler says that link can be broken by taking properties out of the hands of private homeowners, who are getting mixed messages about the value of their homes, and putting them in the hands of the public, which has an interest in not being stuck with all of those bills.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Communities can then plan for the eventual phasing out of those properties as sea levels rise. They can plan for the decline in property taxes, and the cleanup costs associated with homes falling into the sea.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re going to be looking at really massive relocation sometime in the next couple of hundred years and probably much sooner,” Keeler says. If we don’t manage the timing of that, he fears, it will manage us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nothing Is Forever \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>His eyes shadowed from the bright California sun by the brim of his blue Dodgers cap, Allen pulls out his phone and opens the Zillow app.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The $8.3 million house just up the beach has a monthly rental estimate of $12,500. Assuming the house could be rented at that rate, it would take about 55 years to pay off — 55 years to make back the money he’s proposing the state loans to local communities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s the most expensive house on this stretch of beach though, and Allen says it may not be worth investing in. But it’s also the kind of property that a homeowner would fight to protect, lobbying for public investment in sea walls and other defenses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Allen’s bill passed unanimously through the state’s Senate Natural Resources and Water Committee last week, and he says he’s hopeful it will receive similar support in the broader Legislature.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Nobody wants to come to terms with what’s happening,” he says, watching as people stroll the beach barefoot and smiling. “We want this to be here forever. We want to be able to walk along this beach and enjoy these beautiful houses and this beautiful view forever.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But, he says, “you can’t beat the sea.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=California+Has+A+New+Idea+For+Homes+At+Risk+From+Rising+Seas%3A+Buy%2C+Rent%2C+Retreat&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>At a normal tide on a normal day on the Southern California coast, ankle-high waves glide over a narrow strip of gold sand. On one side sits the largest body of water in the world. On the other, a row of houses with a cumulative value in the hundreds of millions of dollars, propped on water-stained stilts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Property value ebbs and flows, but when it comes to coastal real estate “the trend lines are pretty clear,” says California state Sen. Ben Allen, squinting in the sun. “And they’re not pretty.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Within the span of a 30-year mortgage, \u003ca href=\"https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/underwater\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">more than $100 billion\u003c/a> worth of American homes is expected to be at risk of chronic flooding. As the climate warms and oceans rise, narrow strips of sand such as the one Allen is standing on, will be submerged, leaving coastal communities — affluent and not — with the torturous question of how to adjust. Build seawalls? Dump sand? For how long and at what cost?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s becoming a really serious resource question for a lot of local governments,” says Allen, who represents coastal communities in the greater Los Angeles area that are spending millions to keep their beaches intact.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s expensive to fight the sea. It’s expensive not to do so. When property values plummet, so do property taxes. But right now property values here are still high, and Allen wants to put that value to use before it’s gone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s why the 43-year-old Democrat has proposed legislation to create a revolving loan program, allowing California counties and communities to purchase vulnerable coastal properties. The goal would then be to rent those properties out, either to the original homeowner or someone else, and use that money to pay off the loan until the property is no longer safe to live in.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Think of it like a city-run Airbnb, where the profits go to making sure nobody is left picking up the full tab when the Pacific comes to collect.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s a strategy that’s never been tried at such a large scale, and its implementation would come with plenty of questions, policy experts say. But there’s hope in various parts of the country that the legislation passes, putting to test a buy-to-rent strategy that could offer a more permanent solution to a growing problem.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>‘Not a Conversation … Communities Want to Have’\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At its core, Allen’s proposal is a buyout program — a government-subsidized effort to limit the state’s longer-term exposure to sea level rise.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Within the next 30 years \u003ca href=\"https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4261\">$8 billion to $10 billion\u003c/a> of existing property in California is expected to be underwater, according to the state’s nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office. An additional $6 billion to $10 billion will be at risk during high tide.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The magnitude of the potential impacts mean that the state cannot afford to indefinitely delay taking steps to prepare,” the report warns. “Waiting too long to initiate adaptation efforts likely will make responding effectively more difficult and costly.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Communities have three options for dealing with that threat: They can defend those properties using seawalls and buffering beaches; they can learn to live with higher waters; or they can retreat, moving to higher ground.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The last option is often the least popular, says Julia Stein, a project director at the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at UCLA School of Law.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That’s just not a conversation that a lot of coastal communities want to have,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And when the conversation does come up, one of the first questions to arise is cost.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Take Del Mar, a low-lying, upscale community north of San Diego. Residents there have been in a \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2018/12/04/672285546/retreat-is-not-an-option-as-a-california-beach-town-plans-for-rising-seas\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">yearslong fight\u003c/a> with the state over the term “managed retreat.” The state wants the city to consider retreating from a particularly vulnerable area. Problem is: The combined market value of the homes in that area is more than $1.5 billion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s a whole lot of research out there that indicates the market value of coastal property just really doesn’t account for sea level rise in a meaningful way right now, and in the ways that it maybe should,” Stein says. “But at some point, the market is going to realize the problem. And at that point, it may be too late.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s why Stein helped Allen draft his \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/2020-senate-bill-1293-allen-ben-sea-level-rise-revolving-loan-program-dead\">novel legislation\u003c/a>. She thinks the state needs to get ahead of the problem before it becomes another money pit like wildfires. Thousands of California homes are becoming uninsurable due to wildfire risk despite expensive, ever-expanding efforts to fight them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think that’s kind of a vision of the future for some coastal properties,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rent Out Now, Save Money Later\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over the last 30 years, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has supported buyouts of more than 43,000 U.S. homes, according to an\u003ca href=\"https://www.nrdc.org/experts/anna-weber/going-under-post-flood-buyouts-take-years-complete\"> analysis\u003c/a> by the Natural Resources Defense Council. Most are in the more flood-prone East. A few patterns have emerged.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s usually homeowners who are in good standing on their mortgage, after a disaster, who probably can speak pretty good English and are well-off enough to navigate a really complicated, bureaucratic process for three to five years,” says Miyuki Hino, an assistant professor of city and regional planning at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Just because a property owner is willing to sell a home doesn’t mean the resources exist to carry it out. Demand already exceeds supply, and demand is only going to grow.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are facing some really unprecedented difficulties, and we need to be willing to experiment and try new things and see what works and what doesn’t,” Hino says. The California proposal fits that bill, even if she has questions about how it would work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Governments have long played landlord for public housing projects, but coastal real estate would be another beast altogether. There’s no guarantee that homeowners would want to participate. And there are questions of equity. Who would get prioritized for buyouts? Is potentially spending public money to buy multimillion-dollar homes the best use of those funds?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Andy Keeler, an economist at East Carolina University’s Department of Coastal Studies, believes the answer is yes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Keeler has spent years studying buy-to-rent strategies similar to that proposed in California, and he thinks they could be a useful tool for disrupting a pervasive problem when it comes to coastal real estate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The value of a coastal home is hugely dependent on the public sector, he says. If a city or state invests in protecting properties by building sea walls or nourishing beaches, it signals to homeowners that their property values will stay intact, so they continue to invest in their property. More investment means more reason to protect down the road.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s a positive feedback loop that strings out how much longer you’re going to be there,” Keeler says. “All it buys you, which is really valuable, is time.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>From a purely economic perspective though, it doesn’t add up. A community pays on the front end, pays again, and again, and then is left with the cleanup and emergency response in the end.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Keeler says that link can be broken by taking properties out of the hands of private homeowners, who are getting mixed messages about the value of their homes, and putting them in the hands of the public, which has an interest in not being stuck with all of those bills.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Communities can then plan for the eventual phasing out of those properties as sea levels rise. They can plan for the decline in property taxes, and the cleanup costs associated with homes falling into the sea.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re going to be looking at really massive relocation sometime in the next couple of hundred years and probably much sooner,” Keeler says. If we don’t manage the timing of that, he fears, it will manage us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nothing Is Forever \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>His eyes shadowed from the bright California sun by the brim of his blue Dodgers cap, Allen pulls out his phone and opens the Zillow app.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The $8.3 million house just up the beach has a monthly rental estimate of $12,500. Assuming the house could be rented at that rate, it would take about 55 years to pay off — 55 years to make back the money he’s proposing the state loans to local communities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s the most expensive house on this stretch of beach though, and Allen says it may not be worth investing in. But it’s also the kind of property that a homeowner would fight to protect, lobbying for public investment in sea walls and other defenses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Allen’s bill passed unanimously through the state’s Senate Natural Resources and Water Committee last week, and he says he’s hopeful it will receive similar support in the broader Legislature.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Nobody wants to come to terms with what’s happening,” he says, watching as people stroll the beach barefoot and smiling. “We want this to be here forever. We want to be able to walk along this beach and enjoy these beautiful houses and this beautiful view forever.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But, he says, “you can’t beat the sea.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=California+Has+A+New+Idea+For+Homes+At+Risk+From+Rising+Seas%3A+Buy%2C+Rent%2C+Retreat&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "The Pandemic Led to Unprecedented Declines in Carbon Emissions. But That's Over Now",
"headTitle": "The Pandemic Led to Unprecedented Declines in Carbon Emissions. But That’s Over Now | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp class=\"p1\">Last May, when California’s stay-at-home order had forced a huge number of drivers off the road, environmentalists and state officials saw the disappearance of so many automobiles as a window into a world where climate goals would be tantalizingly achievable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">From March to mid-April 2020, total vehicle miles \u003cspan class=\"s1\">declined\u003c/span> by 75%, with a corresponding reduction in planet-warming gases and smog, according to a UC Davis \u003ca href=\"https://roadecology.ucdavis.edu/files/content/projects/COVID_CHIPs_Impacts_updated_430.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">analysis\u003c/a> conducted by \u003cspan class=\"s2\">Fraser Shilling, co-director of the university’s Road Ecology Center. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">\u003cspan class=\"s2\">Reading those stats, Shilling hoped\u003c/span> one of the more positive lessons of the pandemic would be that society could still function as it vastly reduced driving.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">“We’re going to learn a lot during this intervening period,” he \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1963716/coronavirus-forces-huge-number-of-californians-off-road-as-tele-everything-becomes-new-climate-option\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">told KQED\u003c/span>\u003c/a> in May. “How do we telecommute? How do we arrange our work at home? Our shopping trips? All of our travel in a different way.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p3\">A year ago, Shilling’s “optimistic projection” was that the change in driving behavior would stick, although many of his colleagues disagreed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"s2\">So far, looks like they were right.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By last fall, car traffic in California had rebounded to roughly 90% of where it had been pre-pandemic, and national studies show that truck traffic went up along with the delivery of food, groceries and goods, Shilling says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p4\">“In the depths of the pandemic and the traffic reduction, people were obviously hoarding,” he said. “They stocked up and then they didn’t need to make as many trips, and we had a huge reduction in overall traffic.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But people adjusted, and while there is less traffic than before the pandemic, “we’ve got more of that goods and services delivery going on, and we may even have an increase in pollution and greenhouse gas emissions,” Shilling said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p4\">Last year, emissions declined by nearly 13% in the U.S. and about 7% globally, the largest annual drop in global energy-related carbon dioxide emissions since World War II.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The reduction was driven largely by a sharp drop in vehicle traffic during the first half of the year in the early stage of lockdowns, according to an \u003ca href=\"https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00090-3\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">estimate\u003c/span>\u003c/a> by the international \u003ca href=\"https://carbonmonitor.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">Carbon Monitor\u003c/span>\u003c/a> program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p4\">Shilling maintains that if the amount of driving eliminated during the pandemic could be duplicated, it would put California, at least, on track to reach some of its climate goals, not to mention lead to an improvement in air quality.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p4\">But that steep curb in global warming emissions started to reverse during the second half of the year, when economic activity began to recover. Global emissions were 2% higher in December 2020 than in the same month a year earlier, according to \u003ca href=\"https://www.iea.org/news/after-steep-drop-in-early-2020-global-carbon-dioxide-emissions-have-rebounded-strongly\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">the International Energy Agency\u003c/a>, an intergovernmental energy analysis and policy group.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> “A lot of people were hurt and died” during the pandemic, said Shilling, whose son had COVID-19. “It affects everybody. What can we get out of it? Learning. A society that doesn’t learn is just going to repeat all of those mistakes.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">Transportation-related emissions, at nearly 50% of California’s total overall, are the top source of greenhouse gas emissions in the state. That’s despite decades of policies meant to reduce pollution from tailpipes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last summer, in the wake of wildfires driven by extreme heat, Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered California to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1969807/california-to-halt-sales-of-new-gas-cars-by-2035\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">halt\u003c/span>\u003c/a> the sale of new gasoline-powered cars by 2035, in an effort to accelerate the state’s reduction of greenhouse gases.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The mass adoption of electric vehicles will surely be needed if California is going to transition from fossil fuels. But \u003ca href=\"https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-020-00921-7?utm_source=nclimate_etoc&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=toc_41558_10_12&utm_content=20201201&sap-outbound-id=53AEBD821997012F268251B4E511EE152EB74E4D\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">studies\u003c/span>\u003c/a> have shown that in order to meet ambitious climate goals, people will also need to drive less during the many years it will take for gas vehicles to disappear from the state’s roads.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kate Gordon, the governor’s top climate adviser, argued Californians should embrace tele-everything in the fight against climate change, using the internet to reduce driving.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">Some technology companies are allowing employees to work from home \u003ca href=\"https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/5/21/21266570/facebook-remote-work-from-home-mark-zuckerberg-twitter-covid-19-coronavirus\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">permanently\u003c/span>\u003c/a>. But many businesses are just now beginning to grapple with what work life could look like after restrictions to prevent the spread of COVID-19 are lifted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p3\">Remote work offered some white-collar workers a chance to live in less crowded cities and towns, with cheaper rents and lower taxes. But people living in the country or in the suburbs drive a lot more —to work, but also to the grocery store and to visit friends.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Bay Area Council recently released a \u003ca href=\"http://www.bayareaeconomy.org/report/remote-work-in-the-bay-area/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">study\u003c/span>\u003c/a> showing that 1.79 million jobs, or 45% of the region’s workforce, could be performed from home, a higher proportion than in Los Angeles and other areas of the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"s2\">“If each of the region’s 1.79 million people employed in a remote eligible job worked outside of the office for just one day per week, over 1 million single-occupancy vehicle trips could be avoided each week — a reduction of 8% based on pre-COVID-19 travel,” the report’s authors wrote. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Should California make a push to increase remote work, issues of equity could emerge. The state suffers from a vast digital divide, with high-speed internet access available in many of the busiest city centers, but not in remote areas in the Central Valley, Inland Empire, and northern part of the state. Also, remote work capability rises as along with pay. Prior to the pandemic, 51% of the Bay Area’s white workforce, which has a higher average income, were employed in potential work-from-home occupations, compared to only 33% of the Black and 30% of the Latinx workforce.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">Which experiments in telecommuting will be maintained on a widespread basis is still unknown. Partly because a year after the state first issued a shelter-in-place order, life has changed for a substantial number of people. Where exactly they will live, commute, and work when the pandemic subsides has not come into focus yet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p3\">Last fall, planners at the Metropolitan Transportation Commission debated a measure requiring workers at Bay Area companies with more than 25 employees to work three days a week from home. But Silicon Valley businesses and Bay Area mayors pushed back on the plan, arguing the requirement for employers was too strict, and could decimate public transit ridership, the Mercury News \u003ca href=\"https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/11/20/bay-area-planners-less-remote-work-more-green-commutes/\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">reported\u003c/span>\u003c/a>.\u003cspan class=\"Apple-converted-space\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The group developed a compromise plan that would require larger companies to ensure that 60% of their employees commute using mass transit, bikes or carpools by the year 2035.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If adopted, the policy would ask employers to take responsibility for the congestion, air quality, and climate change impacts of their employees as they go to and from work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p3\">“Without mandating how large employers do that, [the policy] would set the goal, which I think is a very reasonable thing to do,” said Nick Josefowitz, commissioner with the Metropolitan Transportation Commission.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Last year, emissions declined by nearly 13% in the U.S. and about 7% globally. But the steep drop has started to reverse. ",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp class=\"p1\">Last May, when California’s stay-at-home order had forced a huge number of drivers off the road, environmentalists and state officials saw the disappearance of so many automobiles as a window into a world where climate goals would be tantalizingly achievable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">From March to mid-April 2020, total vehicle miles \u003cspan class=\"s1\">declined\u003c/span> by 75%, with a corresponding reduction in planet-warming gases and smog, according to a UC Davis \u003ca href=\"https://roadecology.ucdavis.edu/files/content/projects/COVID_CHIPs_Impacts_updated_430.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">analysis\u003c/a> conducted by \u003cspan class=\"s2\">Fraser Shilling, co-director of the university’s Road Ecology Center. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">\u003cspan class=\"s2\">Reading those stats, Shilling hoped\u003c/span> one of the more positive lessons of the pandemic would be that society could still function as it vastly reduced driving.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">“We’re going to learn a lot during this intervening period,” he \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1963716/coronavirus-forces-huge-number-of-californians-off-road-as-tele-everything-becomes-new-climate-option\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">told KQED\u003c/span>\u003c/a> in May. “How do we telecommute? How do we arrange our work at home? Our shopping trips? All of our travel in a different way.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p3\">A year ago, Shilling’s “optimistic projection” was that the change in driving behavior would stick, although many of his colleagues disagreed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"s2\">So far, looks like they were right.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By last fall, car traffic in California had rebounded to roughly 90% of where it had been pre-pandemic, and national studies show that truck traffic went up along with the delivery of food, groceries and goods, Shilling says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p4\">“In the depths of the pandemic and the traffic reduction, people were obviously hoarding,” he said. “They stocked up and then they didn’t need to make as many trips, and we had a huge reduction in overall traffic.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But people adjusted, and while there is less traffic than before the pandemic, “we’ve got more of that goods and services delivery going on, and we may even have an increase in pollution and greenhouse gas emissions,” Shilling said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p4\">Last year, emissions declined by nearly 13% in the U.S. and about 7% globally, the largest annual drop in global energy-related carbon dioxide emissions since World War II.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The reduction was driven largely by a sharp drop in vehicle traffic during the first half of the year in the early stage of lockdowns, according to an \u003ca href=\"https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00090-3\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">estimate\u003c/span>\u003c/a> by the international \u003ca href=\"https://carbonmonitor.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">Carbon Monitor\u003c/span>\u003c/a> program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p4\">Shilling maintains that if the amount of driving eliminated during the pandemic could be duplicated, it would put California, at least, on track to reach some of its climate goals, not to mention lead to an improvement in air quality.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p4\">But that steep curb in global warming emissions started to reverse during the second half of the year, when economic activity began to recover. Global emissions were 2% higher in December 2020 than in the same month a year earlier, according to \u003ca href=\"https://www.iea.org/news/after-steep-drop-in-early-2020-global-carbon-dioxide-emissions-have-rebounded-strongly\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">the International Energy Agency\u003c/a>, an intergovernmental energy analysis and policy group.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> “A lot of people were hurt and died” during the pandemic, said Shilling, whose son had COVID-19. “It affects everybody. What can we get out of it? Learning. A society that doesn’t learn is just going to repeat all of those mistakes.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">Transportation-related emissions, at nearly 50% of California’s total overall, are the top source of greenhouse gas emissions in the state. That’s despite decades of policies meant to reduce pollution from tailpipes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last summer, in the wake of wildfires driven by extreme heat, Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered California to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1969807/california-to-halt-sales-of-new-gas-cars-by-2035\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">halt\u003c/span>\u003c/a> the sale of new gasoline-powered cars by 2035, in an effort to accelerate the state’s reduction of greenhouse gases.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The mass adoption of electric vehicles will surely be needed if California is going to transition from fossil fuels. But \u003ca href=\"https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-020-00921-7?utm_source=nclimate_etoc&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=toc_41558_10_12&utm_content=20201201&sap-outbound-id=53AEBD821997012F268251B4E511EE152EB74E4D\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">studies\u003c/span>\u003c/a> have shown that in order to meet ambitious climate goals, people will also need to drive less during the many years it will take for gas vehicles to disappear from the state’s roads.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kate Gordon, the governor’s top climate adviser, argued Californians should embrace tele-everything in the fight against climate change, using the internet to reduce driving.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">Some technology companies are allowing employees to work from home \u003ca href=\"https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/5/21/21266570/facebook-remote-work-from-home-mark-zuckerberg-twitter-covid-19-coronavirus\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">permanently\u003c/span>\u003c/a>. But many businesses are just now beginning to grapple with what work life could look like after restrictions to prevent the spread of COVID-19 are lifted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p3\">Remote work offered some white-collar workers a chance to live in less crowded cities and towns, with cheaper rents and lower taxes. But people living in the country or in the suburbs drive a lot more —to work, but also to the grocery store and to visit friends.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Bay Area Council recently released a \u003ca href=\"http://www.bayareaeconomy.org/report/remote-work-in-the-bay-area/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">study\u003c/span>\u003c/a> showing that 1.79 million jobs, or 45% of the region’s workforce, could be performed from home, a higher proportion than in Los Angeles and other areas of the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"s2\">“If each of the region’s 1.79 million people employed in a remote eligible job worked outside of the office for just one day per week, over 1 million single-occupancy vehicle trips could be avoided each week — a reduction of 8% based on pre-COVID-19 travel,” the report’s authors wrote. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Should California make a push to increase remote work, issues of equity could emerge. The state suffers from a vast digital divide, with high-speed internet access available in many of the busiest city centers, but not in remote areas in the Central Valley, Inland Empire, and northern part of the state. Also, remote work capability rises as along with pay. Prior to the pandemic, 51% of the Bay Area’s white workforce, which has a higher average income, were employed in potential work-from-home occupations, compared to only 33% of the Black and 30% of the Latinx workforce.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p2\">Which experiments in telecommuting will be maintained on a widespread basis is still unknown. Partly because a year after the state first issued a shelter-in-place order, life has changed for a substantial number of people. Where exactly they will live, commute, and work when the pandemic subsides has not come into focus yet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p3\">Last fall, planners at the Metropolitan Transportation Commission debated a measure requiring workers at Bay Area companies with more than 25 employees to work three days a week from home. But Silicon Valley businesses and Bay Area mayors pushed back on the plan, arguing the requirement for employers was too strict, and could decimate public transit ridership, the Mercury News \u003ca href=\"https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/11/20/bay-area-planners-less-remote-work-more-green-commutes/\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">reported\u003c/span>\u003c/a>.\u003cspan class=\"Apple-converted-space\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The group developed a compromise plan that would require larger companies to ensure that 60% of their employees commute using mass transit, bikes or carpools by the year 2035.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If adopted, the policy would ask employers to take responsibility for the congestion, air quality, and climate change impacts of their employees as they go to and from work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p3\">“Without mandating how large employers do that, [the policy] would set the goal, which I think is a very reasonable thing to do,” said Nick Josefowitz, commissioner with the Metropolitan Transportation Commission.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "California Cities Are Rushing to Ban Gas in New Homes. But the State Is Moving Slower",
"headTitle": "California Cities Are Rushing to Ban Gas in New Homes. But the State Is Moving Slower | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp class=\"p1\">The push to ban natural gas hookups in newly constructed buildings has mushroomed in California since Berkeley passed the first prohibition in 2019.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Altogether, 21 municipalities in the state have passed measures to require all-electric construction, according to a state \u003ca href=\"https://www.energy.ca.gov/programs-and-topics/programs/building-energy-efficiency-standards/2019-building-energy-efficiency-3\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">tally\u003c/span>\u003c/a>, while an additional 19 discourage gas hookups.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bay Area cities like San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose have closed the spigot on natural gas by passing electric-only building mandates.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Environmentalists have sought to harness the momentum of decarbonization efforts, the declining cost of electric appliances, and the clamoring of Californians for the state to move more rapidly to reduce carbon emissions, which fuel climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All last year, the groups blitzed officials at the California Energy Commission in hopes of securing an electrification requirement in this year’s building code update, which goes into effect in January 2023.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Stakeholders began debating the update this month in a series of commission meetings, but a statewide natural gas ban sought by environmental groups appears increasingly unlikely after the commission circulated a proposal indicating a preference for incentivizing electric heat pumps rather than a gas ban.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">The commission sent out a \u003ca href=\"https://efiling.energy.ca.gov/GetDocument.aspx?tn=236877&DocumentContentId=70032\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">summary\u003c/span>\u003c/a> of its planned tweaks and is collecting feedback from environmentalists and industry groups as it prepares to release a draft of its 2022 building code later this month in advance of a month-and-a-half-long rulemaking process. The commission is expected to vote on the plan this summer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">While the summary indicates a willingness by the commission to require electrification for new construction, any new mandate will likely not be included in the building code until 2026 at the earliest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Under the commission’s proposed plan, new homes must be “electric ready,” which means stoves, furnaces, dryers and other appliances that run on gas must have an electric plug installed within 3 feet, with the home’s electrical panel required to include capacity for the future installation of electric appliances.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Title 24 updates, as the code revisions are known, occur every three years. The 2019 version, which included a requirement that all newly constructed buildings have solar panels, went into effect in 2020, and developers and builders say they are still scrambling to catch up to that particular rule.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, a statewide building labor group is opposing a bill from a Silicon Valley lawmaker that would ban natural gas in new state buildings. In an opposition letter, the group called it a “part of a concerted extremist political agenda.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Additional critics of these anti-gas policies include other gas industry \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2021-03-06/switching-to-all-electric-homes-in-california-would-be-a-mistake\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">groups\u003c/a> as well as Southern California Gas Co. and the California Restaurant Association.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Labor Takes Aim at Decarbonization Package\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To hear first-term state Sen. David Cortese tell it, when he started on the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors more than a decade ago, the county wasn’t far into its transition to clean energy.\u003cspan class=\"Apple-converted-space\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In fact, every school district in the area had made more progress than at the county level, he says. Santa Clara had no environmental stewardship goals, no big solar farms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">“We didn’t even have one of those [solar pilot projects] in the parking lot,” said Cortese.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Things have changed, Santa Clara County \u003ca href=\"https://sanjosespotlight.com/santa-clara-county-lawmakers-declare-a-climate-emergency/\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">declared\u003c/span>\u003c/a> a climate emergency in 2019 and has built four major solar farms, pushing aggressively toward 100% renewable energy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cortese says he was able to work quickly passing ambitious climate policies with a five-member Board of Supervisors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I was the president, but any member could just bring an initiative, any Tuesday,” he said. “We didn’t even have a bill deadline. If I had three votes, which I generally did, we could move something that’s the first of its kind in the nation.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He quickly learned the situation was different in Sacramento.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By California tradition, freshman legislators introduce their first bill on their first day, and Cortese figured he’d make a splash with a package of climate bills centered on decarbonization, channeling the progress of cities pushing similar plans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the bills, \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220SB30\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">SB 30\u003c/span>\u003c/a>, would ban natural gas in newly constructed state buildings beginning next year and require the state to have a plan for decarbonizing all of its existing buildings by 2035.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another bill, \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220SB31\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">SB 31\u003c/a>, would create new building decarbonization programs with a focus on providing opportunities for low-income customers. \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220SB32\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">SB 32\u003c/a> would require cities to update their general plans with defined targets for decarbonization.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Passage of the bills would send a market signal that decarbonization in new buildings is a priority, and would allow the state to prove that the economics of making them greener can work before imposing the policy on the private market.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Such a small-bore change is too little to meet the climate emergency, environmentalists say: California controls about 16 million square feet of state-owned and leased office space in Sacramento, according to \u003ca href=\"https://www.dgs.ca.gov/RESD/Resources/Page-Content/Real-Estate-Services-Division-Resources-List-Folder/State-Facility-Long-Range-Planning-Study\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">a 2015 assessment\u003c/span>\u003c/a>, including 24 office buildings.\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yet despite its relatively small scope, Cortese’s plan was met with immediate derision from organized labor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jeremy Smith, deputy legislative director of the State Building & Construction Trades Council, penned a fiery letter to the Legislature, describing the bills “as part of a concerted extremist political agenda aimed at irresponsibly phasing out natural gas from the state’s already unstable and strained energy portfolio.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Robbie Hunter, the group’s president, says the opposition stems from a “big problem of imbalance in the state,” pointing to August’s rolling blackouts, when about 800,000 Californians went without power for a few hours during a searing heat wave.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hunter’s analysis is that state officials are squeezing Californians from two sides. On the one hand, California is pushing electric cars and “driving up the need for more electricity,” while at the same time “moving against the requirement of gas turbine plants.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Consumers drive up the need, while you’re reducing the ability to create an electricity baseload,” he said. “The system is far out of whack.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Another powerful player, the California Building Industry Association, expressed concern to Cortese about potential impacts on “ratepayers, construction costs and grid reliability,” according to Christopher Ochoa, a senior attorney with the group.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We not only have a climate crisis, we have a housing crisis as well,” he said. “Whether it’s housing inventory, affordability or homelessness. How do you balance the costs?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">\u003cb>‘This is Either a Climate Emergency or It’s Not’ \u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">While industry groups blame the state’s reliance on renewable energy for last summer’s power outage during a blistering heat wave, a \u003ca href=\"http://www.caiso.com/Documents/Preliminary-Root-Cause-Analysis-Rotating-Outages-August-2020.pdf\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">postmortem\u003c/span>\u003c/a> conducted by three state agencies attributed\u003cspan class=\"Apple-converted-space\"> \u003c/span>the problem to the failure of energy planners to fully anticipate the impact climate change could have on the grid. The analysis found that the state had not lined up enough resources to meet demand during an event that crippled the entire region.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California faces increasing energy challenges and strains on its power grid from many directions — transportation electrification, wildfires, increasing temperatures, fossil fuel plant decommissioning, and the state’s goal for reaching carbon neutrality.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Felicia Federico, executive director of the California Center for Sustainable Communities at UCLA, says the state needs to address these challenges holistically rather than cling to fossil fuels, which contribute to the kind of extreme heat that creates disruptions like the one to the grid last summer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She points out that electrification can’t happen overnight given how long it takes for building stock to turn over. “That is why we need aggressive programs starting now,” she wrote in an email.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Building electrification is relatively low-tech compared to other technologies for achieving carbon neutrality — we know how to do it, it’s been done in many places, and it’s a critical element of achieving our carbon neutral goals,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Cortese was more blunt: “Look, this is either a climate emergency or it’s not. If this isn’t the equivalent of a pandemic happening on the greenhouse gas front, then stop now. But it is a problem. It’s a problem I’m committed to solving. If that’s the case, you can’t kick these things to the next two-year session. Buying time is not a good strategy right now. The good strategy is all hands on deck.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Opposition Letter\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">The building trade’s opposition letter arrived within a week of Cortese taking office, and it contained a key mischaracterization of his bill.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Smith’s letter said, “This bill would prohibit construction of new state, residential, or commercial buildings that have natural gas connections.” The legislation, however, would only apply to state buildings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Percolating behind Cortese’s bills and Hunter’s opposition letter is the effort to ban gas in the statewide building code.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">But energy commission officials and draft documents seem to indicate, a few years after requiring solar panels on new homes, staff aren’t ready to make that move,\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">The solar mandate went into effect in 2020 for builders that filed for permits last year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">For years before, the state required incremental upgrades to walls, attics, windows and other measures to improve energy efficiency and bring down energy costs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The commission’s latest plan appears to lay similar groundwork for a gas ban later this decade, and key environmental groups who have pushed for a state ban on gas in new buildings seem to accept this gradual timeline.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">“This approach is not the all-electric code that the clean buildings coalition, including NRDC, and the hundreds of concerned California residents who have been speaking at public hearings over the last six months have been calling for,” Pierre Delforge, a scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council, \u003ca href=\"https://www.nrdc.org/experts/pierre-delforge/will-california-lead-pollution-free-construction\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">wrote\u003c/span>\u003c/a> in a blog post. “But with the right balance of carrots and sticks, it could effectively shift most of new construction toward highly efficient electric heat pumps.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The group sent a \u003ca href=\"https://efiling.energy.ca.gov/GetDocument.aspx?tn=237028&DocumentContentId=70198\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">letter\u003c/a> asking the commission to commit to requiring all-electric construction by the year 2025.\u003cspan class=\"Apple-converted-space\"> \u003c/span>\u003cspan class=\"Apple-converted-space\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"Apple-converted-space\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">\n\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp class=\"p1\">The push to ban natural gas hookups in newly constructed buildings has mushroomed in California since Berkeley passed the first prohibition in 2019.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Altogether, 21 municipalities in the state have passed measures to require all-electric construction, according to a state \u003ca href=\"https://www.energy.ca.gov/programs-and-topics/programs/building-energy-efficiency-standards/2019-building-energy-efficiency-3\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">tally\u003c/span>\u003c/a>, while an additional 19 discourage gas hookups.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bay Area cities like San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose have closed the spigot on natural gas by passing electric-only building mandates.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Environmentalists have sought to harness the momentum of decarbonization efforts, the declining cost of electric appliances, and the clamoring of Californians for the state to move more rapidly to reduce carbon emissions, which fuel climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All last year, the groups blitzed officials at the California Energy Commission in hopes of securing an electrification requirement in this year’s building code update, which goes into effect in January 2023.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Stakeholders began debating the update this month in a series of commission meetings, but a statewide natural gas ban sought by environmental groups appears increasingly unlikely after the commission circulated a proposal indicating a preference for incentivizing electric heat pumps rather than a gas ban.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">The commission sent out a \u003ca href=\"https://efiling.energy.ca.gov/GetDocument.aspx?tn=236877&DocumentContentId=70032\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">summary\u003c/span>\u003c/a> of its planned tweaks and is collecting feedback from environmentalists and industry groups as it prepares to release a draft of its 2022 building code later this month in advance of a month-and-a-half-long rulemaking process. The commission is expected to vote on the plan this summer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">While the summary indicates a willingness by the commission to require electrification for new construction, any new mandate will likely not be included in the building code until 2026 at the earliest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Under the commission’s proposed plan, new homes must be “electric ready,” which means stoves, furnaces, dryers and other appliances that run on gas must have an electric plug installed within 3 feet, with the home’s electrical panel required to include capacity for the future installation of electric appliances.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Title 24 updates, as the code revisions are known, occur every three years. The 2019 version, which included a requirement that all newly constructed buildings have solar panels, went into effect in 2020, and developers and builders say they are still scrambling to catch up to that particular rule.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, a statewide building labor group is opposing a bill from a Silicon Valley lawmaker that would ban natural gas in new state buildings. In an opposition letter, the group called it a “part of a concerted extremist political agenda.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Additional critics of these anti-gas policies include other gas industry \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2021-03-06/switching-to-all-electric-homes-in-california-would-be-a-mistake\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">groups\u003c/a> as well as Southern California Gas Co. and the California Restaurant Association.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Labor Takes Aim at Decarbonization Package\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To hear first-term state Sen. David Cortese tell it, when he started on the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors more than a decade ago, the county wasn’t far into its transition to clean energy.\u003cspan class=\"Apple-converted-space\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In fact, every school district in the area had made more progress than at the county level, he says. Santa Clara had no environmental stewardship goals, no big solar farms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">“We didn’t even have one of those [solar pilot projects] in the parking lot,” said Cortese.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Things have changed, Santa Clara County \u003ca href=\"https://sanjosespotlight.com/santa-clara-county-lawmakers-declare-a-climate-emergency/\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">declared\u003c/span>\u003c/a> a climate emergency in 2019 and has built four major solar farms, pushing aggressively toward 100% renewable energy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cortese says he was able to work quickly passing ambitious climate policies with a five-member Board of Supervisors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I was the president, but any member could just bring an initiative, any Tuesday,” he said. “We didn’t even have a bill deadline. If I had three votes, which I generally did, we could move something that’s the first of its kind in the nation.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He quickly learned the situation was different in Sacramento.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By California tradition, freshman legislators introduce their first bill on their first day, and Cortese figured he’d make a splash with a package of climate bills centered on decarbonization, channeling the progress of cities pushing similar plans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the bills, \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220SB30\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">SB 30\u003c/span>\u003c/a>, would ban natural gas in newly constructed state buildings beginning next year and require the state to have a plan for decarbonizing all of its existing buildings by 2035.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another bill, \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220SB31\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">SB 31\u003c/a>, would create new building decarbonization programs with a focus on providing opportunities for low-income customers. \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220SB32\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">SB 32\u003c/a> would require cities to update their general plans with defined targets for decarbonization.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Passage of the bills would send a market signal that decarbonization in new buildings is a priority, and would allow the state to prove that the economics of making them greener can work before imposing the policy on the private market.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Such a small-bore change is too little to meet the climate emergency, environmentalists say: California controls about 16 million square feet of state-owned and leased office space in Sacramento, according to \u003ca href=\"https://www.dgs.ca.gov/RESD/Resources/Page-Content/Real-Estate-Services-Division-Resources-List-Folder/State-Facility-Long-Range-Planning-Study\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">a 2015 assessment\u003c/span>\u003c/a>, including 24 office buildings.\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yet despite its relatively small scope, Cortese’s plan was met with immediate derision from organized labor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jeremy Smith, deputy legislative director of the State Building & Construction Trades Council, penned a fiery letter to the Legislature, describing the bills “as part of a concerted extremist political agenda aimed at irresponsibly phasing out natural gas from the state’s already unstable and strained energy portfolio.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Robbie Hunter, the group’s president, says the opposition stems from a “big problem of imbalance in the state,” pointing to August’s rolling blackouts, when about 800,000 Californians went without power for a few hours during a searing heat wave.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hunter’s analysis is that state officials are squeezing Californians from two sides. On the one hand, California is pushing electric cars and “driving up the need for more electricity,” while at the same time “moving against the requirement of gas turbine plants.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Consumers drive up the need, while you’re reducing the ability to create an electricity baseload,” he said. “The system is far out of whack.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Another powerful player, the California Building Industry Association, expressed concern to Cortese about potential impacts on “ratepayers, construction costs and grid reliability,” according to Christopher Ochoa, a senior attorney with the group.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We not only have a climate crisis, we have a housing crisis as well,” he said. “Whether it’s housing inventory, affordability or homelessness. How do you balance the costs?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">\u003cb>‘This is Either a Climate Emergency or It’s Not’ \u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">While industry groups blame the state’s reliance on renewable energy for last summer’s power outage during a blistering heat wave, a \u003ca href=\"http://www.caiso.com/Documents/Preliminary-Root-Cause-Analysis-Rotating-Outages-August-2020.pdf\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">postmortem\u003c/span>\u003c/a> conducted by three state agencies attributed\u003cspan class=\"Apple-converted-space\"> \u003c/span>the problem to the failure of energy planners to fully anticipate the impact climate change could have on the grid. The analysis found that the state had not lined up enough resources to meet demand during an event that crippled the entire region.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California faces increasing energy challenges and strains on its power grid from many directions — transportation electrification, wildfires, increasing temperatures, fossil fuel plant decommissioning, and the state’s goal for reaching carbon neutrality.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Felicia Federico, executive director of the California Center for Sustainable Communities at UCLA, says the state needs to address these challenges holistically rather than cling to fossil fuels, which contribute to the kind of extreme heat that creates disruptions like the one to the grid last summer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She points out that electrification can’t happen overnight given how long it takes for building stock to turn over. “That is why we need aggressive programs starting now,” she wrote in an email.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Building electrification is relatively low-tech compared to other technologies for achieving carbon neutrality — we know how to do it, it’s been done in many places, and it’s a critical element of achieving our carbon neutral goals,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Cortese was more blunt: “Look, this is either a climate emergency or it’s not. If this isn’t the equivalent of a pandemic happening on the greenhouse gas front, then stop now. But it is a problem. It’s a problem I’m committed to solving. If that’s the case, you can’t kick these things to the next two-year session. Buying time is not a good strategy right now. The good strategy is all hands on deck.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Opposition Letter\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">The building trade’s opposition letter arrived within a week of Cortese taking office, and it contained a key mischaracterization of his bill.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Smith’s letter said, “This bill would prohibit construction of new state, residential, or commercial buildings that have natural gas connections.” The legislation, however, would only apply to state buildings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Percolating behind Cortese’s bills and Hunter’s opposition letter is the effort to ban gas in the statewide building code.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">But energy commission officials and draft documents seem to indicate, a few years after requiring solar panels on new homes, staff aren’t ready to make that move,\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">The solar mandate went into effect in 2020 for builders that filed for permits last year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">For years before, the state required incremental upgrades to walls, attics, windows and other measures to improve energy efficiency and bring down energy costs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The commission’s latest plan appears to lay similar groundwork for a gas ban later this decade, and key environmental groups who have pushed for a state ban on gas in new buildings seem to accept this gradual timeline.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">“This approach is not the all-electric code that the clean buildings coalition, including NRDC, and the hundreds of concerned California residents who have been speaking at public hearings over the last six months have been calling for,” Pierre Delforge, a scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council, \u003ca href=\"https://www.nrdc.org/experts/pierre-delforge/will-california-lead-pollution-free-construction\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">wrote\u003c/span>\u003c/a> in a blog post. “But with the right balance of carrots and sticks, it could effectively shift most of new construction toward highly efficient electric heat pumps.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The group sent a \u003ca href=\"https://efiling.energy.ca.gov/GetDocument.aspx?tn=237028&DocumentContentId=70198\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">letter\u003c/a> asking the commission to commit to requiring all-electric construction by the year 2025.\u003cspan class=\"Apple-converted-space\"> \u003c/span>\u003cspan class=\"Apple-converted-space\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"Apple-converted-space\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
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"info": "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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"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
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"info": "For decades, the process for how police police themselves has been inconsistent – if not opaque. In some states, like California, these proceedings were completely hidden. After a new police transparency law unsealed scores of internal affairs files, our reporters set out to examine these cases and the shadow world of police discipline. On Our Watch brings listeners into the rooms where officers are questioned and witnesses are interrogated to find out who this system is really protecting. Is it the officers, or the public they've sworn to serve?",
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"info": "Political Breakdown is a new series that explores the political intersection of California and the nation. Each week hosts Scott Shafer and Marisa Lagos are joined with a new special guest to unpack politics -- with personality — and offer an insider’s glimpse at how politics happens.",
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"possible": {
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"info": "Possible is hosted by entrepreneur Reid Hoffman and writer Aria Finger. Together in Possible, Hoffman and Finger lead enlightening discussions about building a brighter collective future. The show features interviews with visionary guests like Trevor Noah, Sam Altman and Janette Sadik-Khan. Possible paints an optimistic portrait of the world we can create through science, policy, business, art and our shared humanity. It asks: What if everything goes right for once? How can we get there? Each episode also includes a short fiction story generated by advanced AI GPT-4, serving as a thought-provoking springboard to speculate how humanity could leverage technology for good.",
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"radiolab": {
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},
"rightnowish": {
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"title": "Rightnowish",
"tagline": "Art is where you find it",
"info": "Rightnowish digs into life in the Bay Area right now… ish. Journalist Pendarvis Harshaw takes us to galleries painted on the sides of liquor stores in West Oakland. We'll dance in warehouses in the Bayview, make smoothies with kids in South Berkeley, and listen to classical music in a 1984 Cutlass Supreme in Richmond. Every week, Pen talks to movers and shakers about how the Bay Area shapes what they create, and how they shape the place we call home.",
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"info": "The Snap Judgment radio show and podcast mixes real stories with killer beats to produce cinematic, dramatic radio. Snap's musical brand of storytelling dares listeners to see the world through the eyes of another. This is storytelling... with a BEAT!! Snap first aired on public radio stations nationwide in July 2010. Today, Snap Judgment airs on over 450 public radio stations and is brought to the airwaves by KQED & PRX.",
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"soldout": {
"id": "soldout",
"title": "SOLD OUT: Rethinking Housing in America",
"tagline": "A new future for housing",
"info": "Sold Out: Rethinking Housing in America",
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