Category: Big Picture
Not Just Any Wall Anywhere
Maladaptation, and failing to adapt in time, can be almost as dangerous as climate change.
Climate Adaptation: The Basics
Resilient sweet potatoes and stilts on houses remind us how adaptable human beings can be. This graphic guide samples our earliest and most recent history of adaptation.
What’s in the New Climate Report in Under 3 Minutes
An international climate report has big updates for the world — but it’s thousands of pages long and downright terrifying. So they turned it into a three-minute movie trailer.
All Stories
Not Just Any Wall Anywhere
Maladaptation, and failing to adapt in time, can be almost as dangerous as climate change.
Climate Adaptation: The Basics
Resilient sweet potatoes and stilts on houses remind us how adaptable human beings can be. This graphic guide samples our earliest and most recent history of adaptation.
What’s in the New Climate Report in Under 3 Minutes
An international climate report has big updates for the world — but it’s thousands of pages long and downright terrifying. So they turned it into a three-minute movie trailer.
Questioning Net Zero: An Interview with a Climate Justice Delegate to COP 26
San Francisco activist Sharif Zakout shares his Cop 26 experience and vision as part of the “It Takes Roots” delegation of 60 US community groups.
Solar Ceilings for Farmland, Coal Mines, Desert
Almost 3,000 acres of Mojave Desert will soon be permanently shaded by solar panels. Federal officials have indicated they’re ready to approve a third plant in the same area. Better options for situating solar projects could be…
Global Study Finds Adaptation Progress Local Not Societal
When hundreds of scientists tried to summarize the research on how humans are adapting to climate change, they ran into a big problem: nobody was keeping track.
Big Plans for Big Problems
October brought more than just a very welcome rainstorm to parched and fire-scarred California—it also saw big advances for three major efforts to help the state and the Bay Area plan for a climate-altered future.
Bay Area Leads Nation on Floating Solar
The stately Napa winery of Far Niente and the wastewater treatment plant for the small town of Healdsburg have more than picturesque vineyards in common. Each facility typically produces enough power on-site to run all their operations, and then some. Both hold national records. And the inviting irrigation pond tucked amidst the vineyards at Far Niente bears a striking resemblance to the ponds full of treated sewage-water in Healdsburg.
Regional Storm Capture Facility Going to Ground
With rains overwhelming local drains in late October, the visible construction progress over the summer on Orange Memorial Park, a regional stormwater capture facility in South San Francisco, seems timely.
Budget Bounty for Resilience
On September 23, as part of a historic $15 billion climate package, Governor Newsom signed two bills that together provide the blueprint for a landmark three-year, $3.7 billion climate resilience budget. The money represents a heretofore unthinkable commitment to addressing the impact of climate change on the state.
Can Wyoming Windmills Mainline Clean Power to California?
The last holdout between California and a new infusion of clean energy–enough to power two million homes–is an unlikely alliance between a Colorado ranch and a flightless bird. Phil Anschutz, former oil prospector and current billionaire, has been hard at work over the last decade-plus planning a project that would build 1,000 wind turbines in Wyoming and route the power to California via a 730-mile transmission line that crosses Colorado, Utah, and Nevada.
Three Ways to Feed the Marsh
Seal Beach is drowning. As a result of sea-level rise, subsidence, and limited sediment supply, much of the 920-acre National Wildlife Refuge in Orange County can no longer keep its head above water. Pacific cordgrass, normally exposed at low tides, is being completely inundated. Rare nesting habitat for the endangered light-footed clapper rail is disappearing at high tides.