Category: Editor’s Picks
Encouraging Stories of Practical Action
Year-end story round up of practical actions you can take to become more climate resilient, from home improvements to neighbor networks.
Can Churches Lift Up Climate Resilience?
Churches are well -positioned to respond to the impacts of climate change and build climate resilience, especially in hard-to-reach communities or communities of color.
Teaching to Weather the Storms Within
Between gasping sobs, a boy in a viral video explains that he’s upset because of climate change. San Mateo county’s education office is trying to help.
All Stories
Encouraging Stories of Practical Action
Year-end story round up of practical actions you can take to become more climate resilient, from home improvements to neighbor networks.
Can Churches Lift Up Climate Resilience?
Churches are well -positioned to respond to the impacts of climate change and build climate resilience, especially in hard-to-reach communities or communities of color.
East Coast: Three Tales of Trouble and Triumph in the Fight Against Storm Surge
In this January mini-series, KneeDeep reaches across the continent to the East Coast to see how New York, New Jersey and Miami are wrestling with rising seas, whether they are succeeding in getting the local populace on-board, how the Army Corps’ is faring in its slow embrace of more nature-based flood-protection, and what parallels can be found here in San Francisco Bay. Three different angles on the same story, including one presented for your listening pleasure, by reporters Lilah Burke, Robin Meadows, and Ashleigh Papp.
Teaching to Weather the Storms Within
Between gasping sobs, a boy in a viral video explains that he’s upset because of climate change. San Mateo county’s education office is trying to help.
Flipping the Switch on All-Electric Housing
An East Palo Alto affordable housing project is at the forefront of a trend cities across California are trying to encourage: switching from natural gas appliances to electric ones. But the transition isn’t without headaches.
Is Weed Greener Indoors or Out?
Although cannabis has a reputation as an environmentally-friendly plant, indoor cannabis cultivation demands significant energy to maintain precise light and temperature requirements. Last year, Colorado State researchers published the first study on the topic.
Oakland Tailors Resilience Hubs to Neighborhood Needs
Faced with a health crisis, or stifling heat or smoke, most people will go somewhere familiar for help, a place they feel welcome. Oakland Chinatown’s Lincoln Center is that kind of safe haven, the perfect location for one of the city’s new “resilience hubs.”
Feathered Flames
Among the more well-known causes of wildfire — lightning, volcanic activity, neglected cigarettes, gender reveal parties gone awry — there remains a less notorious culprit: electrocuted birds.
Seeding Citizen Scientists
Billy Krimmel decided to sow tens of thousands of native seeds around Davis and do everything wrong. Everything wrong, at least, by the standards of the professional landscapers.
Royally Flooded: Dispatches from the Highest Tides
Cars entering the freeway ramp in Mill Valley whizzed through hundreds of feet of ankle-deep seawater. Next to the San Francisco International Airport runway, baywater burbled up into the road from a storm drain.
Trees Tell A Tale of Two Cities
Trees do far more than add shade and property value to a city block; they can remove harmful pollutants from the air, reduce flooding, and perhaps most crucially in a changing climate, they can reduce heat. A 2019 investigation by NPR found that Oakland’s poorer neighborhoods are almost universally hotter than its richer regions (in fact, the city had one of the strongest correlations between heat and income in the country).
Cleaner Air, Fewer Health Hazards from Bay Area Refineries
In July, the Board of Directors of the Bay Area Air Quality Management District voted 19-3 to amend its Regulation 6, Rule 5, requiring fossil fuel refineries under its jurisdiction to reduce particulate matter emissions from their fluidized catalytic cracking units (“cat crackers” in refinery parlance), a major point source of pollution. The move gave the Bay Area the nation’s most health-protective and stringent regulation on particulate emissions, a recognized health hazard.