California’s Prop 30 Is So Bad It Might Be Good

The Contest Over the Measure—and Others to Follow—Will Determine Whether the Climate Crisis Can Be Addressed Within the Current System

Will the fight against climate change finally force the replacement of California’s broken governing system?

That’s the most interesting question posed by the most interesting measure on this November’s statewide ballot. Prop 30 might be dismissed as just another attempt to raise taxes. But it actually represents the launch of a new political era. We’re watching the beginning of an existential contest between the urgency of the 21st century climate crisis and the endurance of the state’s dysfunctional 19th century constitutional order.

As such, Prop 30 reveals the real nature of power …

Hike the High Sierra, See the Future Unfold | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

Hike the High Sierra, See the Future Unfold

Science Fiction Writer Kim Stanley Robinson’s Visions of a Changing Climate, and World, Run Through California’s Great Mountain Range

Do you want to develop the superpower of seeing decades, even centuries, into the future?

Then start hiking the High Sierra.

That’s the inescapable conclusion of a surprising new memoir from California’s …

The Rural Price Tag of California’s Clean Energy Transition

The State Is Scrambling to Find Places to Store Energy—But Even Renewable Sources Make an Environmental Impact

In the spring of 2019, residents of eastern California’s Owens Valley were on the fight. As is usual in that part of the world—where a century of aggressive water extraction …

Can Bureaucracies Be Sustainability Innovators?

How India’s Coal-Dependent Government Has Harnessed Its Power to Build Better and Cleaner

Bureaucracies are often thought of as stiflers of innovation and growth. But the Indian government, one of the biggest bureaucracies in the world, has made some surprising gains in the …

Why Divestment Defeated Apartheid and How It Might Help Beat Climate Change

The Money Didn’t Matter. The Movement Did

The environmental activist and writer Bill McKibben estimates that climate divestment—the movement to pressure universities, churches, and other institutions to stop investing in, and thus profiting from, carbon-emitting companies—has removed …

Why Can’t All Californians Breathe Clean Air?

How Communities and Coalitions Are Working Toward a Future Where Race and Income No Longer Determine Pollution Levels

The Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously this week to phase out fossil fuel sites and ban new oil and gas wells.

That kind of victory was once inconceivable for California’s …