Climate Change

On September 30, 2012, California Governor Brown signed the “Climate and Community Revitalization” bills – AB 1532 and SB535. The first of these sets up a process to allocate revenues from auctioning allowances (that is, emissions permits) under the new market-based system that is part of the implementation of the Golden State’s 2006 landmark legislation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs).

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Lisa Micheli and Healy Hamilton, two leading mid-career scientist-entrepreneurs formerly with the California Academy of Sciences, developed a model that shows the potential impacts of climate change on biodiversity and sea-level rise in Northern California. Their project seeks to make climate change impacts tangible, educate local communities about the link between human behavior and climate change, empower individuals, and motivate action to decrease greenhouse gas emissions locally.

Democrats and Republicans alike hope for an energy independent future—an America freed from the whims of a temperamental global energy market. The differences arise when determining what to do today to make that future a reality.

In study findings announced Sept. 28, UCLA researchers report that they measured air pollutants during last year's Carmageddon (July 15–17) and found that when 10 miles of the 405 closed, air quality near the shuttered portion improved within minutes, reaching levels 83 percent better than on comparable weekends. Because traffic dipped all over Southern California that weekend, air quality also improved 75 percent in parts of West Los Angeles and Santa Monica and an average of 25 percent regionally—from Ventura to Yucaipa, and Long Beach to Santa Clarita.

Oxfam, the international nonprofit, issued a report on Tuesday estimating how extreme weather events might affect food prices in the coming decades — forecasting that the prices of a number of food staples could surge far beyond the projected increases. “We will all feel the impact as prices spike but the poorest people will be hit hardest because they often spend up to 75 percent of their income on food,” said Heather Coleman, climate change policy adviser for Oxfam America, in a statement.

Producing electricity from the sun with solar panels seems like the perfect solution to our energy needs. But solar panels can also create problems for the environment. Switzer Fellow Dustin Mulvaney believes there are win-win solutions out there.

Over the past several months, extreme weather and climate events in the form of heat waves, droughts, fires, and flooding have seemed to become the norm rather than the exception. In the past half-year alone, millions of people have been affected across the globe – from Europe suffering from the worst cold snap in a quarter century; to extreme flooding in Australia, Brazil, China, and the Philippines; to drought in the Sahel.