By Bill Walker
For decades, California has been on the cutting edge of US environmental policy. The state has enacted landmark measures to regulate air and water pollution, protect residents from exposure to toxic chemicals, and combat the climate crisis. Many of its groundbreaking policies have spread to other states.
By Bill Walker
Last year California shipped more than 156 million pounds of plastic waste to poor countries, with almost three-fourths sent to Mexico and another 44 million pounds sent to developing nations in Asia, Latin America, and Africa. That’s the reality behind the blue recycling bins Californians fill with plastic waste for curbside pickup. We may think we’re recycling, but we’re really sending much of our waste out of sight, out of mind.
FEMA’s denial of funds and the state’s lagging response have left toxics experts and homeowners fearful of what lies beneath the thousands of burned lots.
In the years after World War II, the smog in Los Angeles was so thick that at times people could see no farther than three blocks.
Despite efforts to limit emissions from power plants and oil refineries, the eye-burning, lung-choking blanket of smog remained. Then, in the 1950s, groundbreaking research by a biochemistry professor at the California Institute of Technology, Dr. Arie Haagen-Smit, determined that the main culprit was automobile exhaust.
The most powerful man in the world is waging war on a tiny, almost extinct fish. The fish is the minnow-like delta smelt, less than three inches long with a lifespan of only a year. Its sole natural habitat is the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.
By Bill Walker
A driver entering an enclosed parking garage in California is greeted by a 20-by-20-inch sign declaring in 72-point type:
WARNING: Breathing the air in this parking garage can expose you to chemicals including carbon monoxide and gasoline or diesel engine exhaust, which are known to the State of California to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm.
By Bill Walker
The horrific fires that incinerated more than 40,000 acres in Southern California last month were still burning when newly-inaugurated President Trump flew in to view the devastation. At a Jan. 24 press briefing with local officials, he groused that he had heard people who lost their homes would not be allowed to rebuild for up to 18 months.
Of California’s dozens of landmark laws to curb climate-heating greenhouse gases and health-threatening air pollution, none is more ambitious than the rule that by 2035 all new passenger cars and trucks sold must be zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs) that run on electricity.
By Bill Walker
Next year, people in Wilmington and Carson, Calif., neighboring communities in south Los Angeles County, will breathe a bit easier thanks to a decision by Phillips 66 to shut down its gasoline refineries in those communities by the end of 2025.
By Bill Walker
This summer, the Park Fire burned more than 425,000 acres near Chico, Calif. – the fourth-largest wildfire in the state’s history. It started when an arsonist pushed a flaming car into a grassy, brush-strewn gully, sparking California’s largest-ever deliberately set wildfire.
