Climate Break

History of Republican Environmentalism The history of Republican environmentalism spans decades. On January 1, 1970, just a few months before the very first Earth Day, President Nixon signed the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) into law. NEPA created a program to review and require government agencies to take into consideration the environmental impacts and consequences of their actions or...

What is Community Choice Aggregation? Community Choi ce Aggregation (CCA) is a system that allows local governments to purchase power directly from an energy supplier other than the existing utility. This means that while the existing utility continues to deliver the power, the CCA buys and generates the power itself , potentially from renewable sources. CCAs continue to pay fees to the existing u...

What is nuclear fusion? Nuclear fusion produces energy by fusing atoms together. Atomic cores (nuclei) merge together to form a heavier—though unstable—nucleus, releasing mass to regain stability. This mass release corresponds to an energy release, given Einstein’s equation E=mc2, which says in part that mass and energy can be converted into each other. The sun, along with all other stars, uses nu...

Climate change is increasing flood risk worldwide.   Climate change is intensifying flood risk around the world, with potentially devastating consequences for communities and infrastructure.  As the planet gets hotter, the atmosphere's capacity to hold water vapor increases, leading to more frequent and intense precipitation events in certain regions.  Extreme rainfall events can overwhelm stormwa...

Existing Carbon Tariffs Subsidize Polluting Industries According to new international environmental economic research , most countries’ existing trade policies implicitly subsidize carbon pollution. That’s because many polluting industries, like oil production, face lower tariffs and fewer non-tariff barriers to trade (NTB) than industries selling finished products to consumers. In other words, ca...

Climate Change Exacerbates California’s Wildfires Nearly all of California’s landscapes are naturally fire-dependent or fire-adapted , and this beneficial relationship with fire allows ecosystems to maintain healthy functions and promotes biodiversity. However, high-intensity wildfires disrupt this relationship and cause detrimental damage to these ecosystems as wildfires impact tree regeneration,...

Carbon Sequestration Carbon sequestration is the process of capturing and storing atmospheric carbon dioxide to slow the pace of climate change. There are two major types of carbon sequestration: geologic and biologic. Geological carbon sequestration injects carbon dioxide captured from an industrial or energy-related source into underground geologic formations. Biological carbon sequestration ref...

Food Waste is a Global Problem with a Big Carbon Footprint One-third of all food produced is wasted every year – approximately 1.3 billion tons . The UN Environment Program estimates that 3.3 billion tons of CO2 are emitted annually from the resources used to produce wasted food. In the United States alone, 133 billion pounds of edible food, valued at $161 billion , is wasted every year.  Replate’...

What is Carbon Farming? Carbon farming refers to a wide range of agricultural practices that increase carbon sequestration in soil, vegetation, and forests. Conventional agricultural practices often release carbon, but traditional farming practices, permaculture, agroecology, regenerative, and organic farming practices can instead create carbon sinks. As plants photosynthesize, they remove carbon...

Why Community? It’s easy to feel despair about climate change and environmental destruction. But despair can make it hard to forge connections and take action. According to emotion researchers, hope means believing that you have the power to improve problems, rather than ignoring them. One possible source of hope? Community building events, where diverse groups of activists can find common ground....

What is “green” hydrogen? Green hydrogen is an industry term for hydrogen produced using renewable energy sources such as wind or solar power through a process called electrolysis , where an electric current splits water into hydrogen and oxygen. It's also known as renewable or zero-emission hydrogen. It is a clean and sustainable alternative to hydrogen produced from fossil fuels, which generates...

Oysters' Role in Living Shorelines Oysters can serve as an important environmental solution to shoreline restoration. Oyster reefs can provide habitat for hundreds of marine species, improve water quality (as an adult oyster can filter up to fifty gallons of water a day), and protect against erosion and storm surges. Oysters also help stabilize sediments and wave energy, which reduces coastal eros...

Induction-Range Stoves: Gas stoves have recently been in the news as a source of harmful pollutants in the home and generators of greenhouse gas. The adoption of energy-efficient induction-range stovetops could offer a solution. Induction cooktops use electromagnetism to generate heat from directly within cookware, preventing the levels of energy loss seen in conventional gas or electric cooktops....

How do Climate Change and Agriculture Affect Drinking Water? Throughout the US, agricultural and livestock runoff are some of the largest contributors to drinking water pollution, especially in heavily farmed states like California and Iowa. As part of farming, producers use pesticides and fertilizers which, without strategies like cover cropping, can run off and enter the water stream, leading to...

What is the GeoGrid? The Geo Grid is a network of heating pumps that harnesses the geothermal energy stored under the Earth’s surface to heat and cool buildings. It operates through a network of pipes that go deep into the ground and connect houses to each other. These pipes are filled with water, which brings the constant underground temperature up to the Earth’s surface, and into the buildings....

Three Birds with One Stone: Addressing Three Environmental Problems Polybion’s fabric technology addresses three major environmental problems: livestock, food waste, and plastic by replacing leather and plastic with fabric derived from food waste. Because the leather industry is so large, it helps drive cattle production separately from demand for meat. Deforestation due to industrial agriculture...

At the time of recording, Indigenized Indigenous Energy Initiative was named Indigenous Indigenized Energy Initiative. Indigenous Energy Initiative: Indigenous Energy Initiative (IEI) is a native-led non-profit and Earth Island Institute-sponsored project that is developing solar infrastructure within tribal communities. Native communities disproportionately lack access and pay higher costs for ut...

What is mechanical textile recycling? Mechanical textile recycling is a process by which used textiles, particularly those made with natural fibers such as cotton, wool, and linen, are broken down into their individual fibers and then spun into yarn or fabric for reuse in the production of new textiles.  Textile recycling has the potential to reduce waste and greenhouse gas emissions associated wi...

What is CRISPR? DNA contains the fundamental information about an organism, and is used as an instruction manual to guide organism structure and function. Until CRISPR (short for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats) technology was developed by Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier , editing DNA sequences was very difficult. Here’s the short version of the CRISPR process...

What are carbon registries?  Carbon registries work with companies, organizations, and government agencies to identify, measure, and report their greenhouse gas emissions. The data can be used to support emission reduction efforts by these entities, both voluntary reductions or those required by regulation. Carbon registry data can also be used to identify entities with high levels of greenhouse g...

What is electric vehicle (EV) retrofitting and why does it matter?  ‘EV retrofitting’ refers to the process of converting a gas-powered vehicle into an electric vehicle by replacing its gas engine with a battery pack.  The battery pack is designed to fit within the vehicle’s chassis—the structural frame to which its wheels, suspension, engine, and other components are attached.  Typically, the bat...

Advanced Clean Car II Rule The Advanced Clean Car II proposal requires that all new passenger vehicles, trucks, and SUVs sold in California be zero emissions by 2035. The rule will begin with 2026 through 2035 vehicle models and will also require more aggressive tailpipe emission standards for gasoline vehicles. The proposal has two parts: first, it amends the low-emission vehicle regulation, whic...

Land Use Changes One solution to reduce vehicle usage, and in turn, carbon emissions are land use changes . Changing cities' relationship with land use can reduce dependence on cars, minimize energy consumption, improve air quality and create healthier communities. Sustainable cities of the future must be designed for residents to have more opportunities for biking, walking, and other clean transi...

California is the first state to ban the sale of new gas furnaces and water heaters , which will begin in 2030. In efforts to fight climate change, all homes will be required to use zero-emission electric appliance alternatives. The Sierra Club and American Lung Association have supported this move to reduce the building sector’s carbon footprint and improve public health.  The building sector acc...

California Air Resources Board: Zero-Emission Trucking Goals The California Air Resources Board (CARB) is the agency responsible for reducing California’s climate-changing emissions and accelerating the transition away from combustion powered vehicles. This includes promoting the manufacturing and sale of zero-emission trucks and other heavy-duty vehicles. CARB’s goals for zero-emission trucks in...