The community groups are calling BCDC’s vote a historic moment given the deep-seated inequities that have resulted in people of color and low-income communities disproportionately bearing the environmental and public health burdens of the climate crisis.
On Dec 3rd, 2018, the State Lands Commission voted unanimously to adopt a new Environmental Justice Policy designed to support more fair and inclusive management of California’s public lands. The revised policy incorporates many of the recommendations released in June by the Environmental Justice Working Group, a coalition of organizations representing environmental justice and Tribal communities throughout the state. The Working Group called the new policy a step in the right direction to honor the relationship of Indigenous Peoples to state lands, accelerate a just transition to clean energy, and reduce the impact of transportation and commercial activities on low-income communities and people of color.
Environmental Justice Working Group released case studies that are drawn from the experience of California Native American Tribes and environmental justice (EJ) communities to illustrate the need for a strong Environmental Justice Policy at the California State Lands Commission (SLC).
The California Environmental Justice Alliance (CEJA) and California Environmental Justice Alliance Action (CEJA Action) are proud to release our 6th Environmental Justice Scorecard for the 2018 Legislative Session. is scorecard is the only one in the state that assesses how well California’s elected o cials have supported actions to address environmental issues that impact low-income communities and communities of color.
California is a global leader in using, investing in, and advancing research to set proactive climate change policy, and its Climate Change Assessments provide the scientific foundation for understanding climate-related vulnerability at the local scale and informing resilience actions. The Climate Change Assessments directly inform State policies, plans, programs, and guidance to promote effective and integrated action to safeguard California from climate change.
The Climate Justice Working Group developed a climate justice policy and funding strategy to address the physical, environmental, economic, and health impacts on vulnerable communities caused by climate change.
How do voters of color perceive climate change in California? They see it as a major threat to the future generations and an issue we must address before it’s too late.
A study released by the University of Washington found the birds, called common murres, probably died of starvation between the summer of 2015 and the spring of 2016.
2019 was a record year for global warming. This week, NASA and NOAA announced that global surface temperatures in 2019 were the second warmest since modern record keeping began.
California authorities are addressing the problem of lead in drinking water at public schools through a statewide program to test pipes and upgrade plumbing, but experts warn the threat goes well beyond schools
A major new United Nations report, issued on Wednesday, warns that the Earth’s oceans are under severe strain from climate change, threatening everything from the ability to harvest seafood to the well-being of hundreds of millions of people living along the coasts.
The Presidio in San Francisco is the first park in the United States to get the award that recognizes the best parks and green spaces in the world, the park's officials said Tuesday.
The historic ruling marks the first decision by a UN human rights treaty body based on a complaint filed by an individual seeking protection from the effects of climate change.
New laboratory test commissioned by EWG have for the first time found the toxic fluorinated chemicals known as PFAS in the dirnking wáter of dozens of U.S. cities, including major metropolitian areas
New California testing guidelines that take effect this month are expected to reveal widespread groundwater contamination from the chemicals associated with Teflon.
After recently announcing its first success at collecting plastic waste from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, The Ocean Cleanup team is widening efforts by addressing the main entry point of litter — rivers.
Diners at some of San Francisco most popular restaurants might notice a new line item on their bills this month, a one percent add-on that’s known as the Restore California surcharge
Studies that connect green space to mental health and wellbeing abound. And this connection is intuitive—people have long retreated to parks and natural places to recharge from the pressures of daily life.
Halting overfishing and the plastic pollution of the oceans could help tackle the climate emergency by improving the degraded state of the world’s biggest carbon sink, a report has found.
A new study that rising temperatures brought on by climate change could be shortening pregnancies by as many as two weeks suggests worrisome implications for babies’ health and children’s later development.
There's a mystery lurking in the Pacific Ocean just off the coast of Big Sur, California. An underwater survey has found thousands of small, round divots scooped out of the soft sediment on the seafloor.
After years of scorching summers, storms of fire and ash, floods, and drought, Californians now rank climate change as their No. 1 political priority, according to a new poll of Democratic primary voters.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency validated new testing methods Thursday to measure the presence of widespread contaminates called PFAS in the nation's drinking water.
In first-of-its-kind research, NOAA scientists and academic partners used 100 years of microscopic shells to show that the coastal waters off California are acidifying twice as fast as the global ocean average—with the seafood supply in the crosshairs.
When the petrochemical plant being built by Shell Chemical Appalachia in Beaver County, Pennsylvania is complete, it’s anticipated to bring 600 jobs as well as spinoff industries.
The California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) released the Final Environmental Impact Report (EIR) for the Ballona Wetlands Restoration Project near Marina Del Rey.
If our society is being dumb for not taking more urgent action about human pollution and human pollution can make us dumber, will we get to a point to where we can’t even understand how stupid we are being?
States in the U.S. West that have agreed to begin taking less water next month from the drought-stricken Colorado River got praise and a push for more action Thursday from the nation’s top water official.
Southern California Edison was set to release 19,200 gallons of “non-radiological and radiological” liquids a mile offshore today, Dec. 19, from the San Onofre Nuclear Generating site.
Whales are a critical part of our marine ecosystems and vital to the health of ocean waters and the environment. The giant and majestic mammals help to keep thousands of species alive and thriving.
When it comes to access to safe potable water, “race is still the strongest determinant," according to a recent report that found that more than 2 million people in the U.S. and Puerto Rico don't have access to running water and basic indoor plumbing.
A new survey of California voters found that 71 percent support key policies of a 2020 ballot initiative to tax plastic manufacturers, officials with San Francisco-based Recology said Thursday.
Caltrans will conduct region-specific climate change vulnerability assessments for each of Caltrans’ 12 districts to help identify how climate change will impact California's transportation system.
Humans have produced an estimated 10 billion metric tonnes of plastic since the industrial era, most of which has ended up as permanent waste in the environment that will define Homo sapiens’ legacy in the fossil record.
The world is in the midst of a mass extinction — the sixth time in the planet's history that species are experiencing a major global collapse in numbers.
Starting next year Italian schools will be required by law to study climate change in every grade. The announcement came on the heels of historic flooding in Venice.
Most Americans don't think twice about drinking a glass of water. A report released Wednesday, though, found more than 270 harmful contaminants in local drinking water across the nation, including California.
When a deadly virus that killed tens of thousands of European harbor seals in the northern Atlantic Ocean in 2002 began threatening sea lions, seals and otters in the northern Pacific Ocean, scientists were initially puzzled.
Google is not the only one bringing energy and more “there there” in downtown. Three new urban parks flanked by housing are adding momentum for one of California’s oldest, largest cities that’s becoming more of a destination every day.
The idea seemed so catchy, simple and can-do. There’s room to plant enough trees, albeit many, many, many trees, to counter a big chunk of the planet-warming carbon spewed by human activities.
It’s time to shift the conversation around parks in California. New data is illuminating the need to look at state parks in communities a bit differently.
New research shows that reef manta rays in Nusa Penida and Komodo National Park could be ingesting up to 63 pieces of plastic per hour of feeding, and whale sharks, which seasonally aggregate in Java, could be ingesting up to 137 pieces per hour.
Lost and abandoned fishing gear which is deadly to marine life makes up the majority of large plastic pollution in the oceans, according to a report by Greenpeace.
There is a frustrating truth in the world of community development: new large-scale development, no matter how much it is designed to support the existing neighborhood, often displaces or alienates some longtime residents.
Prigi Arisandi, who founded the environmental group Ecological Observation and Wetlands Conservation, picks through a heap of worn plastic packaging in Mojokerto, Indonesia.
Each of the five mass extinctions over the last 500 million years that saw at least 75% of species disappear was accompanied by a surge in carbon entering the ocean.
At this very moment, we have the dubious honor of living through an event whose impact will span generations: climate change. Never before has our kind faced such omnipresent peril, from supercharged storms to rising seas to drought to crop failure to biodiversity crises.
As the ocean gets warmer, lionfish get hungrier, a new study indicates. With climate change happening now, that’s bad news for the Atlantic marine ecosystems the invasive lionfish has ravaged for decades.
Microplastics from product packaging and other sources are present in the stomachs of 20 percent of commercially important fish from three regions in Mexico, according to new tests by conservation groups and scientists from prominent Mexican universities.
Harvest season has just begun in California's Napa Valley. But the $160 billion wine industry could dry up if something isn't done to combat a changing climate.
If the prospect of climate change makes you stressed, anxious or depressed, you aren’t alone. With reports of some children becoming terrified by climate change and the protest group Extinction Rebellion holding “grief-tending workshops”, there is an increasing awareness of so-called eco-anxiety.
Not all parks in Kern County are created equal. Whereas The Park at River Walk and Hart Park have recently been filled with cheerful residents out to enjoy the relatively mild weather, parks in Oildale aren’t so lucky.
Pacific green sea turtles spend years cruising this northern Australia feeding ground, fattening up on sea grasses before heading to nesting areas to mate and lay eggs.
To better manage plastic waste, Los Angeles is in talks with Technisoil, an innovative manufacturing company, to viably incorporate plastic into the city’s roads.
It was a Sunday tradition at Bethany Slavic Missionary Church. After morning services, Florin Ciuriuc joined the line of worshipers waiting to fill their jugs with gallons of free drinking water from a well on the property, a practice church leaders had encouraged.
Climate change is heating the oceans and altering their chemistry so dramatically that it is threatening seafood supplies, fueling cyclones and floods and posing profound risks to the hundreds of millions of people living along the coasts, according to a sweeping United Nations report issued Wednesday.
Nearly 300 wells and other sources of drinking water across California contain toxic chemicals linked to cancer, developmental issues in infants, and harm to the liver and immune system.
Race bears the strongest relationship to slow and ineffective enforcement of the federal drinking water law in communities across the nation, according to a new report released today.
A vast region of unusually warm water has formed in the northeastern Pacific Ocean, and scientists are worried that it could devastate sea life in the area and fuel the formation of harmful algal blooms.
California became the first state in the nation to ban hotels from offering mini toiletries in plastic bottles Wednesday when Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill to that effect into law.
Climate change dominates the headlines and our news feeds and infiltrates our daily conversations. It’s a problem that weighs heavily on our society, but a promising solution could be lying right beneath our feet — in the soil.
Cars may be doing more damage to our environment than we realized. The harmful effects that fossil fuels have on our environment are well documented -- a study from March found that global fossil-fuel emissions account for nearly 70% of climate cooling.
The Japanese utility giant Tepco is considering a plan to dump roughly 1 million cubic meters of treated radioactive water -- enough to fill 400 Olympic-size swimming pools -- from the wrecked Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear power plant into the Pacific Ocean, part of its nearly $200 billion effort to clean up the worst atomic accident since Chernobyl.
Loading the atmosphere with CO2 and greenhouse gases has spawned a host of consequences, starting with irreversible sea-level rise, according to a draft Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) special report obtained by AFP.
Wells of nearly two dozen Southern California water agencies have reportable levels of PFAS, a chemical family increasingly linked to cancer, liver and kidney damage, thyroid disease, high cholesterol, low fertility, low birth weight and ulcerative colitis.
Tiny plastic bottles of shampoo, conditioner and body wash in hotels may soon be a thing of the past in New York as lawmakers continue efforts to reduce plastic waste statewide.
A leading group of international climate scientists is warning that “large-scale strategies” are needed immediately to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and avert “catastrophic circumstances” that threaten every part of the world.
