climate change

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 fight against climate change. In November of last year, at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow, Prime Minister Narendra Modi committed India to net-zero emissions by 2070. But the country, and its energy bureaucracy, which was built around carbon-emitting energy, already has made large-scale advances toward sustainability.

How did India do it, and how might the country’s entrenched …

by Talib Jabbar |

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

The Money Didn’t Matter. The Movement Did

by Zeb Larson |

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

by Jackie Mansky |

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 …

California Needs an Agricultural Revolution

From the Ojai Valley, I Can See the State’s Post-Carbon Future—And It Looks Like the Ancient Past

by STEPHANIE PINCETL |

The Ojai Valley in Ventura County is a magical place. Consider its elements: the sweet and intoxicating smell of California citrus blossoms in the spring, the open space preserved by …

You Really Should Be Having a Glacier-Induced Meltdown

The COVID Lockdown and My Work Studying These Rapidly Diminishing Sheets of Ice Proves We Can Prevent the Worst of Climate Change

by Jorge Daniel Taillant |

We’ve all heard the tragic stories of glaciers in peril: pieces of ice, the size of continents, breaking off of Antarctica or melting away in the Arctic Ocean near the …

Keep California’s Last Nuclear Plant Running

A Proposal to Retrofit San Luis Obispo’s Diablo Canyon Carries Big Risks—and Big Opportunities

by Joe Mathews |

California can claim to be an international leader in energy.

Or California can close its last operating nuclear power plant.

But it can’t do both.

Under a 2018 agreement, Diablo Canyon Power Plant, …


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