For Californians still clinging to the myth that we’re not in the midst of a severe drought, a brutal reality awaits. With a dry winter projected for much of the state, California officials are considering fines of up to $500 a day for overwatering yards, hosing down driveways and other water-wasting actions. The state’s water board could impose […]

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The rugged Lost Coast is about to become less forbidding. A conservation group on Thursday said it planned to purchase a scenic 5-mile (8-kilometer) stretch of the Northern California coastline from a lumber company to protect it from logging and eventually open it up to the public. Save the Redwoods League […]

OROVILLE, Calif. (AP) — Each year Lake Oroville helps water a quarter of the nation’s crops, sustain endangered salmon beneath its massive earthen dam and anchor the tourism economy of a Northern California county that must rebuild seemingly every year after unrelenting wildfires. But the mighty lake — a linchpin in a system of aqueducts […]

Last year, wildfires burned through 4.2 million acres in California, making 2020 the worst wildfire season in the state’s modern history, according to Cal Fire. A rare August lightning storm sparked blazes all across the state, including the CZU Lightning Complex in the Santa Cruz Mountains, the LNU Lightning Complex in Napa, Sonoma, and other counties; […]

Few institutions have a closer connection to coastal policy than UC Santa Barbara, perched as it is upon the bluffs at Campus Point. Add to this the response to the 1969 oil spill, which birthed the modern environmental movement, and it’s no wonder the university has gone on to foster a preeminent community of researchers […]

If there’s one thing to understand this Earth Day about California’s role in confronting the climate crisis, it’s this: Just because the state considers itself a global leader doesn’t mean it’s doing nearly enough. Gov. Gavin Newsom admitted as much last year. As monstrous wildfires carved a path of destruction from the giant sequoias of the Sierra Nevada to […]

This story is part of Down to Earth, a new Vox reporting initiative on the science, politics, and economics of the biodiversity crisis. I wanted to like Seaspiracy, the recent Netflix documentary that has lots of people talking about the damage that industrial fisheries inflict on the oceans and our souls. Since premiering on March […]

California plans to ban the sale of new gas-powered cars by 2035. The Petaluma, California, city council unanimously voted to become the first city in the United States to ban both the construction of new gas stations as well as the addition of more gas pumps to existing stations, reports Gizmodo. The city already put a two-year moratorium […]

At first glance, it may seem that the race to acquire COVID-19 vaccines has been won by western nations. But alongside the UK, Canada, USA and EU, another country has also secured a high number of doses relative to its population – Chile. To date Chile has ordered close to 90 million vaccine doses – enough to fully vaccinate […]