Our Impact

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; […]

The word “bias” commonly appears in conversations about mistaken judgments and unfortunate decisions. We use it when there is discrimination, for instance against women or in favor of Ivy League graduates. But the meaning of the word is broader: A bias is any predictable error that inclines your judgment in a particular direction. For instance, […]

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 […]

Something remarkable happened over the weekend: California hit nearly 95% renewable energy. I’ll say it again: 95% renewables. For all the time we spend talking about how to reach 100% clean power, it sometimes seems like a faraway proposition, whether the timeframe is California’s 2045 target or President Biden’s more aggressive 2035 goal. But on Saturday just […]

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 […]

The long-awaited Dasgupta Review on the Economics of Biodiversity emerged last week, and its message is stark: The world needs to fundamentally overhaul how society measures economic success if it is to stem the rapid decline of biodiversity that threatens civilization itself. The central conclusion — that our demands on nature far exceed its capacity to […]