Max Moritz, University of California, Santa Barbara
With wildfires continuing to rage across southern California, a fire researcher says lowering fire risk means reconsidering where and how we build our communities.
Despite the hype around electric vehicles, sales in most nations, including Canada, remain stagnant. Policy support in California and Norway have helped boost sales.
Can California update its building codes to minimize fire damage?
AP Photo/Jae C. Hong
Intense wildfires in southern California are triggering air quality alerts. Health experts know surprisingly little about how inhaling smoke affects human health, especially over the long term.
For decades, novels have implored readers to look beyond the glamour and riches.
Trey Ratcliff
In their novels, Nathanael West and Bret Easton Ellis depict a world few want to admit exists, a place where ‘Unless you’re willing to do some pretty awful things, it’s hard getting a job.’
A severe summer drought in Thailand in 2016 caused many of the country’s reservoirs to dry up, including this one near Lampang.
(Shutterstock)
The Trump administration withdrew from the Paris Agreement. But U.S. cities and states are supporting climate change efforts in the developing world regardless.
Women shipfitters working on board the USS Nereus at the U.S. Navy Yard in Mare Island, circa 1943.
Department of Defense
Thousands of American women moved west to take advantage of wartime employment opportunities during WWII. For some, this version of the California dream was temporary; for others, it lasted a lifetime.
A tangle of rules govern what to do when a California inmate dies.
AP Photo
If no one claims the remains of cult leader and killer Charles Manson, it’s unclear what will happen to his body. Will it find an anonymous California grave or face dissection in an anatomy lab?
While Prop 13 may have saved the California dream for some, it destroyed it for many others.
AP Photo/Lennox McLendon
Manuel Pastor, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
In 1978, Californians voted to pass Proposition 13, which slashed property taxes and ushered in an era of underinvestment, ending the ‘California dream’ for many.
A wildfire burns behind a winery in Santa Rosa, California.
AP Photo/Jae C. Hong
As firefighters contain the fires that have been raging since Oct. 8, California’s wine industry is assessing the damage and hoping the tourists who fled the ash-filled air return.
Burned area in Santa Rosa, California, Oct. 11, 2017.
US Department of Defense
Fire is part of the ecology in much of California, but recent wildfires have caused much more damage than past burns of similar size. A fire ecologist points to two key factors: winds and population growth.
In explaining the causes of wildfires, the media and policymakers typically point to environmental factors, but that’s not the whole story.
AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez
The media and policymakers often say a ‘perfect storm’ of environmental factors cause wildfires but that ignores the role of irresponsible urban planning and development in raising fire risks.
Picking up the pieces after fire devastated the city of Santa Rose, California.
AP Photo/Jae C. Hong
Wildfires in California have triggered a public health emergency. One threat is smoke inhalation: Some air readings have registered pollution levels comparable to bad air days in Beijing or Mumbai.
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally in support of Sen. Luther Strange, in Huntsville, Ala., on Sept. 22.
(AP Photo/Brynn Anderson, File)
Precisely because of his problems at home, Donald Trump wants to do more abroad – possibly with disastrous results. How can those who know foreign policy rein him in?
Gary Griggs, University of California, Santa Cruz e Charles Lester, University of California, Santa Cruz
For 50 years California has used laws and policies to manage development along its 1,100-mile coastline and preserve public access to the shore. Climate change will make that task harder.
Sareum Srey Moch plays Loung Ung in this story of the Khmer Rouge genocide.
Netflix
Knott’s Berry Farm and others romanticize the state’s past and influence visitors’ sense of history. But their ideology reflects mid-20th-century political conservatism more than settlers’ reality.
States like Ohio could lose billions of dollars in federal funds if the ACA is repealed.
AP Photo/Tony Dejak
Capri Cafaro, American University School of Public Affairs
As states begin to plan budgets, the future of Obamacare is still undecided. A former Ohio state senator explains how budget directors are bracing for billions of dollars in shortfalls.
Wildfire Specialist at the University of California Cooperative Extension; Adjunct Professor Bren School of Environmental Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara
Distinguished Blue Planet Prize Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Founding Director, Institute of Transportation Studies, University of California, Davis
Adjunct Assistant Professor and a founder of the Laboratory for Environmental Narrative Strategies in the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, University of California, Los Angeles