2023 was set to become the hottest year on record. Carbon dioxide levels are at their highest point in history. Heat waves and wildfires are scorching our planet… Need I go on? It is impossible to turn a blind eye to the climate crisis we face today. And many of us aren’t—we feel we are […]
Tag: environmentalism
Environmental Justice Through Clean Cooking
Your kitchen fills up with smoke. Your immediate reactions are a) your meal is probably jeopardized and b) you should clear the air out before the smoke triggers the fire alarm. Although we regard smoke’s thick presence with agitation and a tad of disappointment, at least we have a signal that tells us that our […]
Paradise Lost: Agriculture, Water, and the Future of the Golden State
When the first forty-niners began to trickle into California in search of gold, the Central Valley was a fertile expanse of grasslands and marshes home to thousands of deer, tule elk, and grizzly bears — an American Serengeti. Within a century, the region radically transformed into a cornucopia of industrial agriculture to feed the state’s […]
CA Isn’t Ready to Close Its Last Nuclear Power Plant— But It Can’t Stay Open
On the first of February, 79 top energy experts signed an open letter to Governor Gavin Newsom, urging him to halt the decommission of the Diablo Canyon Power Plant, California’s very last operational source of nuclear power. The group behind this letter includes dozens of prominent energy executives, professors from Berkeley, MIT, Stanford and more, […]
Environmental Activism in Latin America Comes with a Deadly Cost
In December 2020, Indigenous Honduran environmental activist Félix Vásquez was killed in front of his family by a group of masked men in the village of El Ocotal. His assailants were armed with pistols and machetes, scarring his family forever. This attack was a response to Vásquez’s efforts to help protect the environment and advocate […]
Who’s at People’s Park? Mutual Aid Networks on the Rise!
In April of 1969, the University of California purchased the site that is now People’s Park. Located just blocks away from the University of California, Berkeley campus, People’s Park has been a community center for refuge, recreation, and political activity since its very origin. Today, the University wants the Park gone more than anything […]