$3.66 DESIGNATED AREAS HIGHER © 2023 WST SUNDAY, AUGUST 27, 2023 latimes.

com

Problems OUR CLIMATE CHANGE CHALLENGE

plague
juvenile
hall since
reopening
A riot is only one of
the incidents at L.A.
County’s Los Padrinos
during its first month.
By Rebecca Ellis
and James Queally

Nine days after Los Ange-

les County’s top probation
official declared “mission ac-
complished” for transferring
nearly 300 youths into the re-
opened Los Padrinos Ju-
venile Hall, police and news
helicopters were circling the
facility.
Seven youths had
smashed apart a table and
used the pieces as weapons,
attacking staff and attempt-
ing to break out into the
streets of Downey, according
to an internal summary of
the incident obtained by David McNew AFP/Getty Images
The Times. One teen briefly THE REALITIES of climate change feel unimaginably daunting along our shore. Above, Capitola’s pier after a storm.
escaped to a neighboring
golf course and several offi-
cers were injured in the
melee.
Interim probation chief
Guillermo Viera Rosa had
touted his department’s
TO REIMAGINE OUR VANISHING COAST
success on July 19 after car-
rying out the state-man- BY R O SA N N A X I A
dated transfers in less than
two months. Excerpted from “California Against the Sea: Visions for Our Vanishing Coastline”
But the brawl and chaot- (available Sept. 26, 2023) by Rosanna Xia. Reprinted with permission from Heyday Books, © 2023.
ic escape attempt were not
the first signs that the Pro-

bation Department’s long-
term struggles to safely care
for youths may have carried
over to Los Padrinos, ac-
cording to a review of inter-
nal department documents
and interviews with multiple
probation officials who have
worked at the facility and
parents of children housed
there — all of whom re-
quested anonymity because
T
he sea has long inspired a human attraction,
perhaps even a compulsion, to be as close to the edge as
possible. Its sheer power captivates us, even on its most
turbulent days, and we can’t help but dream of calling
the shore our own. To be out by the surf, to sense the
very limits of where land can go, to feel the rise and fall of
each wave like our own breath is to reckon with a force so
alive it feels otherworldly. But the ocean is not “out there” beyond
the shore, it is upon us, carving away at the coast each day despite
our best efforts to keep the water at bay. We thought that
with enough ingenuity we could contain the sea, but the ris-
years old, with a shock of white hair and a long stride, Griggs has
spent decades examining every inch of the California coast. An
oceanographer, coastal geologist and longtime professor at UC
Santa Cruz, he has a way of explaining erosion with the excitement
of someone who’s seeing everything for the first time. The coast is
always, has always been, changing, he likes to say. Every high and
low tide brings new surprises.
On a quiet foggy morning in early March 2020, the tide was going
out when Griggs set off for a stroll in Capitola. Reminiscent of an
idyllic village on the Mediterranean, with pops of vintage
California, this colorful little beach town on the northeast
S S U N DAY, AU G U ST 27,
2 0 23

A special section for people who

care about the environment and
across California, the American climate
West and the globe

they are not authorized to ing tide is proving otherwise. shore of Monterey Bay amuses him every time he swings
Studying this confluence of land, people and sea has by. The buildings and shingled cottages are bright pastel,
BOILING POINT

speak publicly or fear reper- OUR

CLIMATE CHANGE
cussions for incarcerated kept Gary Griggs busy for much of his life. Seventy-six CHALLENGE
Governments and institutions
[See Coast, A12]
have to do
the heavy lifting, but you can
do your part.
Cut back on plastics. Compost.

youths.
Go carless. Embrace sustainable
design.
And get creative with your
recycling.
That stuff in your blue bin
might have a
second (or third) life as a pizza
box or a toy
— or a suit.

A week before the riot,

the discovery of a gun in a
staff member’s office forced Home-delivery subscribers will find our special section, Read all the explainers, guides and analyses from our
a facility-wide lockdown. “Our Climate Change Challenge,” inside today’s paper. environment reporters at latimes.com/climatechallenge.
[See Los Padrinos, A14]

Why were pumas left Who are the people shaping our culture? In her column, Amy Kaufman

to die in the desert? W I T H A M Y K AU F M A N

examines the lives of icons, underdogs and rising stars to find out — “For Real.”

turbing” and “bizarre,” a

Wildlife officials alter
relocation policy after
‘disturbing’ decision.
By Louis Sahagún
In the face of mounting
outrage from environmen-
talists, state wildlife officials
have revised their policies
for translocating mountain
lions after two male cougars
were captured in the eastern
Sierra Nevada and relocated
to the Mojave Desert, where
they died of starvation.
In a decision that has
been described as both “dis-
pair of mountain lions desig-
nated as L147 and L176 were
trucked roughly 210 miles
Jay Shetty went from
from their home range and
released in the desolate monk to celebrity life coach.
Mescal Mountains.
In an apparent bid to re- Just don’t call him a ‘guru’
unite with their mountain li-
on mates, the cougars began ’m not good at sleeping. Scratch that: I am good at sleep-
making their way back to
their home range and en-
tered a desert area with little
to no prey.
L147 was found dead on
March 29, 2021, “in an emaci-
ated condition suggesting
I ing, just not at the times when I’m supposed to. I love the
night. I’m galvanized by the moon shining in through my
window, sitting at a desk lighted only by candles, the
breeze rustling the leaves outside.
Closing my eyes before midnight is anathema to me. And
still, I try. Because being a night owl in a city full of Runyon
Canyon-climbing, Erewhon-shopping early birds is untenable
starvation as a cause of mor-
tality,” the report said. L176 — at least if I want to maintain my relationship, job or any
[See Relocation, A8] semblance of a social life.
So I listen to things, podcasts or relaxing soundscapes, to
try to distract from my own careening thoughts. Recently,
when nothing was lulling me to slumber, I finally surrendered
to the siren call of celebrity spiritual sage Jay Shetty.
Shetty, 35, is a former monk who, since moving to Holly-
wood five years ago, has become the town’s go-to life coach.
[See Shetty, A10] Jack McKain For The Times

3 slain in Florida Game show host El Segundo will Weather

store shooting
A white man who “hated
Black people” kills three
Joshua Tree National Park
and himself in Jack-
sonville, sheriff says.
A MOUNTAIN LION in Joshua Tree National Park.
PERSPECTIVES, A2
The species as a whole isn’t threatened in California.
Sunny and warm.
Bob Barker dies play for the title L.A. Basin: 90/70. B10
The longtime face of The Little League team
the popular television beats Texas 6-1 to win
show “The Price Is the U.S. crown and ad-
Right” was 99. vance to the World Se-
7 85944 10300 9
CALIFORNIA, B1 ries final. SPORTS, D2

Subscribers get more in the app.

Download now to experience all of The Times.
A12 S U N DAY , AU G U S T 27 , 2 0 23
By romanticizing the coast in all its vast and freeing splendor, we blind ourselves
to the very forces that created this landscape in the first place.
CLIFF EROSION, on prominent display in Pacifica, Calif., near San Francisco, helps replenish beaches, but modern coastal living has disrupted this ancient process.
[Coast, from A1]
the waterfront dotted with cafes and patio
umbrellas. Palm trees and art galleries line
the streets downtown, where tourists stop
for trinkets and ice cream. On an old wooden
wharf that juts 800-some feet into the water,
kayakers can step from a tiny dock and pad-
dle out to sea.
Griggs made his way to a set of town-
houses that had been planted right on the
sand, reportedly one of the first condomini-
um complexes to have been built on the
coast. Purple, pink and teal, with whimsical
rococo plasterwork, the Venetian Court
homes are an indelible snapshot of 1920s Cal-
ifornia. Steps from the wharf, they serve
mostly as private vacation rentals today. A
low concrete seawall — so low you could sit
on it — is all that holds back the sea.
He stooped, placed his hand on the con-
crete and noticed it was damp. The ocean
often surges over this wall and can flood the
entire complex with debris. Poking around,
he pointed to piles of sandbags and plywood
propped against a number of front doors —
humble defenses against the water that had
already arrived. Patio chairs, also damp,
were stacked into a corner next to a grill cov-
ered by a tarp. He pulled out a recent real es-
tate advertisement and read it out loud:
Iconic home on the beach. 1st time on
market in almost 50 years. 3 bed, 2, bath, off-
site parking. Updated kitchen and baths.
Stunning! Price Reduced | $4,800,000
“On the sand, on the sand, on the sand,”
Griggs said. “Everybody wants to live on the
sand.” He understands this pull to the water,
a mark of wealth and well-being that goes
hand in hand with today’s notion of the Cali-
fornia dream. But by romanticizing the coast
in all its vast and freeing splendor, we blind
ourselves to the very forces that created this
landscape in the first place.
He craned his head to inspect the colorful
condo in front of him. Whenever the beach
goes underwater and the waves move in, this
corner building looks like the prow of a ship
lost at sea. Griggs has photos of whitewash
splashing halfway up the first row of win-
dows. Next door, the aging wharf also braces
against tempestuous surf. Big waves, just a
few months prior, had shredded two pilings
below the boat hoist. Even the concrete bal-
last broke. Officials scrambled together
$25,000 for emergency repair work to keep
the pier open. Rehabilitating the entire
structure would cost on the order of $5 mil-
lion to $7 million, and even that might not be
enough to withstand the ocean in the hotter
years to come.
In his more than 50 years of research,
Griggs has examined every kind of human
defense against the sea and documented
both their successes and their many failures.
When people seek his guidance on con-
fronting the water, he has no easy answers.
There are only so many ways to separate the
ocean from what we want to call land, he
said. And the true cost of forcing an unmov-
ing line in the sand is proving to be magni-
tudes more than what California seems will-
ing to pay.
Just south of here, at Seacliff State Beach,
an elaborate barricade built in 1926 was de-
stroyed the very next winter and has since
been rebuilt — and then damaged or de-
stroyed — eight more times. The version in
1982 cost more than $1.5 million and lasted
six weeks (it was designed to last 20 years).
These cycles of wishful engineering and na-
tural destruction have only continued to in-
tensify. The observations Griggs jotted down
on his walk, in fact, would become even more
prescient than imagined. In less than three
years’ time, barely a week into January 2023,
huge swells, compounded by a series of
record-breaking storms, would once again
undermine the wall at Seacliff, pummel the
Venetian condos and even tear Capitola’s
wharf in two.
Griggs took another glance at all the ply-
S L AT I M E S . C O M
THE STORY OF
CALIFORNIA’S
COAST NEED NOT
END IN DISASTER
wood and sandbags in front of him and
shook his head. Within just a few decades,
Californians have managed to alter the
shoreline in such a way that the realities of
climate change seem unimaginably daunt-
ing. Collapsed buildings, flooded roads,
shattered seawalls — all the problems that
make the coast so fragile today are not by
some fault of nature. A problem exists be-
cause our human-built world keeps getting
in the way of the rising sea. But this current
story of our coast does not have to end in di-
saster. We can choose to act, to reconsider, to
determine a more sensible future. How we
proceed can make all the difference, and it’s
on all of us to forge a new ending.
here are only so many ways to face the
T rising sea. Seawalls are one option, but
they come with hidden consequences.
These hard-fought lines of defense
force the sand before them to drown or wash
away. For every new seawall protecting a
home or a road, a beach for the people is sac-
rificed. Few issues today along the coast are
as divisive and as misunderstood as sea-
walls, Griggs often explains. “All things being
equal, responding to coastal erosion with a
hard structure parallel to the shoreline is a
decision or choice not to protect the beach at
that location.”
Adding sand to disappearing beaches is
another tactic. Dredges whir to life and idyl-
lic coastlines from Santa Cruz to San Diego
routinely turn into construction zones, with
dump trucks and sand dozers pushing sedi-
ment for hours across the starving shore.
This race against nature, however, lasts only
so long as there’s money and enough sand.
Elevating homes and roads is perhaps an-
other option, but this, too, costs money —
and requires reconfiguring entire communi-
ties in dramatic and unfamiliar ways.
Then there’s what scientists and econo-
mists and number-crunching consultants
call “managed retreat”: move back, relocate,
essentially cede the land to nature. These
words alone have roiled the few cities and
state agencies bold enough to utter them.
Mayors have been ousted, planning docu-
ments rewritten, campaigns waged over the
very thought of turning prime real estate
back into dunes and wetlands. Many de-
clared retreat un-American. To win, Califor-
nia must defend.
But at what cost? The California coast it-
self is a series of engineered landscapes —
home today to almost 27 million people and
all the ports, harbors and major cities that
support a state that, if it were its own coun-
try, would be the fourth-largest economy in
the world. There are limits, however, to this
built environment, especially as the realities
of sea-level rise force a more collective reck-
oning. Should California become one long
wall of concrete against the ocean? Will there
still be sandy beaches or surf breaks to cher-
ish in the future, coastal road trips and
oceanfront homes left to dream about? If
business continues as usual and global tem-
peratures continue to rise, more than $370
billion in property could be at risk of coastal
flooding by the end of the century, the econo-
mic damage far more devastating than the
state’s worst earthquakes and wildfires. Salt
marshes — home to spawning fish, weary
shorebirds and many of the world’s most
endangered species — face complete
extinction. Trapped between rising water on
one side, pavement on the other, there’s little
room left for these precious ecosystems. In
just a few more decades, two-thirds of the
beaches in Santa Barbara, Los Angeles, Or-
ange County and San Diego — so deeply tied
to the state’s heart and soul — could also be
no more.
However you cut it, Griggs said, sacrifices
lie ahead. In a world as finite as this one, ev-
ery decision, big or seemingly small, is a
choice to preserve one resource at the cost of
another. So, when all that we treasure can no
longer be saved, what becomes the priority?
riggs still has to pinch himself some-
G times, stunned by what he gets to do
every day for a living. He’s often out ex-
amining the juts and crannies of the
coast, usually with a binder of notes in hand.
It still felt like winter that morning in March
2020 when he zipped up his Timberland vest,
rolled up his sleeves, and went for a brisk
walk to check out the shore. He had timed
low tide just right at Capitola Beach, a flat-
tened, manicured patch of sand along the
mouth of Soquel Creek that is bookended by
90-foot cliffs. As the waves receded toward
the fog-draped horizon, the water made
room for a thin stretch of damp sand below
the bluffs.
He walked past a red-lettered sign warn-
ing “DANGEROUS CLIFFS. Proceed at
your own risk,” and hopped down to the wet,
pebbled sand that had just emerged at low
tide. He likes coming down here to see what
new stories might be revealed in these an-
cient layers of rock. Inching his way toward
the towering bluffs, Griggs explained how
this area is a geologic microcosm of every-
thing that could be possible on the coast. He
paused at a large mound of broken sand-
stone and compacted mud. “This wasn’t
here two weeks ago,” he said, craning his
neck to see what section of the cliff must have
collapsed. He pointed to a cavernous under-
cut that likely destabilized the bluff and
noted the clusters of pampas grass, a fluffy,
straw-colored weed that wedges its roots
into the rocky cracks and joints. Whenever
water makes its way into these cracks — from
rain or big waves during high tide — the pres-
sure builds until entire slabs of the cliff come
crashing down.
He squatted down to take a closer look,
brushing his hand over a slab of dark-gray
Carolyn Cole Los Angeles Times
mudrock embedded with a wallpaper-like
print of white shells. These compacted layers
of mollusk fossils always amaze his students,
another humble reminder that everything
California is standing and building on was
underwater in a previous chapter of this
planet’s history. He took a photo, then
nudged aside another pile of sandstone.
“Look,” he said, “these are all bone frag-
ments. This one seems to be a piece of verte-
bra.”
Griggs stood up and took a mental as-
sessment of the jumble of rocks. This is all
part of nature’s process, he explained. The
next high tide will sweep this huge pile of geo-
logical history into the ocean, where it will be
ground down and eventually returned to the
shore as fresh sand. Cliff erosion, and the oc-
casional collapse, helps replenish beaches,
but modern coastal living has disrupted this
ancient process. Griggs motioned to the row
of homes and apartment buildings at the top
of the bluff: Engineers have tried all sorts of
ways to hold back these cliffs, he said, but it’s
not easy slowing down the forces of coastal
erosion. “There used to be two rows of pine
trees and a sidewalk with benches. It was
called Lovers’ Lane. There were all these pic-
tures of people sitting out there,” he said.
“Well, the trees are gone, the path’s gone, the
road’s gone.” Several homes have also had to
move over the years — from earthquakes,
from coastal erosion, sometimes both — but
the people still living up there want to hold
on to as much time as possible.
Time is funny like that. It can take tens of
thousands of years to cycle through a geo-
logical epoch, just a couple of hundred for in-
dustrialization to make a mess of the planet,
and only a decade or two to delude people
into making decisions based on flawed time
frames — whether it’s a 30-year mortgage or
a political term that resets every four years.
And in this moment when inconvenient real-
ities like climate change have become so po-
liticized, shortsighted individualism has fur-
ther clouded our ability to plan ahead. We
seem to have both no time and too much
time to act, and so we spiral into paralyzing
battles over the why, who, when and how.
Scientists by now have a fairly firm grasp
of the geologic and climate pressures loom-
ing over the shore. What’s less predictable,
Griggs said, is how people will choose to re-
spond.
All this engineering, all this sacrifice: How
many times will we try to overcome a force as
vast as the sea? People spend years fighting
to maintain a wishful line in the sand, yet a
few extra feet of water here or there is hardly
a shrug for the ocean. When you look at the
coast with wise enough eyes, you can almost
see the high-water lines of floods and disas-
ters past ... lines foretelling the history we’re
doomed to keep repeating, if we keep closing
ourselves off to change.
Heyday Books
“California Against the
Sea: Visions for Our
Vanishing Coastline,”
available Sept. 26
 S S U N DAY, AU G U ST 27, 2 0 23

A special section for people who care about the environment and climate
across California, the American West and the globe

BOILING POINT

OUR
CLIMATE CHANGE
CHALLENGE
Governments and institutions have to do
the heavy lifting, but you can do your part.
Cut back on plastics. Compost.
Go carless. Embrace sustainable design.
And get creative with your recycling.
That stuff in your blue bin might have a
second (or third) life as a pizza box or a toy
— or a suit.

H OW CA N W E M OV E FO RWA R D? D R E A M S O F E L EC T R I C CA R S G E T E D U CAT E D
Energy reporter Sammy Roth explains Auto writer Russ Mitchell answers the Environmental writer and self-proclaimed
why and how we need to work harder questions you’ve had about electric vehicles. book geek Rosanna Xia shares must-reads.
PAGE 2 PAGE 7 PAGE 19

Cardboard suit by Brett Park ; photograph by Christina House Los Angeles Times
AA2 S U N DAY , AU G U S T 27 , 2 0 23 S L AT I M E S . C O M

THE 30,000-FOOT VIEW

HOW BAD THE CLIMATE CRISIS

GETS IS STILL UP TO US.
WE JUST HAVE TO ACT
For California to successfully fight the crisis, the state’s politicians,
business leaders and millions of residents will need to work a lot harder.
BY SA M M Y R OT H

A
s usual, California was ahead of the game.
It’s been two decades since lawmakers
passed the first law to begin requiring
electric utilities to replace fossil fuels with
renewable energy. Nearly as long since
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger called for 1
million solar roofs. A decade since the
state first mandated large numbers of
electric cars on the road, and four years
since Berkeley became the first U.S. city to
ban gas appliances in new homes.
None of those initiatives has protected the Golden State
from the ravages of the climate crisis.
The eight largest wildfires on record have all burned in the
last six years, collectively torching more than 4 million acres —
and none of them was nearly as deadly as the 2018 Camp fire,
which killed 85 people and destroyed the town of Paradise.
The three driest years ever recorded came to a dramatic end
this past winter, when record rain and snow wreaked deadly
havoc, flooding farmworker communities and burying moun-
tain towns. The precipitation filled reservoirs but did nothing
to change the reality that California faces a frighteningly water-
scarce future as rivers dwindle and groundwater levels drop.
The coast has fared relatively better — but sea level rise
grows ever more urgent. Cliffs are collapsing into the Pacific,
rail lines are experiencing temporary shutdowns and waves are
edging closer to toxic sites, threatening to poison nearby resi-
dents.
And there may be no more harmful consequences of global
warming than extreme heat. Hundreds of Californians already
die in heat waves every year, roasting in their homes and baking
on asphalt streets with little shade. The toll will only rise as we
continue to burn coal, oil and fossil gas, spewing heat-trapping
carbon dioxide and methane pollution into the atmosphere.
Lisa Patel, a Stanford University pediatrician, saw the dan-
gers firsthand during last year’s Labor Day weekend heat wave,
when temperatures reached 116 degrees outside her hospital in
Pleasanton. She worked two 24-hour shifts, and she was called
to several deliveries where laboring mothers had fevers or other
complications. She sent multiple newborns to intensive care.
“In retrospect, I don’t know if those moms had a true infec-
tion or if they just got overheated,” Patel said.
It’s not too late to stop climate change from getting worse.
But for California to lead the world toward a safer future, the
state’s politicians, business leaders and tens of millions of resi-
dents will need to work a lot harder — and be willing to accept a
tomorrow that looks different from today.
Los Angeles offers a telling case study.
The city is dominated by freeways built to serve gas-guz-
zling cars and trucks, and for decades its biggest electricity
source has been a coal-fired plant in Utah. Ships and trucks
belch toxic fumes into low-income communities of color. Many
neighborhoods have precious few trees to protect residents
from heat soaked up by the urban hardscape. There are too
many grassy lawns, not enough protected bus lanes and far too
many well-to-do white homeowners willing to fight dense hous-
ing construction near job centers.
Elected officials are trying, at least, to make things better.
L.A.’s first-ever chief heat officer, Marta Segura, is working
on efforts to plant trees, update building codes to keep resi-
dents cool and create an early warning system for dangerous
temperature extremes, with public outreach in English and
Spanish. The port is aiming for a 100% zero-emissions truck
fleet by 2035. City leaders have approved rebates for replacing
grass with artificial turf or native plants, plus billions of dollars
in spending to expand the Metro rail system ahead of the 2028
Summer Olympics.
And that Utah coal plant? It won’t be around much longer.
The L.A. Department of Water and Power has an ambitious
plan to fuel the city with 100% climate-friendly energy by 2035,
largely by using solar farms, wind turbines and lithium-ion bat-
teries.
“This is a new direction — it’s kind of a new world order,” said
Marty Adams, general manager of the Department of Water
and Power. “We’re learning as quickly as we can, but there are a
lot of things that are kind of like ground zero.”
None of it is enough. But at the same time, we’ve reached a
point in history when almost nothing is enough.

Earth is likely headed beyond 1.5 de-
grees Celsius of warming — the goal
urged by scientists and endorsed by
nearly every nation at the 2015 Paris cli-
mate summit. Keeping average global
temperature increases below that tar-
get would require slashing carbon pol-
lution nearly in half by 2030 — not im-
possible, but nowhere close to current
economic and political trends.
The 1.2 degrees of warming we’ve al-
ready felt have brought plenty of pain
and suffering, especially for Black, Lat-
ino and Native American communities
and nations in the Global South. Every
additional tenth of a degree of warm-
ing will bring even more pain and suf-
fering — and every tenth of a degree we
avoid will mean better lives for billions
of people.
So what more can California do to
get its own house in order and possibly
bring other states and countries along
for the ride?
For one thing, California can prove
it’s possible to phase out fossil fuels
without badly disrupting daily life.
Hundreds of thousands of house-
holds and businesses got a taste of the
difficulties in summer 2020, when state
officials were forced to implement brief
rolling blackouts during a brutal heat
wave. There simply wasn’t enough
power to supply tens of millions of air THE CAMP FIRE killed 85 people and burned more than
conditioners after sundown, when 7,000 structures in Paradise, Calif., in November 2018.
temperatures remained high but solar
panels stopped producing electricity.
Residents barely avoided more outages the
next two summers — and only then because
they heeded pleas to use less power.
“We all want to accelerate the elimination of
the gas,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said during a Sep-
tember 2022 heat storm. But the fact that gas-
fired power plants still provide much of the
state’s on-demand power is “a sober reminder of
reality.”
Newsom has made the climate and clean en-
ergy top priorities, likely knowing any future
presidential campaign could flourish or fail on
his performance. Like many leaders in Washing-
ton, D.C., the governor has urged permitting re-
form to make it easier to build the massive num-
ber of renewable energy facilities the state will
need to ditch fossil fuels. He has also led a push
to keep California’s Diablo Canyon nuclear
plant open past 2025 so it can keep generating
emissions-free electricity.
There are many actions regular Californians
can take to push the state forward, too: in-
stalling rooftop solar panels, replacing gas fur-
naces with electric heat pumps and gasoline
cars with electric models, and hardening their
homes against wildfire.
Golden State residents can also think more
broadly about how their lifestyles line up with
climate imperatives.
Do you have an opportunity to take public
transit to work, or to work from home? Would
you support devoting more space on your neigh-
Marcus Yam Los Angeles Times
borhood’s streets to buses and bikes, even if it
slows down your car-based commute? Do you
really want to move from a city to a rural or sub-
urban area surrounded by forests when there’s a
decent chance flames will come for your home?
Of course, living more sustainably would be
easier with support from politicians and busi-
ness executives — cheaper housing within cit-
ies, better bus and rail options, corporate poli-
cies that don’t require employees to drive to far-
away offices.
“There is no more important issue for the
world,” said Mike Feuer, formerly L.A.’s city at-
torney, during an unsuccessful campaign for
mayor last year. “If we were to look forward to a
conversation that our kids or grandkids might
have in 20 or 30 years, they’re going to look back
on us and say, ‘What the heck were you think-
ing?’ ”
No matter how hard California’s 40 million
residents might work to reduce their own emis-
sions, there’s nothing more effective they can do
to fight climate change than to put pressure on
elected officials to take more sweeping action.
That action should begin with aggressive
measures to confront the fossil fuel industry,
many activists say.
Under a bill pending in the Legislature this
year, California’s two big public employee pen-
sion funds — the nation’s largest — would be re-
quired to divest billions of dollars from oil and
gas companies. Other proposals would require
major corporations of all kinds to pub-
licly report their heat-trapping emis-
sions, as well as the risks that climate
change poses to their operations.
But at least thus far, the deep-pock-
eted fossil fuel industry has largely
been able to stave off transformative
change.
Pumpjacks continue to suck oil and
gas from the ground in and around Los
Angeles, Kern County and elsewhere
— polluting the air and contributing to
asthma, preterm births and reduced
lung function. Lawmakers voted last
year to ban new drilling within 3,200
feet of homes, but the ban would do
nothing to address existing wells —
and it may never take effect. It’s
paused through at least November
2024 after oil and gas producers se-
cured enough signatures to send it to
the ballot for voters to decide.
Another bill that would have made
fossil fuel companies financially liable
for the health problems of people living
near wells died a quiet death in the
Legislature in May, when a powerful
lawmaker blocked the measure from
even getting a full vote.
“Fossil fuel executives have known
for decades that drilling in neighbor-
hoods puts our communities at risk,”
said Nicole Rivera, government affairs
director at the Climate Center, a Santa
Rosa-based nonprofit, after the bill
was defeated. “Instead of acting to pro-
tect public health and our shared cli-
mate, they’ve lobbied and spent millions of dol-
lars convincing elected officials to look the other
way.”
The political sparring over gas furnaces, wa-
ter heaters and stoves has been equally intense.
Berkeley’s 2019 ban on gas hookups in new
homes and businesses spurred a nationwide
trend, with dozens of cities across the U.S. — in-
cluding Los Angeles — following its lead. The
fossil fuel industry pushed back hard, led by the
nation’s largest natural gas utility, Southern
California Gas Co. A recent court ruling called
into question the legality of some of the bans.
Will Californians be willing to give up cooking
with gas? Will they support cutting down on fos-
sil fuel production, even if doing so means
higher prices at the pump? Can they learn to
embrace a future of more densely populated,
less car-centric cities?
And equally important: Will they vote for
politicians determined to stand up to one of the
world’s most powerful industries?
Because at the end of the day, the main barri-
ers to climate action are more political than any-
thing. Studies have shown we have most of the
technologies we need to stop burning fossil fu-
els. The costs of clean energy have fallen dra-
matically. We know how to redesign our cities —
and reshape our patterns of development — to
get carbon pollution mostly under control.
The climate crisis is here to stay. How bad it
gets is still up to us.
L AT I M E S . C O M
OUR CLIMATE CHANGE CHALLENGE
THE AIR WE BREATHE
IN LOS ANGELES
New to this city, Tony Briscoe
explains how after a quick —
and important — education
he figured out where to live.
PAGE 4
WITNESS TO DEVASTATION
IN THE DESERT
Steve Lopez mourns the
decline of the Joshua Tree as
he walks among dying ones at
their national park.
PAGE 5
THE FINANCIAL SENSE
OF SOLAR PANELS
Should you buy? Rent?
Pass? It’s complicated, but
Jon Healy helps you sort
through the factors.
PAGE 8
INSIDE
THIS SECTION
Welcome to “Our Climate Change
Challenge,” a special section for
people who care about the
environment and climate across
California, the American West
and the globe.
SWIMMING IN A
CRUSH OF PLASTIC
Susanne Rust chronicles
a week’s worth of waste
in her household — and
it isn’t pretty.
PAGE 10
CHAMPIONS
OF COMPOSTING
Getting rid of organic waste
is second nature in Seoul.
Meanwhile, California is
making uneven progress.
PAGE 14
SUSTAINABLE DESIGN
IN THREE CASE STUDIES
Carolina A. Miranda presents
a residence, a construction
method and a park that
acknowledge climate change.
PAGE 18
S S U N DAY , AU G U S T 27 , 2 0 23
LOOKING TO THE FUTURE
AS THINGS WORSEN
What will happen in 30 years,
Dorany Pineda asks. That
will depend on California’s
actions today.
PAGE 22
MORE ONLINE
For more of our coverage,
go to latimes.com/
climatechallenge.
JOIN THE CONVERSATION
Times environmental writers
Sammy Roth and Rosanna
Xia will discuss “Our Climate
Change Challenge” at a live
streamed conversation Sept.
19 at 6 p.m. Sign up at
eventbrite.com.
AA3
ABOUT THE ART
Brett Park is a Los Angeles-
based artist whose transdisci-
plinary practice explores how
different facets of his identity
interact with his Korean Ameri-
can background. He employs
the physical deconstruction and
reconstruction of materials to
metaphorically dismantle social
norms and challenge hegemon-
ic forces that constrain self-
expression. Photographs on this
section’s cover and on this page
are by L.A. Times photographer
Christina House.
AA4 S U N DAY , AU G U S T 27 , 2 0 23 S L AT I M E S . C O M
OUR CLIMATE CHANGE CHALLENGE
FINDING CLEAN
AIR IN L.A.? IT’S
NOT EASY FOR
NEWCOMERS
I had to quickly educate myself
on the region’s topography
when looking for a place to live.
BY TO N Y B R I S C O E
I
f there’s anything I’ve learned af-
ter covering air quality in Cali-
fornia for the last year, it’s that
there is no fundamental right to
clean air.
In my short time in Los Ange-
les, I’ve seen mountain ranges
disappear behind a veil of lung-
searing smog. I’ve seen an armada of
diesel-belching freighters — each the
length of a city block — congregating
around the ports as they wait to un-
load. I’ve witnessed an endless proces-
sion of trucks rumble through the In-
land Empire.
The harsh reality is, there are few ha-
vens from air pollution in Southern Cal-
ifornia, and very few people even know
where to begin as they search for a
place to live. That included me, before
my cross-country move from Chicago.
When I began hunting for an apart-
ment in Los Angeles, I found myself
flummoxed. How was I supposed to
find a pocket of clean air in one of the
most polluted air basins in the nation?
I realized that if I wanted to protect
my health, I needed to quickly educate
myself on the region’s largest polluters,
its many microclimates and its topo-
graphy.
This research would profoundly
change the way I see and navigate Los
Angeles.
My first step was to pore over books
written by doctors and scholars to learn
why lung health is so critical. I learned
that the average person takes 20,000
breaths a day. This air travels into our
lungs and hops aboard our blood cells
and courses through our veins to deliv-
er oxygen throughout our bodies, in-
cluding to the heart and brain.
LOS ANGE- It became apparent that the air we
LES’ perenni- breathe — including smog, soot and
ally sunny cli- heavy metals — imperceptibly shapes
mate cooks our identities. Those components have
vehicle exhaust the potential to determine how long we
and other pol- live, the limits of our intelligence, the
lution into extent of our physical abilities, our re-
lung-damaging productive fertility and even our men-
smog. The twin tal acuity as we age.
ports of Los But why was the air so exceptionally
Angeles and poor in my newly adopted home?
Long Beach are The truth is, Los Angeles is in many
the largest ways a victim of success.
fixed source of It’s the country’s second-largest
smog-forming city, but with 6 million cars it has gained
pollution in notoriety for its congested highways.
Southern Cali- Its bustling economy results in ample
fornia. truck, train and ship traffic at its busy
ports and rail yards. Its perennially
sunny climate cooks vehicle exhaust
and other pollution into lung-damag-
ing smog. And the wondrous mountain
ranges bordering the region confine
this haze over the region.
Since its first major smog outbreak
in 1943, California has become a leader
in clean air and climate policy.
Yet, even despite its progress,
Greater Los Angeles still is the nation’s
smoggiest region — and that’s only one
pollutant to keep in mind.
Here are a few facts to consider
when you’re looking for a place to live.
STAY AWAY FROM FREEWAYS
Highways are, in effect, conduits for
lung-irritating pollution from vehicle
exhaust. Even electric vehicles produce
toxic particles from metallic brake and
rubber tire wear, so these corridors will
continue to be a source of pollution be-
yond the transition to zero-emission
vehicles.
Health officials recommend living at
least 1,000 feet away from freeways, but
huge swaths of the population have had
no say in the matter. Historically many
of the nation’s highways have bisected
communities of color, placing them
next to major sources of pollution.
Chinatown and Boyle Heights, two
communities hemmed in by a tangle of
large freeways, endure among the high-
est levels of pollution and have fought
against expansion.
SMOG BUILDS UP IN VALLEYS
As a lifelong Midwesterner, I must
Maria Chimishkyan For The Times
admit, air quality was something I
rarely thought about. That’s not to say I
hadn’t experienced pollution — I had.
But my surroundings were always flat.
California’s inland valleys are bowls
of hot and stagnant air, beyond the
reach of cool, ocean breezes that would
clear out contaminants. Instead, the
mountain ranges that encircle these
low-lying areas obstruct air flow, allow-
ing pollution to build up.
Valleys are also some of the hottest
and driest regions in California, acting
like Dutch ovens, where punishing sun-
light and desert heat radiate off the ar-
id landscape.
The sunlight and heat promote
chemical reactions. On sunny, hot
days, pollution from tailpipes and
smokestacks — dangerous by itself — is
baked into lung-searing ozone (a.k.a.
smog).
It’s no coincidence that San Bernar-
dino County, a hub of logistics centers
and warehouses tucked inside a hot
valley, was named the smoggiest
county in the nation in the American
Lung Assn.’s most recent State of the
Air report card. Between 2019 and 2021,
the county experienced an average of
177 days of unhealthy ozone days.
PORTS FILLED WITH EXHAUST
The twin ports of Los Angeles and
Long Beach — the nation’s largest sea-
port complex — are the primary gate-
ways of trans-Pacific trade, accepting
roughly 40% of the nation’s container-
ized imports.
The port complex is also the largest
fixed source of smog-forming pollution
Genaro Molina Los Angeles Times
Luis Sinco Los Angeles Times
in Southern California, due to the
fumes emanating from ocean-faring
ships, big rig trucks, locomotives and
forklifts. But perhaps of greater conse-
quence, most of these run on diesel-
powered engines that also produce car-
cinogenic exhaust.
The ports have promised to transi-
tion to 100% zero-emission ships by
2030. But no such ships currently dock
at the ports. In the meantime, you can
sometimes see barges with long cylin-
drical tubes, informally called “sock on
a stack,” which are fitted overtop a
ship’s exhaust to capture a ship’s diesel
exhaust.
Ports also encourage ships to plug
into the onshore power grid to avoid
burning diesel while docked. But that
protocol has been waived, at times, dur-
ing heat waves when local power grids
are strained.
OIL WELLS ARE HIDDEN HAZARDS
Decades ago, it was impossible to ig-
nore the presence of the petroleum in-
dustry in Southern California. Rows of
towering oil derricks were located any-
where you can imagine — in backyards,
in parks and near the shoreline of
Huntington Beach.
Today, Los Angeles is still pocked by
thousands of oil wells — some active,
some plugged and some abandoned
and unplugged.
Regardless of status, these wells
have been known to leak flammable
methane or harmful toxic substances
that evaporate easily, including ben-
zene, a carcinogen with no safe level of
exposure.
The general consensus among pub-
lic health experts is that homes should
be at least a quarter-mile away from oil
wells.
Some oil fields are startlingly obvi-
ous. I remember visiting the Baldwin
Hills Scenic Overlook and being
stunned when I spotted an oil pump-
jack churning nearby.
Others may be harder to recognize
because they have been disguised. In
Mid-Wilshire, an oil derrick is camou-
flaged as a nondescript office building.
In Beverly Hills and Pico Rivera, oil
derricks were sheathed by decorative
towers.
Residents of Los Angeles’ Wilming-
ton neighborhood, which has the great-
est concentration of oil wells in the city,
have described experiencing head-
aches and nosebleeds. Some reported
they had lost their sense of smell after
years of breathing acrid fumes.
Last year, the L.A. City Council ap-
proved an ordinance that immediately
banned new oil and gas extraction, and
that required existing oil and gas ex-
traction to stop within 20 years. But
even as oil production winds down, it’s
important to know where wells were
drilled.
You can view a map displaying oil
wells on the California Department of
Conservation website, maps.conserva
tion.ca.gov/oilgas.
BEWARE SMALLER AIRPORTS
There’s something scenic about
watching airplanes take off from LAX.
The Los Angeles Times building in El
Segundo sits about a half-mile from the
south runways. Most of these jet-en-
gine planes are fueled on kerosene,
which emits some pollutants, like
smog-forming nitrogen oxides, but this
fuel burns relatively clean.
The greater threat is non-commer-
cial propeller airplanes, which use avia-
tion gasoline, the only transportation
fuel in the United States that still con-
tains lead. These planes fly into smaller
airports such as Santa Monica (poised
to close in 2028), Long Beach and Van
Nuys, which is the world’s largest non-
commercial airport, hosting more than
200,000 flights annually.
Van Nuys Airport was also the larg-
est source of airborne lead emissions
among these 3,400 airports nationwide,
according to 2011 EPA estimates. Resi-
dents have long complained about the
dangers of small propeller planes using
leaded gasoline, leaving in their wake a
trail of brain-damaging dust. Most of
this lead is released during takeoff and
deposited nearby.
More than 25 years after leaded gas-
oline in cars was banned, the U.S. EPA
is working toward phasing out leaded
aviation gas, beginning with a proce-
dural determination that this fuel
poses a danger to the public. But the
federal goal wouldn’t phase this fuel out
until 2030, at the earliest.
POLLUTION-FREE HAVENS
When I moved to Los Angeles a year
ago, I embarked on a journey that tens
of thousands make every year, trying to
find a home in one of the most competi-
tive housing markets in the nation.
Whether you’re renting or owning,
this decision about where to live is likely
the most expensive investment you will
make.
I searched for somewhere close to
the pollution-clearing winds, 1,000 feet
from highways, a quarter-mile from oil
drilling, away from major trucking
routes and railroads, and nowhere near
a lead-spewing airport.
I discovered — and moved into — a
one-bedroom apartment in the Palms
neighborhood, far enough away from
the 405 and 10 to put a buffer between
me and freeway pollution.
I often march up the Culver City
Stairs nearby and admire the pan-
oramic views. In a city where smog had
once limited visibility to less than three
blocks, the fact that I can see the Holly-
wood sign, nine miles away, shows how
far we’ve come.
But, on smoggy summer days, when
the majestic vista of the Santa Monica
Mountains looks like a half-developed
photograph, it proves we still have a
ways to go.
L AT I M E S . C O M
AT A TREASURE
IN THE DESERT,
HE’S A WITNESS
TO CONTINUING
DEVASTATION
Ecologist Jim Cornett tracks
damage from climate change
at Joshua Tree National Park.
BY ST E V E LO P E Z
REPORTING FROM JOSHUA TREE NATIONAL PARK
R
ain in California had
become like an old friend
who seldom dropped in,
and, then, all of a sudden
showed up last fall and
wouldn’t leave. Atmos-
pheric rivers lined up off
the coast and pounded
the state like sets of massive waves.
This had me wondering about the
forlorn trees and plants I’d seen two
years ago in Joshua Tree National
Park, dying of thirst.
Might the rain have given them a
shot at survival?
For the answer, I reached out to Jim
Cornett, an ecologist who has studied
and written about desert plants and
wildlife for decades. Cornett lives in
Palm Springs, against the base of the
Santa Rosa and San Jacinto moun-
tains, where he got more than 8 inches
of rain in the season that began last
October.
That’s a few inches above normal,
and spring delivered a resurgence of
plant and wildlife to Cornett’s neigh-
borhood. He hoped the same might
have happened in the park, but when
he traveled to the southeastern en-
trance to Joshua Tree National Park
the first week of April, all he found was
disappointment.
“No wildflowers,” he said. “The
ocotillos weren’t in leaf, and one more
had died. There was another drought
year here.”
I met up with Cornett in the park
toward the end of May, several weeks
before a devastating wildfire torched
an untold number of Joshua trees in
Mojave National Preserve, a couple of
hours to the north. As we surveyed the
dusty expanse of struggling plants, I
asked what happened to all those
storms that rolled through California.
“By the time they got over the
mountains, they had nothing left for
the desert,” Cornett said.
So the outlook is no better than it
was in 2021, when I first toured the park
and Cornett issued a blunt assessment
of the catastrophic transformation of
S S U N DAY , AU G U S T 27 , 2 0 23 AA5
OUR CLIMATE CHANGE CHALLENGE
Photographs by Gina Ferazzi Los Angeles Times
the desert. ture and shelter. his 35-year study. “The fire speeded up
Here’s the headline that ran with When ocotillo are too gravely ill to what climate change was already
that column: flower, there’s no nectar for humming- doing.”
“Imagine no Joshua trees in Joshua birds migrating north from Mexico. Cornett’s latest book, scheduled for
Tree National Park” “Everywhere you look, you can see a publication later this year, is titled
That won’t happen in my lifetime, dead ocotillo,” Cornett said as we “The California Deserts: Then and
but it’s the direction we’re headed in, surveyed our surroundings south of Now.” It’s a before-and-after photo
as evidenced by research from Cornett
and other authorities. The National
Park Service warns of dramatic
change due “in large part to human-
the park’s Cottonwood Visitor Center.
A few plants had half-hearted blos-
soms or specks of green, but Cornett
pointed out the many bare, damaged
essay compilation of the disturbing
transformation, with more death on
the horizon.
“We could be doing something
caused climate change.”
Drought and deluge are both by-
products of climate change, but there’s
little of the latter in the desert. The
limbs. That, he said, was the work of
antelope squirrels and desert wood
rats that had braved the sharp needles
grown by ocotillo for self-protection.
about it, but you know, we’re supposed
to be [cutting] carbon dioxide … and
emissions go up every year,” said Cor-
nett, who blames overpopulation and
park service says the annual precipita-
tion in Joshua Tree dropped 39% be-
tween 1895 and 2016, and average tem-
“You have to be pretty desperate to
tackle this,” Cornett said, examining a
spiny limb. “But look, this is where a
overuse of resources.
The park website insists there’s still
hope if we accelerate conversion to
peratures rose 3 degrees. rodent has chewed through the bark to wind and solar power, switch to ener-
At lower elevations, “fewer seed-
lings are sprouting, growing and sur-
viving,” and with continued green-
get at the moist cambium layer in each
stem and get a little moisture.”
The same was true of the damage
gy-efficient appliances and electric
vehicles, reduce consumption and eat
less meat. “Will you help be part of the
house gas emissions, by 2099, the park done, about 20 miles away, at one of change?” the website asks.
website warns, 80% to 90% of Joshua Cornett’s Joshua tree study sites. Every little bit helps, Cornett said.
tree habitat could be lost. When he began visiting the Queen But maybe, he joked, the only answer
Californians have disagreed for Valley area in 1988, Cornett said, he is to figure out a way to escape to a
years over whether to list the iconic, tagged 68 trees for monitoring. By 2007, planet “someplace out there in the
gnarly fisted Joshua trees as threat- about 15 had died of drought-related heavens” — a place that hasn’t yet
ened under the state Endangered causes; then a fire sparked by lightning been spoiled.
Species Act, with some arguing that killed dozens more. “Someday,” he said, “there’ll be
the trees are unthreatened in cooler Today, only a handful of struggling tours to go see Earth, and see what
and wetter regions. The newly enacted Joshua trees remain upright. people did to it.”
Western Joshua Tree Conservation “No new Joshua trees have come
Act, meanwhile, aims to balance the up. Not a single one,” Cornett said of steve.lopez@latimes.com
interests of conservationists and de-
velopers of renewable energy and
housing projects.
But to Cornett, the bigger issue is
the unchecked global warming threat,
and he has been a witness to the
devastation, having tagged and moni-
tored Joshua trees in the park since
1988, and ocotillo plants since 2007. He
repeatedly revisits his study sites, and,
like a doctor taking vital statistics,
records signs of both life and death,
entering data into a field computer.
In that time, he has seen no positive
trends. Even farther north, at Lee Flat
It’s not just Joshua
trees and ocotillo
that are suffering.
They’re part of an
entire ecosystem —
dozens of bird species
nest in Joshua trees
— that’s in peril.
JIM COR- in Death Valley — where Joshua trees
NETT , who were in far greater health with cooler
lives in Palm temperatures and more moisture —
Springs, has Cornett has seen no new growth. As for
been tagging the youngest trees, he said, “I don’t
and monitoring think they’re going to make it through
Joshua trees at the summer.”
the national Unfortunately, it’s not just Joshua
park since 1988 trees and ocotillo that are suffering.
and ocotillo They’re part of an entire ecosystem —
plants since dozens of bird species nest in Joshua
2007. He re- trees — that’s in peril, and Cornett
peatedly revis- studies the big picture, as well.
its his study No rain means no wildflowers,
sites, and, like a which means no dropped seeds, which
doctor taking means fewer rodents, snakes and
vital statistics, birds.
records signs of The Joshua tree is a keystone
both life and species whose demise threatens a host
death. of animals that rely on it for food, mois-
AA6 SU N DAY , AU G U S T 27 , 2 0 23 S L AT I M E S . C O M

OUR CLIMATE CHANGE CHALLENGE

NO CAR IN L.A.?
A PLUS FOR
SOME; A MINUS
FOR OTHERS
Going auto-less is good for the
environment, but it can come
at a cost in time, economics
and chances to get ahead.
BY RAC H E L U RA N G A

A
rt Gardner’s father in-
stilled a passion in his
son: Cars equal freedom,
especially in Southern
California. And for years,
as Gardner was zipping
around, top down in his
gray convertible, it
seemed true.
Then, Gardner moved to a two-bed-
room apartment in Mar Vista in 2016.
There was a grocery store across the
street. Three bus lines ran frequently
within a block of his home. There were
bike rentals. Parking was scarce.
It turned out that the community
was his “15-minute city.”
The term, coined by French aca-
demic Carlos Moreno, describes much
of what many urban planners have
sought to achieve over the years — cit-
ies designed to have work, healthcare,
school and cultural outlets within walk-
ing or bike-riding distance from home.
It’s a model California planners will
have to think about a lot more as air
regulators attempt to slash the num-
ber of miles people drive. To meet cli- Allen J. Schaben Los Angeles Times
mate goals, regulators want drivers to
cut their mileage by a quarter of their
pre-pandemic levels by 2030. That ef- A BICYCLIST than car owners and take more pur- yard and up to date. Now she pays
fort could lead to more car-less people shares a busy poseful trips. Many tend to live farther about $20 a day to get to and from work
like Gardner and more communities street with away from areas that are well served by at night.
with easy access to transportation. motorists in transit. Cedillo says that she sleeps about About 7% of
Apart from New York, which has the
nation’s lowest rate of car ownership,
West Holly-
wood, top. Art
Tamara Cedillo, 23, spends about
“four long hours” a day traveling by bus
four hours a day but that she could dou-
ble that if she owned a car. But so far,
Southern California
most cities are designed around autos
— and nowhere more so than Los Ange-
Gardner, below,
gave up his car
to and from the three-bedroom house
she shares with roommates in Carson
she’s saved only $200 toward that goal.
And the costs of owning a vehicle in
households don’t
les, home to the first freeway, the first
drive-through and the first drive-in.
because his
neighborhood
to an externship as a medical assistant
at the Torrance Urology Clinic. By car,
Southern California can be prohibitive,
amounting to thousands of dollars a
have access to four
About 7% of Southern California
households don’t have access to four
has good public
transit. Tamara
the trip would take less than 30 min-
utes, but by bus it can take two hours.
year to cover insurance, gas and car
payments for a reliable auto.
wheels. Many of
wheels. Many of them rely on public Cedillo, bottom, “That’s the annoying part,” she said. Local transportation officials have them rely on public
transit; others also use a combination spends hours “It’s not even that far.” attempted to make it easier for people
of bicycles or scooters, which can be every day trav- Then, as the sun goes down, Cedillo who take public transit to get around. transit; others also
more direct and, in some cases, faster. eling by bus to uses a ride-hailing service to get to her Los Angeles introduced a pilot pro-
For those who can afford it, ride-shar- an externship full-time job working the night shift at gram in South L.A. last year offering use a combination of
ing through services or friends is an op- and $20 a day the Hawaiian King warehouse in Tor- residents $150 a month for public bus
tion. on a ride-hail- rance. and train fares, on-demand shuttles bicycles or scooters.
“Because of where I live, I didn’t ing company to “I need a car,” she said. “My life de- and scooter, bike and electric vehicle
need a car,” Gardner said, while admit- get to her eve- pends on it.” rentals. There are 221 Metro Bike Share
ting: “I didn’t want to let it go.” ning job. “I need Cedillo’s last car was towed after it stations across the region, a $1 local
For months after he moved to Mar a car,” she said. was rear-ended in Modesto. She didn’t ride-sharing service operated by the
Vista in 2016, he parked his 2005 Toyota “My life de- have insurance and couldn’t afford the Metropolitan Transportation Author- dents under a certain income thresh-
Camry Solara next to the curb. The cat- pends on it.” $2,000 she needed to get it out of the tow ity and free and reduced fares for resi- old.
alytic converter broke down. Parking But the automobile continues to
tickets piled up. But he still couldn’t loom large as a key to economic oppor-
give up the beloved car that took him tunity.
up and down the coast as well as to Las
Vegas and New Orleans.
More than 90% of all U.S. house- velyn Blumenberg is an urban
holds have access to at least one car.
Most Americans — more than one third
— drive alone to work. The personal ve-
hicle is the most frequent form of travel
— for good reason. It’s fast and conven-
E planning professor and director
of the Lewis Center for Regional
Policy Studies at UCLA who has
looked at the relationship between pov-
erty and car access. She and other
ient. But the cost is high — for our pock- scholars have found that cars have
etbooks and our planet. enormous benefits — better access to
jobs and keeping them — for low-in-
come people.
hen the tow truck finally came “Just imagine even looking for a job,

W
back.
for Gardner’s car, because its
tags were expired, he was at
peace — and he hasn’t looked

“You do have to have some patience;

right?” Blumenberg said. “Going to
multiple destinations, trying to figure
it out, going to interviews, all of that. ...
It’s very difficult to do without an auto-
mobile.”
it does take longer,” he said. “But it cuts But Blumenberg acknowledges
down on the stress. The dead time is ac- that what Los Angeles ultimately
tually sitting behind the wheel. I can needs is less driving.
read, do some work or just relax on the She believes there needs to be a shift
bus. It’s more productive and less frus- in the conversation about personal ve-
trating.” hicles. “We really need to be thinking
Gardner, who maintains websites, is about managing the driving and [car]
64, single and works from home. He ownership among higher income
usually travels by bus or train to reach Robert Gauthier Los Angeles Times households,” she said, adding, “the
entertainment venues. Most of his problem with that is that’s politically
friends have cars, and he sometimes difficult. Higher income households
asks for a ride. And if he really needs to with cars, they want to drive their cars.”
get somewhere fast or late at night, he Several large cities, including Lon-
calls a ride-hailing service. don and Stockholm, have implemented
It’s not that simple for people with congestion pricing, a strategy that is
limited funds, whether they’re single or being studied locally. Next year, the
heads of households. board of the Los Angeles County Met-
“We are not set up to live without ropolitan Authority will consider cre-
cars at this point in most parts of Cali- ation of a congestion pricing program
fornia,” said Jean-Daniel Saphores, a that would slap tolls on certain roads
professor and head of the Civil and En- during peak hours.
vironmental Engineering Department Michael Manville, a UCLA professor
at UC Irvine. of urban planning who has studied con-
Saphores, who has studied the car- gestion pricing, sees roads as a public
less population, said those folks usually utility that’s undervalued.
fall into two categories. There are peo- “The way that we can square this
ple like Gardner — and California circle, this trade-off between efficiency
wants more of them — who choose not and equity, is to set up policies that con-
to have a vehicle for a variety of reasons, vince the majority of us to just drive a
whether it be health, convenience, the little bit less, while allowing some peo-
environment or something else. They ple who right now have legitimately
are often childless and tend to live in constrained mobility to drive a little bit
transit-rich areas that enable their life- more,” he said.
style. “We want the poorest Californians
The other group is made up of peo- to have better economic opportuni-
ple who can’t afford cars, Saphores ties,” Saphores said. “And at the same
said. Like people who choose not to time, if we want to address climate
have an auto, they travel far fewer miles Wally Skalij Los Angeles Times change, something has to give.”
LAT I M E S . C O M
SO YOU’RE THINKING
ABOUT BUYING AN EV
The choices can be daunting. But our auto
reporter lays out a clear road map so you can
find the right electric vehicle for you.
BY R U SS M I TC H E L L
S
hould you buy an electric
car? If so, what kind? Pure
electric? Plug-in hybrid?
New? Used?
As autos writer for The
Times, I’m often asked for
advice on electric car buy-
ing — most recently on a
drive on Interstate 5 from Los Angeles
to Berkeley, where I live. I was charging
up a new blue Kia EV6 outside the Har-
ris Ranch restaurant when a woman
with a young child approached.
What car is that, she wanted to
know. She said she was thinking about
a new EV. Should she buy one? After
telling her what I did for a living, I came
back with a question as my standard
response: “Why do you want to buy an
electric car?” She answered the way al-
most everyone does: “To help the envi-
ronment.”
“If doing your part to save the Earth
is really your top priority,” I told her,
“you should keep driving the gasoline
car you already own until it’s ready for
the junkyard. Then you should buy an
electric car.”
Here’s the reason: If your gasoline
car is in decent running condition,
you’re going to sell it or trade it in. The
person who buys it will keep on driving
it — spewing all its pollution and green-
house gases into the atmosphere.
In the meantime, the processes to
mine the materials for and manufac-
ture batteries produce electric motors,
sheet metal, tires and other car parts,
and assemble them into your new EV,
also will churn out climate-harming
emissions.
And, although the energy mix is
changing fast, you’ll need to charge
your EV with electricity that, even in
California, with all its wind and solar,
will be partly sourced from fossil fuels
for many years to come.
Most people, I’ve found, don’t like to
hear that. When they ask their ques-
tions, it’s clear what they really want is
a modern new car.
Don’t get me wrong, I think electric
cars are great. I’ve test-driven dozens
of them. My family owns one — a 2018
BMW i3, with 120-mile range. We use it
as our second car, for trips around
town. We love it.
So, let’s say saving the Earth isn’t
your absolute top priority, but you do
want to make a contribution, however
small, and you really do want to buy an
electric car. But you have some worries
— like unreliable public charging, range
shortfalls, availability, sticker price.
Here’s my advice.
IF IT’S YOUR ONLY CAR
If you’re in a single-car household
and plan to keep it that way, you’ll want
an EV with long range. EVs are avail-
able with top ranges from about 100
miles to more than 500. The stated
range of the Kia EV6 I drove from L.A.
to the Bay Area is 240 miles. I was able
to get to Harris Ranch, outside Coal-
inga, and charge up for the rest of the
trip with miles to spare. That range is
enough for daily needs such as local
shopping and commuting plus the oc-
casional long-distance trip.
With a base price of $44,000 before
incentives, the Kia EV6 is considered a
mid-market car. Generally, the more
range, the bigger the battery, and the
higher the price of the car. More mining
of toxic materials, too. (To get into the
500-plus range, you’re looking at the
$140,000 version of the Lucid Air.)
One way to beat range anxiety while
reducing, if not eliminating, green-
house emissions: Buy a plug-in hybrid.
Also known as a PHEV, these cars com-
bine a combustion engine with a rela-
tively small battery that powers an
OUR CLIMATE CHANGE CHALLENGE
electric motor. A plug-in hybrid’s elec-
tric range is small — typically 25 to 50
miles. But with a home charger, and a
not-too-distant commute, you can take
the kids to school, go to work and do
some shopping on the way home, all on
battery power, no need for the combus-
tion engine — yet it’s there for longer
trips.
I recently test drove Mazda’s new
CX-90 crossover plug-in hybrid, base
price $40,000, with a 26-mile battery.
Car & Driver magazine gave it 9 points
on a 10-point scale, and I agree, it’s a fine
family car. The 26 miles were plenty for
local use, and I was able to travel be-
tween L.A. and the Bay Area with a sin-
gle five-minute stop to fill up on gas.
Some environmentalists don’t like
PHEVs because they’re not pure elec-
tric drive and people don’t always
charge up, instead relying more heavily
on the gas engine. They have a point.
The only way to get the greenhouse-gas
savings in a PHEV is by diligently keep-
ing the battery at full charge.
IF IT’S YOUR SECOND CAR
If you need a second car, an EV is a
no-brainer. As mentioned, my family
has a 120-mile range EV that we use all
the time around town. My wife has a hy-
brid car that we use mainly for long
journeys.
The best second-car value is a
secondhand EV. The range on older
EVs tends to be fairly low, but for local
use with a gas car in the garage, long
range doesn’t matter. And smaller-
range used EVs are a great deal.
They’re priced low partly because peo-
ple think the battery might be on its
last legs. But batteries are lasting far
longer than anyone expected. Most
manufacturers offer an eight- or 10-year
warranty on an EV’s battery, or 100,000
miles. Battery failures are rare, even on
older vehicles, although a dropoff in
range may occur on out-of-warranty ve-
hicles as the odometer ticks higher.
For example, a 2020 Chevy Bolt EV
with 20,000 miles can be had for $24,000;
a 2020 Nissan Leaf with 24,000 miles for
$19,000. Those are basic cars, but
‘Budget’ pick: Nissan Leaf
There aren’t many electric cars
available in the (relatively) low-price
end of the market. This has a base price
of $30,000 before incentives. The
creature comforts are about as basic as
you’d expect in this price range. But it’s
highly dependable, comes standard
with several driver assist features and is
quieter than you might expect. A true
bargain.
Midrange pick: Hyundai Ioniq 5
Other cars in the category include the
Tesla Model Y, the Ford Mach E and the
Volkswagen ID.4. The all-wheel drive
version of the Ioniq 5, with a range of
256 miles, is an excellent all-around car
that balances jaunty acceleration, a
quiet ride and driver comfort. The
streamlined Ioniq 6 is fresh on sale and
landed Car & Driver’s EV of the year.
Base price is $49,000 before incentives.
Ultra-luxury pick: Porsche Taycan Turbo S
The high end of the thoroughly
expensive Taycan line, this one starts at
$189,000. Sure, at 323 miles as gauged
by Edmunds, it falls far short of, say,
Lucid’s 400- to 500-mile range. And the
software was buggy and user interface a
work in progress. But what a drive!
S S U N DAY , AU G U S T 27 , 2 0 23
Myung J. Chun Los Angeles Times
TIMES report- they’re fun to drive, and there’s nothing
er Russ Mitch- wrong with either of them.
ell drives a blue Another plus: Supply chain prob-
electric Kia lems have put would-be EV buyers on
EV6 from Los waitlists for many models, with long de-
Angeles to lays. You can buy a used EV off the lot.
Berkeley in
July.
CHARGING
I’m not at the point where I can rec-
ommend a pure electric car for those
without a home charger. That’s bad
news for people who live in apartment
buildings or condo complexes. That
also means that socioeconomic status
largely determines whether you can
buy an electric car, at any price point.
The state of California is making a
big effort to subsidize chargers in
apartment buildings, with an empha-
sis on historically disadvantaged com-
munities. But the management of char-
ger installations, involving property
owners, landlords and tenant commit-
tees, is complicated. And you can imag-
ine the social issues involved: Who gets
to use what charger, and for how long?
What happens to charger hogs? Will a
charger installation mean a higher
rent? While these problems are being
worked out, I advise apartment dwel-
lers to think long and hard before they
decide to go EV.
As for public charging — it remains a
mess. Charger locations can be incon-
venient. It takes a long time to charge a
car — depending on the vehicle and the
charger, it can take from half an hour to
several hours for a full charge. (Prices
vary, but on this trip Electrify America
was charging 48 cents per kilowatt
hour. That’s much higher than what
you’d pay with a home charger, but the
$50 I paid for the trip was about half
what I would have paid to fill up a gas
tank.) Different charger brands have
different apps and ways of operating.
You need to keep that all straight.
There are signs of improvement:
The federal government is spending $5
billion through 2026 to subsidize about
500,000 chargers around the country.
The state of California is spending
nearly $3 billion of its own. Reliability
standards are being drafted by the fed-
eral government and the California En-
ergy Commission.
Last year, I took a trip to L.A. and
back in a Ford F-150 Lightning electric
pickup truck. I was impressed by the
truck. The charging experience, not so
much. It was a horror show. A trip that
should take six hours took 10 on a mis-
erable search for chargers that worked.
My recent Kia trip, I’m happy to say,
was a comparative delight. The char-
gers were working and performed with-
out a hitch. Once that kind of trip be-
comes routine, more people will be in-
terested in buying EVs.
Range: 149 miles INCENTIVES
Cargo capacity:
The average price right now for an
23.6 cubic feet
electric vehicle is more than $60,000.
Seating: 5
That’s before incentives — rebates and
Horsepower: 147
tax credits from state, federal and local
Torque: 236
government that can add up to a $10,000
pound feet
savings per car, depending on the vehi-
cle and in many cases, a buyer’s income.
But the savings come at a high cost
in time, energy and frustration. The tax
rebates offered are so complicated, it
makes shopping for a cellphone plan
Range: 303 miles seem like a joy ride.
Cargo capacity: To figure out the rebate level, au-
27.2 cubic feet tomakers and dealers must calculate
Seating: 5 the U.S. content of battery materials
Horsepower: 320 and the source of the batteries them-
Torque: 446 selves. (Most are now supplied from
pound feet China.) Part of any rebate depends on
whether a car is manufactured in the
U.S. While exceptions have been made
for some overseas-assembled cars that
allow rebates through leases, none cur-
rently exist for car purchases, as with
the Korean-made Kia I drove up Inter-
Range: 323 miles state 5. If your income level is too high,
Cargo capacity: or the car you want is too high-end, it
Irrelevant might make you ineligible for a rebate.
Seating: 4, sort of No one has yet created a compre-
Horsepower: 750 hensive and reliable online incentives
Torque: 774 pound calculator.
feet My advice on incentives: Get ready
for some time-consuming research.
And good luck.
AA7
FUEL CELL
CARS ARE
HERE. BUT
GOOD LUCK
WITH THE
FUEL PART
Hydrogen may be
the future, but it’s
inconvenient.
BY R U SS M I TC H E L L
A
n electric car isn’t the
only passenger vehicle
out there that generates
zero tailpipe emissions.
You’ve probably heard of
fuel cell cars. They use
hydrogen gas to make
electricity to power a mo-
tor that drives the car. The waste prod-
uct: water vapor.
The technology is clean, legiti-
mately cool and already available. But
it’s not for everyone.
It’s perfect for, say, my 90-year-old
father-in-law, a retired physicist and
technology geek, who loves to experi-
ment with new technology and — most
importantly — has plenty of time on his
hands. He needs it because the refu-
eling infrastructure right now is even
more measly and unreliable than pub-
lic electric chargers, which have their
own set of issues.
There are two fuel cell car models
available in the U.S. today, the Hyundai
Nexo and the Toyota Mirai. They’re
both attractive and comfortable and
engineered for a smooth but sporty
drive. No problems there. They cost in
the vicinity of $58,000 to buy or $385 a
month to lease, and often come with
free hydrogen fueling.
A great choice — if you can find the
fuel.
California is the only state with a
long-distance hydrogen network, cour-
tesy of you and your fellow taxpayers.
The network is growing, but tiny none-
theless. There are now 59 stations, clus-
tered in Los Angeles and the Bay Area,
with an essential fill-up spot at Harris
Ranch on Interstate 5 to make a trip be-
tween the two possible.
Fuel station reliability remains a big
problem. Not so much the mechanics,
but the supply. Stations are often com-
pletely out of fuel, and sometimes sit
that way for days. My father-in-law
monitors the nearest stations to his
Walnut Creek home and has the time
and flexibility to run out to fill up when
fuel is available. State officials and the
hydrogen industry say they’re working
toward the goal of steady supply.
This is not to dump on fuel cells.
They may well be the future of motor
vehicle transportation. Technically,
they can make hydrogen out of water
with solar or wind energy, for no to very
low greenhouse gas emissions. (Much
of the hydrogen being created today re-
quires electricity that depends in part
on fossil fuels.)
Theoretically, there will be enough
emissions-free energy sources in the fu-
ture to supply fuel cell vehicles, and the
cost of making the hydrogen plants and
building now-expensive fuel cells will
decline enough so that car companies
can make money on them. Right now,
Hyundai and Toyota are absorbing
losses as they develop the business.
Through June this year, Toyota has
sold 1,722 Mirais, and Hyundai only 105
Nexos.
If they live up to their potential, they
could be far more convenient on road
trips than electric cars. That’s because
refueling with hydrogen doesn’t take
much longer than refueling with gaso-
line, and offers a dependable range of
300 to 400 miles. You can’t fill up at
home, though.
For now, though, fuel cell cars only
work for those willing to suffer incon-
venience for the satisfaction of living at
the cutting edge of motor vehicle tech-
nology.
Allen J. Schaben Los Angeles Times
A FUEL CELL charging station
in Fountain Valley is one of only 59
such stations in California so far.
AA8 SU N DAY , AU G U S T 27 , 2 0 23
STATE CLOUDS
THE FINANCIAL
PICTURE OF
GOING SOLAR.
SOME ADVICE
Regulators just made the
switch to rooftop panels less
attractive for many people.
But for the typical energy user,
it still makes long-term sense.
BY J O N H E A L EY
F
iguring out whether rooftop
solar would work for your
home has always been com-
plicated, involving factors
like the size and shape of
your roof and the monthly
amount you pay for electric-
ity — not just now, but for
the coming 20 to 30 years.
Now, add one more wrinkle.
Starting April 15, one of the main in-
centives for rooftop solar — the fees
that three of the biggest utilities paid
homeowners for the extra electricity
that their solar panels generated —
plummeted by roughly 75%. The Cali-
fornia Public Utilities Commission,
which ordered the change, said the pre-
vious “net metering” fees had forced
millions of Californians who didn’t have
solar panels to subsidize the ones who
did.
(The PUC’s action applied only to
Southern California Edison, Pacific
Gas & Electric and San Diego Gas &
Electric. Municipal utilities such as the
Los Angeles Department of Power and
Water set their own net metering
rates.)
“The value of solar did just drop
overall,” said Bernadette Del Chiaro,
executive director of the California So-
lar & Storage Assn. “There’s no way to
sugarcoat that or get around it. But the
real question for consumers is whether
there is still enough value in the invest-
ment.”
Not surprisingly, she argues that
there is enough value, whether you buy
the panels or purchase the power from
a third party. “With ongoing blackouts
and rising prices,” she said, “the hope is
that consumers don’t totally abandon
the technology.”
The new rules mean it will take long-
er to recoup the money you spend on
rooftop solar. But the economics im-
prove if you add a storage battery to
your system, which would let you draw
less power from the utility grid during
costly peak hours after the sun goes
down.
Be forewarned, though — like solar
panels, batteries are not cheap.
General Manager Kyle Smith of So-
lar Optimum, a solar installer based in
Glendale, said the new rules are “just
an all-out attack” on rooftop solar. “You
have to have batteries now for it to fi-
nancially make sense,” he said, which
raises the upfront cost and probably
delays the break-even point of the in-
vestment.
To help you sort through all the fac-
tors that will determine whether solar
panels are right for your home, The
Times talked with experts from the in-
dustry and government. Here are their
pointers.
THE NEW DEAL TERMS
Solar panels produce much of their
energy in the middle of the day — when
you may not be home to use it. Demand
for electricity climbs as the sun drops
out of the sky, which is also the time
that the power supplied by rooftop so-
lar panels is fading to black.
Hence, the panels swing from gener-
ating more power than your home
needs to less, over and over again. The
excess power gets sent back to your lo-
cal utility’s electrical grid at the “net
metering” rate. Until April 15, 1 watt of
excess power from your panels could
buy you 1 watt of power from the grid,
which made it straightforward to de-
sign and install a rooftop solar system
that could wipe out the electric bill
from your utility.
And under the old rules, panel own-
ers sold a lot of electricity back to the
grid. According to data collected by the
PUC, Edison customers exported 44%
of the power their panels generated,
PG&E customers exported 50%, and
SDG&E customers exported 64%.
Under the new rules, formally
known as Net Energy Metering 3.0, the
three investor-owned utilities will pay a
wholesale rate for the excess power
generated by rooftop solar. The whole-
sale rate varies over the course of a day
and is much higher in the early evening
— when solar panels have little to offer.
During the peak sun hours, 1 watt of ex-
cess solar power will buy only about a
S L AT I M E S . C O M
OUR CLIMATE CHANGE CHALLENGE
one-sixth watt of energy from the grid.
Michael Campbell, a program man-
ager at the PUC’s Public Advocates Of-
fice, said the old system forced utilities
to pay more for the excess power than it
was worth to them. The result, he said,
was that too much of the cost of trans-
mitting electricity and improving grid
safety was pushed onto people who did
not have solar panels.
Even supporters of the change
agree that it will make solar power less
attractive financially. According to the
solar industry, the old rates enabled so-
lar panel buyers in Edison’s and
PG&E’s territory to recoup their in-
vestment in five to six years. Now, the
PUC estimates the payback period for
Edison customers will be about nine
years.
It could have been worse for solar:
The PUC had proposed to levy a “grid
participation charge” on panel owners
of up to $8 per kilowatt of rooftop gener-
SOLAR OPTI- ating power, but that proposal was
MUM installer dropped from the final rules.
Marat In addition, Campbell said, the PUC
Poghosyan, top assumed that utilities will raise their
right, works on rates 5% a year, but that’s probably too
a house in Brea. conservative; for example, he noted
Below, a crew that Edison has asked for a 23% in-
continues the crease in its base rates for 2025. As a re-
work on the sult, he said, an investment in panels
house. Starting should pay for itself sooner than the
April 15, one of PUC projected.
the main finan- (The DWP gives its customers cred-
cial incentives it for the power their panels generate on
for rooftop a watt-for-watt basis. If they generate
solar plum- more than they consume from the DWP
meted by in a month, they’ll still have to pay the
roughly 75% for utility’s minimum service charges and
customers of taxes. But they won’t pay anything for
three of the the watts they took from the grid, and
state’s biggest they’ll receive a credit calculated at the
utilities. retail rate they pay, which can offset the
cost of future electricity use.)
THE BATTERY-POWERED LIFE
Solar power is seen as one key to the
renewable energy future, but rooftop
solar has one glaring problem: It gener-
ates too much power when it isn’t
needed, and too little when the demand
for power is straining the grid.
To tackle that issue, NEM 3.0 pro-
vides a strong incentive to add high-ca-
pacity batteries to rooftop systems to
store the excess power generated dur-
ing the daytime. You might think of a
battery as a cool thing to have during a
blackout, and indeed it is. But it’s also a
way to time-shift solar power from day
to night. That way, if you’re running
your clothes dryer at 9 p.m., you won’t
have to pay your utility’s peak prices.
And if you have extra power, you can
sell it to the grid when wholesale prices
are much higher — and the utilities
really need the extra capacity.
Batteries such as the Tesla Power-
wall cost notably less than a Tesla, but a
heck of a lot more than a pack of Ener-
gizer AAs. Prices for the battery start
around $7,500, not counting the 30%
federal tax credit. According to Ener-
gySage, a Boston-based online market-
place for clean-energy technology, a
fully installed home storage rig will cost
$10,000 to $20,000.
Before you rattle off all the other
wonderful things you could do with
$10,000 to $20,000, consider this: Ac-
cording to the PUC, adding a battery to
your rooftop solar system will boost
your savings by more than a third on av-
erage, from about $100 a month to at
least $136. As a result, the commission
estimated that it would take a wee bit
less time for a solar-plus-battery sys-
tem to pay for itself than a panels-only
system would — for Edison customers,
about six weeks less. (For its part, Edi-
son says the payback period for a
rooftop system with a battery would be
6.6 years, which Smith of Solar Opti-
mum described as a “best-case scenar-
io.”)
Part of the cost of adding a battery is
the extra equipment needed to ensure
your home can run just on battery
power in a lengthy blackout. If you’re
willing to dispense with backup power
and use the battery just to cut your util-
ity bill, Smith said, you can cut your
battery costs by 20% or more.
To ease the sticker shock, the in-
vestor-owned utilities offer rebates for
home battery systems connected to the
grid. Edison is currently offering 15
cents per watt-hour of storage capacity,
which, for a 10-kilowatt-hour battery,
translates to $1,500. (Southern Califor-
nia Gas offers 20 cents.) For low-in-
come households and homeowners in
areas with high fire risk or multiple
blackouts, the incentive rises to 85
cents, enough to cover most of the cost
of a battery. But the rebates decline as
more people sign up for them.
Those subsidies originally came
from ratepayers. Last year the state
Legislature approved $270 million in
battery subsidies, but Gov. Gavin New-
som’s latest budget proposal cuts that
funding in the coming fiscal year. In-
stead, the budget includes $630 million
in subsidies for solar panels and batter-
ies for low-income households, the de-
tails of which are still being worked out.
A ROOF’S GENERATING CAPACITY
Before going any further, ask your-
self why you’re interested in solar pan-
els. If the survival of the planet is your
sole concern, feel free to skip ahead to
the next section. You’re committed to
going solar; all that’s left to be decided
is how to pay for it.
For most people, however, the No. 1
goal is to rein in their growing electric-
ity bill, said Vikram Aggarwal, founder
and chief executive of EnergySage. Cli-
mate and the environment are defi-
nitely on people’s minds, he said, but
they “don’t usually drive the purchas-
ing decision.”
To get a rough idea of how much you
can save by going solar, start by looking
at your utility bills to see how much
power you’ve been using over the last
year and how much you’ve paid for it.
Then — and this is the part you’ll prob-
ably need some help with — calculate
how much electricity your panels could
generate.
Your roof ’s generating capacity is a
function of how much sunlight it re-
ceives and how much space it has for
solar panels, especially on its southern
and western exposures (the first sees
the most sunlight; the second can gen-
erate power late in the afternoon when
electricity rates are higher). One other
factor is the wattage level of your pan-
els, which can range from 250 watts to
400 watts.
You can try to run the numbers
yourself — see, for example, the DIY
guidance from EnergySage — or you
can invite a few solar-power installers
to pay a visit and give you an estimate.
There are also websites aplenty that
can help you estimate your roof ’s gen-
erating capacity, most of which de-
LAT I M E S . C O M
Photographs by Myung J. Chun Los Angeles Times
mand your contact information so they
can refer you to solar salespeople. One
that doesn’t is Google’s Project Sun-
roof, which offers an estimate of your
power-generating ability and your po-
tential savings.
Bear in mind that the panels are
typically 65 inches long and 39 inches
wide, and you can’t install them over
protrusions (e.g., the vent from a fan).
Direct sunlight works best, so if your
roof is shaded by trees or by tall build-
ings, you won’t get as much power from
your panels.
Aggarwal said that homeowners
typically have enough roof space to
meet 60% to 80% of their electricity
needs with solar panels, and that’s a
high enough percentage to seal the
deal. In fact, by EnergySage’s calcula-
tions, you can save just as much over 20
years with a system that meets 60% of
your energy needs as a larger, more ex-
pensive one that meets 100%. When the
share gets down to the 30% range, how-
ever, that’s when people start to balk,
Aggarwal said.
One other thing to ponder is
whether your roof can last as long as a
new set of solar panels, because if you
have to replace the roof after the panels
are installed, you’ll need to remove
them and reinstall them — a process
that costs several thousand dollars, the
RoofGnome website reports. Roof life
spans depend on the type of shingles
used; most types last 15 to 30 years. The
estimated life span of a solar panel is 30
to 35 years, according to the U.S. De-
partment of Energy.
If you want to go fully solar, you’ll
also have to consider how your electric-
ity use will change in the coming years.
Planning to trade your car for an elec-
tric one? Switch from gas to electric
heating? Add a pool or a hot tub? Any of
these moves will require more panels
on your roof; to see how to calculate an
electric vehicle’s thirst for power, check
out the guide on Solar.com.
TWO ROUTES TO SOLAR
The average amount of electricity
used by California households ranges
between 500 and 600 kilowatt-hours per
month. According to EnergySage, you
could generate that much electricity
with a 5-kilowatt rooftop solar system,
which would cost about $15,000 in Cali-
fornia. With the 30% federal tax credit,
the cost drops to roughly $11,000. But if
you add a battery, your costs could dou-
ble, according to EnergySage.
Low-income homeowners in eligible
neighborhoods can apply to the
Disadvantaged Communities — Sin-
gle-family Affordable Solar Homes pro-
gram for help buying solar panels, if
funds are still available. Financial in-
centives of up to $3,000 per kilowatt —
which may be enough to cover the cost
of solar panels — are available to cus-
tomers of Edison, PG&E and SDG&E
in the state’s 25 most disadvantaged
communities.
If you’re not eligible for the subsi-
dies, you’ll have to choose whether to
own a rooftop system or let a third
party put one on your roof to generate
power for you. Community solar — in
which panels are put on another prop-
erty and then shared — is another pos-
sibility, but it’s in its infancy.
Buying the panels yourself. Financial
OUR CLIMATE CHANGE CHALLENGE
advisors agree that it’s best to own the
panels on your roof, if you can afford to
do so. Real estate agents add that it’s
much easier to sell your house if the so-
lar panels have been paid for, rather
than leased. And multiple studies and
surveys have found that solar panels in-
crease the value of your home, although
just how much is up for debate.
May Lam Kunka, a real estate agent
with Compass in Pasadena, said
rooftop solar is “a nice checklist item”
for home buyers, “but I don’t think it
holds that much weight. Predomi-
nantly, they’re looking for location, lay-
out, size and condition. ... Solar, it’s just
the added bonus.”
The federal government’s 30% tax
credit isn’t matched by the state. In-
stead, California offers property tax
breaks for solar systems, said Neela
Hummel, a certified financial planner
in Santa Monica: The value of the
rooftop solar system you install will be
excluded from your property tax as-
sessment. So even if you spend $20,000
or more to go solar, your home won’t be
reassessed, nor will the $20,000 be add-
ed to your home’s value for tax pur-
poses.
Unless you happen to have that
much cash to spare, though, you’ll have
to borrow money, which is costlier now
that interest rates are relatively high.
Hummel said a home equity line of
credit is probably the best option, be-
cause the interest rate could go down
over the course of the project if inflation
subsides. You’d need to have enough
equity in your home, though, to back up
your borrowing.
If not, one option is a “solar” loan —
a type of personal loan for home im-
provement whose interest rate is tied to
your credit rating. For example, SoFi
offers one with interest rates ranging
from about 9% to almost 26%. If you go
this route, make sure to get more than
one quote and take a hard look at the fi-
nancing details, said Timothy Mulroy,
a wealth management advisor for
Northwestern Mutual. For example, he
said, a solar loan might show an inter-
est rate of 4%, but you might not realize
that hefty fees were added to the pur-
chase price to buy down the rate.
One thing you can do with a solar
loan, Hummel said, is break it into
parts — one sized to match the amount
of the tax credit you’ll receive, the other
to cover the rest of the cost. That way,
you can pay off the first part as soon as
you get your tax refund.
A third option is Property Assessed
Clean Energy financing, which you re-
pay through assessments on your
property tax bill. Although it tends to
offer low interest rates and long repay-
ment periods, the program has drawn
so many complaints from homeowners
that Los Angeles County no longer of-
fers it. (It’s still available in the county
through other sponsors.) One other
point of caution from state regulators:
A PACE loan is attached to your prop-
erty, which can make your home harder
to sell.
Buying just the power. There are two
relatively common ways to substitute
rooftop solar for the local utility’s elec-
tricity without having to buy panels:
lease deals and solar power purchase
agreements. In both cases, solar panels
will be installed on your roof, but they
will be owned and maintained by a so-
lar energy company.
So instead of a big upfront cost,
you’ll face a long-term commitment to
pay for power that’s cheaper than what
your utility supplies — assuming that
utility rates keep going up. It’s a prob-
lem if they don’t, because lease deals
and purchase agreements typically
raise the fees you pay every year by a
few percentage points.
Leases typically run for 20 to 25
years. Afterward, you may have the op-
tion to buy the panels at a discount (al-
though they will be approaching the
end of their useful life). Otherwise, off
they go. While they’re on your roof,
you’ll pay a monthly fee to use whatever
power they generate.
In a power purchase agreement,
you’ll be able to buy power at a discount
for 20 to 25 years, paying just for what
you use. The more power you buy
through the PPA instead of your utility,
the greater the savings.
The PUC’s new rules have thrown a
wrench into these deals by paying sub-
stantially less for the excess power the
panels generate during prime daylight
hours. So companies are encouraging
customers to add batteries to their sys-
tems, Aggarwal of EnergySage said, so
they can sell it to the grid later in the
day when rates are higher.
For example, Sunrun’s main offer in
California now is a PPA that includes a
battery — not for backup power, but to
store power for sale later in the day, said
Paul Dickson, the company’s chief rev-
enue officer. The cost of the battery
means Sunrun customers don’t get as
big a discount on their electricity as be-
fore, he said, but most solar customers
in California are still able to save 10% to
30% or more.
Mulroy said leases and purchase
agreements may be the way to go for
people who can’t afford to pay cash for a
rooftop system and have a low credit
score, which would raise their borrow-
ing costs. Such deals might also make
sense for people who don’t owe federal
taxes, and so couldn’t take advantage
of the big federal tax credit, he said.
One important caveat for leases and
purchase agreements: If you have to
move or just want out of the deal, you’ll
face a hefty early-termination fee. And
you probably shouldn’t count on pro-
spective home buyers to rescue you
from your contract.
“In general, home buyers are leery of
taking over leases, so again another
strike against leases,” Hummel said. “If
you’re going to be selling your house in
three years, maybe now is not the time
to invest in solar.”
S S U N DAY , AU G U S T 27 , 2 0 23
SHOPPING FOR TOYS?
HOW TO PLAY IT SMART
It’s difficult to avoid all plastic playthings,
but there are steps parents can take to
become more environmentally conscious.
BY A DA T S E N G
W
hen Jess Castaneda
was a kid, she got
her toys when her
abuela took her to
garage sales. It
turned her into a
lifetime thrift shop-
per. As an adult, she
became a customer at the Green Bean,
a kids resale shop in Eagle Rock — be-
fore she took it over in 2018.
Castaneda took over the Green
Bean — which offers used toys that
have been inspected and approved by
staff, as well as a small selection of new
eco-friendly toys and gifts — shortly af-
ter becoming a parent. She’d been
thinking about the habits and atti-
tudes she wanted to pass on to her chil-
dren. It was important that her kids
learned to be environmentally con-
scious and to regard secondhand goods
as normal and valuable.
Of course, for many parents of
young children, being eco-friendly can’t
compete with the deluge of more ur-
gent responsibilities. This is under-
standable and natural, experts on eco-
friendly toys say, and they urge over-
whelmed parents to be patient with
themselves if they find their homes lit-
tered with plastic toys.
But parents can take small steps
that make a difference.
Need some guidance? Castaneda;
Jackie Breyer, vice president of Adven-
ture Media & Events, which publishes
Toy Insider; Joanne O’Donoghue, the
head of brand and production of eco-
friendly toy company Petit Collage; and
Brad Kahn, communications director
at the Forest Stewardship Council, a
nongovernmental organization pro-
moting forest management, have some
tips for how parents can think green
when they’re looking for toys for their
kids.
LEARN THE BASICS
Interest in well-crafted toys — many
of them made from wood — is on the
rise among millennial parents. For
those who are beginning to learn about
eco-friendly toy options, O’Donoghue
recommends two quick checks:
Are the wood and paper certified by
an organization you trust?
Does it have recycled content?
Kahn said toys are typically made
using three materials — wood, plastic
and metal. Wood is the only one that’s
renewable. The Forest Stewardship
Council, he added, sets high standards
for what it means to manage forests re-
sponsibly. An “FSC 100%” label, Kahn
said, means that all materials come
from responsibly managed, FSC-certi-
fied forests.
AN EVOLVED TOY INDUSTRY
When Breyer started covering the
toy industry two decades ago, she
wrote about “green toys” — what eco-
friendly toys were called at the time —
and there were very few companies pro-
ducing them.
“Back then, toys that were designed
to be eco-friendly were a lot more ex-
pensive, and they had more trouble
selling them,” she said.
Now they’re easier to find. Toy In-
sider, which reviews thousands of toys
year-round to compile guides, regularly
lists their top eco-friendly toys on
Earth Day. For companies like Melissa
& Doug, producing sustainably made
toys is one of their selling points.
Also, in recent years, more big toy
companies — Hasbro, Mattel, Lego,
Playmobil and MGA — have all made
environmental commitments, stress-
ing sustainability. (In December 2019,
for example, Mattel announced its goal
to “achieve 100 percent recycled, recy-
PENNY
ATCHISON,
left, plays with
a plastic toy
and River
Atchison with a
wood one at
their home in
Aliso Viejo.
“Plastic isn’t
always bad, and
wood isn’t al-
ways good,” one
toy company
executive says.
AA9
clable or bio-based materials” in both
its products and packaging by 2030.)
“Lots of toy brands are now using
FSC-certified materials, which
wouldn’t have been the case 10 years
ago,” O’Donoghue said. Most compa-
nies have also converted to using vege-
table- and soy-based inks, instead of
oil-based ones, she added.
“If a huge company that makes bil-
lions of toys takes steps to be more car-
bon-neutral, sustainable or eco-
friendly, it makes a huge impact,”
Breyer said. “Even small changes are
better than no change.”
BUY LESS; KEEP LONGER
“Plastic isn’t always bad, and wood
isn’t always good,” O’Donoghue said.
“We don’t use plastic at Petit Collage as
a choice, but buying a high-quality
plastic toy that is designed to last and
be passed on for generations is better
than buying a cheap wooden toy that is
non-FSC and finds itself in the bin
within a year.”
Castaneda gives similar advice to
her customers on a budget. It’s better to
buy three toys that will last than to
spend the same amount of money on
seven toys of lesser quality, she said.
And even if you can’t pass the toy on
to younger siblings, cousins and
friends’ kids, you can go to a store like
the Green Bean and resell it, she said.
“I’ve had toys come into the store
and cycle through three or four times,”
she said. “Because these are good
[quality] toys.”
CHECK THE PACKAGING
Companies can make changes by re-
ducing the amount of packaging and
changing the materials used for it.
Breyer said many toy companies are
figuring out how to make the packag-
ing a part of the toy itself — say, a box
that could be repurposed into another
toy. “When the packaging is the storage
material, it makes a big difference, es-
pecially if it’s eco-friendly on top of
that,” she said.
CHOOSE PAPERBACK BOOKS
Paperback books can be recycled,
but hardback ones can’t because they
have lamination, a thin layer of plastic
on top of the covers.
Paperback books often use varnish
instead of lamination to create a glossy
effect, and Petit Collage has been ex-
perimenting with stickers made with
varnish instead of lamination,
O’Donoghue said.
A quick way to see whether some-
thing is laminated or varnished is to
tear it, she explained. If it rips, it can be
recycled. If it has lamination, you’ll find
resistance from that thin layer of plas-
tic that can’t be torn.
“Lego came up with this varnish
that you can use on rigid boxes,” she
said, adding that the company shared
the new technology so other toy makers
could also use it. “You couldn’t create a
rigid box before without a laminate be-
cause it would damage. And now
there’s a varnish in the market that you
can use, and it’s absolutely brilliant.”
TEACH ECO-HABITS
There are toys that teach kids how
to take care of the environment.
For example, Green Toys sells a
recycling truck. Melissa & Doug has a
vegetable gardening play set. Petit
Collage has Rush to Recycle, a sorting
game that introduces youngsters to the
idea of recycling. And Hape has a line of
“Green Planet Explorer” products that
teach them about protecting the
planet.
Dania Maxwell Los Angeles Times
AA10 SU N DAY , AU G U S T 27 , 2 0 23
‘I COULDN’T ESCAPE
THE PLASTIC’: NOTES
FROM A REPORTER
I make informed choices as a consumer, to try to
minimize the amount I bring in. Or so I thought.
BY S U SA N N E R U ST
P
lastic is everywhere.
It’s in our bodies: our
lung tissue, our blood and
in the dark, tarry first defe-
cation of newborns. It’s
been discovered in the
deepest recesses of the
ocean and in the snow of
pristine alpine peaks and meadows. It’s
in the wind, in the dust, in the air we
breathe and in our drinking water and
food.
Small bits and minuscule strings of
plastic have become so pervasive and
omnipresent that they now cycle
through the environment in a similar
way to water, carbon, nitrogen or oxy-
gen. Microplastics evaporate from the
ocean and land, then get picked up by
the jet stream before being deposited
on our trees, crops, rivers and lakes.
From there, the cycle starts again.
Then there are the horrifying stat-
istics about the petroleum byproduct’s
ubiquity: By the year 2050, there’s going
to be more plastic by weight in the
ocean than fish; every week a person
consumes five grams, or a credit card’s
worth, of plastic; and on average, we
pass about 800 to 1,000 plastic bits a day
in our poop.
And despite growing public aware-
ness, economists estimate the produc-
tion of plastic will continue to grow as
product manufacturers and the pack-
aging industry find new and innovative
ways to wrap plastic swim goggles on
store shelves, or separate carrots in the
supermarket grocery aisle.
The problem is, because plastic ne-
ver fully decomposes — it just breaks
down into smaller and smaller bits —
the more we produce and purchase, the
more we allow in our bodies, in our wa-
ter and our air. It just keeps piling up.
In fact, research suggests the largest
producer of microplastics into our at-
mosphere is our oceans. Why? Because
for 50 years, these bodies of water have
accumulated a continually growing pile
of plastic waste. And we’ve dumped so
much that as the material breaks down
— and floats to the surface — it evapo-
rates into the air and drifts with the
wind to land.
As an environment reporter, I am
acutely aware of the problem. I read
about it constantly and worry about it
frequently. I also work hard to minimize
the amount of plastic to which I am ex-
posed. And I thought I was pretty good
at it. Until I agreed to this assignment.
At some point this spring, an editor
from The Times called and we talked
about the possibility of me writing a
story about plastic, and maybe setting
aside a week and chronicling my daily
plastic interactions.
In June, I made my first attempt and
was immediately overwhelmed; just
taking stock of my desk environment
had me reconsidering my plastic self-
awareness.
Here’s an excerpt: “Clippy for my
hair; airpods case; plastic on tea kettle;
windows are glass, but casings are vi-
nyl; bird decals on windows (to keep
birds from striking the glass); comput-
er casing; monitor; CO2 monitor (with
windows open, it’s reading 459 ppm);
cordless phone charger; all the USB
cords on my desk; mouse; mouse pad;
cone around dog’s head (he just had
surgery); clip on his “lick sleeve”; my
belt is clearly some sort of non-natural
product; my prana pants are a petro-
leum by-product, for sure.”
I suppose I could be excused for list-
ing nondisposable, non-single use plas-
tics — which environmentalists sug-
gest are really the scourge — but the fol-
lowing day, I realized I had a problem
there too.
I was traveling from San Francisco
to Montreal. There was no escaping sin-
gle-use plastics in the airport or on the
airplane.
While waiting at the gate, my hus-
band went to get us some food for the
flight. He returned with three plastic,
clamshell boxes containing healthy, or-
ganic food.
On the plane, even though I’d
brought a steel cup for beverages, the
flight attendant poured my drink into a
single-use plastic cup, before pouring
the contents into my cup. I sat there
and calculated the waste from this one
flight: roughly 120 people on board,
with most getting two drinks — so, let’s
say 200 plastic cups. (And that’s not
counting the meals, which are all
wrapped in a plastic shrink-wrap.)
Multiply that by the estimated 100,000
flights on any given day — and you get
the picture.
But even back home, I couldn’t es-
cape the plastic. Buying pasta for din-
ner? Guess what, the box of the spa-
ghetti brand I enjoy most has a plastic
“window” cut out of the cardboard box.
The chicken I bought for a curry dish?
Wrapped in plastic and on a polysty-
S L AT I M E S . C O M
OUR CLIMATE CHANGE CHALLENGE
rene tray.
When I went to shop for produce, I
ordinarily would have bought a box of
organic leafy greens — which come in a
plastic, single use clamshell-type con-
tainer. But, mindful of all the plastic I
was collecting in my shopping cart, I
elected instead to buy heads of lettuce
and spinach. Fortunately, my local gro-
cery store has “compostable” plastic
bags for produce; a luxury not available
at the larger chain supermarket I usu-
ally shop at (because it’s cheaper).
And it didn’t end there. I took stock
of the equipment I use for exercise. I’m
a swimmer. And everything I use for
swimming is either plastic, or some
form of petroleum byproduct: goggles;
swim cap; suit; swim buoy; fins; pad-
dles; swim bag.
Even in my own body, I have plastic
— and not the microplastics I men-
tioned above. Two, C-cup sized patties
of plastic.
I’m a breast cancer survivor and had
a double mastectomy several years ago.
I chose to get reconstructive surgery
and now have two plastic implants
under my skin and pressed against my
chest wall.
WHAT DOES ONE WEEK OF TRASH LOOK LIKE?
Looking at the accumulation of In addition to environmental reporter Susanne Rust,
plastic my family and I had amassed
over the week — I live with my husband above, The Times asked two other family units to save
and together we have five teenagers —
it was hard to not get overwhelmed. their waste — including plastics — for a week.
Which isn’t to say there aren’t a lot of
wonderful things about plastic. It
makes my car lighter, and therefore
more energy efficient. Its lightweight
and durable properties make it an ex-
cellent material to wear on my head in
the form of a helmet when I bicycle. And
I know that when I order things online
for delivery (a habit I knew was bad, but
hadn’t fully appreciated until I took
stock that week of the waste I’d ac-
crued), the reduced weight makes it
more energy-sparing than other mate-
rials and is less likely to get damaged.
But there’s clearly too much out
there. And statistics and research sug-
gest that no amount of recycling is go-
ing to get us out of this mess.
U.S. studies show that only about
5% of the more than 50 million tons of
annual plastic waste gets recycled.
Fifty million tons of plastic is roughly
the same weight as 25 million cars;
that’s almost twice the number of cars
registered in California.
Activists and environmentalists say
we can work to contain our plastic
footprint; we can try to buy food prod-
ucts that only come in paper, card-
board, glass or aluminum. But as I have
learned, it’s almost impossible to avoid
it altogether — especially for people
who have other time commitments
during the day, such as work, kids, hob-
bies, a need to exercise.
Some lawmakers have decided to
step in and try to make a dent, and envi-
ronmentalists are hopeful government
pressure can make a change where vol- Photographs by Christina House Los Angeles Times
untary cutbacks by plastic producers
and packaging companies don’t. The
business of plastic is lucrative: In 2022,
the plastic industry was valued at more
than $600 billion, and projected to
grow.
For instance, last summer, Califor-
nia lawmakers passed SB 54, which re-
quires that by 2032, 100% of packaging
in the state must be recyclable or com-
postable; plastic packaging must be re-
duced by 25%; and 65% of all single-use
plastics must be recycled.
According to the Ocean Conser-
vancy, the 25% packaging reduction
could eliminate nearly 46 billion
pounds of single-use plastics over the
next decade.
Other states, including Washington,
are looking at similar legislation. And
more than a dozen have banned plastic
bags — the poster children of wasteful,
single-use plastics.
In addition, California Atty. Gen.
Rob Bonta launched a first-of-its kind
investigation last year into the fossil
fuel and petrochemical industries over
their alleged role in causing and exacer-
bating a global crisis in plastic waste
pollution.
In the meantime, researchers are
trying to understand the health impli-
cations of having microplastics in our
bodies. They know associated additive M.O.
and plasticizer compunds — such as
The 22-year-old freelance makeup and jewelry artist recently
bisphenol A and phthalates — have
moved into her own apartment in downtown L.A. Taking stock
been linked to illness and disease in hu-
of her week’s worth of trash, she was struck by how many
mans and animals.
Clorox wipes she used to clean the new place. When it comes
Environmentalists say it’s hard not
to recycling, she says she has a “pretty pessimistic view” after
to get discouraged. But they also point
witnessing recycling and trash tossed into the same trucks at
to a growing awareness and consumer
school. She doesn’t go out to restaurants and usually cooks
consciousness they believe could
from home. Once a week she orders takeout. Above, she
staunch the flow of plastics into our wa-
checks on her fish Jpeg, for whom she runs a social account.
ter, air, soil and bodies.
We live in a world where convenience
is expected, and the consequences of
that lifestyle are largely hidden from us.
But people are beginning to see — one
journal entry at a time.
 LAT I M E S . C O M S S U N DAY , AU G U S T 27 , 2 0 23
OUR CLIMATE CHANGE CHALLENGE
Photographs by
RELAX. BECOMING ‘ZERO
WASTE’ IS ‘JUST A GOAL’
A conversation with Anne-Marie Bonneau,
the ‘Zero-Waste Chef’ author and blogger
T
he greatest sin in most American households is our addiction
to plastic water bottles.
So says Anne-Marie Bonneau, who writes the food blog
“Zero-Waste Chef” and is the author of “The Zero-Waste Chef:
Plant-Forward Recipes and Tips for a Sustainable Kitchen and
Planet.” But even though Bonneau has been plastic-free since 2011,
she doesn’t want anyone to “get hung up on ‘zero waste.’ ” It is, she
says, “just a goal.”
Gary Coronado Los Angeles Times This conversation has been edited for clarity and length.
Was there a time when you weren’t so
conscientious about your food pur-
chasing and consumption? What
brought about the change?
When my kids were born, I didn’t
pay as much attention to my environ-
mental side. I was busy. I did not want
an SUV, but when my daughter was 6
months old and I put her in the car
seat of that SUV, my back didn’t hurt.
Edward Gonzales, Jennifer Ho and Sage Gonzales And now I’m like, I can’t believe I did
that.
Edward and Jennifer, of La Crescenta, use cloth diapers for In 2011, I started reading about
their 7-month-old son, Sage, compost their food scraps and plastic pollution in the ocean. I wanted
recycle nearly everything else, but the week reminded them to learn more and did more reading up
that more needs to be done systemically to help communities on it, about albatrosses feeding it to
minimize waste. Gonzales and Ho say they take care to think their young. Plastic is a relatively new
about the plastics and papers they get rid of, “but recycling product that is wreaking havoc. I de-
still has an aspect of ‘out of sight, out of mind.’ ” They started cided I had to break up with plastic.
separating their food scraps from the rest of their trash a few It took us months to change our
years ago, and they own two tumblers for their compost, which routine. But it’s easier to do in Cali-
they consider an important resource for their garden. fornia because we have farmers mar-
kets and bulk bins all over the place.
Because I was paying attention to
plastic waste, it made me pay atten-
tion to all the waste. Up to 40% of the
food we produce in the U.S. is uneaten.
What was your greatest challenge
when you broke up with plastic?
I found personal care really hard.
Back then, there weren’t many sham-
poo bars. Deodorant was really diffi-
cult. One day my daughter made me
some homemade deodorant, which
works really well.
Your website lists “50 ways to kick
plastic.” What’s at the top of the list?
Bottled water is No. 1. When you
drink water from plastic bottles, you
are consuming microplastics. Plastic
can leak toxins into food, and if your
bottled water is heated, it can poten-
tially leach toxins faster.
Plastic shopping bags and produce
bags are bad. And straws. The other
thing is to-go coffee cups, which are
lined with plastic. Hot drinks and
plastic are not a good combination.
Find a cafe that will let you bring your
own thermos.
All those would make a big dent if
you cut them, especially bottled water.
Their recycling rates are low because
our system cannot handle the huge
amount of plastic. Recycling is a mar-
ket-based endeavor. The city picks up
all the plastic and takes it to the sort-
ing facility. They sort it out and bale it
up. If there isn’t a market for that bale,
it’s going to go in a landfill or an incin-
erator.
When you shop for food, how do you
plan ahead, where do you shop, and
what do you take to the store to trans-
port various foodstuffs?
I’ll first look in the refrigerator and
see what I have on hand. I’ll think of
what I can make with that, rather than
ask, “What recipe do I feel like making
IN HER
kitchen,
Anne-Marie
Bonneau
eschews plastic
in favor of
glassware and
brings her own
containers
(non-plastic, of
course) when
shopping at
farmers
markets.
AA11
Jason Armond Los Angeles Times
today?” I don’t plan the whole week or
month at a time — usually just the next
couple of meals.
I shop religiously at the farmers
market. I take my cloth shopping bags
and bring about eight or 10 cloth pro-
duce bags. If I buy berries, I bring jars
— then they come home intact and the
vendor can reuse the baskets if I leave
them at the booth.
I’ll take jars or produce bags to the
bulk store depending on what I’m
buying. I buy milk in returnable glass
bottles, and I take jars to places where
I can get cooking oil in bulk. At a lot of
bulk stores, they will weigh the bottles,
so you only pay for the contents of the
jar.
Do you ever go out to eat?
We do. When I go out, I take empty
containers with us. My daughter’s
favorite place is a Mexican restaurant
near us. The plates are really big, and
we can’t possibly finish them. So, I put
the leftovers in my containers and
bring them home. Sometimes some-
one from another table will lean over
and say, “That’s a great idea. I’m going
to do that.”
We know about plastic. What are
some of the other bad habits one
might encounter in a typical Ameri-
can kitchen?
Food waste is a huge problem.
There’s zero downside to reducing it. If
you eat all the food you buy, you are
going to bring less stuff into the
kitchen.
And most people eat too much
highly processed food. Almost every-
one needs to eat more vegetables and
those are available at the farmers
market.
Do you eat meat?
I do if my husband or daughter buys
and cooks it, but I don’t usually buy it
myself, although I did buy chicken feet
to use for broth. My daughter gets the
good stuff — pasture-raised. As
Michael Pollan says, they live a good
life and have one really bad day. So I
guess I’m an omnivore, but I’m a really
picky omnivore.
What advice do you have for someone
who would like to change their ap-
proach to procuring and eating food
but finds the concept of zero waste to
be intimidating?
It’s just a goal. Don’t get hung up on
“zero waste.” Even if I don’t bring
plastic into my home, it’s still in the
food chain. It’s very difficult to avoid.
If people started with looking at
what food you have on hand and figur-
ing out what you can make, it would
slash wasted food. It makes you more
creative and makes cooking more fun.
— Alice Short
LOS ANGELES TIMES S SUNDAY, AUGUST 27, 2023 AA13
LAT I M E S . C O M
people would throw out their food
waste in the bathroom on the way to
work.”
But punitive measures had their
limits, and it was ultimately grassroots
activism by Kim’s group that helped
things fall into place. Across the coun-
try, local organizations canvassed
neighborhoods and persuaded people
to take part.
“We would hold public forums or go
through trash bags with residents to
explain why mixing waste was a prob-
lem,” Kim said. “We did over 1,000 such
outreach events each year.”
The recycling scheme itself also had
its fair share of speed bumps. The cur-
rent method of processing food waste
into fertilizer, animal feed and biogas
followed several failed experiments
such as feeding raw food waste to ducks
or composting it on large-scale earth-
worm farms, neither of which could
handle waste at scale.
Today, mainly due to concerns
about diseases such as African swine
fever, animal feed is also on its way out.
Under a new national law aiming to re-
duce the use of carbon-intensive fuel
sources, Seoul will have to expand its
production of biogas — which currently
represents 7% of its total food waste re-
cycling output — to 50% by 2026. To
meet this goal, a new biogas production
facility is being developed for Nanji.
lobally, too, recycling food waste
G is increasingly becoming a top
priority in the response to the cli-
mate crisis.
In California, landfilled food waste
accounts for 20% of the state’s methane
emissions, which has led to the passage
of Senate Bill 1383, a statewide law that
went into effect in 2022 requiring resi-
dents to separate their food from gen-
eral waste. And in step with a larger
push in the U.S. to increase its own an-
aerobic digestion capacity, California
has recently been ramping up its own
food-to-biogas program.
Though aware of the global interest
in South Korea’s success story, Kim is
unsure what, if any, applicable lessons
the country’s model really holds. The
best recycling scheme is one that is
suited to the unique circumstances of
the country in question, and the most
fundamental puzzle — persuading an
entire citizenry to voluntarily separate
their waste — is far from an exact scien-
ce.
“I think what the South Korean
model proves is that it can be done if
you put in the time and effort into edu-
cation and outreach,” Kim said. “South
Koreans didn’t suddenly become con-
scientious overnight. But minds can be
changed over time.”
This belief will be put to the test
again in the near future, as the country
picks up its efforts to reduce food waste
at the source. “South Korea is a huge
importer of food,” Kim said. “There is
an ethical problem in transporting so
much food here, only to throw it away.”
In doing so, South Koreans will be
called upon to accept still more radical
changes.
To further dis-incentivize waste,
Seoul is considering whether to in-
crease food waste disposal fees, a mea-
sure that will probably prove to be con-
tentious.
Kim, on the other hand, believes
that the long-standing tradition of
restaurants offering free refills of ban-
chan — side dishes that accompany
Korean meals — needs to end. “Cus-
tomers should have to pay for side
dishes à la carte, so they only order
what they will finish,” she said.
This is wading into controversial
territory. Free refills on banchan are in-
creasingly being highlighted as a sig-
nificant cause of waste at restaurants,
but they are also a sacrosanct part of
Korean dining.
It will be Kim’s hardest sell of all.
OUR CLIMATE CHANGE CHALLENGE
HEY!
CAN WE
GET A
GREEN
BIN OVER
HERE?
Many in the state
are still waiting
for an easy way
to segregate our
organic waste
BY JA M E S RA I N EY
I
f tamping down Earth-warming
greenhouse gases were as sim-
ple as separating coffee
grounds, egg shells, leftover la-
sagna and other kitchen scraps
from other waste, Californians
certainly would be up to the
task. Wouldn’t they?
That’s the assumption behind a
groundbreaking state law that took ef-
fect at the start of 2022: that the state’s
residents and businesses can redirect
at least three-fourths of the organic
waste once destined for landfills, where
it would decompose into methane, a
super-potent gas that traps up to 84
times as much heat as carbon dioxide.
But after 18 months under the new
law, California has made uneven prog-
ress toward that goal. While most cities
and counties have complied with the
law, 126 asked for more time. And many
people who live in apartments and con-
dominiums, in particular, have not
been offered the green-bin option that
would allow them to recycle compost-
worthy items at home.
Projecting that California would fall
well short of its goal of removing 75% of
green waste from landfills by 2025, the
state’s Little Hoover Commission in
June recommended a “temporary
pause” in implementing the law. The
good-government agency said more
time is needed to fine-tune regulations,
provide more funding for green waste
facilities and launch a statewide educa-
tion campaign.
But the Legislature has shown no
signs of ordering a slowdown, and the
top state official overseeing the reform
said easing the pace would be counter-
productive.
“What we really need is this cultural
shift of moving away from a disposable
lifestyle,” said Rachel Machi Wagoner,
director of CalRecycle, “and really rec-
ognizing — from the manufacturer on
through to the consumer at the point of
use — the total value of any product
and considering its next life.”
CalRecycle has worked coopera-
tively with local governments, which ei-
ther haul green waste or contract with
VOLUNTEER
Caroline John-
son-Stephen,
top, turns a pile
of compost at
Cottonwood
Urban Farm in
Panorama City.
Top right, San-
dra Torres
drops off scraps
at the farm.
Cottonwood
owner Elliott
Kuhn leases
land to L.A.
Compost, which
offers green
waste dropoff
at nine farmers
markets in the
city.
S S U N DAY , AU G U S T 27 , 2 0 23
private companies to do the work. Cal-
Recycle reports that most cities, coun-
ties and special districts are making
adequate progress, but a review is
underway to zero in on those that need
to do more.
Wagoner said she remains confi-
dent that, once proper systems are in
place, the environmentally minded
state will happily redirect kitchen
scraps and yard waste to separate con-
tainers.
The organic material is hauled to fa-
cilities that either turn the material
into compost, mulch or biogases that
can help power natural gas vehicles.
“You don’t have to go out and buy an
electric vehicle to fight climate change,
though that is a great thing,” Wagoner
said. “The single fastest and easiest
thing that Californians can do is take a
banana peel, or watermelon rinds and
chicken bones, and put them in their
green bin. Then they’ve already had a
huge impact on climate change.”
Experts describe the benefits of
composting as exponential. It not only
cuts methane emissions but returns
nutrients to the earth, allows the
ground to hold precious moisture and
abets the “sinking” of Earth-warming
carbon dioxide into the soil.
Scientists estimate that 20% of the
methane plaguing California comes
from landfills. If the state can reach its
organic waste reduction goals, it would
have a benefit equivalent to taking 3
million cars off the road, according to
CalRecycle.
Those potential improvements in-
spired the California Legislature in 2016
AA15
Photographs by Irfan Khan Los Angeles Times
to approve Senate Bill 1383, requiring
all residents and businesses to sepa-
rate “green” waste. The law went into
effect on Jan. 1 of last year.
CalRecycle officials have stressed
that they want to use friendly persua-
sion to get cities and counties to com-
ply. But the law allows fines of up to
$10,000 a day for those that fail. Local
governments have the power, in turn, to
fine residents and businesses that
don’t segregate kitchen and yard waste
from landfill-bound garbage. Penalties
can range from $50 to $100 for a first of-
fense and increase up to $500 for third
and subsequent failures.
City officials have said they are loath
to penalize residents and business
owners. No fines have been levied so far
— or at least none have been reported
publicly.
The city of Los Angeles has OKd all
those who live in single-family and
small multifamily residences to dump
their kitchen scraps in green bins
picked up at curbside. That’s a total of
750,000 customers. More than 10,000
other commercial and multifamily cus-
tomers have signed up for the service.
But that leaves 24,400 multifamily
properties — with an untold number of
apartments and condominium units —
that have not signed up for curbside
service.
L.A. lags behind environmental
leaders such as San Francisco but is
ahead of many other cities. In Long
Beach, for example, a spokeswoman
said residential collection of organic
waste is not expected to start until late
this year or in early 2024.
“We don’t need anything else going
in landfills that are overflowing al-
ready. The greenhouse gases are such a
big problem,” said Rose, a 30-some-
thing who lives in the San Fernando
Valley community of North Hills.
But Rose said other residents in her
21-unit condo complex have resisted.
Members of the homeowner’s associ-
ation said they don’t want to pay the
added fees — likely at least $10 a month
per unit — that accompany the service.
“I also don’t get the sense that a lot
of them are thinking that much about
the environment or climate change,”
said Rose, who used her middle name
to avoid touching off a feud with her
neighbors.
Community gardens and farmers
markets provide other alternatives for
people like Rose, who works for an envi-
ronmental group.
L.A. Compost offers green waste
dropoff at nine farmers markets in the
city: Atwater Village, Central Avenue,
Crenshaw, Highland Park, Larchmont
Village, L.A. River, Silver Lake, Playa
Vista and Wellington Square Farmers’
Market. Elysian Valley also has a food
scrap collection site.
The nonprofit also offers small
amounts of finished compost four
times a year, and more regular com-
post for members of its co-ops.
A better solution would be not cre-
ating green waste in the first place.
The state and the U.S. Environmen-
tal Protection Agency encourage
“source reduction” — growing, buying
and consuming only what is needed, so
food doesn’t get thrown out in the first
place. California’s law also required
that big providers, such as supermar-
kets and cafeterias, preserve surplus
food for distribution to those in need,
often via food banks. That resulted in
116,000 tons of unsold food being di-
verted in the first six months of last
year, on track to meet the 2025 goal for
saving surplus food.
“We’re feeding people. And that
food never needs to be recycled,” Wag-
oner said. “That’s very exciting.”
AA16 S U N DAY , AU G U S T 27 , 2 0 23
IT’S TIME FOR
CALIFORNIANS
TO THINK OF
RECYCLING AS
A LIFESTYLE
The Golden State has adopted
some helpful habits, but
there’s still plenty of room for
improvement, experts say.
BY K A R E N G A R C I A
W
hy do we recycle?
Californians re-
cycle because
“they’re attached to
the environment
they live in,” says
Rachel Machi Wag-
oner, the director of
the California Department of Re-
sources Recycling and Recovery,
known as CalRecycle. “Especially with
the impact of the pandemic, we’re crav-
ing connection to people in our commu-
nity, our state and our country.”
And the state can point to some
progress:
8 Since the start of the Covered
Electronic Waste Recycling Program in
2003, Wagoner said 2.6 billion pounds of
electronic waste has been diverted
from landfills. The waste was disman-
tled by approved recyclers in Califor-
nia, and each material had a different
end path, according to Lance Klug, in-
formation officer for CalRecycle. Mate-
rials such as aluminum, copper wires
and plastic are refined and recycled.
Circuit boards are often sold for reuse.
Leaded glass and mercury lamps are
recycled when possible or safely man-
aged at facilities permitted to accept
hazardous waste, Klug said.
8 Local businesses such as the Com-
puter Recycling Team in South El
Monte have helped recycle e-waste for
businesses and residents, as well as
providing education about recycling.
8 Other state-led programs have re-
cycled 264 million tires and 8.5 million
mattresses — preventing them from re-
maining in a landfill until the end of
time.
8 Last year, Gov. Gavin Newsom
signed Senate Bill 54, which requires all
packaging in the state to be recyclable
or compostable and 65% of all single-
use plastic packaging to be recycled by
2032. Many more legislative initiatives
are on the way.
But Californians still have a way to
go.
In 2021, Wagoner said, the state dis-
carded 41.5 million tons of waste in
landfills — a result, in part, of the pan-
demic, as we hunkered down in our
homes and used single-use packaging
in our online orders, to-go meals and in-
store pickup bags. Compare that to 40
million tons of waste in 2020, 42.2 mil-
lion tons in 2019 and 39.9 million tons in
2018.
The disposal of plastic bags is still a
sticking point in our efforts to reduce
waste. In 2014, California was the first
state to adopt a ban on single-use plas-
tic shopping bags, and most grocery
stores started to use thicker bags that
are supposed to be recyclable. But in
2021, it was reported, more plastic bags
ended up in state landfills than in 2018.
Wagoner said it’s not enough to have
programs in place and a list of what can
or can’t go in certain receptacles. It’s
time, she said, for Californians to think
about recycling as a lifestyle.
KNOW WHAT GOES IN THE BINS
Even if you think you have it down,
reacquaint yourself with your commu-
nity’s rules for what goes in the trash,
recycle and green waste receptacles.
Depending on where you live in L.A.
County, you may be served by Athens
Services, Waste Management, L.A. City
Sanitation or another provider. And
make sure to check CleanLA.com when
you’re figuring out how and where to
properly dispose of batteries, electron-
ics and other hazardous waste.
Commercial and multifamily units
in the city of Los Angeles are serviced
by six different waste haulers, accord-
ing to Jessica Aldridge, director of sus-
tainability and zero waste programs for
Athens Services — a waste collection
and recycling company.
Athens and the city of L.A. accept
plastics labeled 1, 2 and 5, and you can
find the number within the chasing ar-
rows logo. (The symbol alone — with-
out a number— is not an indication
that an item is recyclable.)
If the item isn’t labeled a 1, 2 or 5,
Aldridge said, it won’t be recycled and
belongs in the black bin.
“When it comes to plastic, it doesn’t
need to be 100% clean and you don’t
S L AT I M E S . C O M
OUR CLIMATE CHANGE CHALLENGE
need to waste a bunch of water to clean
this stuff out,” Aldridge said. However,
the plastic container does need to be
empty. If a container contains food,
throw the scraps in the green bin. If a
bottle has liquid in it, pour it out. That
liquid can leak onto other recyclables
like paper.
The liquid can also change how the
machinery in the recycling facility proc-
esses the plastic container.
The recycling facility initially moves
recyclables through the system by their
weight, Aldridge said, adding: “Bottles
with liquid may land in the reject
pile.”All of this should be useful infor-
mation for aspirational recyclers —
people who are unsure if something is
recyclable so they throw it in the recy-
cling bin and hope for the best. The
Consumer Brand Assn. says 40% of
Americans follow this philosophy.
And know this, aspirational recy-
clers: The stuff that can’t be recycled
ends up in a landfill.
UP YOUR RECYCLING GAME
Before you try to overhaul your cur-
rent lifestyle, remember that change
ITEMS to be happens gradually. You’ll be more suc-
recycled move cessful, Wagoner said, if you avoid guilt
on conveyor about what you consume and throw
belts at Poten- away.
tial Industries And keep in mind that recycling
in Wilmington, isn’t just about what goes in your vari-
top. Workers at ous bins. It can mean giving an item a
the plant sepa- second life. Give clothes a second life by
rate the rejects attending a clothing swap in your area.
from the recy- Take a pile of clothes you’re no longer
clables. A pro using, and pick up a few new (to you)
tip: Plastic items someone else no longer wants.
“doesn’t need to You can also donate clothes to a tex-
be 100% clean.” tile donation center such as the Suay
MAKE SURE YOU'RE
RECYCLING CORRECTLY
Understanding your city’s or local
waste hauler’s rules for what goes in
each waste receptacle is a simple way
to ensure you’re doing your best to
recycle correctly, said Steven Frasher,
L.A. County’s Public Works Department
spokesperson.
Each city and community within the
county has different waste haulers, and
some waste haulers have different
facilities, with different rules. For exam-
ple, Frasher said, palm fronds can’t be
composted for residents in unincorpo-
rated areas in the county and should be
tossed in the trash.
Another contested item is the pizza
box, more specifically the greasy pizza
box. “Even though the cardboard is
theoretically recyclable material, it’s
now contaminated,” he said.
Throw greasy pizza boxes in the
trash if you’re in the city of Los Angeles.
If you’re outside the city and want to
throw the boxes in the green bin, first
make sure local rules allow it.
To understand what your local rules
are, visit CalRecycle’s website I Recycle
Smart and get reacquainted with your
area’s curbside program.
Photographs by Carolyn Cole Los Angeles Times
Sew Shop, a Los Angeles-based sewing
company. The shop accepts clothing
(shirts, shorts and jackets) and textile
(denim, cotton, wool, leather, silk and
polyester) donations daily. Then the
staff repurposes those items into sus-
tainably made pillow cases, tea towels,
sweatshirts, fanny packs and other
items.
Do you have furniture that’s in good
condition but no longer needed? It
could bring joy to a family that is transi-
tioning from homelessness or tempo-
rary living situations into permanent
housing. Moving Families Forward pro-
vides free furniture and household
items to Los Angeles families making
the transition.
Used furniture is also accepted by
organizations such as the Interna-
tional Institute of Los Angeles, which
gives used items to refugees resettling
in the area.
Books, meanwhile, can be donated
to your local library branch or the
branch’s Friends of the Library, a non-
profit that raises funds to support li-
brary services. (Give your local branch
a call to ensure they’re accepting dona-
tions.)
You can also donate books at a
neighborhood Little Free Library. Or
support a local book shop, such as
Dave’s Olde Book Shop in Redondo
Beach, which has a donations bin at the
back of the store.
To involve the whole family, make
recycling a game. Wagoner said for
Earth Day this year, she and her family
embarked on a zero-waste challenge to
reduce the family’s overall waste im-
pact.
Her son realized his favorite choco-
late milk came in a single-use con-
tainer. Together the family decided he
could continue having chocolate milk
but drink it from a reusable bottle. Wag-
oner said she’s seen a 50% reduction in
her trash because of the changes her
family has made.
Wagoner advises that people ask
themselves, “What happens to this
product at the end of its use?” and
“Where will it end up?”
THE ROAD AHEAD
Lifestyle changes you make now,
Wagoner said, will complement larger
efforts to get away from being a single-
use economy to being a circular one.
She added that many millennials and
Gen Zers are rethinking their pur-
chases based on the sustainability of
the packaging.
Trivium Packaging, a global metal
packaging company, partnered with
Euromonitor International to publish
an annual report to learn what con-
sumers value and perceive when it
comes to sustainable packaging. One
big takeaway from the report? Fifty-
nine percent of respondents look for in-
formation on the recyclability or sus-
tainability of the packaging on prod-
ucts they buy.
Another highlight: 82% of respond-
ents would be willing to pay more for
sustainable packaging.
L AT I M E S . C O M
CARDBOARD’S
IMPRESSIVE
DISAPPEARING
ACT, REVEALED
All those boxes may bring guilt
or anxiety, but the material
could be more savior than
scourge for the environment.
BY S O N JA S H A R P
W
hether it’s Tetrised
inside a delivery
truck, cradling a
cappuccino or tele-
scoping over a tam-
pon, cardboard is a
paradox.
It’s dull enough
to put people to sleep on a podcast, yet
so vital the Fed tracks it as a harbinger
of future recessions. We use tons of it —
tens of millions of tons annually, ac-
cording to the EPA — but recycle so
much that we waste 10 million tons less
than when Oscar the Grouch sang “I
Love Trash” on Sesame Street in 1970.
Back then, 18 million tons went to land-
fills. In 2018, the most recent year for
which data are available, it was 6.4 mil-
lion.
Today, even a corrugated pizza box
can be reincarnated half a dozen times
before it dies as toilet paper or compost
. It’s so aggressively neutral, it’s a syno-
nym for boring.
“I remember almost nothing about
cardboard other than there was more
to it than I thought there could be,” said
Benjamin Boster, host of “I Can’t Sleep:
A Boring Podcast,” who recently fea-
tured the material on his insomnia-cur-
ing show.
So how are we to judge cardboard?
Is it a savior or a scourge ?
Is it one of the world’s most innocu-
ous materials, or is it a symbol of our
planet-killing overconsumption?
And why does it feel like there’s so
much more now, when according to the
EPA, the volume in circulation — about
42 million tons — has fluctuated by less
than 5% since democracy hung on a few
hundred bits of paperboard (those
hanging chads) in Florida during the
2000 presidential election?
Well, after binge-buying our way
through the fat years of the pandemic,
many of us associate the Amazon boxes
we see everywhere with guilt, debt and
climate anxiety.
It’s true that e-commerce has in-
creased seven-fold — to about 15% of
American retail from just 2% — since
Amazon Prime debuted in 2005. But
the data don’t lie: The amount of stuff
we throw out has grown astronomi-
cally, while the amount of cardboard
entering the municipal waste stream
has remained, in effect, flat.
To wit: EPA data show the volume of
shoes and clothes entering landfills has
more than doubled since the turn of the
century. Sheets and towels? Doubled.
Appliances? You get the picture. As of
2018, more than 9 million tons of outfits
went to landfills, outweighing the boxes
they came in by almost a third.
What’s more, we’ve started making
stuff out of recycled cardboard: Drink-
ing straws. Happy Meal toys. Six-pack
rings. Coffins.
OUR CLIMATE CHANGE CHALLENGE
So, which is it? Is cardboard the sus-
tainable fiber of the future? Or is it the
exoskeleton of corporate
green-washing, a cynical ploy to hide
our insatiable acquisitiveness in reus-
able packaging?
The answer is a lesson in three ob-
jects.
If you want to unpack our anxiety
about cardboard, the object to start
with is not an Amazon box, but a tam-
pon.
F
ew popular products elicit a more
visceral response than the tam-
pon that drops from a public rest-
room vending machine.
The tampon in question will never
be found at the bottom of a purse, or
tucked in a desk drawer at the office.
It’s not advertised in magazines or han-
ded out at Sycamore Grove Park in
Highland Park by saintly strangers on
Dyke Day.
Nevertheless, the telescoping card-
board applicator tampon is intimately
familiar to almost anyone who’s had a
period in the last century. First patent-
ed in 1933, it remains a staple of high
school bathrooms, highway rest stops
and coming-of-age stories.
“It has that muffin top, so when you
insert it, it’s pretty painful,” said Sarah
Howard, marketing director at the free-
vend company Aunt Flow, one of the
few producers to update the cardboard
applicator since the New Deal.
It also happens to be one of the first
cardboard products consumers ever
touched. A contemporary of the mod-
ern cardboard egg crate, which was
patented 11 months earlier, the card-
board tampon applicator predates the
cardboard cigarette box by more than
two decades.
Sit with that: In the timescale of ev-
eryday objects, the Marlboro hard pack
is closer to the cardboard Barbie
Dream House than it is to the Tampax
in the vending machine at Venice High.
Tampons are wildly popular in the
“WE USE U.S. Americans use more than 5 billion
cardboard be- of them a year, data show. (Per capita,
cause it’s fun,” only Germans and Austrians use
says Jonathan more.) But since the 1990s, the over-
Bijur, below, whelming majority of those tampons
executive direc- have come cased in plastic, meaning
tor of the re- plastic applicators outnumber plastic
Discover Cen- straws by an order of magnitude in the
ter in West L.A. municipal waste stream.
“People just So concerted was the marketing
have good asso- push to plastic that, by 2015, cardboard
ciations with applicator tampons were circling the
playing with drain.
that cardboard Then, in July of 2018 — the height of
box.” straw-ban summer — New York intro-
Jay L. Clendenin Los Angeles Times
S S U N DAY , AU G U S T 27 , 2 0 23
duced free cardboard-applicator tam-
pons in public schools. Attendance im-
proved by 2.4%. Eleven states and the
District of Columbia soon followed suit.
Two dozen states now provision free
menstrual products to those they in-
carcerate, while a growing number also
mandate them in homeless shelters,
community colleges, public universi-
ties and government buildings.
Today, you can find free tampons at
Disneyland in Anaheim, Nationals
Park in Washington, D.C., and in every
public restroom in Ann Arbor, Mich.
And enveloping almost every single
one of those tampons is a telescoping
cardboard applicator.
“Our clients really care about reduc-
ing waste,” Howard explained. “[Elimi-
nating] plastic products, that’s really
important to them.”
Aunt Flow’s updated tampons can
be found at Google, Princeton and
throughout the Utah public school sys-
tem. But most machines still vend old-
school “War Worker” tampons.
Those tampons haven’t changed.
Public morals did. That’s how an object
of stark utility — a product that took off
because it was cheap, durable and uni-
form enough to fit millions of munitions
workers trying to beat the Nazis in
World War II — became a byword for en-
vironmental stewardship and men-
strual equity.
The difference between biodegrad-
able tampon applicators and biode-
gradable drink straws is that one helps
poor kids miss less school and the other
makes beverages very marginally
worse.
It’s function.
That’s the first lesson: Cardboard
works. We use it because it’s useful.
O
K, but what about Pogs?
Remember Pogs?
A reincarnation of the long-
defunct cardboard milk cap,
Pogs were a brief schoolyard obsession
in the mid-’90s.
Two billion were sold in Hawaii
alone between 1992 and 1993, back when
Americans used roughly two-thirds of
the cardboard we do today.
That’s billion with a B.
Pogs are our second object because
they’re literally useless. They were pro-
motional ephemera for a juice drink un-
til fifth-graders at Waialua Elementary
School started playing with them.
Pogs are a reminder that genera-
tions grew up playing with cardboard,
whether it was shaped like a milk cap or
a brick or a jigsaw puzzle or a Minion.
Starting next year, even Happy Meal
toys will be made out of cardboard,
which makes Happy Meals another ob-
ject lesson for cardboard-as-public-
morality. But that’s not why most of us
play with it.
“We use cardboard because it’s fun,”
said Jonathan Bijur, executive director
of the reDiscover Center, a nonprofit
maker space in West L.A. that special-
izes in the material. “People just have
good associations with playing with
that cardboard box.”
To a child, a box can be a doll’s house
or a rocket ship, a camera obscura or a
magic carpet sailing down the concrete
slides in Golden Gate Park.
At reDiscover, it can also be skew-
ered, tabbed, notched, hinged, folded,
slotted, bracketed, linked, scored, L-
braced, gusseted, curved and cured
into any number of imaginative toys.
Unlike other toys kids might play
with, those things are intended to be
used up, and discarded.
“This is an ephemeral. This is tem-
porary,” Bijur said. “You’re going to
have fun making it. And then we’re go-
ing to throw it away.”
AA17
Christina House Los Angeles Times
Unlike Giga Pet shells or Beanie
Baby guts, which will still be in landfills
in 500 years, most Pogs would have bio-
degraded a few weeks after they were
thrown out, probably around the time
NAFTA was signed. (So if you’re asking
yourself if you should bother to toss
that cardboard box into a recycling bin,
the answer is yes.)
And that’s the second lesson.
Cardboard really does disappear
when we’re done with it. After it’s been
an Amazon box and a watermelon bulk
bin and a pizza box and a Happy Meal
toy and a tampon applicator, it will dis-
integrate about as quickly as the toilet
paper that applicator is wrapped in.
T
he last object is — obviously — a
box.
Not an Amazon box — that
would be too obvious — but the
cardboard that has encased virtually
all wholesale, pre-market goods since
about 1910. Before Amazon, this “sec-
ondary packaging” was broken down
and baled by grocers and big box stores
without consumers ever clapping eyes
on it.
Most of it still is. Today, the over-
whelming majority of cardboard exists
simply to move stuff from manufactur-
ers to stores.
But the pandemic forced an unprec-
edented shift to home delivery. “We’ve
gone from a larger box to a lot of smaller
boxes,” said Pete Keller, vice president
of recycling and sustainability at Re-
public Services, one of California’s ma-
jor recycling firms. “The drop we saw in
commercial [at the peak of COVID], we
saw basically the identical increase in
residential. It was almost a like-for-like
swap.”
In other words, what’s changed isn’t
how much cardboard we use, but how
much we see.
“[E-commerce] hasn’t dramatically
changed the amount of corrugated,”
said Rachel Kenyon, senior vice presi-
dent of the Fibre Box Assn., an industry
group. “People are more aware of the
packaging today because they’re see-
ing it on their doorstep.”
The environmental impact of that
shift is nuanced and annoyingly hard to
calculate.
But the human toll is clearer.
“It’s significantly affected workers’
quality of life,” said Victor Mineros, sec-
retary treasurer of Teamsters Local
396, which represents the UPS workers
dropping off boxes and sanitation
workers who retrieve them. “The vol-
ume of work is a lot higher, the days are
hotter, and these workers are suffering
from fatigue.”
Delivery trucks often have no air
conditioning. The hours required to en-
sure one-day delivery are crushing.
And though the share of e-commerce
has slumped somewhat since its
COVID peak, there’s no sign it will re-
verse.
Through it all, the UPS corporate
profit margin nearly doubled. Yet it
took months of negotiations and weeks
of practice pickets to win raises, more
full-time jobs, and air conditioning in
all new fleets, averting a strike that
could have kneecapped e-commerce
and ground much of retail to a halt.
And that’s the lesson of the box.
Cardboard’s unparalleled utility, its
near-magical ability to vanish once it’s
no longer needed — none of it changes
its primary function or how many peo-
ple are ground down by this one facet of
our lust for more things. The same ma-
terial that keeps kids in school and pro-
motes play in its purest form is also the
last point of friction — indeed, the last
vestige of human contact — in a world
of free shipping and no-fault returns.
LAT I M E S . C O M
Photographs by
of 26.5% in global warming potential.
Mass timber is also produced in prefab
panels, which means it can be milled to
the dimensions of a project, limiting
waste, staging and construction time.
If a mass timber building is torn down,
wood can be reused. When concrete
meets the wrecking ball, it generally
ends up as landfill.
Certainly, just because it’s wood
doesn’t make it environmental. Clear-
cutting, for example, is devastating to
local ecologies.
“Part of our job is to ask the right
questions,” Robinson says. “You’re
really trying to identify forests that are
managed in a way that really thinks
about sustainable forest practices for
the long term.”
Lever prefers wood that has re-
ceived sustainability certifications
from the Forest Stewardship Council,
which includes the timber used in the
Spring Street project. Transport to the
site is also key. Wood for the building
was harvested in British Columbia and
transferred to L.A. by ship, which is less
carbon intensive than trucking.
The Spring Street building is a hy-
brid structure, meaning it still employs
steel and concrete. But this is mitigated
by other elements in the design.
Rather than tear out the vacant big-
box store that inhabited the site, the
architects built on top of it, thereby
avoiding additional emissions and
demolition waste. In the existing
underground lot, they added stacked
parking, which made room for addi-
tional cars without more digging, and
— more important — added generous
bicycle storage. (The building practi-
cally sits on top of the Chinatown stop
of the A Line, making it an ideal hub for
multimodal transit.) Unusual for a
commercial building, the design also
prioritizes fresh air: Each unit has op-
erable windows and sliding doors that
allow for passive ventilation.
No building can be carbon-zero —
construction consumes resources. But
the process can be far less carbon inten-
sive. And, as 843 N. Spring also proves,
it can look really good.
A PARK FOR THE
21ST CENTURY
Imagine a hilly Southern California
landscape about a third the size of Grif-
fith Park. Now imagine stuffing that
landscape full of garbage for 56 years.
That is the story of the westernmost
edge of the Puente Hills in the San Ga-
briel Valley, where, for decades, roughly
a third of L.A. County’s trash was de-
posited. The landfill was shut down in
2013, and this highly engineered
mountaintop — which on a clear day of-
fers views of downtown L.A., the San
Gabriel Mountains and the northern
reaches of Orange County — is now
slated to become the first new regional
county park in three decades: the Puen-
te Hills Landfill Park.
The park will not be the first to be
built on a landfill. Notable landfill parks
include the wonderfully named Mount
Trashmore in Virginia Beach, Va., and
Cesar Chávez Park on the Berkeley
waterfront. Currently, the Freshkills
Landfill on New York’s Staten Island is
in the process of being converted into a
park. Closer to home, the South Coast
Botanical Garden in Palos Verdes also
sits on landfill.
But Puente Hills is in a position to
benefit from decades of research into
more effectively restoring these de-
graded landscapes.
OUR CLIMATE CHANGE CHALLENGE
Myung J. Chun Los Angeles Times, top and left; Jeff Durkin Brooks + Scarpa, above
CLOCKWISE The use of drip irrigation and re-
from top left, claimed water, for example, has grown
terraces at the more sophisticated, as has the atten-
Puente Hills tion to what is planted in public parks.
Park project, “The knowledge base and availabili-
which involves ty of native plant material is much
re-landscaping
a vast former
landfill into a
recreation area;
843 N. Spring
greater now,” says Mia Lehrer, founder
of Studio-MLA, the L.A.-based land-
scape architecture firm that is working
with L.A. County’s Department of
Parks and Recreation and the neigh-
in Chinatown boring San Gabriel Valley communities
replaces con- to determine what features will be used
crete with wood at the site. “There are nurseries that
and reuses a big grow native grasses, that grow chapar-
box building; ral plants. Even conventional nurseries
the Rose Mixed understand that all of these plants
Use Apart- make a difference and matter.”
ments in Venice Puente Hills isn’t simply an oppor-
incorporate tunity to create a pleasant green space.
roof gardens. It’s an opportunity to restore vital hab-
itat. As she leads me up a hillside on a
hazy morning in June, Lehrer points to
the eucalyptus trees that cover the
landfill’s western slopes — trees that
are not only an invasive species, but
also represent a fire hazard. Lehrer
hopes to replace eucalyptus with native
species such as oak.
“It would create an important
biomass,” she says, “and help local bird
species.”
Puente Hills also represents an op-
portunity to design a park not in a top-
down fashion, but in a way that truly en-
gages the surrounding communities —
communities that have suffered
through decades of rumbling garbage
trucks, vermin infestations and infer-
nal smells as a result of the dump.
“The climate crisis has made it ur-
gent to think about this in an inte-
grated way,” says David Diaz Avelar, di-
rector of ActiveSGV, an equity and mo-
bility advocacy group based in neigh-
boring El Monte. It’s about “water
capture, green space development,
habitat restoration, workforce devel-
opment and environmental justice in
park-poor areas.”
Designers from Studio-MLA have
been meeting with a group of students
from three high schools, for whom this
will be a hands-on learning experience
in environmental stewardship and
landscape design. As the design proc-
ess moves forward, the Studio-MLA
team also hopes to involve students
from neighboring Rio Hondo College.
Says Lehrer: “We want to try to build
that sense of ownership and commit-
ment on the part of the community.”
The outreach is giving shape to a de-
sign that will be very different from
what might have been executed in the
1970s, when some of the bigger landfill
parks first began to emerge. Earlier this
month, the team at Studio-MLA pre-
sented publicly for the first time a pre-
liminary design concept for the first
phase of the project, which will cover
142 acres and is set to break ground in
2025. It includes horse trails for a local
community of vaqueros as well as an
ADA-compliant ramp that will lead to
the top of Nike Hill, a popular view-
point. In addition to open meadows for
events and passive recreation, a cere-
monial space for local Indigenous com-
munities is being proposed.
Norma Edith García-Gonzalez, di-
rector of the Los Angeles County parks
department, says the project is exciting
for all that it represents — socially and
environmentally.
“We have to preserve pristine land,
but in an urban area where people re-
side — especially Black and brown peo-
ple — we also need to restore,” she says.
“It’s an act of healing.”
S S U N DAY , AU G U S T 27 , 2 0 23 AA19
THE WRITING’S
ON THE WALL —
AND IN THESE
BOOKS ON
CLIMATE CHANGE
Environmental reporter
Rosanna Xia shares a list of
some of her go-to nonfiction
and fiction books.
W
ant to read more
about climate
change but not sure
where to start? As
an environmental
writer and self-
proclaimed book
geek, I get this
question quite often from friends and
family (not to mention from my own
colleagues in the newsroom).
So we figured it was time for me to
share a list of books I’ve found helpful,
for newbies and experts alike. Some
titles are older, others more recent —
and each one is strikingly prescient on
how climate change touches every
aspect of our lives.
This list is by no means comprehen-
sive, but consider it a snapshot of
all the many ways you can connect
more deeply with the issue. Perhaps
it’s a practical guidebook on carbon
footprints, or a sharp essay collection,
or a rigorous assessment of how we
relate to the natural world. I’ve also
included a few novels at the end, in
case fiction is more your jam.
et’s start with nonfiction. Here
L are 16 books (listed in alphabeti-
cal order) that I find myself rec-
ommending, time and time again:
“All We Can Save: Truth, Courage,
and Solutions for the Climate Crisis”
edited by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson
and Katharine K. Wilkinson (One
World, 2020): Scientists, teachers,
poets, journalists, activists and law-
yers come together in this thought-
provoking collection of essays, all
written by women working at the fore-
front of climate action. Filled with
compassion and nuance, this book
offers audacious hope and much-
needed inspiration.
“At Home on an Unruly Planet: Find-
ing Refuge on a Changed Earth” by
Madeline Ostrander (Henry Holt,
2022): Through on-the-ground stories
and profound reflections, Ostrander
weaves together vivid accounts of the
fires and floods already reshaping four
communities on the front lines of cli-
mate change (including in Richmond,
Calif.). Lessons of resilience bring this
book home, as we learn to adapt and
reconsider how we want to live.
“Beloved Beasts: Fighting for Life in
an Age of Extinction” by Michelle
Nijhuis (W.W. Norton, 2021): This book
taught me so much about how the
conservation movement came to be.
It’s a critical — and elegantly written —
examination of the Western-centric
systems guiding environmentalism
today. Unsparing with the racism and
colonialism baked into modern species
protection, Nijhuis helps us under-
stand how to avoid repeating the mis-
takes of our past as we reckon with our
future.
“Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous
Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and
the Teachings of Plants” by Robin
Wall Kimmerer (Milkweed, 2013): Peo-
ple are a part of nature, not separate
from nature, and this quiet but power-
ful book has shifted the way hundreds
of thousands of people see the world.
Kimmerer, who is a botanist, professor
and an enrolled member of the Citizen
Potawatomi Nation, braids Western
science with Indigenous knowledge in
a tender and mind-opening way. Origi-
nally published in 2013, the latest edi-
tion comes with a new introduction.
“The Carbon Footprint of Every-
thing” by Mike Berners-Lee (Grey-
stone Books, 2022): What is the carbon
[See Books, AA20]
LAT I M E S . C O M
climate crisis, conservation efforts and
proposed infrastructure projects.
His openness to listening is a wel-
come change and a sign that he is try-
ing to take the agency in a new direc-
tion, said Charming Evelyn, who chairs
the Sierra Club’s water committee in
Southern California. She said she sees
him as a “people pleaser,” who knows
what each camp wants to hear and is
careful not to antagonize anyone while
trying to strike a balance.
“He is walking a tightrope,” Evelyn
said, “trying to please the folks that
have been there a very, very long time,
that don’t like change, and trying to see
how he can implement change in incre-
ments.”
She said she expects Hagekhalil’s
campaign will be a difficult test, a
“rough road.”
Hagekhalil is optimistic.
“I think it’s a great opportunity to
really reshape the future and build the
infrastructure for the next hundred
years,” he said. “Time is not on our side.
We cannot act with anything less than
urgency.”
Hagekhalil said California’s current
water challenges demand ambitious
innovations on the scale of the works
planned more than a century ago by
William Mulholland, who led L.A.’s wa-
ter department and oversaw the con-
struction of the aqueduct that took wa-
ter from the Eastern Sierra and en-
abled the rise of Los Angeles. Now, he
said, Southern California needs a new
“Mulholland moment,” but one based
on a new ethic of developing solutions
to withstand climate change.
n a recent morning, Hagekhalil
O met with workers at the Robert
B. Diemer Water Treatment
Plant in Yorba Linda, where he
spoke about the importance of work-
place safety and the changes he is pri-
oritizing. He talked about the climate
adaptation plan the district is prepar-
ing to become more resilient and more
self-reliant on local sources.
“What we did the last hundred years
was great, but we know that the Col-
orado River is drying up,” Hagekhalil
said. “The future is ensuring that every-
one has safe, reliable water across the
region, with no one left behind.”
After taking questions, Hagekhalil
handed out raffle prizes, including wa-
ter bottles and earbuds.
Then an employee drove him to the
MWD headquarters in downtown Los
Angeles. Walking into his office, he
passed a wall with rows of black-and-
white portraits of the 13 other men who
have led the agency since its founding
in 1928, followed by a color photo of
Hagekhalil smiling.
He has used his office window,
which overlooks the 101 Freeway, as a
whiteboard of sorts, with a list of five
bulleted words written in black marker
on the glass: Empower. Sustain. Pro-
tect. Adapt. Partner.
Hagekhalil said he distilled his goals
into these five categories, which he calls
“anchors,” to guide the organization.
In a series of meetings with man-
agers, Hagekhalil discussed a project in
the Antelope Valley that will store wa-
ter underground, efforts to work with
partner agencies to bank water else-
where, and the district’s plans to re-
work its system to provide redundancy
in areas that now rely solely on impor-
ted water from Northern California via
the State Water Project.
He chatted by phone with Assem-
blymember Laura Friedman (D-Glen-
dale) about a bill the district is sup-
porting to prohibit the use of drinking
water for grass that is purely decorative
along roads and outside businesses.
Hagekhalil received an update on a
planned project in Carson called Pure
Water Southern California, which is
slated to become the country’s largest
wastewater recycling facility, at a cost
of $5 billion to $7 billion. It’s scheduled
to deliver its first water as soon as 2028,
OUR CLIMATE CHANGE CHALLENGE
‘It’s a great opportunity
to really reshape the
future and build the
infrastructure for the
next hundred years.
Time is not on our side.’
— A D E L H AG E K H A L I L
and later reach full capacity in 2032,
treating 150 million gallons a day,
enough to supply about half a million
homes.
That recycled water is intended to
help offset declines in supplies from the
shrinking Colorado River — a goal that
agencies in Nevada and Arizona have
supported by contributing money for
the planning work.
Hagekhalil said he expects the
share of water that Southern California
gets from imported sources, now about
50%, to shrink in the coming decades to
roughly 30%. He said that will be driven
by expected long-term declines in avail-
able supplies from the Colorado River
and the Sacramento-San Joaquin
River Delta, a gap that will need to be
filled with other supplies.
The district also must prepare for
more of the heat-supercharged “cli-
mate whiplash” conditions that Cali-
fornia has been experiencing, he said,
including the driest three-year period
S S U N DAY , AU G U S T 27 , 2 0 23 AA21
Later, as fighting raged between the
Lebanese military and militia fighters
in 1984, his family was living in a second-
story apartment when a rocket hit, rip-
ping through the home and exploding
on the floor below, killing many neigh-
bors. Hagekhalil, who was then 19, said
he remembers his mother had him lie in
a bathtub and covered him so he
wouldn’t be wounded.
When the family fled to an under-
ground shelter, Hagekhalil carried his
grandmother, who was ill. He also
carried two suitcases and remembers
stepping past dead bodies as he fled.
After a stint living in a hotel,
Hagekhalil and his parents took a cab
to Syria and boarded a flight out of the
country. They moved to Houston,
where Hagekhalil’s older brother was
living, and embraced their new home.
“Deep inside, when you go through
this trauma, it stays with you. And
that’s why I don’t like to see people who
are traumatized,” Hagekhalil said. “I
want to help people.”
He said he isn’t particularly reli-
gious, but he follows the teachings of Is-
lam in seeking to care for others. Early
in life, Hagekhalil wanted to become a
doctor to help save lives. Even though
he ended up studying engineering, he
said he sees his current work of ensur-
ing people have clean water as being, in
a way, about saving lives.
“To me, I’m the top surgeon now,” he
said with a chuckle. “So it starts from
my dream of being a doctor, to now
probably being a water doctor.”
Continuing with the analogy, he
said he’s working to “help heal this pa-
tient that we’re dealing with because of
climate change, to make it continue for
the future and live long.”
Doing that requires shifting the
agency’s focus from being purely a wa-
Photographs by Brian van der Brug Los Angeles Times ter importer to being more of a regional
steward and caretaker of water, he said,
“a co-op to build this reliability system
for everyone.” He said the transforma-
on record from 2020 to 2022, followed by tion also requires changing the finan-
one of the wettest winters in decades. cial model from one that depends on
Even with the state’s reservoirs now selling imported water to member
nearly full, Hagekhalil said it’s crucial agencies, to one that will support in-
not to lose momentum on building in- vestments in local infrastructure.
frastructure projects such as the water “ ‘How are we going to pay for it?’ is
recycling facility, because the state going to be the biggest discussion that
could soon be dealing with even more
severe bouts of dryness.
the board should take on,” he said.
While the agency’s former leaders
Last year, the drought situation was helped spearhead a controversial state
so dire that the district imposed man- proposal to build a water tunnel in the
datory water restrictions in areas that Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta,
depend on the State Water Project, af- Hagekhalil has taken a different ap-
fecting nearly 7 million people and lead- proach, saying he hopes to see more
ing to a dramatic reduction in water analysis of the long-term water-supply
use. Hagekhalil said the shortages benefits that the project would bring.
could have worsened if the drought had “We can’t put all our eggs in that one
persisted, and he intends to prevent a basket. In the past, everyone was fo-
repeat of — or any scenarios like — the cused on the delta as the solution for
crisis of 2017-18 in Cape Town, South Af- our future,” he said. “We need to diver-
rica, when residents lined up to fill jugs sify. We need to look at other options.”
as declining reservoirs approached a At the same time, Hagekhalil sees
feared “Day Zero.” one of his key tasks as addressing the
“I don’t want people ever to be in a organization’s internal woes, including
place where they do not have water,” issues of discrimination and harass-
Hagekhalil said. “This cannot happen ment of women, which last year led to a
here.” scathing state audit showing the dis-
trict failed to commit resources to
properly investigate complaints of mis-
agekhalil’s values and views conduct, among other failings.
H were partly shaped by his expe-
riences growing up during the
civil war in Lebanon, where his
Palestinian family lived through blood-
shed, hardships and water shortages.
Hagekhalil tells his managers they are
crucial in “creating this culture of inclu-
sion.”
This isn’t the first time Hagekhalil
has campaigned for change. In his pre-
For a time in 1982, after Israeli troops in- vious work for the city of L.A., he led
vaded, they had no running water at various efforts, including reducing
home, so Hagekhalil would line up to fill sewer spills and experimenting with ef-
two jugs at a communal spigot. forts to cool streets by painting pave-
“When that water came out and you ment a light shade to reflect sunlight.
filled your jugs, you’re coming home, At times, he showed his playful side.
you’d have a big smile,” Hagekhalil said. In the early 2000s, when the city
“I know what the value of water is.” launched a campaign urging restau-
rants to stop dumping grease into sew-
ers, Hagekhalil dressed up as a super-
hero called the Grease Avenger, ap-
pearing at community events wearing a
blue leotard, mask and purple cape. He
said the gimmick worked, helping to
raise awareness.
Now, his goals are bigger and his re-
sponsibilities are weighty. But he said
AT MWD he’s simply building on an approach he
HEAD- has always taken in his work: never say-
QUARTERS, ing no to a difficult task.
Hagekhail has He said his style as a manager draws
written “strate- on a bit of wisdom he gleaned years ago
gic priorities” from the title of a book about stress and
on his office spirituality by Brian Luke Seaward:
window over- “Stand Like Mountain, Flow Like
looking down- Water.”
town L.A. Be- Hagekhalil said he thinks about be-
low, his por- ing strong to face challenges but being
trait, in color, “flexible, adaptable and welcoming like
hangs among water.”
those of other “You can move around the chal-
men who have lenges you’re facing, and not be
led the agency. stopped in that effort,” he said.
AA22 SU N DAY , AU G U S T 27 , 2 0 23 SS
OUR CLIMATE CHANGE CHALLENGE
CALIFORNIA HAS BEGUN TAKING
ACTION ON THE CLIMATE. URGENCY
IS THE WORD, SCIENTISTS SAY
The effects of global warming will unfold over the next two to three decades,
experts warn. What happens beyond that depends on what we do today.
BY D O RA N Y P I N E DA
I
n the opening chapter of “The Ministry for the Fu-
ture,” science-fiction author Kim Stanley Robinson
details a calamitous heat wave that kills almost all the
residents of a small town. In another chapter, he ima-
gines a catastrophic flood that wipes out Los Angeles.
The late Octavia Butler described a Southern Cali-
fornia reeling from years of drought in “Parable of the
Sower,” and Paolo Bacigalupi writes about a near-fu-
ture Southwest that’s also been devastated by
drought.
Sci-fi writers have long conceived worlds in which extreme
weather events upend the lives of inhabitants, but with every
passing, warming year, their scenarios feel more prophetic.
Last September, record-shattering temperatures nearly
broke the state’s power grid, and according to a Times investiga-
tion, extreme heat waves are killing more Californians than offi-
cial records show. In the winter, after the driest three-year period
on record that dried up wells and forced farmers to fallow fields,
atmospheric river storms pummeled the state. Farms flooded.
Levees failed.
For decades, scientists have warned us that human-caused
climate change will produce a growing number of weather catas-
trophes. But as the impact of global warming unfolds across the
world, events once expected to happen decades from now are al-
ready here.
A new study warned that burned areas in California could in-
crease up to 52% by 2050 relative to the last several decades. But
“megafires” in the state scorched about 50% more land in 2020
compared with 2018, the state’s biggest year for wildfires before
that.
Dozens of people died. Thousands of structures were de-
stroyed. The carbon pollution from the 2020 wildfires effectively
negated nearly 20 years of state greenhouse gas emission reduc-
tions. Climate change is also aggravating air pollution, exacer-
bating inequalities for low-income, non-white and other margin-
A CROW, top, is silhouetted against a smoky sun in Garden Grove during wildfires in 2020. The carbon pollution from
those blazes effectively negated nearly 20 years of state greenhouse gas emission cuts.
L AT I M E S . C O M
alized communities.
“The simple equation is climate change, warmer atmos-
phere, more intense rain, more pollution, more problems but
also major catastrophic infrastructure damage,” said Stefanie
Sekich, senior manager of Surfrider Foundation’s coast and cli-
mate initiative. Just last year, coastal erosion temporarily halted
a scenic train route along the California coast, and land
subsidence — a result of overpumping of groundwater driven by
worsening droughts — has damaged canals, aqueducts and
roads in the Central Valley.
“I can’t stress enough the importance of people starting to
wake up to the fact that these extreme weather events are now
here, whereas maybe five to 10 years ago, especially on the West
Coast, they weren’t as prevalent,” she said. “And now they’re
here, they’re overwhelming, and they’re only going to get worse.”
Although experts agree that the consequences of global
warming will inevitably unfold over the next two to three dec-
ades, what happens beyond that will, to a great extent, depend
on actions today.
California officials are making efforts to adapt to a changing
climate and to mitigate worst-case projections. In 2021, Gov.
Gavin Newsom signed a $15-billion package to fight and prepare
for global warming.
In 2022, the state passed nearly 40 climate change laws aimed
at slashing greenhouse gas emissions, Sekich said. Among them
was legislation requiring all new vehicles sold in California to be
zero-emission or plug-in hybrids by 2035, and another requiring
a combination of renewable and zero-carbon sources to make up
90% of statewide electricity sales by 2030 and 95% by 2035.
California is “absolutely moving in the right direction” toward
becoming more resilient and sustainable, said Alex Hall, a pro-
fessor at UCLA’s Institute of the Environment and Sustainabil-
ity. At the moment, he warned, change isn’t happening on a scale
that’s large enough to make a meaningful difference — but he
has hope. [See Urgency, AA23]
Allen J. Schaben Los Angeles Times
L AT I M E S . C O M
[Urgency, from AA22]
“I think the fact that we’re thinking
about these things so deeply, and that
we have examples of challenges where
we have made a start on identifying the
underlying problems, and building the
infrastructure to generate solutions,
that we now have experiences, that’s
the foundation that you need to make
more profound change at scale,” Hall
said.
Here’s a snapshot of projections for
California’s “big five climate threats,”
what’s being done, and where we’re fall-
ing short:
EXTREME HEAT
Perhaps the most devastating im-
pact of a warming planet can be seen in
extreme heat events. California suf-
fered its worst heat wave less than a
year ago, and the state’s six warmest
years have all occurred since 2014.
A 2021 investigation published by
the Los Angeles Times found that Cali-
fornia chronically undercounts heat-
related deaths. In Los Angeles, ex-
treme heat is the city’s biggest climate
threat and greatest cause of climate-re-
lated deaths and hospital visits.
By 2050, daily maximum average
temperatures in California are ex-
pected to rise by 4.4 to 5.8 degrees, and
heat waves in cities could cause two to
three times more heat-related deaths.
Extreme heat that can adversely im-
pact human health is projected to last
two weeks longer in the Central Valley
and will happen four to 10 times more
frequently around the Northern Sierra
region, according to a state report. By
the late century, state temperatures
are projected to increase by 5.6 to 8.8 de-
grees, with the greatest increase ex-
pected if greenhouse gas emissions re-
main unchanged.
California has attempted to re-
spond to those imminent threats. Last
year, Newsom announced the state’s
Extreme Heat Action Plan with the
goal to protect Californians from rising
temperatures.
In addition, Los Angeles appointed
its first chief heat officer, Marta Segura,
who said she’s putting an equity lens on
climate solutions. She’s working to
identify neighborhoods where cooling
centers can save lives, and she’s making
plans to plant trees and preserve exist-
ing ones as well as install shade struc-
tures and hydration stations in public
spaces.
Segura said that targeting the most
vulnerable communities could maxi-
mize investments and results but ad-
mitted that the city needs a sustainable
funding source to execute its top-pri-
ority projects. Segura was given $1 mil-
lion in allocated funds when she was
appointed.
As for the rest of the state, she said
cities need to share a unified vision “of
creating healthier, thriving communi-
ties, avoiding preventable deaths and
hospitalizations, and ensuring that
they know that their primary role is to
avoid those disaster scenarios.”
“It’s really important for cities to
understand that,” Segura said, “and
then to understand that it’s going to be
this equity lens that’s going to help
large cities like Los Angeles, because
that’s where we will see the most im-
provement, the most change and most
regional impact.”
WILDFIRES
Studies have warned that wildfires
will scorch an increasing number of
acres in California in the coming years.
If greenhouse gas emissions keep
rising, the average area of land burned
will increase 77% by 2100, and wildfire
insurance will rise about 18% by 2055,
according to California’s Fourth Cli-
mate Change Assessment.
But wildfires will play out differently
across the state depending on the land-
scape, said Max A. Moritz, a UC Cooper-
ative Extension wildfire specialist. Fire-
stoking Santa Ana winds will play a role
in Southern California too, but just how
a warming climate might change them
remains a question, he said.
Some experts have criticized policy-
makers for focusing too much on wild-
fire response rather than prevention
and limiting community exposures to
fire hazards. Those responses could in-
clude avoiding building in the most fire-
prone areas and buffering neighbor-
hoods with parks or agricultural lands,
Moritz said.
California has made efforts to pre-
pare for worsening wildfires. Newsom’s
2021 $15-billion climate change package
included $1.5 billion for wildfire re-
sponse and forest resilience.
Nonprofits like the Climate and
Wildfire Institute are connecting the
science community to decision-makers
in an effort to address megafires.
There’s also been a push for databases
and tool kits — a set of resources for lo-
cal governments and communities —
that support climate resilience-plan-
ning efforts. But they tend to be fuel-
oriented and derived from a forested-
landscape mentality, Moritz said, and
those don’t work well in shrub land and
other non-forested areas.
“For Southern California, we have a
different set of mitigation measures
that need to rise to the top, and we’re
still moving along that path,” he said.
SEA LEVEL RISE
The California coast is disappear-
ing. Melting glaciers, ice sheets and
ocean water expansion from warming
are causing the sea to rise, and the
Golden State is particularly vulnera-
ble, with nearly 70% of the population
living in coastal areas.
In the next three decades, sea level
rise on the West Coast is expected to be
between 4 and 8 inches, according to
the most recent Sea Level Rise Techni-
cal Report.
OUR CLIMATE CHANGE CHALLENGE
Photographs by (top, from left) Ringo H.W. Chiu Associated Press, Jae C. Hong Associated Press; (bottom, from left) Carolyn Cole Los Angeles Times, Luis Sinco Los Angeles Times
California’s drought stripes
Climate change is intensifying
the natural water cycle between
wet periods and droughts.
The graphic below shows the
intensity and duration of
droughts and wet periods in
California since the 1980s. Over
the last decade, the state has
endured more frequent and
severe dry periods punctuated by
fewer wet years.
Drier Wetter
1980
1985
1990
1995
2000
2005
2010
2015
2020
Data are measured in five-day increments.
Stripes are colored based on the “one-year
standardized precipitation evapotranspiration
index,” or the one-year standard deviation of
water balance from the average.
Data as of June 14.
Katherine Hegewisch and John Abatzoglou,
Historical Drought Stripes, Climate Toolbox
S ea n G reene Los Angeles Times
Projections beyond that are uncer-
tain and will depend on emissions re-
ductions and how quickly ice sheets re-
spond to warming, said Patrick
Barnard, research director at the U.S.
Geological Survey’s Pacific Coastal
and Marine Science Center in Santa
Cruz. But data show it’s accelerating.
“We’ve more than doubled the rate of
sea level rise over the last decade com-
pared to the sort of more historical
past,” he said.
Some projections warn that with-
out massive human intervention, up to
67% of state beaches could completely
erode by 2100. Transportation infra-
structure such as airports and high-
ways will be susceptible to flooding
from storm surges and sea level rise, or
both, without protective measures.
Sekich from the Surfrider Founda-
tion said that California, like the rest of
the country, is falling short on “proac-
tive adaptation planning. Looking at
roads that need to either be elevated or
relocated. Infrastructure that is just
chronically in a repetitive flood zone,
and dealing with that,” she said. “I feel
like we’re not looking at long-term solu-
tions. We’re just looking at Band-Aid
approaches.”
But Sekich added that the state is
ahead of the curve when it comes to
greenhouse reductions and imple-
menting nature-based solutions, such
as reviving dunes, which could act as
natural flood protection from sea level
rise and storm surges. “That’s the
beauty of it: We’re leveraging the power
of nature to protect nature. And that’s a
pretty hopeful thing.”
DROUGHT
Climate change is increasing the fre-
quency, intensity and duration of Cali-
fornia droughts. Warmer temperatures
are enhancing evaporation, which
dries out soils and plants, and reduces
surface water. This will lead to drier
seasonal conditions and contribute to
water scarcity.
Rising temperatures are also reduc-
ing Sierra Nevada snowpack — a natu-
ral reservoir that traditionally supplies
California with a third of its water. With
more precipitation falling as rain in-
stead of snow, and as snow melts more
quickly, that supply of stored water will
shrink. Some projections estimate that
by the end of the century, California’s
snowpack will plummet by 48% to 65%.
And some scientists have projected
that the Colorado River, which serves
about 40 million people, could lose
about one-fourth of its flow by 2050 as
the climate gets hotter and drier.
Nicola Ulibarri, associate professor
in urban planning and public policy at
UC Irvine, said among the biggest chal-
lenges in preparing for drought is
“short-term memory.” Her research
has found that people think about and
deal with drought during dry years, but
“it immediately falls off as soon as the
water has come back,” she said.
But she said California’s efforts to
diversify its water supplies are a good
step toward managing and preparing
for longer, more intense and more fre-
quent dry periods. “Instead of relying
on one or two sources they’ve always
had, [California is thinking]: How can
we think about building out our recy-
cled water capacity? Or how could we
think about … water-bank-type situa-
tions so that they can use water when
SS S U N DAY , AU G U S T 27 , 2 0 23 AA23
CLOCKWISE it’s available, but then store some of
from top left: A that extra water for future years.”
crew member
fights the Lake
fire in Angeles FLOODING
National Forest Projections indicate that global
in August 2020. warming is also contributing to more
Stephanie intense wet periods and heightening
Williams cools the whiplash transition between peri-
off on Skid Row ods of extended drought and intense
during an ex- precipitation.
cessive-heat One study projects that by the latter
warning. At part of the century, extreme storms
Lake Mead, the could bring 200% to 400% more runoff
nation’s largest in the Sierra Nevada because intense
reservoir, low precipitation will fall as rain rather
water levels in than snow. Researchers say such con-
June 2022 ex- ditions will increase the risk of
pose the intake megafloods — inundations equivalent
towers that to California’s Great Flood of 1862,
feed the Hoover which killed thousands and formed a
Dam’s power vast inland sea hundreds of miles long.
generators. Although climate researchers point
Seal Beach out that this year’s storms were not the
maintenance worst in California’s history, they do of-
worker Jack fer a glimpse of the destructive floods
Corrigan posi- scientists have warned about.
tions pumping By 2072, experts predict that peak
tubes during flood flows in the Central Valley will in-
high surf in crease up to five times compared with
May. historical records, according to a re-
cent flood protection plan for that area.
Future flooding would threaten mil-
lions of Californians and cause wide-
spread death and damage. The de-
struction could be as high as $1 trillion.
Without adequate investments in in-
frastructure and other projects, mas-
sive floods could lead to more than 500
deaths annually in the Central Valley
by 2072.
The Central Valley Flood Protection
Plan hopes to avert those scenarios.
The plan calls for $25 billion to $30 bil-
lion in investments over the next 30
years for infrastructure upgrades,
emergency preparation and floodplain
restoration.
But experts have said that modeling
where floodwaters might go, how deep
and for how long is essential to how
well-prepared California will be for an
Atmospheric River 1,000 Storm, or
ARkStorm, a severe winter-storm sce-
nario that would ravage the state.
HOPE
Envisioning the future is scary. A re-
cent poll found that the majority of
Californians are increasingly worried
about the state’s changing climate. An-
other survey found that most Ameri-
cans are feeling the same way.
Sarah Dryhurst, an assistant pro-
fessor at the Institute for Risk and Di-
saster Reduction at University College
London, explained that fear is neces-
sary to spur action. But in the long
term, it can shut people down, so it
needs be paired with another feeling.
“One of the emotions that is really
useful to keep hold of is this feeling of
hope ... to take action on something we
need to feel a sense of threat, but we
also need to feel a sense that we can do
something and make a difference,” she
said.
It remains to be seen if California,
and the world, will be able to prevent
the worst-case climate change scenar-
ios. The United Nations’ most recent
climate report warned that humanity is
not acting at the necessary pace and
scale, but it says we still have a chance if
urgent action is taken. It says there is
still hope.
AA24 S U N DAY , AU G U S T 27 , 2 0 23
I
t is a sparkling, sunny August
morning in 2043, as your Air
China flight from Beijing tou-
ches down gracefully (and al-
most silently) at LAX. The sleek
plane is one of a new generation
of hydrogen-powered wide-body
jets manufactured by Commer-
cial Aircraft Corp. of China — the kind
of innovation that helped the state-
owned company sail past Boeing and
Airbus in the 2030s to become the
world’s largest aerospace group.
Starting with the Inflation Reduc-
tion Act in 2022, the last two decades
have seen massive efforts to clean up
transportation all around the United
States and throughout the world. Back
in the early 2020s, transportation ac-
counted for 29% of America’s green-
house gas emissions, but that number
has been steadily dwindling to almost
zero — resulting in cleaner cities every-
where.
Not only have electric and hydro-
gen-powered vehicles replaced gas-
guzzling cars, but many people have
forsaken car ownership altogether, in
favor of much more economic and
widely available solutions like e-bikes,
robo-taxis and public transit.
And here in what was once the
world’s greatest car city, this remarka-
ble transition shows. The vast Ange-
leno landscape, once shrouded in haze
and smog, now glistens under the
Southern California sun. Mt. Baldy to
the north is crisply etched in the dis-
tance. The once-notorious traffic jams
along the 405, the 5 and the 101 quickly
evaporated with the introduction of
congestion pricing on the eve of the
2028 Olympic Games — and have never
returned.
As you step out of the Air China ter-
minal, your always-on ChatGPT-12 as-
sistant Mindy evaluates the choices
about which transportation mode — all
carbon-free, of course — can take you
home to Sherman Oaks in the most effi-
cient and economical way possible.
Public transit would be the least ex-
pensive — it’s been free since 2035, in
fact. Thanks to the electric LAX People
Mover and new high-speed electric L.A.
Metro express trains, the journey
would take only 37 minutes, door-to-
door.
Another option is the increasingly
popular Joby AirTaxi, an eVTOL (elec-
tric vertical take-off and landing air-
craft) service that can zip you from
LAX to the vertiport landing station at
the bottom of your road in just 12 min-
utes — for just $45. In the end, you de-
cide on a 35-minute trip in a driverless
S L AT I M E S . C O M
OUR CLIMATE CHANGE CHALLENGE
LOS ANGELES, 2043:
AN OPTIMISTIC SCENARIO
FOR TRANSPORTATION
Imagine a metropolis where many people have forsaken
cars in favor of e-bikes, robo-taxis and public transit.
BY J O H N R O SSA N T
TaxiPrime, one of the 37,000 electric
robo-taxis that now roam L.A. streets.
(TaxiPrime, of course, has become the
main revenue generator for Amazon,
following its hostile takeover of Uber in
the recession of the mid-2030s.)
You stretch out in the driverless taxi
as it glides onto the 405. Massive solar
panels line the median strip, soaking
up the sun and channeling that energy
into the L.A. Department of Water and
Power’s grid. These are complemented
by offshore wind farms stretching out
from Catalina Island, their blades turn-
ing slowly, silently contributing to the
energy orchestra. It’s a mesmerizing
sight, marrying the ceaseless energy of
the city with the quiet power of nature.
A quarter-century ago, California led
the nation in embracing solar and wind
energy to replace hydrocarbons in the
production of electricity — now the
whole nation has caught up.
The hydrogen economy is also in full
swing throughout the city, as it is in
many cities around the planet. Hydro-
Finally, the robo-taxi turns into your driveway — and you’re
home. As the sun sets, painting the San Fernando Valley in
hues of pink and gold, you can see the city’s clean energy
grid come alive. Solar and wind energy, stored during the
day, now power the city’s electric nightlife. Street lights
flicker on, powered by clean electricity.
gen is the most common element in the
universe and widely available simply by
splitting water through a process called
electrolysis. Since the mid-2020s, when
hydrogen production tax credits
started to be made available, hydro-
gen-powered planes, trains and trucks
rapidly became an alternative to using
big electric batteries for mobility. Ev-
erywhere you look these days in Los
Angeles you find various sizes and
types of electrolyzers. Even many EV
chargers are now off-grid, making their
own hydrogen to power themselves.
This hydrogen revolution extends
beyond private vehicles into the realm
of public transit. Sleek, hydrogen-pow-
ered L.A. DOT buses slide past you in a
dedicated lane. Metro’s huge light-rail
system — built out in the 2020s and
2030s to become one of the world’s larg-
est — is now also partially powered by
hydrogen fuel cells, small hydrogen-
powered electric motors. From Santa
Monica to East L.A., these clean trains
and buses crisscross the city, knitting
Maria Chimishkyan For The Times
together communities in a patchwork
of silent and sustainable mobility.
Shipping and freight have also fi-
nally embraced the green revolution.
The Port of Los Angeles, once a major
polluter, is now a hub of clean trans-
port. Massive container ships, powered
by clean ammonia, wind, methane and
other clean fuels, dock and unload their
goods, contributing to the economy
without damaging the environment.
The tens of thousands of diesel trucks
that until the early 2030s clogged the
once-smoky Alameda corridor along
the 710 Freeway have given way to clean
fleets of driverless hydrogen fuel cell-
powered trucks, which then fan out
across America.
Finally, the robo-taxi turns into your
driveway — and you’re home. As the
sun sets, painting the San Fernando
Valley in hues of pink and gold, you can
see the city’s clean energy grid come
alive. Solar and wind energy, stored
during the day, now power the city’s
electric nightlife. Street lights flicker
on, powered by clean electricity.
You realize the city’s transforma-
tion goes beyond the physical. The
clean air, the silent hum of electric vehi-
cles, the solar panels and wind turbines
dotting the landscape, those funny-
looking electrolyzers in odd places like
convenience stores — these are more
than just symbols of technological
progress. They’re signs of a city, and a
state, that made tough decisions to pri-
oritize its environment over conven-
ience, to put the future ahead of the
present, to transform itself for the bet-
ter.
As you retire for the night — with a
small glass of whiskey delivered to you
by Alfred, the cheery household cyborg
you picked up at a 35% discount off list
price on Amazon Prime Day in 2041, you
reflect on the incredible journey that
brought Los Angeles from a city de-
fined by smog, traffic and divided com-
munities, to a city of clean skies, silent
roads and renewable energy. Los Ange-
les is, as ever, a city defined by move-
ment and mobility. But it is now a city
built around human beings — not cars.
And just before you nod off, you
think how easily it could have com-
pletely gone the other way, had the pop-
ulist, climate change deniers won state
and national elections in the late 2020s
and overturned policies to cut out car-
bon.
John Rossant is the founder and chief
executive officer of CoMotion, a
conference and media platform
focused on future mobility.