Search

The article discusses the efforts by California to become a global leader on climate policy. Also cited are how the worldwide energy shortage prompted U.S. President Joe Biden to support the drilling of more oil, the sharp increase in the price of petrol in the U.S., particularly in California due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and California's plan in protecting people against droughts and fires, improving public-transit infrastructure, and electrifying transport.

The article focuses on the success of water conservation efforts in Las Vegas, Nevada. It states that between 2002 and 2014, Clark County, Nevada's consumption of water from the Colorado River declined by 30 percent even as a half million additional residents moved to the region. It mentions that new homes in Clark County are banned from including front lawns, resulting in rock gardens and the planting of cacti and yucca plants. It compares how Nevada regulates water use with California.

The article reports on the U.S. Forest Service's decision to remove about 40 percent of tree and plant-life in selected areas in California to reduce the severity of wildfires and put extra water in reservoirs. Topics discussed include the approval of a bill that facilitates thinning watersheds in the state, the opposition of environmentalists against tree cutting for any reason, and the cost effectiveness of clearing trees with fire.

The article discusses the influence of Californian environmental policy in the U.S. Topics include the California Air Resources Board, the Assembly Bill 32 emissions reduction legislation, renewable energy standards, and possible reforms of the California Environmental Quality Act conservation legislation.

The article examines an effort by the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, California to limit the pollution they release into the atmosphere. The significant amount of pollutants in southern California's air attributed to the ports is given. Their importance to the region's economy is cited. A plan to regulate the emission of the thousands of trucks which serve the ports is described. The chance the plan will lead to unionization of drivers who were once independent contractors is noted.

This article reports on the reaction of environmentalists to the claim by California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger that he is an environmentalist. They were outraged that a man who owns a fleet of these huge, gas-guzzling vehicles could claim to be a good environmentalist. Mr Schwarzenegger is a business-friendly Republican in a state where the main challenge to the Democrats has come from tree-huggers. His warm relations with Mr Bush may help him enliven Californian greenery in ways Gray Davis, his Democratic predecessor, could not hope to. He even promises to defend California's controversial new law regulating the emission of greenhouse gases from cars--the first such law in America--against challenges from the car industry and from the Bush administration. He wants to fix the state's botched attempt to deregulate electricity by going for properly liberalised markets. He also promises to build a "hydrogen highway" so that cars powered by hydrogen fuel cells, squeaky-clean "motors" that emit no pollution at all, have places to refuel. It is not ridiculous to suggest that Mr Schwarzenegger could turn out to be the country's greenest governor. And history shows that, where California goes on the environment, the rest of America often follows.