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Systemic inequalities, which affect how water is distributed and used, underlie water insecurities in higher-income (global North) countries. We explore the interlinkages between municipal decision-making and infrastructure to understand how urban climate justice can be advanced through engaging with state-like forms of governance. Drawing on archival information, spatial analysis, participant observation, and semi-structured interviews in the underbounded Latinx community of East Porterville, California, we analyze how local actors actively work against municipal-scale processes of infrastructure exclusion and production, within and beyond the state, to facilitate water access and particular notions of citizenship. We argue urban climate justice demands both an understanding of infrastructural marginalization, and attention to the diversity of perspectives, approaches, and solutions preferred by communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The success of implementing Common Core State Standards (CCSS) depends not only on the extent to which educators deeply understand the new standards but also on the expectations, values, and resources that support their readiness for making necessary instructional change. Educators' understanding of and beliefs about CCSS may largely drive their behaviors and action toward implementation. This study investigated a longitudinal dataset of teachers and principals in one large school district serving a diverse student population in California, examining the relationship between educators' beliefs and trust and the organizational climate. Findings suggest that both teachers' trust in the principal and an innovative climate play a consistent, critical role in educators' beliefs about implementing CCSS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Theorists of infrastructure have thought a great deal about time and temporality but have not often seriously considered the future of these massive and durable objects. This elision is notable due to infrastructures' current role in our world: highly vulnerable to crises such as those brought about by climate change yet also playing a role in hastening such events. Following Lauren Berlant and Dominic Boyer, we take the current moment as an opportunity to reconsider infrastructure and to work toward a perspective that would see it as a resource from which to construct more creative and equitable futures. Here, we consider such futures through readings of Kim Stanley Robinson's Three Californias Trilogy, which imagines various sociopolitical futures for southern California. Attending to the roles that infrastructures play in shaping these futures, we argue for a perspective that sees collapse as an opening of material possibility and highlight aspects of infrastructures, such as their distribution in space that might prove meaningful in thinking about such crises and transitions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is a long-held belief among scholars and practitioners that the State of California is a notable subnational leader in environmental and climate change policy. This article focuses primarily on four essential contextual factors that explain why and how within the United States' federal system of government California has become such an important leader, performing far in excess of the national government and most other states. These essential factors are preferences, authority, capacity, and effectiveness. The article then moves to the multifaceted implementation strategy California policy makers have employed to realize their environmental goals. Finally, despite the history of strong leadership, the state continues to face a host of significant challenges in realizing its ambitious climate change goals for the coming decades. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paradox motivating this article is why California has acted globally by enacting a comprehensive mitigation policy to reduce the emissions of Greenhouse gases, a true public good since the benefits will be shared across the planet, but has not mustered the will to act locally through the adoption of an equally comprehensive adaptation policy for the state to protect its own public and private assets and interests. We attempt to explain the paradox by identifying what it is that differentiates climate change adaptation from mitigation, both substantively and politically. The paradox notwithstanding, we identify several imaginable adaptation policies and strategies that would be commensurate with individual and collective self-interested behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides empirical evidence that the factors of context and social climate are the most influential for achieving green building. Using both chi-squared analysis and factor analysis findings indicate that providing the context and social climate which can reduce transaction costs influence green building. Specifically, through policies and guidelines, having the local expertise and support to make the outcomes occur are all important factors. Additionally, central cities were much more likely to engage in green building than suburban or non-metropolitan areas. This has implications for matters of collective action. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Port operations generate economic benefits as well as environmental impacts. As climate change gains greater focus, ports must address emissions reduction challenges without sacrificing productivity. In this article, linear modeling of CO2 emissions from ocean-going vessels is used to see if the California Greenhouse Gas Solutions Act (Assembly Bill 32) restricts cargo growth by setting targets for emissions reductions. By relating future emissions to cargo growth, this model predicts future CO2 emissions from ocean-going vessels for a 4.6% annual increase in cargo and a no-growth scenario. Findings show that even with three emissions reduction measures the target of Assembly Bill 32 cannot be reached without diverting cargo, providing evidence of a direct environmental constraint on port expansion. Using the results of this analysis, options to reduce emissions from ocean-going vessels with less cargo diversions are discussed, including implementation of new technologies and a cap-and-trade system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers news briefs related to climate change. Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) will facilitate a number of regional and international workshops to reduce transmission losses. California has mandated carbon-based reductions in transportation fuels in an attempt to cut the state's overall greenhouse gas emissions. Green Energy Technologies LLC has launched WindCube, a 60K W rooftop wind turbine designed for on-site power generation.

Highlights the Nineteenth Annual PACLIM Workshop on climatic phenomena in Pacific Grove, California on March 3 to 6, 2002. Theme of the workshop; Participants of the event; Topics discusses.