Clean energy, image by ideadesignOPINION – Even as California has made great strides and raised the bar on climate action, it has not adequately planned for our long-term energy needs. Now we are at a turning point. We need a plan to reach the state’s new clean energy targets of 90 percent by 2035 and 95 percent by 2040 on the road to 100 percent by 2045.
Sather Gate at the University of California at Berkeley. (Photo: David A. Litman, via Shutterstock)The University of California has identified its 10 best research stories of 2021, and right at the top is an article deeply involving the state’s $12 billion stem cell agency. The catch is that the stem cell agency was not even mentioned. That despite the fact that 13 persons with significant links to the University of California, including a UC regent, sit on the board that oversees the agency.
Docks in the delta near Stockton at sunset. (Photo: Timmy M, via Shutterstock)OPINION: Henry Ford said, “Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.” Rules enacted a decade ago that were intended to protect California’s iconic salmon and Delta smelt populations aren’t working and federal agencies are now in the process of modernizing them, this time using much better science.
Smoke from the Camp Fire, as seen on Nov. 8 from Black Butte Lake. (Photo: Caminor, via Shutterstock)Sunrise, Nov. 8: Firefighters were dispatched to a small brush fire near Camp Creek Road in Butte County. Within 10 minutes, whipped by high winds, dry conditions and much fuel, the brush fire had exploded. By the end of the day, the fire had a name, the Camp Fire, and the town of Paradise was under an evacuation order.
Ed’s Note: Here is the full text of the response from the California stem cell agency to a query about the five most important things that it thinks Californians should know about the $3 billion effort.
Gov. Jerry Brown, flanked by the head of the Ponitifical Academy of Science, Bishop Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo, spoke recently at a Vatican conference on Modern Slavery and Climate Change. (AP Photo: Alessandra Tarantino)
When Gov. Jerry Brown traveled to the Vatican to attend Pope Francis’ conference on climate change, the Democratic governor allowed one of his most extended public glimpses into how Catholicism helped shape his career. Brown, who turned 77 in April, is nearly the same age as the Pope who turns 79 in December. Pope Francis is the first Jesuit Pope and Brown was a Jesuit seminarian until he dropped out of the Society of Jesus in 1960 to attend the University of California, Berkeley.