Skip to main content
Donate

Five SoCal Must-Reads: A Metal Lighter than Styrofoam & More

By Zach Behrens
November 18, 2011
Support Provided By
socalmustreads1118

  • Bakersfield Californian: A composting facility that apparently processes close to a quarter of California's compostables had its permit pulled by Kern County supervisors this week after two worker deaths--they happened to be brothers--in addition to various land use violations. Now grocers and others must instead send millions of pounds of waste a day to landfills.
  • KEYT (video): In addition to not funding a study on poverty, Santa Barbara County supervisors rejected spending $15,000 to study the effects of plastic bags on the environment, a step that must be done to consider banning them.
  • San Diego Union-Tribune: UC Irvine engineers have created a metal "that's about 100 times lighter than styrofoam."
  • The Atlantic: "A new [Los Angeles] city ordinance will allow small farmers' markets to operate in residential areas, enabling backyard growers and small-time farmers to sell their crops in their own neighborhoods."
  • Zócalo: What movie best captures Los Angeles? A number of local notables, from author Daniel Hernandez to County Supervisor Gloria Molina, chime in with one rule to keep in mind: go beyond Chinatown.

Photo by ve®onica, a contributor to KCET's Southern California Flickr Pool.

Support Provided By
Read More
An oil pump painted white with red accents stands mid-pump on a dirt road under a blue, cloudy sky with a green, grassy slope in the background.

California’s First Carbon Capture Project: Vital Climate Tool or License to Pollute?

California’s first attempt to capture and sequester carbon involves California Resources Corp. collecting emissions at its Elk Hills Oil and Gas Field, and then inject the gases more than a mile deep into a depleted oil reservoir. The goal is to keep carbon underground and out of the atmosphere, where it traps heat and contributes to climate change. But some argue polluting industries need to cease altogether.
By Alejandro Lazo, CalMatters
Gray industrial towers and stacks rise up from behind the pitched roofs of warehouse buildings against a gray-blue sky, with a row of yellow-gold barrels with black lids lined up in the foreground to the right of a portable toilet.

California Isn't on Track To Meet Its Climate Change Mandates. It's Not Even Close.

According to the annual California Green Innovation Index released by Next 10 last week, California is off track from meeting its climate goals for the year 2030, as well as reaching carbon neutrality by 2045.
By Alejandro Lazo, CalMatters
A row of cows stands in individual cages along a line of light-colored enclosures, placed along a dirt path under a blue sky dotted with white puffy clouds.

A Battle Is Underway Over California’s Lucrative Dairy Biogas Market

California is considering changes to a program that has incentivized dairy biogas, to transform methane emissions into a source of natural gas. Neighbors are pushing for an end to the subsidies because of its impact on air quality and possible water pollution.
By Emma Foehringer Merchant, Inside Climate News