Blog
A space for learning.
Our Biggest Challenge: An Interview with Former CEC Board President John Steed
Peter Brill, founder and first Executive Director of Sustainable Change Alliance interviewed John Steed, former board president and current member of CEC President’s Council about what we can do to address climate change.
What We're Reading: Cadillac Desert, Eating on the Wild Side, and The Climate Casino
We recently asked CEC’s Staff, Board, and Partnership Council about their roles as thought leaders in the Santa Barbara community, asking what books, articles, films, apps, podcasts, and other multimedia are influencing their work. Today we’re hearing from Megan Birney, Dennis Allen, and Karl Hutterer. Stay tuned for the next installment of this series!
In Memoriam: Joan Crowder
Long before she made a name for herself as a cultural writer for the Santa Barbara News-Press, Joan Crowder was a volunteer editor of the Santa Barbara Survival Times, a fledgling monthly magazine published by CEC in the aftermath of the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill.
E.P.A. Announces New Proposed Carbon Pollution Regulations
Today, with the announcement of new carbon regulations, the Obama administration is using authority granted to the E.P.A. by the Clean Air Act to tackle the U.S.’s largest source of carbon pollution: over 600 coal-burning power plants. The proposed regulations would seek to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from these power plants 30 percent from 2005 levels by 2030.
Why Earth Day Matters More Than Ever
On April 22 – the official, nationally designated Earth Day – my email box blows up. Not just from the usual business of managing our local Earth Day festival, but from the mass of e-newsletters and Facebook posts calling attention to the day. They come from every corner of society. A statewide religious consortium. Elected officials. A local attorney’s office. Some are fluff, others are sincere calls for action, and others call into question what it’s all for.
Is California the New Keystone?
Katie Davis explores the local and global impacts of an oil boom in California.
Fifteen Hours with Al Gore
Katie Davis is a member of the CEC Partnership Council, as well as a trained presenter with Al Gore’s Climate Reality Project. Below she tells the story of her experience training with Al Gore.
Katie will be presenting her Climate Reality presentation at 7 pm on Thursday, February 28 at the Santa Barbara Public Library.
Five years since he won an Academy Award for An Inconvenient Truth and a Nobel Prize for efforts to educate the world about global warming, what’s happened to Al Gore’s presentation and, indeed, actions to address the causes of climate change?
Along with 1,000 other Climate Leaders from 50 countries, I recently went through training in San Francisco on how to give the latest version of his presentation on climate change. The training included one 15-hour-marathon day with Al Gore that went from 8 am to 11 pm.
The latest incarnation of Gore’s presentation, entitled Climate Reality, is heavy on weather. What’s changed in the last five years is the willingness of scientists to point to the freaky storms, record heat waves, devastating droughts, super floods and massive fires and say definitively – yep, that’s us. Climate scientists used to be careful not to blame any one extreme weather event on global warming. But that’s changing. When we break 362 all-time high temperature records in the U.S. and no cold records - as we did in 2012 - it’s pretty clear we’re living with climate change right now.
Or as Gore put it, "It's like a nature hike through the Book of Revelation."
While global emissions have continued to rise, there are some signs of hope. Renewable energy production has exceeded projections nationally, and California is ahead of the trend. In 2011, 20% of California’s energy use was renewable.
Santa Barbara, with its remarkable record of environmental leadership and abundant sun, wind and waves, could play a leading role in showing the world it’s really possible to kick the fossil fuel habit.
Question is – are we up for the challenge?