August is coming. Prepare for climate calamity

This is the July 28, 2022, edition of Boiling Point, a weekly newsletter about climate change and the environment in California and the American West. It’s also not immune to the climate challenges confronting California and the American West as we enter August — a crucial month for water supplies, wildfires, extreme heat and possible power shortages. When I asked Abatzoglou for his top three wildfire solutions, two of his answers involved more fire: setting “prescribed burns” to clear out vegetation in forests that have grown much too dense after a century of overly aggressive fire suppression, and allowing blazes in remote areas far from homes to burn themselves out — a strategy known as “managed fire.” He’d also like to see more robust funding for people to harden their homes against flames, and to clear excess vegetation from around their properties. The state’s Air Resources Board is gearing up to finalize its all-important climate “scoping plan” this fall, so look out It took three years, but the Newsom administration has new details on a proposed delta tunnel to move Sacramento River water to Southern California and the San Joaquin Valley. The writer Mike Davis is legendary for chronicling the story of Los Angeles, most notably in the 1990 book “City of Quartz.” He’s also known as a “prophet of doom.” He famously foretold environmental disaster in another tome, “Ecology of Fear.” Now he’s dying of esophageal cancer — and as much as he sees climate nightmares on the horizon, he’s also got ideas for how people can demand change.