From Bakersfield, You Can See Forever
From the tunnel view of Yosemite Valley to just about any glimpse of the Golden Gate, California is famous for its extraordinary vistas. But if you’re looking for the state’s most thought-provoking...
View ArticleCalifornians Need a New Political Party That Can Keep Us Afloat
I got one of those calls again—they come every six months or so—from a Silicon Valley hotshot who wants to use his brain and his wealth to fix what ails California. This investor asked the same...
View ArticleWhen the Colorado River Runs Dry
Even as she was going blind, my mom, ever the poet, delighted in sitting out among the palms and birds, and enjoying and visualizing the scene, as I irrigated my date gardens in the Coachella Valley of...
View ArticleWhat Can We Learn From the Failings of William Mulholland?
For much of my life I have been in conversation with a man who died 86 years ago. He was born in Dublin in 1855 and grew up poor, with a face bruised by the fists of his father. He ran away from home...
View ArticleYou Really Should Be Having a Glacier-Induced Meltdown
We’ve all heard the tragic stories of glaciers in peril: pieces of ice, the size of continents, breaking off of Antarctica or melting away in the Arctic Ocean near the North Pole, leaving polar bears...
View ArticleRiver Blues
Penelope Dullaghan is an artist and illustrator based in Indianapolis. She works in children’s publishing, editorial, and advertising. In her work she employs a range of mediums, including printmaking,...
View ArticleThe Colorado? Call It the California River
Why do we still call it the Colorado? Sure, the river begins in the Colorado Rockies. But in law and practice, the waterway making headlines is clearly the California River. And the first provision of...
View ArticleIs Puerto Rico a Global Model for Disaster Recovery?
When Hurricane Fiona hit Puerto Rico on September 18, 2022, the U.S. colony had still not fully recovered from Hurricanes Irma and Maria, in 2017. Collapsed bridges had not been rebuilt, houses still...
View ArticleCould Cannabis Help the American West Solve Its Thorniest Environmental Issues?
The study of cannabis is a personal one for me. Outdoor cannabis production in the rural Western U.S. has its roots in back-to-the-land movements of the 1960s. That’s when counterculture groups began...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A Water Rights Storm Is Brewing in the Foothills Above Glendale
[trinity_audio “male”]The Verdugo Wash is a small flood control channel that takes rainwater from the foothills above Glendale to the L.A. River, and 30 miles out to the Pacific Ocean.When you visit...
View Article