In 1999, MICHAEL MANN co-authored a scientific paper that included a graph that tracked temperatures over the last 1000 years. Known as “the hockey stick,” it showed that climate change was real. His integrity attacked, he learned the strategies and methods of those who would postpone and disable our efforts to deal with climate change. In his latest book, The New Climate War, Mann debunks false narratives and argues that all is not lost. He believes Biden is on the right track, but warns we won’t succeed unless we learn to recognize and defeat the latest tactics of the forces of inaction.

I’m always interested in what the US can learn from other countries. So I was immediately attracted to JOSHUA GOLDSTEIN’s new book A BRIGHT FUTURE: How Some Countries Have Solved Climate Change and the Rest Can Follow. When Goldstein (and co-author Staffan Qvist) did the research and the math on what it was going to take to reduce carbon emissions enough to avoid the worst of climate change, they concluded that rapid development of renewables would need a large and fast buildout of nuclear power to replace fossil fuels as backup for wind and solar. You may not agree with them, but I think this conversation is worth a listen.

California Natural Resources Agency predicts severe heat waves, wildfires, ocean rise will cost thousands of lives and billions of dollars. Trump administration decimates Obama emissions rules for cars and power plants. Rise Up for Climate global day of action Sat 9/8. MICHAEL BRUNE, Executive Director of Sierra Club, shares good news, bad news, and ways to get involved.

https://www.sierraclub.org/michael-brune/bio

PETER SCHRAG, longtime editor of The Sacramento Bee, makes the case that “no party, no lobby, no organization has been as formidable an adversary to the Washington of Donald Trump, Paul Ryan, and Mitch McConnell as California has. None has both the will and the heft that California brings to this fight. None has been as determined.” And he reminds us that California has come a long way since 1994 and Prop 187.