The Mercury News: California’s efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions have made the state an icon in the fight against climate change, a status validated by Gov. Jerry Brown hosting the Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco next month.

Yet despite its success, California is only slowly beginning to take action. Across California, there’s a gnawing sense that the drought, floods, heatwaves, and explosive wildfires we’ve experienced in recent years is the dawning of a new weather system, radicalized and disfigured by climate change. The recent drought was the driest four-year stretch in California in more than 1,200 years, and ended with a record-setting winter that sent 188,000 residents of Butte County fleeing for their lives as Oroville Dam’s spillway collapsed from the deluge. The following summer, 2017, was the hottest ever recorded in California, leading to conditions that allowed the Thomas Fire to burn an area the size of New York City and become the largest fire in state history—until the even larger Mendocino Complex fire set a new record eight months later. Continue reading>>