On today’s Your Call’s One Planet Series, we’ll discuss the passing of Pope Francis and his legacy on climate change, with Mark Hertsgaard, the environment correspondent of The Nation and the executive director of the global media collaboration Covering Climate Now.
Then we’ll discuss “Eating: The Power to Save the Ocean,” a documentary that investigates how industrial fishing, agriculture, pesticides, and global food transport are endangering ocean health. The film asks: what if our food could save the ocean?
Joining us will be Malaury Morin, an ocean activist who sets off to hitchhike the roads of France to better understand the impacts of our food on the ocean.
Finally, we’ll cover the response to the Trump administration’s relentless attacks on scientific research. A wave of executive orders and policies have launched a direct assault on science and public health—initiating the US withdrawal from the World Health Organization, gutting federally funded research, forcing thousands of federal employees out of their jobs, and scrubbing or distorting federal websites and datasets
Scientists across the country have expressed concern that these actions threaten to significantly roll back scientific progress in the United States. They are mobilizing to defend science as a public good, and as a foundation for social, political, and economic progress.
Joining us will be Emma Courtney, Ph.D. candidate at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York and co-organizer of Stand Up for Science.
Tune in at 91.7 FM in the San Francisco Bay Area or stream live at 10am PT. What comments or questions do you have for our guests? Call 866-798-TALK to join the conversation!
On today’s Your Call Media Roundtable, we’ll discuss Russia’s war on Ukraine with Jen Stout, an award-winning journalist and author of Night Train to Odesa: Covering the Human Cost of Russia’s War.
Then later in the show, we’ll examine media coverage of Trump’s tariff policies, which have raised fears of a recession. California has filed a lawsuit challenging Trump’s authority to impose sweeping tariffs. Joining us will be:
- David Cay Johnston, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter and author of several books, including It’s Even Worse Than You Think: What the Trump Administration Is Doing to America
- Chris Lehmann, DC Bureau chief for The Nation and author of The Money Cult: Capitalism, Christianity, and the Unmaking of the American Dream
Tune in at 91.7 FM in the San Francisco Bay Area or stream live at 10am PT. What comments or questions do you have for our guests? Call 866-798-TALK to join the conversation!
I’ll be on KQED Forum today at 9am PT talking about Trump’s sweeping executive order taking aim at efforts by states, including California, to set their own environmental policies. At risk are key components of California’s fight against climate change, including its cap-and-trade program to control carbon emissions and efforts to promote electrical vehicles.
Trump’s order is just the latest in his moves to reverse climate change policies, including halting government research funding and gutting environmental agencies. As his head of the Environmental Protection Agency Lee Zeldin has said, the administration is “driving a dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion.” We’ll talk about the impact of Trump’s approach to the environment and how California could respond.
I’ll be joined on the panel with:
- Sonia Aggarwal, CEO, Energy Innovation – a non partisan think tank based in San Francisco that provides research and analysis on energy and climate policy; special assistant, to the President for Climate Policy, Innovation, and Deployment in the Biden administration.
- Lisa Friedman, reporter on the climate desk, New York Times
- Abigail Dillen, president, Earthjustice – a public interest law group focused on the environment
Hope you can tune in on KQED or stream live at 9am PT!
On today’s Your Call One Planet Series, we discuss Water for Life, a documentary film that tells the story of three Indigenous activists in Central and South America as they fight to protect their ancestral lands and water rights.
The film follows Alberto Curamil, a Mapuche chief in Chile, Francisco Pineda, a corn-grower in El Salvador, and the late Berta Cáceres of the Lenca in Honduras, as they face jail and murder while leading movements to safeguard their drinking and irrigation water from multinational corporations and corrupt governments.
Joining us will be:
- Will Parrinello, award-winning documentary filmmaker and director of Water for Life
- Rick Tejada-Flores, documentary filmmaker and co- producer of Water for Life
- Maria Jose Calderon, award-winning documentary producer, editor, and co-producer of Water for life
Then we discuss a recent executive order that that aims to stop the enforcement of state climate laws and policies. According to CalMatters, Trump’s executive order directs US Attorney General Pam Bondi to identify state and local acts that may be unconstitutional or preempted by federal law. Within 60 days, the attorney general must report back with findings and recommendations for action.
Trump’s order singles out California’s cap and trade program, a market-based system created in 2012 that is considered one of the state’s key policies for combating climate change. The program sets limits on greenhouse gas emissions and allows companies to buy and sell credits. Twelve other states have similar programs for cutting greenhouse gases.
To help us unpack what’s at stake, we’ll be joined by Ken Alex, director of Project Climate at UC Berkeley’s Center for Law, Energy, and Environment.
Tune in at 91.7 FM in the San Francisco Bay Area or stream live at 10am PT. What comments or questions do you have for our guests? Call 866-798-TALK to join the conversation!
On today’s Your Call One Planet Series, we’ll discuss two documentaries featured at this year’s International Ocean Film Festival, which runs from April 11-13 in San Francisco, followed by an online program from April 14 – 22.
Salmon Run explores the Bay Area’s salmon fishery and the people who work hard to sustain it. Pieter Kruit, producer and director of the film, will join us to talk more about this industry and his film.
Then we’ll discuss Saving Seagrass, which documents the importance of seagrass by bringing us to the underwater nursery in the estuaries of Mobile Bay, Alabama. Joining us will be filmmaker, editor, narrator, and director Robert Boyd.
Tune in at 91.7 FM in the San Francisco Bay Area or stream live at 10am PT. What comments or questions do you have for our guests? Call 866-798-TALK to join the conversation!
On today’s Your Call Media Roundtable, we’ll discuss the plight of Venezuelan immigrants deported from the US to a notorious maximum-security prison in El Salvador. The Trump administration will pay El Salvador’s government $6 million for detaining undocumented immigrants.
Joining us to discuss will be Roman Gressier, editor of El Faro English and host of the Central America in Minutes podcast.
Then later in the show, we discuss The Rise and Fall of Terrorgram, a Frontline/ProPublica documentary that investigates the Terrorgram Collective, a transnational network of extremists accused of inciting acts of white supremacist terrorism on the messaging platform Telegram. Joining us will be AC Thompson, senior reporter with ProPublica and correspondent for Frontline.
Tune in at 91.7 FM in the San Francisco Bay Area or stream live at 10am PT. What comments or questions do you have for our guests? Call 866-798-TALK to join the conversation!
Back in 2012, Berkeley Law’s CLEE and UCLA Law’s Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment released a report called “Electric Drive by ’25,” with the bold subtitle “How California Can Catalyze Mass Adoption of Electric Vehicles by 2025.”
The report cited 2011-12 EV sales as reason for optimism on achieving mass adoption by 2025:
Early results from the introduction of new electric vehicles to the U.S. market have been promising, with sales of both Nissan LEAFs and Chevy Volts outselling the popular hybrid Toyota Prius in its first year of sales, 9,674 (LEAF) and 7,671 (Volt) to 5,562 (first-year Prius sales). As of May 2012, plug-in electric vehicles comprised approximately 30,000 of the cars in the United States, more than four times as many as the year before.
13 years later, the plug-in hybrid Volt is no more and the LEAF is revamped and a relatively minor player, while the Tesla Model Y was the best-selling vehicle in the world in 2024, outselling the Toyota Corolla.
And what would “mass adoption” look like for the then relatively distant year of 2025 in California? The California Air Resources Board at the time:
…predicted that the new [Advanced Clean Cars] program and ZEV regulations would result in over 1.4 million ZEVs on the road by 2025, comprising over 15 percent of vehicles sales that year.
And now that it’s actually 2025, how is the state doing? Did it live up to its goal?
Turns out the state was way too pessimistic. According to the nonprofit Veloz that tracks EV sales, California in fact had 2,213,296 electric vehicles on the road by the end of 2024:
So what lessons can we draw from this 2012 time capsule report review? First, and most obviously, electric vehicles have taken off better than a lot of people thought. Second, regulators in California, at least at the time, were clearly aiming too low with their goals!
There’s a ways to go to get EVs to 100% of new vehicles sales (the new goal is to achieve that percentage by 2035 in the state). But the market has reached critical tipping points. And while action on climate change is urgent and we still need faster deployment of EVs, it’s important to celebrate wins where we can, especially on something as monumentally important as reducing emissions from transportation.
I’ll be double-hosting on KALW today. First, on Your Call’s One Planet Series at 10am PT, we discuss the Trump administration’s attack on environmental protections.
Donald Trump’s EPA chief, Lee Zeldin, plans to roll back more than two dozen regulations that protect our health, air, water, and climate, eliminate the Office of Research and Development, and fire hundreds of scientists. Joining us to discuss will be:
- Ken Alex, director of Project Climate at UC Berkeley’s Center for Law, Energy, & Environment
- Marianne Lavelle, award-winning reporter for Inside Climate News
Later in the program, we’ll examine the Trump administration’s decision to drop a landmark environmental justice case in Louisiana’s cancer alley, with Robert Taylor, executive director of Concerned Citizens for St. John.
Then at 6pm PT, I’ll be hosting State of the Bay. First, we’ll talk to San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie about his new plan on homelessness.
Then we’ll talk about the suffering endured by millions of people due to Long Covid, with Dr. Linda Geng, co-director of the Stanford Long Covid Collaborative, and Philip Hoover, a screenwriter and North Bay resident who has firsthand experience navigating life with Long COVID.
Finally, we’ll talk to Ramon Ramos Alayo of the dance festival CubaCaribe.
Tune in at 91.7 FM in the San Francisco Bay Area or stream live at 10am PT for Your Call and then again at 6pm PT for State of the Bay. What comments or questions do you have for our guests? Call 866-798-TALK to join the conversation!
I’m double-hosting today on KALW. First, on Your Call’s One Planet Series at 10am PT, investigative journalist Antonia Juhasz discusses her new piece Is Trump’s “Minerals Deal” a Fossil Fuel Shakedown?. A significant portion of Ukraine’s natural resources, including fossil fuels and minerals, is in territory controlled and occupied by Russia.
Later in the show, Los Angeles Times reporter Liam Dillon discusses the debate over affordable and multifamily housing in the Pacific Palisades following the recent LA fires.
Then at 6pm PT, I’ll host State of the Bay, which we’ll kick off with an interview with newly elected District 11 Supervisor Chyanne Chen.
Then, I’ll talk to two award-winning journalists – Katey Rusch and Casey Smith – who spent five years exposing a widespread practice of “clean record” agreements —loopholes that let police officers erase misconduct from their records and land new jobs in law enforcement.
Finally, we hear from the director of a new documentary for diehard Oakland A’s fans called The Last Game.
Tune in at 91.7 FM in the San Francisco Bay Area or stream live at 10am PT for Your Call and then again at 6pm PT for State of the Bay. What comments or questions do you have for our guests? Call 866-798-TALK to join the conversation!
On today’s Your Call Media Roundtable, we discuss the detention of Mahmoud Khalil, a human rights advocate and lead negotiator for the 2024 Gaza Solidarity Encampment at Columbia University. He is being held at the Central Louisiana ICE Processing Center in Jena, Louisiana.
According to the Intercept, since his arrest, his attorneys have fought any suggestion that this case is about whether their client committed a crime or is a threat to national security. Instead, they say, it’s about the US government stifling Khalil’s advocacy for Palestine. Joining us will be:
- Laura Jedeed, freelance journalist based in New York City
- Jonah Valdez, reporter for The Intercept
Later in the show, we’ll examine the fallout from Senate democrats agreeing not to filibuster the Republican budget as well as the GOP’s deep cuts to social and health services. To help us unpack it:
- Michael Mechanic, senior editor at Mother Jones and author of Jackpot: How the Super-Rich Really Live—and How Their Wealth Harms Us All
- Arthur Delaney, senior reporter for HuffPost
Tune in at 91.7 FM in the San Francisco Bay Area or stream live at 10am PT. What comments or questions do you have for our guests? Call 866-798-TALK to join the conversation!
