By Caleigh Wells for KCRW.
Broadcast version by Suzanne Potter for California News Service reporting for the Solutions Journalism Network-Public News Service Collaboration


Many Angelenos have noticed a major difference in the county's air over the past few years. It's hotter, more humid, less toxic. And Southern California's marine layer is shrinking. But how much?

It's hotter than it used to be.

Of course, it's hotter almost everywhere. Heightened greenhouse gas emissions have warmed the planet by about 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit. But LA is warming faster than most places, averaging more than 4 degrees Fahrenheit higher than it was in the 19th century.
We're heating up more than almost anywhere else in the country.
That's thanks to the urban heat island effect.
Compared with rural areas, cities have more black asphalt, more buildings, more car exhaust, and less tree canopy. That makes cities better at soaking in heat from the sun.
Los Angeles is especially prone to this problem because of its notorious urban sprawl. "If we just keep replacing more and more open space with impervious stuff, we're going to keep increasing the geographic extent of anything that could contribute to the heat island," says UCLA Urban Planning and Geography Professor Kelly Tuskin.
The problem is greatest in parts of Southern California that have seen more development, such as Santa Clarita, which over the past 50 years has transformed from a rural community into the third-largest city in LA County.

It's more humid than it used to be.

The air is wetter too, which means the heat index has increased even more. That difference is heightened in Los Angeles, which was a traditionally drier climate.
"Over the past 25 years in LA, the temperature increase was about ... half a degree [Celsius]. But if you include that humidity effect, it is more like ... 2 degrees," says UCSD Meteorologist Guang Zhang.
That converts to about a 1 degree Fahrenheit rise in temperature that actually feels more like a 4 degree rise - just since the mid-90s.

Rising temperatures contribute to rising humidity. As the ocean gets warmer, it evaporates more. And as the air gets warmer, it's able to hold more moisture.

That's especially bad news for night time temperatures, which have continued to increase as well, eliminating some of the overnight relief Angelenos rely on during heat waves.
The marine layer is disappearing.
June gloom might be the bane of beachgoers, it also serves as California's natural air conditioner.
But since the 1970s, about half of the marine layer

"Summertime clouds in Los Angeles have been rising -- that is, the base of the cloud is getting further away from the ground. But the tops of the clouds aren't rising. And that means the clouds are getting thinner and they're burning off earlier in the day," says UCLA Geography Professor Park Williams.
Williams' research
has found that the average day in Santa Monica 50 years ago saw about four hours of marine fog. Today, it's more like two hours. And even just two hours per day of direct sunlight has made a noticeable difference in our temperature.
"In a place like Santa Monica, where we've cut the ... number of cloudy hours per day almost in half," he explained, "this has caused about a 2-degree Fahrenheit warming."

The air is cleaner.

Not every change to LA's air has been bad. There is less air pollution than there used to be. A lot less.
South Coast Air Quality Management District says ozone levels are at less than half of what they were in the 1950s.

USC Professor of Clinical Preventive Medicine Ed Avol has been studying air pollution's effects on children for three decades, and experiencing them firsthand for more than seven. "I remember going to school here, when it was so smoggy, some days, they wouldn't let us out to play on the playgrounds," he says. "Those days mostly are gone now. And so that really is a success story."
A lot of that success was thanks to things like mandatory catalytic converters in the 1970s that drastically reduced car emissions, and requirements from the Clean Air Act that took effect in the 1990s.
But air pollution continues to plummet today with the adoption of electric vehicles and renewable energy sources. Between 2017 and 2018, air pollution dropped 10%. In 2019, it dropped another 12%.

But after some of the worst fire years on record occurred just in the past five years, decades of progress has been undone by smoke pollution, according to new research from Stanford University. Future progress will depend on less fire and more renewable energy sources. "Kids are growing up with better respiratory health than they did 10 or 20 years ago. There is documentable evidence that things are getting better," says Avol. "But we are still in violation, under the Clean Air Act, of what the national and the state standards are set at to protect the public's health. It's not over. We're not done."

Caleigh Wells wrote this article for KCRW.


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By Alyssa Burr for the Michigan Independent.
Broadcast version by Chrystal Blair for Michigan News Connection reporting for the Michigan Independent-Public News Service Collaboration

In recent years, Michigan has been aggressive in its approach to clean energy: It’s invested millions of dollars in renewable energy infrastructure, created training programs for jobs in the electric vehicle industry, and set a goal of moving the state to 100% carbon neutrality by 2050.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and other state officials aim to make the Great Lakes State a leader in clean energy manufacturing by bringing jobs and investments to local communities while also tackling pollution, which continues to wreak havoc on the environment.

Now Michigan’s clean energy efforts have seemingly hit a wall of uncertainty as President Donald Trump’s administration takes ongoing actions to roll back federal climate regulations.

“We’ve seen nothing less than an unprecedented, all-out assault on our environment and our democracy,” said Bentley Johnson, the Michigan League of Conservation Voters’ federal government affairs director.

The clean energy sector has grown rapidly in the United States since President Joe Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022. Congress appropriated $370 billion under the IRA, and White House officials at the time touted it as the country’s largest investment in clean energy.

According to Climate Power, a national public relations and advocacy organization dedicated to climate justice, Michigan was the No. 1 state in the nation in 2024 in its number of clean energy projects; from 2022-2024, the state announced 74 projects totalling over 26,000 jobs and roughly $27 billion in federal funding.

Trump has long been critical of the country’s climate initiatives and development of clean energy technology. He’s previously made false claims that climate change is a hoax and wind turbines cause cancer. Since taking office again in January, Trump has tried to pause IRA funding and signed an executive order to boost coal production.

Additionally, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin announced in March that the agency had canceled more than 400 environmental justice grants to be used to improve air and water quality in disadvantaged communities. Senate Democrats, who released a full list of the canceled grants, accused the EPA of illegally terminating the contracts, through which funds were appropriated by Congress under the IRA. Of those 400 grants, 15 were allocated for projects in Michigan, including one to restore housing units in Kalamazoo and another to transform Detroit area food pantries and soup kitchens into emergency shelters for those in need.

Johnson said the federal government reversing course on the allotted funding has left community groups who were set to receive it in the lurch.

“That just seems wrong, to take away these public benefits that there was already an agreement — Congress has already appropriated or committed to spending this, to handing this money out, and the rug is being pulled out from under them,” Johnson said.

Climate Power has tracked clean energy projects across the country totaling $56.3 billion in projected funding and over 50,000 potential jobs that have been stalled or canceled since Trump was elected in November. Michigan accounts for seven of those projects, including Nel Hydrogen’s plans to build an electrolyzer manufacturing facility in Plymouth. 

Nel Hydrogen announced an indefinite delay in the construction of its Plymouth factory in February 2025. Wilhelm Flinder, the company’s head of investor relations, communications, and marketing, cited uncertainty regarding the IRA’s tax credits for clean hydrogen production as a factor in the company’s decision, according to reporting by Hometownlife.com. The facility was expected to invest $400 million in the local community and to create over 500 people when it started production.

“America is losing nearly a thousand jobs a day because of Trump’s war against cheaper, faster, and cleaner energy. Congressional Republicans have a choice: get in line with Trump’s job-killing energy agenda or take a stand to protect jobs and lower costs for American families,” Climate Power executive director Lori Lodes said in a March statement.

Opposition groups make misleading claims about the benefits of renewable energy, such as the reliability of wind or solar energy and the land used for clean energy projects, in order to stir up public distrust, Johnson said. 

In support of its clean energy goals, the state fronted some of its own taxpayer dollars for several projects to complement the federal IRA money. Johnson said the strategy was initially successful, but with sudden shifts in federal policies, it’s potentially become a risk, because the state would be unable to foot the bill entirely on its own.

The state still has its self-imposed clean energy goals to reach in 25 years, but whether it will meet that deadline is hard to predict, Johnson said. Michigan’s clean energy laws are still in place and, despite Trump’s efforts, the IRA remains intact for now.

“Thanks to the combination — I like to call it a one-two punch of the state-passed Clean Energy and Jobs Act … and the Inflation Reduction Act, with the two of those intact — as long as we don’t weaken it — and then the combination of the private sector and technological advancement, we can absolutely still make it,” Johnson said. “It is still going to be tough, even if there wasn’t a single rollback.”


Alyssa Burr wrote this article for the Michigan Independent.


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Results of a new study from Michigan State University suggest farmers no longer have to choose between growing crops and harnessing solar power. They can do both on the same land.

The 25-year study of California farmland found farmers who added solar panels, a practice known as agrivoltaics, made more money per acre than those who did not. The research shows crops and solar work together, especially when panels are placed on low-yield acres, or spots not growing as much food due to poor soil or too much shade.

The research indicates the approach helps farmers boost income without reducing food production.

Jake Stid, a graduate student at Michigan State and lead author of the study, said farmers can also benefit through a system called Net Energy Metering.

"A return structure where farmers can directly in many cases, interconnect so they can use the electricity to offset their own needs, as well as sell excess generation, excess electricity back to the utility for a discounted rate," Stid outlined.

Researchers estimate California land now used for solar panels could have fed 86,000 people had it stayed in crops. The study looked at the trade-off between farming and solar energy, while critics warned it could worsen food security by reducing farmland.

Stid highlighted his team chose California's Central Valley as the focus of the research due to its significant contribution to both national and global food production, particularly for a variety of orchard crops.

"It's a really, really agriculturally valuable state and it also happens to be a pretty water-stressed state," Stid pointed out. "Specifically, the Central Valley has been experiencing pretty significant drought, as well as over allocation of water resources."

Some farmers expressed concern about solar panels shading crops, affecting growth and reducing yields. Stid hopes to expand his research on solar arrays and food production nationwide, contributing to the ongoing debate among farmers on how to use land sustainably, without harming food production.


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Lawmakers and climate change activists are speaking out against a rumored executive action by President Donald Trump to revoke tax-exempt statuses from climate nonprofits. One rumored change includes the removal of climate change from qualifying topics for the exemption.

Last Thursday in the Oval Office, Trump hinted environmental nonprofits could have their tax-exempt statuses scrutinized by the administration. Federal law currently bars a president from directly or indirectly ordering the Internal Revenue Service to investigate specific tax-exempt organizations.

Ruth Ann Norton, president and CEO of the nonpartisan Green and Healthy Homes Initiative, said she found the rumored executive actions troubling.

"We should not be talking about removing tax-exempt status from the civic good that comes from the work of nonprofits to prevent environmental issues that impair and impact and are harmful on people's lives," Norton contended.

Climate nonprofits are not the only organizations in Trump's crosshairs. He has suggested Harvard University should lose its tax-exempt status over defying demands from the administration dealing with diversity, admissions processes and antisemitism.

Tax-exempt status allows organizations to receive tax-deductible charitable contributions and not pay federal income tax.

Joelle Novey, director of the nonprofit Interfaith Power and Light in Maryland, the District of Columbia and Northern Virginia, said the actions may target climate nonprofits first but all nonprofits are at risk.

"There is no attack on civil society groups in the United States that isn't an attack on every one of us who expresses who we are by forming, supporting, volunteering and taking action through nonprofit organizations," Novey argued.

A federal judge last week ordered the Trump administration to unfreeze billions of dollars in climate and infrastructure funds previously targeted in an executive order on Trump's first day in office.


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