KCBS Radio In Depth

Earlier this month, the UN released a sobering report on global warming, warning that carbon dioxide emissions would peak sooner than previously thought. Environmentalists are calling for a radical path forward. "It's clear that we're at the edge of disaster and we have to really move fast now," warned Lewis Fulton, Co-Director of the STEPS Program within the Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California, Davis. Fulton, one of two guests on this weekend's In Depth, has worked internationally in the field of transport, energy, environment analysis and policy development for more than 2 decades. How--or, can--we transition to a more environmentally sustainable way of life? "The solutions are many and the challenge is complex," explained UC Davis Assistant Professor Rebecca Hernandez. "And I think a lot of the listeners who may be tuning in right now can feel a little bit overwhelmed and maybe that the decisions that they're making may not have an impact on what's really happening. And I can empathize with that as a scientist." Hernandez, who joined Fulton with guest host Jeffrey Schaub on In Depth focuses her research efforts on aridland ecology and sustainability. "Cost is a huge barrier to renewable energy penetration," she said. "There are several policy based tools that we can use. But ... what I'd like the listeners to know is that every decision that they make to make their house more green or to reduce their intake of meat or to ride their bike, all of that really adds up at the global scale. What you're doing right now is really making a difference and when we're looking for climate change heroes in every community across diverse groups. We need climate change heroes in our government, in our churches, in our firms and businesses and in the communities that we exist in."

It hasn't been an easy few weeks for public transit. On the first day of what transit advocates recently dubbed "Transit Week", two San Francisco Muni underground lines broke down and the next day the new Transbay Transit Center was evacuated due to cracks in support beams. But as KCBS reporter Holly Quan found, this only fuels the fire for one of San Francisco's newest rider advocates. For five years Rachel Hyden worked for the agency that runs Muni, and now she advocates for the tens of thousands of riders who rely on it. "It's not working that well for people right now," Hyden told Quan during the most recent episode of KCBS Radio's In Depth. "So when I say hey, you know, give up your car and take the "T," the "T" doesn't show up on time or it takes an hour and half to get across town. Why wouldn't you just drive your car. It's probably going to take twenty-five minutes. So those are the challenges we're looking at. To one extent, getting people out of their cars, to get them onto transit, but we don't really want to push that message until we can actually deliver them the product or a service that's going to compete with the car." According to Hyden, another challenge is safety or quality of life. "What we really need people to do is be more respectful. I hear a lot of people complain about music, drinking and drug use on transit and those are the types of behavior that make riders not want to ride. So, if you don't want to be up close to somebody who's drinking a can of beer at 8:00 a.m. you'll just hop in your car or ride share." Ultimately, Hyden talks to Quan during In Depth about the overall push to convert drivers to riders.

It's hard to believe that on October 8 it will have been one year since a series of devastating fires fueled by strong winds cut through tens of thousands of acres across Sonoma and Napa counties; Mendocino and Lake counties as well. In all, nearly 9,000 structures were destroyed. Several dozen people died. Santa Rosa endured unprecedented disaster, entire communities were destroyed. It's been a long since then, with many more miles to go. With that in mind, KCBS Radio reporter and guest In Depth host Jeffrey Schaub visited Santa Rosa City Hall to speak with Mayor Chris Coursey. "It seems like so much longer ago than a year. That night, I was asleep like almost everyone in Santa Rosa was at the time," Coursey reflected. "I got a call from our Deputy City Manager, I believe it was about 2:30 a.m. and she told me that there was a fire, that the Emergency Operations Center had been activated. It didn't take very long though for me to realize that my bedroom smelled like smoke. I sleep with my windows open. It was a warm night, it was windy outside. And I heard the traffic on my street. I live on a street that has traffic during the day but not at 2:30 a.m. And the traffic outside my window was heavier than it was during the rush hour. I got up and looked outside and saw that there were a lot of cars on the roads and that I started hearing explosions." Throughout the course of the In Depth program, Coursey shares more with Schaub about what transpired that night, the subsequent weeks and months--and throughout the past year.

San Francisco Mayor London Breed joins this week's edition of In Depth, with guest host and KCBS Radio reporter, Jenna Lane.  Mayor Breed's appearance comes after settling in post-election, something Jenna suggested to Mayor Breed could be considered a pretty considerable change for her.  "Yeah, I'm settling in just fine," Mayor Breed told Jenna.  "I have a great team of people who are helping me to implement many of the things that I promised voters I would do.  We are already up and running and I'm most excited about the fact that we are looking at building a modular housing factory to build more housing, " she added.  "San Francisco will be the first customer of this modular housing factory and we are committed to $100 million for affordable housing once this is built."  So much of Breed's emphasis, it seems, has been on the problem of housing supply--or lack thereof.  Most of the money spent as a city goes toward keeping people in their homes, but housing production goals are a target for Breed.  She suggests that identifying underutilized sites is an important part of the process.  Bureaucratic red tape, she adds, is another problem--and one that needs to be overcome.  Breed's goal is to make San Francisco a more affordable place for people who want to live there.  Indeed, housing was one of the many issues Breed addressed on the campaign trail, along with homelessness, transit, public safety are among the many issues she is tackling.  Those issues are addressed this week, on KCBS Radio's In Depth.