You’re listening to Unite and Heal America with Matt Matern. I’m your host and our guest today. Bryn Lindblad, Deputy Director of Climate Resolve. So, Bryn, it’s good. It’s great to have you on the show. Thank you for coming.

Thank you for having me, and hello to the listeners.

Well, tell us a little bit about yourself and what what you had, what was your journey to, to get to your current position at Climate Resolve?

Sure, I grew up in St. Paul, Minnesota, where most people have to drive to get around and that wasn’t that wasn’t quite for me. Um, so I, you know, there’s some there’s some twists and turns, but I spent my my young adult years over in Copenhagen, Denmark, where it was a, it was a pretty liberated life, I’m getting to bike around everywhere. And that made me a pretty big believer that there’s that there’s the quality of life, improvements to not kind of have to drive everywhere.

And from from Copenhagen came to Sydney to LA, where, you know, California is a real leader on climate policy. And I, I’ve always kind of when I see things about the world that are a little out of whack when there’s there’s pollution happening, and it seems like a challenge to address right, a call to action. And so climate changes are is I say, our biggest challenge of modern day.

And so it’s a, it’s a great place to be working on it here in California, where there’s a good kind of political will to, to try to fix it to solve some things. And a lot of a lot of smart people and good, yeah, good good foundation to work with, to try to, to try to come up with some good climate solutions. So tell us a little bit about Climate Resolve and the genesis of that organization and, and how it came into being?

Sure I’m resolved. We are an LA based and nonprofit org that’s been around for 11 years now. We came out of kind of seeing that this, our executive director had a fellowship that let him kind of look at the climate, climate change challenge and try to think of a really strategic approach to addressing it. And part of that kind of thinking, thought, you know, it’s a big global challenge.

But if you can break it down into how it’s affecting us locally, and what are some of the things we can do locally, in our in our backyard here in LA, it starts to become a much more tangible issue to address, when you kind of you tap into people’s psychological motivation to want to be part of that solution. Rather than kind of overwhelming among them with this with this huge global issue that that it’s hard to see their place in it.

So we’ve kind of really tried to make it a local issue and focus on solutions of what what we can do as a way to bring people along and drum the drum into the movement. Hopefully, everyone sees their place, and their role that they can play in helping us rise to the times. Well, that’s I think that’s very important. And then just taking action on on a local level. And then that kind of leads all of us to, to seeing the bigger picture as well.

Because once you’ve started to do something locally, you see oh, how that affects something else in a bigger picture. I know one of the things you were talking about just the walking around and and the fact that you know, I now live in Venice and and there’s so many things that I can do just walking from my place versus used to have to drive everywhere to go to whatever it was the grocery this that the other thing, it all adds up.

Yeah, they say like over 50% of trips that people take are under three miles. So it is some of it is just kind of breaking that habit of stepping into the car each time and you need something that but start to think about oh, where can i Where Can my feet take me where could a bike take me or or hopefully even some better bus service in the near future that work for people?

Yeah, I think that that’s very important. I you know, I really liked the fact that say days when I or maybe not have to use the car three, four or five days during a week is is a great feeling. And of course the pandemic kind of helped help that along because not going into the office.

Don’t have to drive seven miles to the office. But tell us a little bit about your work with Senator Amy Klobuchar when you were on her invite Our mental policy team, what were some of the things that you were working on? With her?

Sure. Yeah, that was that was a student of mine on Capitol Hill, working on her environmental legislative team. So you know, she’s, she’s a smart cookie doesn’t want to necessarily do just what the Democratic Party tells her to do. So we were doing a lot of background research helping her prepare for expert hearings to really kind of inform her about about an issue.

So we tried to help her ask the hard questions to kind of get to the bottom of issues. There was a fair amount of of meeting and with, with kind of folks on both sides of issues and seeing where there might be some compromise there. Yeah, there was there’s there’s there was always a lot to work on whether it was like mining or horse meats, or you know, kind of a lot, a lot of issues would would come to our her team.

Well, I know that she has a reputation of being able to kind of bridge the divide and come up with a lot of bipartisan pieces of lettuce legislation. And that’s been effective. That’s kind of one of her hallmarks. And I really admire that kind of work. Because, in my mind, that’s how we’re going to best get to the solutions, because making it a partisan issue makes it harder to get the hard work done.

I’m with you, it doesn’t need to be an us versus them combat of zero sum kind of thing. If we can, we can find where, you know, solutions that that work for more people all the better. Right? Try to bring people in and be part of a collaborative solution.

Well, tell us a little bit about the things that you’re working on with Climate Resolve now and what are some of your top priorities?

Sure, happy to. So we kind of just kind of two big buckets of our work, when we look at where climate pollution is coming from, and try to try to cut that source of greenhouse gas emissions. And so we mentioned transportation, that’s our it’s our largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in California. So trying to get people better options to get around, trying to curb some sprawl so that people aren’t traveling such long distances, but that they can live closer to where they need to be.

To create Yeah, more more complete communities. means like, having healthy groceries and having childcare can all within the neighborhood. They’re not having people aren’t having to drive as much. That’s kind of one big bucket. And another big bucket of our work is about looking at how climate change is already impacting Los Angeles, and helping prepare communities for those for those impacts. So they’re, they’re not, not facing as much vulnerability. Y

eah, not not disrupted as much. So the climate change, a big thing that faces us that hits us here in LA is is heat. So we we’ve, you know, we’ve they call it a global warming for a reason, right. But over the last 100 years, the average temperature in LA has already risen four degrees Fahrenheit. And we can expect another four degrees within the next 50 or so years.

Even if we were to cut all our all our greenhouse gas emissions today, there’s sort of, there’s still enough up there in the atmosphere that’s accumulated that we we’ve got some more climate impacts coming to get ticket brace ourselves for. And, you know, it’s not just that that average temperature that’s been on the rise, we also see the hottest day of the year, we’re expecting that to get 10 degrees hotter, but in this century, so you know, there have been some headlines recently, right. 121 degrees in Woodland Hills last summer. It’s hard to even fathom, right 131 degree day, but, but that’s what we we need to be ready for.

And, you know, so I can I can go on, you know, it’s not just that one hottest day there, the number of those hottest days. You know, we call those extreme heat days, anytime it’s over 95 degrees. The number of days each year that are that are extreme heat days is gonna triple by the middle of this century. So I’m I’m kind of near the Eagle Rock neighborhood. Like historically, we’ve seen like 13 days a year above 95 degrees that’s going up to like 42 degrees and places in the valley like Porter Ranch, they can expect 100 degree days over over 95 degrees.

So you know, we can look at the impacts of that there’s there’s really some some pretty severe consequences to that. That increase of heat, whether it be like heat Stroke, people out on the job that are that are hit by that heat, heat fatigue, you see it affecting student performance. If schools are not air conditioned if, if bus stops aren’t shaded and those students are subjected to that heat there, their school performance goes down.

We see workplace accidents increase on days of extreme heat. Even violent crime is spiked on on hot days with that kind of hot and bothered, gets people out kind of being aggravated. And I think that that’s near and dear to my heart is the air quality impacts of those hot days, we’ve got a bit of a smog problem in LA still. And so for many, you know, for decades, the situation has been improving with cleaner cars. But part of what what produces smog is is sunlight and heat.

And so in recent years, as we’ve been heating up more, that smog is started to get worse again. And then there’s ways that heat affects people’s energy bills that they’re having to use more air conditioning. And on those really hot days, there’s there’s some brownouts too, if our if our energy grid isn’t, isn’t quite prepared to be able to handle that increase of energy.

Well, that is a tremendous amount of things to cover. And I know you haven’t covered them all. But some, some highlights to kind of come off in my mind as you’re talking in terms of weight. It’s almost like a vicious cycle, because when it gets hotter, then we’re going to need more air conditioning, which causes more energy, which more greenhouse gases.

And the many of the older air conditioning systems admit a lot of greenhouse gases, so that are even more harmful than just the CO2. So we’ve got to change those air conditioning units to something that’s healthier. So they’re just an endless amount of problems that result from that more wildfires, et cetera, et cetera. So we really have to get get on these problems, get on them in a serious way.

So after our break, we’ll we’ll be talking to Bryn. about these issues, and so join us here after the break. We’ll be back in one minute. This is Matt Matern Unite and Heal America KBC 790. Looking forward to talking to Brandon Lindblad, Deputy Director of Climate Resolve after the break.

You’re listening to Unite and Heal America on KABC 790. This is Matt Matern, your host, and we’re speaking to Bryn Lindblad, Deputy Director of Climate Resolve, and Bryn, kind of getting back to what you’re talking about with these extreme heat days that we are experiencing currently.

And from what you said, and many other climate scientists are telling us, it’s going to get worse and substantially worse over the next 50 years, even if we do some good work to reduce our emissions. Tell us about the work that you’re doing with urban heat islands and how that can help with this situation.

Sure. Yeah. So you know, as you said, climate change is happening, it’s getting hotter. So we can be trying to cut climate pollution at the source and be addressing that. But anyways, we need to, we need to be preparing ourselves for these hotter days that are coming. So something called the urban heat island effect is kind of it has to do with how we’ve built up our cities to have so much paved surfaces and hardscapes that that make make our urban environments anywhere from like seven to in LA, this one has 19 degrees hotter than it than it needs to be.

So that you know, you can think of you’re walking across a blacktop parking lot, you can just you can feel the heat radiating up at you. And so that that dark surface it it tracks it captures the sun rays and then radiates it back out again as heat. And so that’s that’s part of what’s what’s causing our urban heat island. And so, you know, in LA we’ve got like, like 40% of LA is covered and asphalt. So there’s a lot of heat trapping hardscape there that we can be trying to trying to rework trying to make it not be making our city as hot as it is now. So yeah.

What exactly is the remedy for that? What are the options to substitute for the ashphalt that we have laid down all over the city?

Yeah, so um, The city has been piloting out a cool pavement program. And so that it’s a more reflective coating that goes on top of the street. It makes it lighter colored, kind of like a light gray color. So if, if traditional black stop asphalt absorbs about like 90% of the sun rays and reflects only 10% If we look to copayment products that are being tried today, it’s more like absorbing only 35% and reflecting the other 65%.

And we think we can we could tweak that kind of all the way up to about like, 50% reflectivity and, and really make it make a difference in cooling. So you know that that lighter colored surface, the cool pavement we’ve got out there today on the streets, I said is about like 35% absorbing sunrays. And or sorry, 35% reflecting am sunrise and that that’s it makes the surface of the road about like 10 to up to 30 degrees cooler than an asphalt road.

So less heat radiating out under your shoes, right as you’re walking across that that pavement. And they predict that if we were to if we were to convert over just like 30% of LA’s pavement, to that cool pavement, we would make air temperatures, five degrees cooler. So that’s kind of enough by addressing what our hardscape looks like here in LA, we could we could make up for the heat that we’re getting from climate change.

So what would be a cost of converting 30% of our, our streets to this alternative? asphalt? Product B.

Yeah, we’re working on the cost, because that’s really the biggest barrier still, but we’re getting there. You know, they’re working on a on a slurry right now. It’s like 60 cents to $1 per square foot for the cool slurry coating. And a traditional slurry coating is like 50 cents to 85 cents, so not that much cheaper. And there’s a you know, there were we’re the first city in the US to be doing this cool pavement program.

So there is a little bit of we’re hoping to achieve some economies of scale if we can get more of a heavy market demand out there. And yeah, be encouraging the producers of these new products to lower their cost of production.

So one strategy we’ve done to try to up that demand for it is we’ve reached out and have now 20 different cities across the US that have said if they can get a cost competitive will cool slurry that they’re prepared to buy like 70,000 lane miles of that will pavement over the next 10 years. So we’ve kind of banded together to try to get that drive that cost down and make it the same cost as a slurries that are used today.

That’s that’s great work. And I know in reading Bill Gates his book, How to avoid a climate disaster, he talks about the green premium. And what’s that green premium for a particular product. And if we can drive that grain premium, lower, then then it certainly can help us convert to a greener product more quickly. And it takes the objections away from from cost cutters to say, hey, this, this is going to be a same or similar price. And there are all kinds of other benefits that result from it.

So great work on that front. And one of the things that he talks about is getting governments to be the initial drivers of the conversion to greener products. Because once the government kind of establishes like you said, the demand for a product, then the manufacturers will start producing more of it. But until the demand is created, manufacturers are less likely to jump in there and invest and put those early dollars into rolling out these new technologies.

So kudos to you for driving the demand on that front because it will have benefits across the country for for all kinds of cities. And kudos to the city of LA Greg spots has been working dedicated on this in the streets la department. We’ve got a good ally over in in Washington, DC Chris Shipman with the global cool cities Alliance has also been instrumental in in recruiting all those other Americans. These days, it’s a team effort but and underway.

Well, good, good teamwork they always like to see good teamwork. It’s kind of what we need in this front and many others. So what other what other types of improvements can be made to help cool and reduce this urban heat island effect?

Sure, well well trees are kind of the going back to basics you know, if I said are we’ve got too much hardscape out there a remedy for that is to try to get more and more greenery in our urban environment. So you know, there’s an effort underway after looking at all the empty tree wells that are already around LA where there’s there’s space for a tree there was meant to be a tree, but they just haven’t haven’t taken care enough to maintain those trees and trying to try to get trees planted there.

So trees you know by by adding in shade and by a press called evaporative cooling, they really they pull down the air around them and that can be anywhere from like two to nine degrees Fahrenheit cooling we can get from trees and love we love more trees was just I just had the director of Tree People on the show a few weeks ago and so she was telling us about the work that they’re doing or know if you’ve done a work collaborating with them and and…

Yeah, we’ve collaborated with Tree People a few times. Ongoing we ya know, love the work they do building building multi generational groups of people, you know, there’s, there’s hardly anyone out there who doesn’t, doesn’t like trees, trying to build that base.

Yeah, I think that the one thing that somebody who’s from the Midwest like myself from Chicago and you from Minnesota, you kind of notice when you come to LA, there are less big trees in LA than in Midwestern cities. And certainly we could, as a as a group, as a community, build out more trees and reduce the heat around the city. And it also makes for much more beautiful city.

Yeah, yeah, we yeah, we had a project in the community of Canoga Park in the valley recently, and they, you know, have some of those really tall skinny little Mexican bought Palm Bay entries, too, that don’t give a whole lot of shade.

And so an idea that came out of that community was some plant shade trees in between the those skinny little palm trees, so you don’t have that we didn’t they didn’t need to get rid of the palm trees, they could just add in some shade trees in between them.

Yeah, I mean, there’s the little palm trees are kind of iconically LA. But, you know, some shade trees would be nice, too. So a little mix of both. So what what are some of the other things that you’re doing to address the urban heat island effect here in LA?

Sure. So other other vegetative surfaces also help cool down the city. So if there’s ever any, like, median in the middle of the road, if that’s dirt now we can get some growing plants in there that helps cool it down, helps with with capturing local water supply to so that when it rains, that goes down into our groundwater supply. Besides that other other shade structures out there.

So we’ve been working on busstop shelters, has been a real kind of equity issue of ours, trying to protect transit riders from that heat, and things like like awnings on buildings, or stretched canvas over playgrounds, just getting more and more shade out there and places where people are trying to be outdoors.

Yeah, one of the things that I talked to Cindy Montañez from Tree People, the executive director of that about was the work that they’re doing regarding kind of channeling the water that comes off of our hills and mountains into kind of, you know, spaces that have are lined with grasses or plants so that there’s not as much runoff. Are you doing some of that work as well?

Yeah, so we call them bioswales. These areas that are meant to absorb water and probably talked to Cindy about it, but with climate change we’re seeing Yeah, the snowpack melting quicker and so it just it becomes harder to to capture that water if it’s a if it’s over a more condensed springtime period when we have that that melted snow water running off.

And we’re also seeing with climate change that precipitation events when it does rain, it’s getting to be a flash year burst, like more rain all at once, which again kind of makes it harder to capture if we’ve had a period of drought that’s made the ground really Hard and then all of a sudden there’s a rain burst. So we have to be intentional about like keeping soil healthy with with plant roots down there that keep it kind of nicely aerated.

So it’s not getting too compacted and do what we can so that when it does rain, we’re absorbing that rainwater. Well, I guess the question is kind of how are we going to get the funding to do all that because it is a it is a very big project to to build those channels where the water goes down in ditches rather than on the curbs. And and things of that nature?

I mean, I think it’s a good investment, particularly given what we’re talking about the heat going up by four degrees in the next 50 years in someplace 10 degrees hotter. You know, or more, what, what are we going to do regarding funding to to get that work done?

Yeah, well, we’ve really been I’ve been trying to advocate for multi benefit infrastructure projects. And so we don’t, you know, kind of get away from like, where your your street agencies kind of only looking at putting paint down and pavement down. And then a year later, you’ve got your water agency coming and trying to put in plants.

But if we can, instead put together more holistic projects where, you know, say the bike lane is being protected by a medium that has some plants in it. And kind of combine those those those objectives, those metrics together into one project, you can combine the funding sources as well. Well, you’re listening to Unite and Heal America, my guests Bryn Lindblad, Deputy Director of Climate Resolve. We’ll be back with Bryn in just one minute talking about what we can do to help LA stay stay cool in the coming century. So we’ll be back in just a minute.

You’re listening to Unite and Heal America. This is Matt Matern, your host, with Bryn Lindblad, Deputy Director of Climate Resolve. Bryn, you were telling us a bit about, you know, the problems that we’re having with increasing levels of heat, particularly at the Urban level? Um, what are you doing legislatively to help address those issues?

We’ve sponsored legislation this year, AB 585, authored by Assemblymember, loose reverse, which is it’s passed the assembly and we’re waiting on the Senate to take it up for a vote. But the point of that legislation is to to create a an authority at the state level that would oversee metrics on heat and funding program is, right now, it’s not something that anyone’s really taking responsibility for. And so if you’re not, if you’re not measuring something, and you’re not tracking progress, it’s hard to sort of convince local groups to take it on as their responsibility.

So how will the measurements and the responsibility flow assuming this piece of legislation is enacted?

Yeah, well first step, I think is just getting a grip on kind of what what urban heat islands are out there. What What does heat exposure look like for different communities and and disparities, that that exists nowadays, and then trying to structure some some funding programs like like, urban greening programs, or cool surfaces, those like high albedo surfaces trying to trying to support some installations in those in those communities of greatest need.

So in terms of funding will, is there a funding piece of this legislation? Or is it just a first step in terms of measuring and determining where these key islands exist? around the state?

Yeah, it’s a first it’s a first step of getting an agency to start looking at it and measuring it. You know, there’s there’s funding right now about climate resilience that’s being looked at at the state level, but unfortunately, a lot of that is going not to urban areas.

And so we’re kind of we’re trying to stand up for how climate is affecting people, and especially sort of our most most vulnerable disadvantaged communities. And trying to see about getting some of that like climate resilience funding, directed towards addressing heat.

Well, that sounds like a very worthy cause. So everybody should call their senators and talk to them about a B 585. To let them know that this is a worthwhile piece of legislation that we should be moving forward on. Because as Britain is saying, I mean, the the bottom line is if we don’t measure something, then how can we determine how good or bad of a job we’re doing dealing with it.

And clearly, having heat at such a high level does cause death, particularly of seniors and vulnerable populations that don’t have access to good air conditioning and shelter during these high heat events. So so we need to we need to address these issues. Are there any pieces of federal legislation that are out there that are dealing with this issue of urban heat islands?

Yeah, you know, at the federal level, the momentum that’s underway right now is to start naming Heatwave, get the National Weather Service to be calling a heat wave a heat wave and giving it a name similar to how tropical storms and hurricanes are named. And you you see it on the news as a way to alert people that the danger is coming.

And as you mentioned, they’re often in our is sort of elderly people that folks don’t think to check on them to make sure they’re okay in their apartments. And so trying to try to raise some visibility of, of Yeah, the the danger of heat waves. People people don’t know, but it’s kind of it’s the silent killer. More people die from from heat than all other natural weather phenomena combined. So hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, you name it, more people are dying every year from heat.

I yeah, just read that statistic. And it was pretty shocking that that heat waves were so dead like, and because you know, the hurricanes and the tornadoes and things like that get all the ink, and heat waves kind of don’t I mean, you know, every every so often you’ll hear a little bit about that. But we’re talking about tens of thousands of people die each year from from heat waves, which is a pretty substantial amount.

Yeah, we’ve been working to to try to get em local health departments to be turning around those, those statistics on an emergency room visits due to heat and deaths due to heat, again, just to kind of get a little bit more more transparency and in real time about how heat is affecting people.

Now another issue that your organization has been working on is working with bus shelter, and getting contracts regarding heat exposure for people who are sitting out there waiting for buses. And I guess on a related front, I just feel like maybe there’s something we can do to to subsidize further or make our transit service free, particularly for low income folks.

It would have a big benefit to reducing the amount of cars on the road, reduce the amount of greenhouse gases and, and have, it would also probably help lower income folks not have to have a car, which is pretty expensive in terms of use of gas and insurance and all the rest.

Yeah, well, let me start with the first part of that. We are pretty proud, we’ve been advocating that this next round of bus shelter provision in the city of LA will be based off heat exposure and how many transit riders are there at the stop waiting. Whereas the last, the last round of the contract was more based off like where where ad revenue could be generated.

Because there’s there’s those ads on the side of bus shelters, right, we’re trying to try to have it be protecting the people that need it. To your point about free transit, that’s something there’s there’s some there’s some buzz and some excitement about the possibility of that. Just realizing that, that those fares that are collected on buses and trains, it’s such a small part of what it takes to run transit service.

That if we could, you know, just make it a little bit easy breezier that people who, you know, don’t, don’t have to kind of try to figure out how to how to navigate and paying for their transit fare. If we can make it something that you see a bus going by every five minutes, then you can just tap on it and take it a few stops. Start to kind of Yeah, make make transit a more accessible option for people and that’s part of the vision.

But certainly get people out of their cars and free from people who aren’t low income people just kind of get in the habit of oh, I can get on this bus and go here, go there. And you know, when I lived in Chicago was certainly something that was more in the culture, I think out in LA it’s, it’s not kind of in our day to day experience so much.

So anything we can do to encourage that, to me seems like a great investment. We’re spending so much on on other forms of environmental All, you know, legislation and programs to roll out energy efficient things. Giving away transit on on buses seems like a pretty obvious solution to, to one of our big problems.

Yeah, I’m, I’m open, we get to the point to where we can have some more bus only lanes out there across that like because if you’ve got buses that are able to kind of world pass the transit or the traffic the cars that are stuck there, that starts to be a pretty appealing option to people who are who are still in cars to see if we can we can solve some of the congestion that way draw people out of their cars.

Well, one other program that wanted to talk to you about was your tree ambassador program for green gentrification. Maybe you could tell us a little bit about that, and then we can come back to it after the break.

Sure, and I’ll correct you a little bit there. Okay, I tried to counteract fears of green gentrification with this tree ambassador program. Sometimes neighborhoods can can fear that that adding in trees will will make it kind of too, so too nice, but it’ll increase rents and drive out people that are living there.

And so we’re, we’re trying to address that by hiring tree ambassadors who are living within the community. So it becomes more of a an effort that’s sort of done by and for that community and less of like a scary thing that outsiders are trying to do. That sounds like a great plan.

So you’re listening to Unite and Heal America. This is Matt Matern, your host, KABC 790. We’ve been speaking to Bryn Lindblad, Deputy Director of Climate Resolve, we’ll be back in just a minute talking to brands about ways that we can help address climate change here in LA.

You’re listening to Unite and Heal America with your host, Matt Matern. My guest today, Bryn Lindblad, we’re talking about environmental issues that are facing LA and facing the nation. One thing Bryn that I’d like to talk to you about is the green New Deal. And as I believe some commentators have talked about it, that it would cause a green tech revolution or green jobs revolution.

Tell us a little bit about that. I mean, I’ve been following it is they’re they’re just scads of new companies that are popping up dealing with environmental issues, some of them old line companies, some of them are brand new. And what what’s your take on all this?

Sure, ya know, I mean, we’re trying to, you know, see see a different sort of investment pattern by government than than we’ve seen in the past. So for example, freeway widening and new freeways is something we don’t think government dollars should be going towards anymore. But you kind of have to bring along the labor that that’s been used to getting those contracts in the past and try to help them see what’s in it for them. If we can have a shift and investments, too.

So, you know, we’ve been talking about these more complete streets where there’s where there’s bus lanes and bike lanes, and there’s trees, and there’s bioswales. So there needs to be some like reskilling there and getting people primed to be able to do that new work. There’s certainly no no shortage of jobs in in trying to implement some of them the climate solutions that we advocate for.

Well, I think that’s it’s always a fear that one new industry is going to put another old industry out of business. I mean, the buggy whip. Manufacturers pretty much all went out of business when we got cars 120 plus years ago, and so we’re going to see some dislocations in the changes in our economy. But it doesn’t all have to be for the bad.

And I understand some of the anxiety and fear of people who are in some of these are old line industries that have had their jobs for decades. So we do have to address those and do you see the government leading away on that front? Or do you see it being led more by private industry, Government?

I think it’s both there’s, you know, the government has some workforce development programs. California has a high roads job, focus that that’s trying to make sure it’s high quality jobs. And so people, if people are kind of have earned a seniority status in their old places of employment, kind of trying to transition them into a new career path where they they maintain some of that, like dignity that they’ve holed up themselves in that seniority to and not expecting them to kind of have to start again at the bottom of the totem pole.

So to say an entry level positions. So there’s there’s some government programs yeah working on that that workforce development and retraining. But it’s it’d be great if industries also kind of can offer some paid apprenticeships and you know, trying to help people develop skills to be to be their future workforce.

Well, of course, they have an interest in private industry has an interest in developing that talent pool because they’re going to need it to to have a functioning company. And we’ve seen that in the past is that companies have stepped forward and trained workers for the new industries of the future time and time again. So I think where there’s demand for those jobs and demand for that, that were businesses will step in and and train people appropriately. But where where are you seeing the your your work as far as conservation and climate sciences? In in the coming years? Where are you going to be focused?

Yeah. Well, it we didn’t talk much about today. But wildfire is another impact of climate change that’s really on the rise. And, and so kind of trying to contain some of the sprawl development that would encroach on like wildfire prone lands and trying to, yeah, reduce that that interface between people and wildfire prone lands, because that’s, it’s those people being in that in that area that that causes sparks, and sort of ignites those fires in the first place.

So we’re trying to advance you know, there’s concepts like like an urban growth boundary, like a buffer between where you have your, your development, and then where there are those more wildfire prone lands. So that’s a that’s a concept we could we could stand to adopt more here in Southern California. We’ve got some some effort underway, with the take home Ranch, trying to try to develop some wildfire risk mitigations there as well.
Well, in terms of increasing the density on transit lines, I know that there’s been a lot of work done on at the state legislature to try to get bills passed, but unfortunately, they haven’t passed is there a greater hope that something like that will pass in this legislative session?

You know, it’s hard to say at the state level, there’s been a lot of communities that have kind of developed their own approaches to inclusionary housing and, and ways you can incentivize affordable housing provision, and so that, from my perspective, that seems like we’re kind of the some of the roadblock has been at the state level, is how to how to honor those local solutions that communities have come up with already.

But you know, something we work also in the in the community plan updates that are happening right now in the city of LA where where some zoning is being reevaluated and trying to see if you know, there’s an opportunity to, to up zone some areas for more dense, affordable housing.

And that’s, you know, that’s a realm where you’ve really seen the engagement, the community members that have that have come out and had the time to engage in that process in the past are tend to be a little bit more you’re here, you’re wealthy landowners who kind of are interested in maybe an interest in keeping like single family housing the way it is, and and that, you know, preserving that kind of scarcity of housing helps their their land value.

Yep. So we’ve, we’ve been trying to make sure we find ways to like bring more renters into those community engagement discussions too. And you know, you try to represent kind of the full the full range of Angelenos, who could potentially benefit from from having more housing.

We’re near where they need to be, in terms of what we’re going to do with this $75 billion surplus of on the state level, and what what you would recommend we do with that, and as well, for environmental purposes, as well as city of LA budgeting. Are there any particular programs that you’re you’re targeting for increased funding in the coming year or coming years?

Sure. Well, we’ve been we’ve been advocating trying to shift transportation spending towards more active transportation supporting walking and biking or it’s more trans that service has been a hard one to get funded. There’s been kind of a bias towards like capital projects and buying buses, but not as much towards towards paying bus operators to drive those buses.

Yeah, you know, resilience hubs is something we’ve been starting to launch to, which is kind of like a cooling center 2.0, you know, more like a community center kind of space that people are used to frequenting, because we’ve seen those those cooling centers haven’t been widely used in the past. Those are a few other things we’ve been writing.

Well, certainly, these are topics that we are all having to deal with as Angelenos. And living down here in Southern California, all of us are, are affected by the wildfires every year. So something that we need to keep our eye on Bryn thank you for being on the program and telling us about the great work that you’re doing with Climate Resolve. And tell us how people can connect with your organization as we wind up the program here on Unite and Heal America.

Sure. Well, thank you so much for having me, Matt. And you can sign up for our monthly newsletter on ClimateResolve.org. We do some some action alerts from time to time I’m asking people to use their voice to support local climate action and follow us on on Twitter, Instagram. Thanks enough. We might be on TikTok too.

Okay, well, it sounds great. Thank you again, Byn and we look forward to having you back on the program at some time in the future.

Thank you for highlighting such an important issue, appreciate it. Well you’re listening to KABC 790 This is Matt Matern. Come join us next week with the Unite and Heal America.