Environment

Hundreds of people lined up today to voice concerns about California’s sweeping new climate strategy at a public hearing. Without massive investments in clean energy, air board officials warned that more fossil fuels will be needed to power electric cars and ensure a reliable power grid.

It’s no quick fix. The scaled-down tunnel — which would bypass the Delta and funnel more water south — still has to clear a gauntlet of reviews, would cost at least $16 billion and could take 20 years.

Cal Fire faces a mental health crisis. As wildfires burn year-round, thousands of overworked California firefighters carry a heavy load of trauma, pain and grief. They leave a fire but the fire never leaves them.

Strong and stoic, a Cal Fire captain fought wildland fires and helped retrieve the bodies of despondent people who had jumped off a remote bridge. When the bridge beckoned him, he couldn’t keep fighting.

“I felt trapped.” For months, a firefighter kept reliving her colleagues' screams when a Mendocino County wildfire encircled them. On the day she planned to take her life, she got help instead — just in time.

About 10% of Cal Fire’s workforce quit the agency last year. “We are at critical mass, guaranteed,” one Cal Fire captain said. Workers’ comp cases for PTSD are routinely denied, and many crews are fatigued from working weeks at a time with no time off.

Over a nine-hour meeting, car owners, environmentalists and industry representatives showed up in droves to voice concerns about ramping up electric car sales and banning new gas-powered cars in 2035. Board members asked for more strategies to help low-income residents.

As drought intensifies, the order affects many cities and growers from Fresno to the Oregon border, including 212 public water systems.

California’s climate change plan fails to provide substantial evidence that capturing carbon will meet ambitious greenhouse gas goals, critics say. The plan “does California a disservice,” one state advisor said.

Who loses and who gains as California cleans up its cars? Nearly 32,000 mechanics would lose jobs by 2040 under the proposed phaseout of new gas-powered cars. Electric companies would be the big winners.