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Special Series: Extremes in 3D
We need bolder visions for San Francisco’s future this election. From car-free downtown zones to sustainable sports complexes, here are six “unrealistic” ideas that challenge the city’s status quo.
Francesca Pedraza y Rise South City están instalando monitores de calidad del aire para ver cómo las avenidas que atraviesan South San Francisco afectan la salud de las comunidades latinas. Midiendo los niveles de contaminación y limpiando un arroyo local, esta organización está transformando los barrios de primera línea, aquellos más afectados por el cambio climático.
Francesca Pedraza and Julio Garcia are installing air quality monitors and cleaning a local creek, bringing change to frontline neighborhoods.
All Stories
San Francisco’s 2025 Hazards and Climate Resilience plan says the city’s urban forests pose a moderate wildfire risk. One resident thinks preparedness could be challenging.
We need bolder visions for San Francisco’s future this election. From car-free downtown zones to sustainable sports complexes, here are six “unrealistic” ideas that challenge the city’s status quo.
Francesca Pedraza y Rise South City están instalando monitores de calidad del aire para ver cómo las avenidas que atraviesan South San Francisco afectan la salud de las comunidades latinas. Midiendo los niveles de contaminación y limpiando un arroyo local, esta organización está transformando los barrios de primera línea, aquellos más afectados por el cambio climático.
Francesca Pedraza and Julio Garcia are installing air quality monitors and cleaning a local creek, bringing change to frontline neighborhoods.
Sierra Garcia, San Francisco
S.F.’s Hunters Point is already toxic for residents and the Bay. Sea level and groundwater rise, along with bigger storms, threaten to make the problem worse.
Shoreline residents from San Francisco and Contra Costa counties could soon be better equipped to influence local planning decisions.
KneeDeep profiles Arye Janoff and Bekah Lane. Janoff surfs and manages coastal dredging and restoration projects for the Army Corps; Lane monitors whales for the Marine Mammal Center. Climate change is their newest challenge.
Even though Dan Hoover’s been surveying the same stretch of San Francisco’s Pacific coast for 15 years on his ATV, it never looks the same. In summer it’s wider and in winter narrower. With El Niño the beach will erode more than ever.
Bay Area schools, hospitals and other institutions are taking a close look at their food procurement practices to balance the needs of their communities and the environment. A new roadmap provides them with a values-based framework.
San Francisco’s new Environment Department director, Tyrone Jue, aims to help his city achieve net zero emissions by 2040.
Like Russian dolls, Bay Area preparations for sea level rise finally began fitting together this fall.
The futuristic radio play Forever Wave explores a San Francisco remade by 200 feet of sea level rise. The narrative floats in and out of the thoughts of more than 60 characters over 24 hours.
As climate hazards multiply, Bay Area communities, local governments, and agencies are searching for ways to address them more holistically.
Ten months after the Port of San Francisco lowered 288 experimental tiles into the water, these bio-friendly seawall surfaces are already crawling with crabs and covered in kelp. This August, researchers are finally getting a good look at all the tile types in their experiment, which range from large to small, and from bumpy to smooth, and which were hung from the waterfront at three different locations and tidal elevations in October 2022.
While wheat accounts for just under 3% of California’s harvested cropland, a local grain economy has given the crop new significance.
The Bay Area’s mild weather is a liability for its residents in the face of growing heat risks from temperature swings to hotter nights. But what exactly makes the heat linger?
When it rained this May, it felt unexpected. Based on over 150 years of climate data for San Francisco, May typically gets several days with a light rain. But context is key, and we are coming out of three years of drought—a fact which will generally color memories in a drier hue. “If I’ve learned anything it is that people’s perceptions are usually wrong,” says Jan Null….
Typical flood protections rely on engineered structures. But there’s a new push at the national level of the US Army Corps of Engineers to prioritize working with nature. Storm surge plans currently underway in New York, Miami and San Francisco highlight a range of nature-based fixes.
San Francisco is increasingly seen as a “green” city but its track record doesn’t hold up under scrutiny.
Ariel Rubissow Okamoto,
San Francisco
Buried in the blueprints for a refurbished San Francisco seawall is a cutting-edge experiment in texturing pieces of this buttress against sea level rise so they attract native species.
It’s July 30th at the San Francisco Exploratorium and three teams of 10 to 15 adventurers, ranging from ages 9 to about 50, are assembled to participate in a live-action role-playing event unlike anything most had experienced before.
I set out for Heron’s Head Park on an early March morning. To my surprise, I had never heard of, nor visited, this site on the southeastern bayshore in my 20-plus years growing up and living as a visual artist in San Francisco.
Down a busy street overflowing with groceries, taquerias, Chinese medicine shops, and small businesses, an unassuming dead end is home to a thriving community garden, which also got greener during the pandemic.
Farmers markets drew people outside during the pandemic, while CSAs and produce boxes kept them eating in but supporting local food.
Maladaptation, and failing to adapt in time, can be almost as dangerous as climate change.
Los automóviles que ingresaban a la rampa de la autopista en Mill Valley zumbaban a través de cientos de metros de agua salada hasta los tobillos. Junto a la pista del Aeropuerto Internacional de San Francisco, el agua de la bahía brotaba hasta la carretera desde un desagüe pluvial.
Cars entering the freeway ramp in Mill Valley whizzed through hundreds of feet of ankle-deep seawater. Next to the San Francisco International Airport runway, baywater burbled up into the road from a storm drain.