The Brief

The climate crisis is so huge and overwhelming, it can be paralyzing to many of us. We all want to know that one thing that will really make the difference.

But guess what? There’s an app for that. There's of course no silver bullet to addressing the climate crisis, but a new app, Dashboard.Earth, aims to help users shake out of climate paralysis, take meaningful climate actions — and get rewarded for it.

The app, which launched publicly about six months ago and is currently in beta, gamifies climate action and education, and was curated specifically for L.A.

“I think at the end of the day, everybody wants to try and figure out what they can do on an individual level to make an impact either locally in their community or on the global scale,” said Kelly Shannon McNeill, associate director at the water conservation non-profit advocacy group Los Angeles Waterkeeper, which partnered with the developers to help design the app. “The goal for Dashboard.Earth is serving up bite-sized, really accessible, step-by-step actions that almost anybody could take regardless if they're a renter, a homeowner, etc.”

At this point, the app has three main actions — composting, electronics recycling and saving on energy. There are also plenty of actions like water conservation, tree planting and energy saving that point to rebates from, for example, the L.A. Department of Water and Power. The more actions you take, the more “sprouts” you gather — people with the most sprouts are more likely to win a weekly prize, such as a gift card to a local vegan restaurant or other rewards in partnership with local businesses. It also shows how people near you are taking similar actions to foster community.

A screenshot of the dashboard.earth app.

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“Climate is a really big problem, and to solve a big problem, we each need to start where we are with what we have. And for each of us, that means our own lives, our own homes, within our own families,” said Lauren Turk, director of strategic partnerships at Dashboard.Earth. “We've done the work of identifying the key actions that really matter in L.A. so that people can get started where they are with what they have.”

The financial incentives are also mostly tied to local utilities, such as LADWP and the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. There’s also a calculator for incentives linked to the federal Inflation Reduction Act.

And not everything is just on the app — once you sign up for the app’s newsletter, you can join in-person climate action events too.

Turk said Dashboard.Earth is not complete and they are continuing to change the product based on user feedback. For example, they’re working to potentially develop pathways around “greening” your commute and eating a more plant-based diet. They aim to expand the app statewide by the end of the year, with curated pathways for communities across California.

A screenshot of the dashboard.earth app.

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Of course a single app won’t save the world — there are no silver bullets when it comes to addressing human-caused climate change — but for the smartphone-centric society we now live in, apps can be an effective tool to help people engage with meaningful climate action at an individual level. It can even be something of a gateway to starting to participate in broader, more systemic action.

And the reality is, to make a dent on climate, both individual and systemic action is needed — and individuals do have power to tip the scales towards broader social change — just 25% of a community’s population is needed to tip the scales to change social norms, according to 2018 research from the University of Pennsylvania.

How the app was developed

There are a lot of climate apps out there, but this one is unique in its hyperlocal focus — and financial incentives — and close work with local organizations, said Turk.

The app’s actions were developed over several years in partnership with local nonprofits that work on climate resilience, such as Accelerate Resilience Los Angeles and TreePeople, as well as LA Waterkeeper, Promesa Boyle Heights and Resilient Palisades, who helped develop the water conservation and bill savings paths. Homeboy Industries is a partner on the new electronics recycling path.

Over several years, pilots were run to identify what got people to engage. LA Waterkeeper led the water conservation pilot case studies with Promesa Boyle Heights and Resilient Palisades. That pilot revealed both the opportunities and limits to the app — most of the engagement came from the affluent Pacific Palisades, where they focused on water-saving rebates for actions such as transitioning lawns to drought-tolerant landscapes. In Boyle Heights, the messaging was more about indoor water conservation and bill savings, but engagement remained low.

Drought-tolerant native wildflowers.

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“The adoption in every community has not been equal and that's something that we're proactively working with Dashboard.Earth on to figure out how we can make this more accessible for everyone,” said McNeill.

One big issue on the water conservation side, she said, is that most financial incentives available are rebates, rather than direct install programs, so lower income folks can be left out since it may not be financially feasible to wait to receive a rebate after purchasing, for example, a low-flow toilet or faucet. And there’s the digital divide, so an app can’t replace grassroots in-person organizing.

Another issue is that renters don’t always have the power to take those bigger actions, such as transforming grassy lawns. McNeill said in that case, the app can be a helpful education tool. Her family rents a house, and she said she’s used the app to educate her landlord.

“I have not been successful at encouraging them to take advantage of the amazing rebates that we have for lawn transformation, but my small act of rebellion is I have just turned off the sprinklers, so we're at least not wasting water, especially during the winter,” she said with a chuckle.

While all the actions may not work for everyone, the main ones — separating food waste, recycling electronics, and taking action on energy efficiency — are things most anyone can do.

How the app helped one Angeleno take action

Separating food waste from the trash is one of the primary actions on the app, and most users are doing it for the first time, said Turk. Keeping food waste out of landfills is essential to lowering the super planet-heating gas methane — decomposing food waste in landfills is largely why they’re California’s third largest source of methane. (Learn more about L.A.’s composting effort here).

Walter Avelar said he had no idea keeping food waste out of the trash was such a powerful climate action until the company he’s a general manager for partnered with Dashboard.Earth to improve their sustainability efforts. Now, the Granada Hills resident and his family are experts at separating their food waste.

He’s also asked his team and managers at work to download the app and work to compost themselves they share pictures when they do to motivate each other, he said. And he’s considering speaking with the elementary school down his street to see if they compost, and asked his daughters to ask their high school about taking action on food waste.

A photo of some of Walter Avelar's family's food waste. They're all now experts at separating their food waste from the trash.

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“The reason no one’s doing it is because no one’s educated,” Avelar said. “I did not even know California had a law for you to start doing that. It's just talking about it, encouraging it, and you have to lead by example as well.”

There’s research that supports that when a neighbor takes an action, the trend catches on — for example, a 2020 study found that for every 100 Southland homes that converted their lawns to drought-tolerant landscapes using a rebate from the Metropolitan Water District, an additional 132 nearby homes were inspired to convert their own grass as well.

The app provides an alert about how many other people in his neighborhood are participating in separating food waste from the trash. Avelar said he just wishes the impact calculator — which currently uses an average calculated through the Environmental Protection Agency’s waste reduction model — was more specific to the amount of food waste he’s actually separating. Turk said the team is working on developing a more pound-for-pound translation so users can know exactly how much they’re diverting from the landfill.

Much of L.A.'s food waste will end up at Recology, a composting facility just outside Bakersfield.

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Avelar said he’s always cared about the environment, but hadn’t ever had the time or knowledge to take action, until he got on the app.

“I work a lot, but it’s about making a commitment to yourself, to my family, and just being educated,” Avelar said. “There's so much food that we throw away and I did not know that it creates gasses and it affects animals, it affects us, it affects everyone. And if we don't stop, I mean, I can't even imagine what's going to happen in 50, 60 years, or even when my girls have kids.”

Even his mother-in-law, who’s visiting from Panama, is fully on board now, Avelar said.

“Now, I come home after work and there's already a bag [with the separated food waste],” Avelar said. “It’s amazing. And all we did was talk about it. So I'm sure she's going to be taking it back to Panama.”

California’s Board of Equalization is a coveted spot once again for state lawmakers looking for a new gig almost a decade after then-Gov. Jerry Brown signed a law gutting the organization of any serious governing responsibility.

This year, three current state lawmakers are competing for seats on the nation’s only elected tax board. They’re among some two dozen candidates on the ballot for its four elected positions, which are divided by geographic districts.

The board has long been a launching pad to higher offices in California politics — Fiona Ma served on it before becoming state treasurer, as did Betty Yee and Malia Cohen before each being elected state controller.

The agency itself is a throwback to the 19th Century. It’s rooted in an 1879 constitutional amendment that created it and charged it with “equalizing” county property tax assessments statewide.

From that narrow mandate, it swelled to become a juggernaut that collected a third of the state’s tax revenue and provided a venue for people and businesses to contest their tax bills in front of the elected board. It survived numerous efforts by governors to kill it outright, including attempts by Pete Wilson and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

That is until 2017, when a cascade of allegations about board members misusing the office to promote themselves led to an authoritative state audit that lawmakers could not ignore.

Brown signed a law stripping the agency of any powers beyond what voters gave it in 1879 and created two new departments that report to the governor instead of the elected board: one to collect sales and use taxes and another to hear taxpayer appeals.

After that, Board of Equalization elections tended to be lower profile contests. Ted Gaines, a former Republican state lawmaker from the Sacramento area, won a seat. Former Democratic Assemblymember Sally Lieber is up for reelection on the board this year. The other members had experience in local politics instead of inside the Capitol.

“We’re lean but we’re not mean,” said Lieber, the incumbent for District 2, which includes 19 counties centered on the Bay Area. “I think the Board of Equalization is the right size in the system right now…I do really believe that the board has a role to play in being a forum for taxpayers to come forward to.”

This year voters will see more contentious elections for the tax board:

• In District 1 representing inland California, Republican state Sen. Shannon Grove of Bakersfield has more than $900,000 in a campaign account and name recognition from her representing the San Joaquin Valley in the Legislature since 2010. Democrats are putting up a fight for the district. Fresno City Councilmember Nelson Esparza is running with the party’s support.
• In District 2 representing coastal California north of Los Angeles, incumbent Lieber faces San Mateo Community College District Trustee John Pimentel. Lieber has the Democratic Party’s endorsement, but a number of Bay Area Democratic leaders are backing Pimentel, including state Treasurer Ma and San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan.
• In District 3 representing the Los Angeles area, former Monterey Park City Councilmember Yvonne Yiu put up $760,000 of her own money and has about $1 million on hand. The race has another heavyweight in Assemblymember Mike Gipson, a Democrat from Gardena who has served in the Legislature since 2014. 
• District 4 representing the San Diego area has an especially crowded race with Democratic state Sen. Tom Umberg of Santa Ana, San Ysidro school board member Martín Arias, San Diego Unified School District board member Cody Peterson, and Denis Bilodeau, a Republican supported by San Diego Assemblymember Carl DeMaio’s Reform California organization.

A forum for California taxpayers

The board was always popular among taxpayer advocacy groups, who liked that it provided a forum to focus on tax issues in a capital where debates often center on labor and business.

“It’s a very useful elected body that answers to the voters,” said Susan Shelley, vice president of communications for the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association.

Some of this year’s candidates are thinking of ways to make the most of the agency.

Arias believes the board could do more to assist homeowners and potential homeowners. As a taxpayer advocate in the San Diego County Assessor’s Office, he says he works with the Board of Equalization every day and has a front seat to how the system works.

“I think there’s a bigger opportunity here to make the Board of Equalization the constitutional office that it is — that it should be,” he said. “There’s a clear opportunity here for us to start advocating at the state level for all of our taxpayers, including those that don’t speak English.”

Umberg said he’d like the board to have more investigative power and resources. Citing instances in which San Bernardino and Los Angeles assessors have been arrested on felony charges, he said he’s most interested in the board’s oversight of property tax assessors.

“Although it’s not a high-profile job, it’s a critically important job, especially when we’ve got so many revenue challenges in California,” Umberg said in an interview with CalMatters.

Questioning BOE’s relevance

Advocating for the board’s expansion has drawn criticism from former board members and employees. Yee, a board member from 2004 to 2014, has been vocal about abolishing the board entirely because she believes that its limited responsibilities could be easily transferred to another department or agency.

“I just really do question how this board continues to have relevance,” she told CalMatters. “I sometimes feel like the board is really doing a lot of work in search of finding problems to solve. …I know with each of the board members, they feel very strongly about being a taxpayer advocate. But frankly, every public official should be a taxpayer advocate. ”

Democrats stopped short of killing the agency entirely because they would have had to put that question to voters.

“They should have just chopped the head of the snake off and done away with the Board of Equalization altogether,” said Mark DeSio, a former communications director for the board. “They didn’t do that. They left enough of the cancer to grow back.”

He cooperated with the audit that revealed misspending at the agency that appeared intended to promote its elected members as well as another that showed widespread nepotism in its hiring practices. He then lost his job in the reorganization and filed a whistleblower retaliation lawsuit against the state.

DeSio believes lawmakers want seats on the Board of Equalization because it allows them to maintain a high profile until they can run for office again.

“That was the recipe for disaster a few years back,” he said. “Somebody better watch these guys. They’re not there for the policy. It’s for the exposure.”

Cayla Mihalovich is a California Local News fellow.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

Even as gas prices continued to rise across the United States, sales of electric vehicles fell in April. That is in contrast to strong growth elsewhere in the world, such as Europe. But American drivers are gravitating toward at least one more efficient powertrain: hybrids.

Sales of new EVs fell roughly 18 percent from March to April, according to the latest data from Edmunds, an auto research firm. Another company, Cox Automotive, pegged the drop at closer to 6 percent. Either way, experts said it’s clear that high gas prices aren’t leading to a significant shift toward EVs.

“There was a lot of window shopping,” said Ivan Drury, director of insights at Edmunds, noting that searches for electrified vehicles on the company’s site were strong. “It did not translate to tire-kicking and purchases.”

Price remains the steepest barrier for most people, said Drury. While electric vehicles can be less expensive to operate over the long-term — especially when gas prices are high — the upfront costs remain significant. The average transaction price for an EV in April was $6,214 higher than for vehicles with internal combustion engines, Cox reported.

“It’s still a cost hurdle,” said Stephanie Brinley, a principal automotive analyst at S&P Global Mobility. “You don’t know how long it’s going to take to get that back.”

At Thursday’s average gas price of $4.56 per gallon, an EV buyer would have to drive more than 40,000 miles to make up the difference with a car that gets 30 mpg. Savings on maintenance, like oil changes, could accelerate that timeline, but factors such as higher insurance prices and having to install a home charger could make the payback period even longer. If fuel prices fall, the advantage of an EV also shrinks.

“It’s very difficult for people to wrap their head around, ‘Hey, if I spend this $55,000, I might over time save’,” said Drury. “It requires a bit more math than most people want to go through.”

The calculus is much simpler for hybrid vehicles, which utilize batteries that can improve fuel economy by 25 to 45 percent without needing to plug in. A Honda CR-V, for example, gets around 29 mpg while the hybrid version gets 37. More and more popular models are only available as hybrids, a strategy that Toyota has perhaps embraced most notably. Last year, it ditched the gas-only version of the Camry sedan. The 2026 RAV4 followed suit.

Overall, Edmunds data shows that sales of hybrids are up 20 percent year-over-year and nearly 50 percent since February, when the U.S.-Iran conflict began. Sales of gas-powered gas are up about 11 percent over those same two months.

“I think this is going to be a hybrid moment,” said Stephanie Valdez Streaty, director of industry insights at Cox Automotive. “There are a lot of options.”

Used EVs provided another somewhat bright spot, she said. The segment saw a 3 percent increase in sales from March to April and a price premium of only $1,096 over used internal combustion vehicles. Used EVs also sold faster than their used gas-powered counterparts. “They’re really selling efficiently,” said Valdez Streaty, who added that there should be a glut of EVs available throughout the year as leases end. “I don’t think the inventory will be an issue.”

With Iran maintaining its hold over the Strait of Hormuz and summer travel season looming, gas prices appear set to keep climbing — which would only make an EV more appealing. Other parts of the world have seen significant jumps in sales since the conflict began, with Europe experiencing a surge and China setting an export record in April, according to BloombergNEF.

In the United States, though, it seems that only people already in the market for EVs are making the leap. “Edge-case people,” as Brinley called them. Dramatic pump readings “might nudge them because they were already in that direction,” she said. “But what we’re unlikely to see is a shift in current [internal combustion car] owners just fundamentally making that change simply because of gas prices.”

This article originally appeared in Grist at https://grist.org/solutions/why-hybrids-not-evs-are-winning-over-u-s-consumers/.

Grist is a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future. Learn more at Grist.org

James L. Jones Jr., 69, a self-described “community pastor” and a tireless advocate for Black communities in Los Angeles, was an enthusiastic supporter of Karen Bass’ mayoral bid in 2022, when she made history as the first woman, and first Black woman, to be elected L.A. mayor.

As Bass seeks reelection, Jones is supporting her again. Despite the political turmoil and criticism she has faced during her first term, Jones, known as Reverend JJ, believes she has a plan for Black progress that may not be evident, but is long range and strategic.

“I believe that in my heart of hearts, Karen’s not one of those people who follows polls,” said Jones. “In the end she’ll do what’s right for the people.”

When Angelenos elected Bass four years ago, she seemed like the right person to bridge the ideals of the post-George Floyd era and whatever moment was coming next. She was a seasoned politician — a former state legislator, congresswoman and native Angeleno with a history of grassroots organizing and coalition building in a city that was leaning more progressive.

But in 2022, there was trouble on the horizon. The nation’s Floyd-inspired reexamination of racial equity was losing ground to a growing MAGA backlash that had helped kill a major federal bill to reform policing, among other initiatives. Big blue cities like Los Angeles that had seen big protests for racial justice were being cast as chaotic and ungovernable.

Four years later, the ideals that propelled Bass’ election have taken a beating. Trump’s return to the White House has elevated long-simmering anti-“wokeness” and white resentment into federal policy. And the administration has focused special ire on California and Los Angeles, where Bass is in charge of the nation’s largest city currently led by a Black mayor.

Bass is taking a beating too. As she seeks reelection in the June 2 primary, the mayor is weathering criticism from many sides that she’s done too little about everything, from the homelessness and housing crisis that she made a signature issue to her response to the epic January 2025 wildfire that destroyed thousands of homes in Pacific Palisades, one of the city’s wealthiest neighborhoods.

Despite facing more voter uncertainty this time around, Bass is leading in the polls, with 30% support among likely voters, according to the latest survey by Emerson College Polling/Inside California Politics. While Bass’ support has jumped 10 points since March, she would have to get more than 50% of the vote to avoid a runoff with the other top vote-getter in November.

Her most formidable challengers in the crowded primary are Councilwoman Nithya Raman, a Democratic socialist to Bass’ left who is campaigning on housing affordability and a host of other progressive causes, and Spencer Pratt, a former reality show star with no political experience who skews conservative and touts cleaning up crime and homelessness. A former Bass ally, Raman pledges to do better than the mayor on reducing homelessness and increasing new housing production; Pratt decries corrupt leadership and talks chiefly about making L.A. great again, a la MAGA. Pratt and Raman are polling at 22% and 19%, respectively.

Missing from all the criticism of how Bass has fallen short is how or whether her election has benefited L.A.’s Black community. It’s a population that is rapidly continuing to dwindle — to roughly 8% today from a peak of 18% in 1970 — besieged by gentrification, stratospheric housing costs, underemployment and shrinking political representation, all of it aggravated by the racial hostility emanating from Washington. That norm-shattering phenomenon has tended to eclipse discussion of racial crises happening locally, with good reason. But politics are still local, and many Angelenos who supported Bass in 2022 hoped that electing the second Black mayor in the city’s history would help move the needle on longstanding Black problems dating back to 1992 that have reached yet another inflection point.

But public assessments of Bass by Black leaders the last four years, including this election cycle, have been muted to nonexistent. The exception is Black Lives Matter Grassroots L.A., which has routinely taken her to task for increasing police funding instead of allocating more resources to social and other services — a core part of the post-George Floyd reforms. Observers say the reticence among Black leaders is partly due to the fact that Bass has been so inundated with crises, some not of her making — especially the Palisades fire. The view that Bass committed a fatal mistake by being on a diplomatic trip to Ghana when the fires broke out has more or less defined her politically since.

That’s unfair, said Michael Guynn, a veteran social worker and community activist who lives near Florence and Normandie avenues, a famous site of the 1992 racial unrest.

“I don’t give a damn if she was out of the country — she got back when she could,” Guynn said. “They blamed her for what the fire department was responsible for.”

Then there’s the racism that dogs Black elected officials, women in particular. Pratt, who lost his home in the Palisades fire last year, has invoked Donald Trump-like rhetoric to belittle L.A.’s first Black woman mayor. That includes an official campaign poster that depicts Bass stuffed in a trash can and says “throw out Karen Basura,” the Spanish word for trash, echoing Trump’s disparaging of Somali immigrants — a demographic that includes Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar — as “garbage.”

But the takedown isn’t only coming from the MAGA right, said Genethia Hudley-Hayes, former president of L.A.’s civilian Fire Commission and a Bass appointee who stepped down in March.

“There’s always the bigotry of, ‘We rallied around this Black woman and she hasn’t performed,’” said Hudley-Hayes. “She’s not a superwoman. That’s part of the ‘I’m mad’ vote in L.A.”

Another hurdle for Bass, Guynn said, is the unrealistic expectation that she would dramatically reduce or even eliminate homelessness.

“She couldn’t get a fair break because of that,” he said, adding that “everybody hates homelessness and wants it to go away, but nobody wants to do the work.”

Homelessness certainly qualifies as a Black concern: 32% of unhoused people in the city are African American, according to the city’s latest count. Bass’ signature program Inside Safe, which seeks to get people off the street and into temporary housing, has made inroads. But the mayor’s efforts have been hampered by what City Hall observers say is a larger problem of messaging, management and oversight. The scandal involving a subcontractor accused of defrauding the city’s homeless services authority of $23 million is a painful reminder of that.

Hudley-Hayes says that it points to the need for the mayor of L.A. to be a skilled executive, a skill that Bass doesn’t have, at least not yet.

“You need collaboration, which is different from coalition building, different from the activism of Community Coalition,” she said, referring to the grassroots South L.A. organization co-founded by Bass.

Deep understanding of the roles of not just the 41 city departments but of bigger entities like the county is essential not just for running the city but for effecting racial justice as well.

“Homelessness is important, but you have to ask, what are the structures that create homelessness? It’s not just a city problem but a regional problem,” said Hudley-Hayes. “Inside Safe is a program, not a strategy.”

But being a better executive wouldn’t automatically guarantee improvements for Black people. Tom Bradley, who was mayor from 1973 to 1993, is venerated both as a coalition builder and astute manager who improved many parts of the city. But he didn’t do enough for L.A.’s Black populace. While the Black middle class flourished during the Bradley years, in part because Black municipal employment flourished, the larger working class and poor in South L.A. did not.

Hudley-Hayes argues the mayor’s lack of accountability to L.A.’s Black population as a whole is longstanding, and not unique to elected officials like Bradley or Bass. Local branches of civil rights groups like the NAACP and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference — which Hudley-Hayes once led — also play a part in accountability, though they have declined notably over the years. But Hudley-Hayes notes that accountability works two ways.

“Black people have individual agency, but we have to exercise it together,” she said. “We have to pool our experience. It means nothing if we don’t demand what we want.”

Even — especially — in these trying times, and in a city with as much possibility as L.A., problems notwithstanding — those demands should still matter.

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